Current Events > Entire Nevada Democratic Party staff quits after socialist slate wins every seat

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Antifar
03/08/21 8:42:30 PM
#1:


https://theintercept.com/2021/03/08/nevada-democratic-party-dsa/
NOT LONG AFTER Judith Whitmer won her election on Saturday to become chair of the Nevada Democratic Party, she got an email from the partys executive director, Alana Mounce. The message from Mounce began with a note of congratulations, before getting to her main point.

She was quitting. So was every other employee. And so were all the consultants. And the staff would be taking severance checks with them, thank you very much.

On March 6, a coalition of progressive candidates backed by the local chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America took over the leadership of the Nevada Democratic Party, sweeping all five party leadership positions in a contested election that evening. Whitmer, who had been chair of the Clark County Democratic Party, was elected chair. The incumbents had prepared for the loss, having recently moved $450,000 out of the partys coffers and into the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committees account. The DSCC will put the money toward the 2022 reelection bid of Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, a vulnerable first-term Democrat.

While Whitmers opponents say she was planning to fire them anyway, Whitmer denies that claim. Ive been putting in the work, Whitmer told The Intercept for the latest episode of Deconstructed. What they just didnt expect is that we got better and better at organizing and out-organizing them at every turn.

THE BATTLE BETWEEN the insurgent progressive wing of the party and whats known in Nevada as the Reid machine a tightly run operation still guided by former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid began five years ago, when Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders organized support for his 2016 presidential primary run, while Reid was working behind the scenes to help his opponent, Hillary Clinton.

Over the next four years, outside organizations like DSA exploded in size and strength. The Sanders campaign focused on organizing tens of thousands of young Latino voters in the state, with the goal of activating people whom the party hadnt bothered with before. And it worked: In the 2020 cycle, after investing heavily in Nevada, Sanders won a commanding victory in the Nevada caucuses.

When the Sanders campaign ended, the organizers behind it were ready to take their project to the next level. Progressive groups like the Clark County Left Caucus, of which Whitmer was chair, and local DSA chapters had been organizing for Sanders across Nevada since 2016. They used their momentum, and the state-level delegates they picked up during the caucuses, to continue activating progressive pockets in the state with a focus on local office. Progressives led by the Left Caucus won a majority on the state Democratic board this summer, a sign that their momentum was growing even without a candidate at the top of the Democratic ticket to get behind.

This was certainly kind of immediately made possible by the caucus outcome, Keenan Korth, a member of the state partys central committee who is supporting Whitmer, told The Intercept. But it really started before then, in that the caucus results were in and of themselves the result of a sustained organizing effort, and the slow accumulation of organizing infrastructure here post-2016, in large part through the campaign in 2018 for Amy Vilela. Vilela ran for Congress in Nevada in 2018 and later became Sanderss Nevada campaign co-chair.

During the presidential race, the conflict between the Sanders element and the Reid machine had been kept below a boil partly as a result of the personal relationships at play. Sanderss 2020 brain trust was significantly made up of former aides to Reid who remain on good terms with the former majority leader, including campaign manager Faiz Shakir; deputy Ari Rabin-Havt, who has since returned to Sanderss Senate office; and national policy director Josh Orton.

But when the Sanders campaign ended, the establishment was ready to maneuver against them.
The Left Caucus and DSA organizers ran a slate of candidates for state party leadership under the name The NV Dems Progressive Slate. All but one candidate on the slate was a dues-paying member of a local DSA chapter. The Democratic Party ran candidates on a slate titled The Progressive Unity Slate, playing on a theme theyd been pushing the entire cycle: The groups angling for change from the left were trying to divide the party, they said, while they were trying to save it.

Whitmer faced pressure to drop out of the race, and allies of Reid were working their connections to try to keep the party structure intact. A letter circulated accusing Whitmer of blocking the creation of diversity caucuses, though Whitmer told The Intercept it was a disagreement over process. The fight also drew the attention of Cortez Masto, the Las Vegas Review Journal reported, who approached Whitmers opponent, Clark County Commissioner Tick Segerblom, about running. Segerblom had chaired the party in the 1990s and wasnt considering running for the seat.
Segerblom, who supported Sanders in both 2016 and 2020 and chaired his state campaign, confirmed that Cortez Masto approached him about running. He sees the current fallout as an unfortunate culmination of a back-and-forth thats been happening since 2016. Theres been a lot of disagreement within the party since 2016, Segerblom told The Intercept. This is just a situation where the Bernie team won, and the old guard so to speak were not gonna stick around. Cortez Mastos office did not respond to a request for comment.

