Democratic Party Platform
Updated 2024-08-25
2024-08-23 Why Has the Dem Platform Veered Right on the Economy? The changes made in four years don’t just repudiate the left, they defy public opinion on one issue after another, driving the party backward even as U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris runs as the candidate of change.
I reviewed the Democratic Party platform for 2024 and found something interesting: When it comes to economic policy, this year’s platform is less progressive and less ambitious than it was four years ago. Democrats have tacked right or retreated on health insurance reform, drug prices, Medicare and Social Security expansion, poverty, labor, taxes, Wall Street, and the minimum wage.
Why become less ambitious on economic issues, especially when public confidence in the economy remains low? Is it the influence of big donors? Is it the willingness of the party’s internal left to back its candidates without first demanding policy concessions? Is it both? https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/dem-platform-right-economy
2024-08-20 The Party Platform Racket While party platforms are usually full of insincere popular promises, this year’s from the Democrats spits in the face of the majority of Democrats who want peace.
Normally, U.S. political party platforms should not be read as outlines of what a party will do if given power. (Lists of donors should be read as outlines of what a party will do if given power.) Platforms should be read as the question section of a beauty contest. (And be grateful there’s no swimsuit section.)
Four years ago, the Democratic Party Platform promised to tax the oligarchs; reduce military spending; repeal decades-old authorizations for the use of military force; end war support to Saudi Arabia; create a $15/hour minimum wage; create free college for families paid less than $125,000 a year; provide paid sick and family leave; create free community college for two years; provide high-quality, universal pre-kindergarten for all three- and four-year-olds; create a healthcare “public option”; lower the age for Medicare; expand voting rights, including for people convicted of felonies, and including automatic voter registration, same-day voter registration, early voting, universal vote-from-home and vote-by-mail options, and an election day holiday; allow unhindered union organizing; make D.C. a state; and much more. A good bit of it echoed the Bernie Sanders campaign, which the Democratic Party leadership had carefully and repeatedly blocked from gaining a nomination. Much of it Biden could have taken serious action on during the past four years — in some cases without Congress, in others by choosing to pressure Congress — but he has not done so.
A month ago, the DNC said it was releasing a draft platform for this year, but only published a press release largely about Donald Trump. Maybe that was all there would be? After all, the Republican Party Platform of 2024 resembles a serious platform less so than a lynching postcard. But no, the Democrats have now put out a new platform.
I recommend fasting for 24 hours prior to reading it. It contains many of the same promises of four years ago, despite in many cases no serious effort having been put into them for the past four years. The good old $15 minimum wage is still in there, with no adjustment for four years of cost-of-living increases. Taxing the rich is still there for hardcore fantasists. https://davidswanson.org/the-party-platform-racket/
2024-08-20 In 2024 Platform, Democrats Lurch Right on Policing and Immigration One theme, already a popular talking point on the campaign trail, popped up repeatedly on the DNC’s first night: This race, according to the Democrats, is between a “prosecutor and a convicted felon.”
Activists have urged the Harris campaign to drop this framing, which stigmatizes incarcerated people more than it harms Donald Trump. It is clear that Democrats don’t plan to change course any time soon. Meanwhile, delegates at the DNC are set to vote on a new Democratic platform that signals that the party’s embrace of carceral thought goes beyond a simple campaign slogan.
Released August 18, the 2024 platform evinces a disturbing rightward lurch for the Democrats on immigration and policing. In a stark tonal shift from its 2020 agenda, the Democratic Party has quietly caved in to right-wing fearmongering about crime and public safety.
The shift in priorities (from 2020) is clear from the jump: criminal legal reform no longer has its own chapter. The framing is instead around the more general task of “Protecting Communities.” There is no mention of ending either “mass incarceration” or “police brutality.” “We need to fund the police, not defund the police.”
Of course, the Democrats did not expand the asylum system, and President Biden actually instated on a ban on asylum seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border that mirrored Donald Trump’s policy. The 2024 platform is proud to tout this as an achievement, even as the head of the UN refugee agency warns the policy might violate international law: “After Congress repeatedly failed to act, President Biden announced executive action that significantly curtailed asylum eligibility at the border when crossings reach a certain threshold and strengthened our ability to impose timely consequences for crossing the border illegally.”
This year’s platform also notes that “those who attempt to cross into the United States unlawfully are being quickly returned to their home countries, as well as Mexico” — the same home countries which Democrats themselves noted, four years prior, could put migrants “at great risk.” https://truthout.org/articles/in-2024-platform-democrats-lurch-right-on-policing-and-immigration/?
2024-08-19 Democratic Platform Attacks Trump for Not Going to War The Democratic Party wants to outhawk Republicans, denouncing Trump for deescalating with North Korea and Iran.
The Democratic National Committee’s 2024 platform, approved in a symbolic vote on Monday night, tries to outhawk Trump, denouncing his “fecklessness” on Iran and his “love letters” to North Korea. Although the platform condemns Trump for pulling out of diplomacy with Iran, it also attacks his decisions not to bomb Iran at several crucial points.
Ironically, the Democratic platform is not much different from Republicans’ own attacks on the Biden administration. Each side accuses the other of weakness, and neither wants to take credit for diplomacy or own the compromises necessary to avoid war. https://reason.com/2024/08/19/democratic-platform-attacks-trump-for-not-going-to-war/
2020-08-07 DNC Platform Condemns BDS But Not Israel’s Occupation of Palestine The Democratic National Committee is ignoring 90 percent of its base to side with Trump and the GOP on Israel policy.
There has already been much consternation among party activists over Biden’s key role in pushing the Iraq War resolution through the Democrat-controlled Senate in 2002, and his support for the invasion despite the return of UN inspectors and absence of “weapons of mass destruction,” weapons programs and weapons systems he falsely claimed Iraq possessed. As a result, Democratic activists were hoping the 2020 platform would offer reassurances of a less militarist foreign policy in light of the increasingly liberal views within the party with regards to the Middle East. Instead, the incipient nominee’s representatives on the committee were solid in their defense of continued U.S. backing for Israel’s corrupt right-wing government, defeating proposed amendments to modify such unconditional support by a nearly 4 to 1 margin.
The draft plank on Israel and Palestine fails to criticize or even mention the occupation. Nor does it offer any criticism regarding the vast network of more than 250 illegal settlements Israel has established in the West Bank and other occupied territories in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, a series of UN Security Council resolutions and a landmark ruling by the International Court of Justice. The draft does, however, criticize international civil society campaigns to boycott companies and other entities supporting the Israeli occupation and settlements. https://truthout.org/articles/dnc-platform-condemns-bds-but-not-israels-occupation-of-palestine/?
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