The column below reflects the views of the author, and these opinions are neither endorsed nor supported by WisOpinion.com.
The results of the November 2024 elections laid bare the fact that the Democratic Party’s messaging was out of touch with voters. In the wake of election day, the party’s leadership seemingly had an epiphany and suddenly realized that their strategy was not working and voters weren’t buying what they were selling. However, some party members have been trying for decades to help the leaders realize that they were losing voters. The people who have spoken up have been called names, intimidated, silenced, and cast aside. In order for the Democratic Party to become the party of working people once again, its leaders at the local, state, and national level must allow democracy to flourish within the Democratic Party.
In late 2019, news broke that Wisconsin Assembly Representative Staush Gruszynski (D – Green Bay) had sexually harassed a state employee after hours during a night on the town in Madison. Although Gruszynski’s behavior was universally condemned, his core supporters believed he should not have lost his position. Kristina Shelton, a local school board member and non-profit executive, challenged Gruszynski and won the Democratic primary for the 90th Assembly District in August of 2020. Shelton then cruised to a win in the November 2020 election. In 2022, there was no Democratic primary for the seat and then-Representative Shelton won her gerrymandered district handily.
The race between Gruszynski and Shelton caused a fracture within the Democratic Party of Brown County. Following Shelton’s victory in the general election, a group of Shelton’s supporters organized a winning campaign for control of the Brown County party. The slate of candidates that took control of the party called itself Blue 22. Renee Gasch was the Chair, Terry Lee was Vice Chair, and Loren Prince was the Second Vice Chair.
The Blue 22 slate took office with promises of inclusivity, diversity, and unity. Instead, party leaders, namely Gasch and Lee, excluded diverse viewpoints and consolidated power, which caused the divide between the factions to grow. One of the party leaders said that the “old people” who used to have influence were trying to “ruin” and “destroy” the party. The Blue 22 crew chose to focus on controversial issues that excited the extreme far left rather than issues that crossed divides and brought people together. Instead of focusing on kitchen table and pocketbook issues, they chose to focus on issues that appealed to certain segments of the electorate. By doing that, they alienated many working class voters whose greatest concerns center around how they and their families are faring in the current economy.
Party members who had ideas that differed from the party leadership’s ideas were called, without evidence or justification, “sexists,” “misogynists,” “racists,” “xenophobes,” and “homophobes.” Those harsh words had a chilling effect on the party and caused many party members to suffer in silence. Party members who took a stand and tried to hold the leaders responsible for their words and deeds were threatened, de-platformed, and pushed away by party leaders.
Since her election as chair of the Brown County Democrats in 2022, Christy Welch has carried on the anti-democratic traditions started by the Blue 22 leaders. She kept a tight grip on power and has not allowed for open discussion of policy ideas or strategies. She has kept alienated members on the outside. In 2024, only one local legislative race had a Democratic Party primary because Welch made it so. She kept favored candidates, including herself, from being questioned, challenged, or tested. As a former longtime manufacturing executive, she naturally guided the county party away from issues working people were most concerned about.
Over the last five years, leaders of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin have mirrored the authoritarian tendencies exhibited by the leaders of the Brown County party. When the Brown County party fractured, then-DPW Executive Director Devin Remicker executed a plan to give the death knell to dissent from within the Brown County party. Remicker forced anyone who had ideas in opposition to the party leaders ideas into confidential mediation. The mediation was used by two of the Brown County party’s leaders as a way to confidentially attack, demean and disrespect party members.
In 2022, Remicker made and carried out threats to suspend this writer from the county party based on ridiculously untruthful assertions. DPW Chair Ben Wikler and then-Vice Chair Lee Snodgrass supported Remicker’s plan because they apparently found dissent to be a nuisance rather than a welcomed contribution. That same year, during the competitive U.S. Senate primary, party leaders devised a plan to end the contest before the primary election by pressuring candidates to withdraw. In 2023, Sarah Godlewski, the former state treasurer, was appointed secretary of state upon the resignation of Doug La Follette. Alex Lasry, the former Milwaukee Bucks executive won election to a seat on the Democratic National Committee with the support of DPW heavyweights.