Despite the pushback, Whitmer ultimately won the election, in which the state partys governing members voted. In the certified election results, she received 244 to Segerbloms 214; Jacob Allen won first vice chair by 101 votes; Dr. Zaffar Iqbal, on Whitmers progressive slate, was reelected second vice chair by 127 votes; Ahmad Ad won secretary by 39 votes; and Howard Beckerman won treasurer by three votes.

After the results, Mounce sent the email making clear that everyone on the small staff had resigned, including the party operations director, communications director, research director, and finance director.

The mass exodus of party staff, despite the rhetoric around unity, wasnt a shock, Whitmer told The Intercept. We werent really surprised, in that we were prepared for it, she said. But what hit us by surprise and was sort of shocking is that for a slate that claimed that they were all about unity, and kept this false narrative of division going on throughout the entire campaign in fact they kept intensifying that thats what was surprising about it, was the willingness to just walk away, instead of working with us.

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Irony
03/08/21 8:44:55 PM
#2:


Lol

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#3
Post #3 was unavailable or deleted.
SageHarpuia
03/08/21 8:45:22 PM
#4:


good
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Smashingpmkns
03/08/21 8:46:14 PM
#5:


As a Nevadan I couldn't be happier. Whitmer is pretty cool.
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UnholyMudcrab
03/08/21 8:46:25 PM
#6:


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CommonStar
03/08/21 8:46:29 PM
#7:


Nice
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treewojima
03/08/21 8:46:55 PM
#8:


ImAMarvel posted...
I still don't understand why moderate Democrats are so against progressivism.

they secretly like things the way they are, just with a thin veneer of social welfare
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Cheater87
03/08/21 8:48:03 PM
#9:


Go progressives!!!

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Smashingpmkns
03/08/21 8:48:52 PM
#10:


Also the quitting while taking severance is pretty fucking vile.
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gunplagirl
03/08/21 8:50:22 PM
#11:


What's the expression, taking their ball and going home?

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ultimate reaver
03/08/21 8:51:59 PM
#12:


bye bye boo boo

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NinjaWarrior455
03/08/21 8:53:07 PM
#13:


Moderate dems are all babies and I am hoping they all disappear into the aether

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OudeGeuze
03/08/21 8:54:55 PM
#14:


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AFrench4
03/08/21 8:56:30 PM
#15:


ImAMarvel posted...
I still don't understand why moderate Democrats are so against progressivism.
Because they're racist and like things the way they are.

Dianne Feinstein is the #1 type of policitian that I would say is a "useless Democrat" - she is the archetype.

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MrMallard
03/08/21 9:02:01 PM
#16:


ImAMarvel posted...
I still don't understand why moderate Democrats are so against progressivism.
I know. It adds credence to the idea that the Democratic party is trending center-right rather than being a truly left wing party.

On the bright side, if the entire Democratic Party of Nevada resigned in protest, Whitmer can probably staff the party with more progressive candidates. It'll be an interesting experiment. I'm curious and hopeful about that prospect.

With that being said, I thought that the Star Wars sequel trilogy was an interesting experiment and look how that turned out. So we'll see

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Dat_Cracka_Jax
03/08/21 9:08:13 PM
#17:


Smashingpmkns posted...
Also the quitting while taking severance is pretty fucking vile.
Right? How is that allowed?

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Bio1590
03/08/21 9:09:45 PM
#18:


Smashingpmkns posted...
Also the quitting while taking severance is pretty fucking vile.

Should take them to court
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#19
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ElatedVenusaur
03/08/21 9:19:07 PM
#20:


shockthemonkey posted...
Better than them sticking around to fuck things up
Yeah, its clear there are a lot of Democrats who would never, in a million years, accept progressives leading the party. Better for them all to leave in a huff and drown their sorrows at brunch than stick around and sabotage our work.
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JTilly
03/08/21 9:25:10 PM
#21:


CE is bashing democrats rn......

Socialists and democrats arent the same thing guys.. choose one

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Irony
03/08/21 9:41:02 PM
#22:


JTilly posted...
CE is bashing democrats rn......

Socialists and democrats arent the same thing guys.. choose one
Socialist democrats are democrats
Moderate democrats are republicans

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ScazarMeltex
03/08/21 9:42:56 PM
#23:


ImAMarvel posted...
I still don't understand why moderate Democrats are so against progressivism.
Because they and their corporate donors greatly benefit from the status quo.

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Vicious_Dios
03/08/21 9:46:32 PM
#24:


So things went from worse to shit, then. lol

Poor Nevada.

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The Catgirl Fondler
03/08/21 10:05:44 PM
#25:


ImAMarvel posted...
I still don't understand why moderate Democrats are so against progressivism.


Because they're ultimately Republicans in blue clothing.

There's a reason that the phrase "same shit both sides" came to be so popular.
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#26
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Doom_Art
03/08/21 10:14:29 PM
#27:


So long as they keep winning the state and keep the Reid machine going then fuck yeah

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RchHomieQuanChi
03/08/21 10:28:40 PM
#28:


ImAMarvel posted...
I still don't understand why moderate Democrats are so against progressivism.

Because they're ultimately still corporate stooges, just like Republicans are. They're just not so cartoonishly evil about it.

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AtelierAlchemy
03/08/21 10:31:52 PM
#29:


Godnorgosh posted...
Time to move to Nevada

I live in Clark County or to be precise Las Vegas. Fun if you like to drink and gamble.
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Broseph_Stalin
03/08/21 10:33:23 PM
#30:


ImAMarvel posted...
I still don't understand why moderate Democrats are so against progressivism.

Yeah I'm shocked they don't want to hand their own party over to the DSA considering how successful they are at winning elections.
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AtelierRyza3462
03/08/21 10:34:16 PM
#31:


Nice
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fuming
03/08/21 10:37:17 PM
#32:


RchHomieQuanChi posted...
Because they're ultimately still corporate stooges, just like Republicans are. They're just not so cartoonishly evil about it.

What about this move isn't cartoonishly evil?
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Doe
03/08/21 10:37:30 PM
#33:


ImAMarvel posted...
I still don't understand why moderate Democrats are so against progressivism.
because they are not on your side they are on the side of corporate financing.

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Krojen
03/08/21 10:40:44 PM
#34:


The masks come flying off.

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Delirious_Beard
03/08/21 10:46:16 PM
#35:


hope this doesn't cause nevada to go red

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COVxy
03/08/21 10:47:52 PM
#36:


What a joke lol.

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ThyCorndog
03/08/21 10:50:36 PM
#37:


i'm not surprised at this in the slightest. centrist democrats despise progressives

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Doom_Art
03/08/21 11:27:12 PM
#38:


To clarify my "fuck yeah" was directed at progressives taking over the state party.

Dunno what the fuck these idiots who quit are smoking.

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Duncanwii
03/09/21 12:47:25 AM
#39:


ImAMarvel posted...
I still don't understand why moderate Democrats are so against progressivism.

Because Communism only works in a vacuum and failed in every case it was attempted?
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Irony
03/09/21 12:50:04 AM
#40:


Shut the fuck up Duncan. Adults are talking

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Kastrada
03/09/21 1:05:48 AM
#41:


Duncanwii posted...
Because Communism only works in a vacuum and failed in every case it was attempted?

This makes zero sense. Stalin by himself could barely fit in a Dyson.

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yutterh
03/09/21 1:18:00 AM
#42:


MrMallard posted...
I know. It adds credence to the idea that the Democratic party is trending center-right rather than being a truly left wing party.

On the bright side, if the entire Democratic Party of Nevada resigned in protest, Whitmer can probably staff the party with more progressive candidates. It'll be an interesting experiment. I'm curious and hopeful about that prospect.

With that being said, I thought that the Star Wars sequel trilogy was an interesting experiment and look how that turned out. So we'll see

I would ahve been fine with abrams or johnson doing the whole trilogy. Hell they could have had all three directors do their thing as long as it had a coherent story going. But letting the directors make whatever changes they wanted especially when their styles clashed is what killed it. Personally I wish trevorrow jsut did the whole trilogy. At least we would have had luke skywalker doing crazy shit.

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JosephJRogan
03/09/21 1:18:56 AM
#43:


I was on the fence for moving to Nevada or Arizona. I'm glad I chose Arizona.
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Sackgurl
03/09/21 1:26:32 AM
#44:


Antifar posted...
She was quitting. So was every other employee. And so were all the consultants. And the staff would be taking severance checks with them, thank you very much.

while i get that this is a bit of rhetoric from the author to describe the looting of party coffers to transfer to the senate candidate, it's really silly to imagine a bunch of people quitting and demanding severance

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bigtiggie23
03/09/21 1:42:51 AM
#45:


Delirious_Beard posted...
hope this doesn't cause nevada to go red

The county I live in in Nevada is already as red as Texas.
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JTilly
03/09/21 2:19:08 AM
#46:


bigtiggie23 posted...
The county I live in in Nevada is already as red as Texas.
Not sure if you know this but must rural areas in the country are hard red. Thats normal, its urban cities and town that are most likely to be blue

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