In 2024, Wikler voiced opposition to a Democratic presidential primary and worked vigorously to keep environmental lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. off the ballot. Kennedy felt left out of the Democratic Party and waged an independent campaign before joining forces with Donald Trump to successfully help the former president retake the White House. If DPW and DNC leaders would have allowed for Democratic primary in 2024, Kennedy likely would have lost fair and square and would have had no reason to join the opposition. Since they attempted to stifle his candidacy, Kennedy and some of his supporters became highly motivated opponents of the Democratic Party and helped make Trump’s return trip to the White House much smoother and easier then it otherwise would have been.
Another advantage of holding a Democratic Primary would have been that President Biden would have been challenged and his vulnerabilities would have been exposed much earlier. In a competitive primary, it would have become clear that Biden was not physically or cognitively fit for the general election, much less another term in the Oval Office. If Biden’s weakness had been exposed earlier, Democrats would have had the time to democratically choose someone else and that person would have time to create a winning strategy and build a winning campaign.
Instead, Biden’s campaign team and DNC leaders pushed the narrative that the president’s first term had been a resounding success and that he was fully capable of leading the country for another four years. It was made clear that local and state Democratic Party leaders were to toe the party line and give their unwavering support to Biden’s re-election campaign.
Even after Biden was revealed to be cognitively weak during the lone presidential debate in June of 2024, the president, his campaign team, and Democratic Party leaders at all levels insisted that Biden’s performance was a bad night and that they would be “Ridin’ with Biden” to victory. After Biden reluctantly withdrew from the race in July of 2024, his campaign team and Democratic Party officials changed their tune. They sung Biden’s praises and called him a man of courage who put the interests of the country ahead of his own ambitions. It was time, they said, for Biden to ride off into the sunset. Then, they left Biden in the past and turned their attention to “unifying” the party by ensuring Vice President Kamala Harris would have no challengers and no ideological opposition. At the behest of national leaders, state and local leaders metaphorically twisted the arms of delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago to voice no opposition to Harris and to vote accordingly.
Harris has had a historic political career, but somewhere along the way the former McDonald’s employee who grew up in a middle class family lost touch with working people. She had no problem connecting with the college-educated professionals of the Democratic Party, but she failed miserably with the working class wing of the party. She and her campaign team made the mistake of thinking that her high position and the endorsements of elite union officials would be enough to convince working people that she was on their side. What the Vice President and her team failed to realize is that voters do not want to be told what they should be concerned about, they want their voices to be heard and listened to.
Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson were successful because they were responsive to the needs of working people. Their campaign messages were aimed at working people and they used their power to pass legislation that alleviated the pain that working people were feeling. President Bill Clinton unintentionally caused pain for working people with policies like Welfare to Work, NAFTA, and CAFTA, but the fast food eating good ol’ boy “Bubba” had an uncanny ability to connect with ordinary people and convince them that he felt their pain. President Barack Obama was raised by his middle class grandparents and organized members of low-income communities in Chicago, so he had his rather large ear to the ground. Although he was one of the highest flying intellectuals to ever land on the White House lawn, if you gave him some gym clothes and a basketball he was just like every other middle-aged dad at the YMCA.
In order to pull back working class voters who have drifted away from the Democratic Party, the party will need to produce candidates who are willing to listen to, learn from, connect with, and advocate for working class voters. In order for that type of candidate to rise to the surface, Democratic Party leaders at all levels must loosen their grip on power so that democracy can flourish and the best ideas and the best candidates will be free to rise to the top.
-Jarrett Brown is a former longtime food processing worker and workers’ rights advocate. He is a lifelong Democrat who has supported pro-worker candidates and organizations. Brown holds a Master of Legal Studies degree and works in a non-attorney role at a non-profit law firm in Green Bay.