Leaving Sinclair Lewis fact-checking aside, the key to this YouTube item, it was 4 views before I found it. The text appears to be from Politico, although it is unclear whether the YouTube post is Politico's, or that of a third-party. While playing background music the item cycles through a few images, repeating this one several times, as the text changes. From that Politico item,
Cheri Bustos takes on the new left - The DCCC chairwoman is standing firm against a progressive backlash. By HEATHER CAYGLE and LAURA BARRÓN-LÓPEZ, 04/04/2019 05:03 AM EDT
[...] “We don’t have time for games, we don’t have time for hugs and kisses,” Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-La.), former chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, said in an interview, praising Bustos for taking a hard line to protect the party’s incumbents ahead of a difficult 2020 campaign.
[...] In a heated meeting with Bustos last week, Pocan, Jayapal and Ro Khanna of California voiced their displeasure. Bustos stood her ground and appeared unwilling to change course. Khanna came out of the meeting angry, vowing to fight the policy until it was nixed.
But in the days since, progressives have shifted tactics, saying they want to keep the debate private, with Khanna saying, “these things take time.”
“We’re having ongoing conversations, but dealing with it in the public is counterproductive,” Pocan said, when asked whether Ocasio-Cortez’s tweets to her 3.8 million followers was helpful. “I’m dealing with it in the responsible way to make sure we get rid of the policy and that means dealing with it within the family.”
Meanwhile, Ocasio-Cortez told POLITICO on Wednesday she doesn’t have any additional plans to blast the DCCC on Twitter and said she’s “not sure” whether she is going to pay her member dues to the campaign arm.
Though Pocan and Jayapal insist the conversations are not over with Bustos are not over, the three lawmakers appear to be talking past one another. Bustos said she would ask progressives to “play the long game.”
“If we’re going to be successful as Democrats, and going into 2020 with a very, very fragile majority, we got to be on the same team,” said Bustos, adding that the new policy ensures the DCCC will spend “every cent we can to hang on to our majority and not work against ourselves.”
While running for the DCCC post, Bustos pitched herself as a Democrat with a unique ability to appeal to Trump voters while not shying away from taking on the president. The fourth-term lawmaker hails from a rural district in the northwestern corner of Illinois that Trump won in 2016 even as it reelected Bustos by 20 points.
The background image used at the start of this post appears to be from here. More YouTube views, here, where the Politico text is also used, with editorializing against Bustos/DCCC.
There is a Reddit thread, captioned, "‘We don’t have time for games’: Cheri Bustos takes on the new left." It uses the Politico image and the quote from Cedric Richmond, which is ironic in that the House had time for its H.R. 1 (see post below this one), and that time arguably was for nothing except playing games. The Reddit comments are unfavorable toward Bustos.
Going from opinion to substance, freebeacon.com posts, "Justice Democrats Organize Opposition to DCCC Policy Protecting Incumbents - BY: Cameron Cawthorne - April 5, 2019 11:30 am." That report cites a new page of renegade consultancies who affirmatively defy the DCCC ban; so you have that defiance together with Ocasio Cortez suggesting that individual progressives freeze out DCCC to a reliance solely upon its big money donors and its tithing of House membership, with Ocasio Cortez saying she' uncertain whether she'll pay the share she's tithed. If Bustos generates less money by inflaming the issue she's in trouble, and that could happen.
Cawthorne wrote [links from the original], about a counter-DCCC "blacklist" site Justice Democrats launched, https://dcccblacklist.com/:
"The DCCC is using their financial leverage to intimidate and blacklist many hardworking people in our movement in a blatant attempt to protect a handful of out-of-touch incumbents," the [counter-] DCCC blacklist website reads. "We’re launching The Blacklist to fight back and provide potential primary challengers with a database of go-to vendors, organizations, and consultants who will continue to support efforts to usher in a new generation of leaders into the Democratic Party."
Some of the groups listed on the website, which aren't abiding by the new DCCC policy, are Think Rubix, Democracy for America, Indivisible, Left Rising, and Working families.
Bustos, the DCCC chief, argues the new policy isn't specifically targeting progressives and that she isn't punishing consultants for their past work with incumbents, but progressives aren't convinced.
Progressive Caucus co-chairs Mark Pocan (D., Wis.) and Pramila Jayapal (D.,Wash), and caucus member Rep. Ro Khanna (D., Calif.) met with Bustos last month to voice their opposition against the new policy and demanded that it be reversed, but Bustos said she would not change the policy, according to Politico.
While Bustos hasn't showed signs she will be reversing the policy, Pocan told Politico he believes they are still having an "open conversation" and "there’s more to come" with their conversation.
"Let's be clear. If this policy remains in place, it will mean that we will not allow new Ayanna Pressleys or AOCs to emerge. It's simply wrong," Khanna told the Intercept. "It's also hypocritical for a party that champions strong antitrust. The DCCC is acting as a monopoly by saying that anyone who does business with them can't do business with any competition. It's the classic antitrust violation and an unfair restraint on trade. Many progressives in Congress will fight until this rule is changed. We stand for reform in Congress and reform of the Democratic Party machinery to make sure they prioritize our voters and the grassroots."
Ocasio-Cortez has vocally opposed the new policy on Twitter and has advised small-dollar donors to donate directly to Democratic primary challengers.
"The @DCCC’s new rule to blacklist+boycott anyone who does business w/ primary challengers is extremely divisive & harmful to the party," Ocasio-Cortez tweeted. "My recommendation, if you’re a small-dollar donor: pause your donations to DCCC & give directly to swing candidates instead."
Dueling beltway consultancies? Had Bustos simply allowed an unwritten policy to continue, instead of enscrolling it as written policy, the SNAFU might not have happened. Whether it's best to air out the issue publicly or not, that is what Bustos decision making yielded. Bustos seems ambitious. "A lean and hungry look," as was once written by one attuned to human nature. Given the Senate and Trump as roadblocks to any actual House majority substantive action, perhaps the coverage of the Bustos business is proportional to its actual importance; i.e., the Democrats in control of the House cannot - yet - reform anything. The positioning going into the 2020 election is hence what is going on, and Bustos is sucking up to incumbents; however capable they may or may not be. It looks to be a power grab attempt to embroil Pelosi in the Bustos stew, while Pelosi simply tries to hold things together somewhat more discretely. It is far easier to fault Bustos.
___________UPDATE____________
Down With Tyranny, on Bustos. In general the site is covering things well, homepage, here.
Do you suppose the big money Dem donor pool has actively been squeezing Bustos, "If we buy them we want mileage, not any uncertain lesser thing"? "We want years to amortize the down payment, and in turn will keep up annual service fees"? "Years give the biggest return on investment; ROI being our thing"?
The guess here, she's doing it with a minimal but non-zero bit of input that way. Just being who she is, going where her ambitions lead her. Not blind ambition. Dead-end ambition, perhaps going to hell in a bucket but consultants on contract at least enjoying the ride.
FURTHER: The Bustos - Tyranny item begins:
"Cheri Bustos," they wrote of the woman quickly turning herself into her party's next Debbie Wasserman Schultz, "isn’t afraid of the insurgent left." That's so cute! I wonder if Bustos paid extra for that. "The chairwoman of House Democrats’ campaign arm has found herself in a very messy-- and public-- spat with progressives over the past week and a half. But the Midwestern moderate"-- ah, yes, Politico's favorite put down of progressives: calling corrupt conservatives like Blue Dog Bustos a "moderate," the most admired political term among American voters. What makes Bustos a moderate? That she votes with Republicans? That she opposes the most popular Democratic initiatives of the time-- like Medicare-For-All, free state colleges, the $15 minimum wage, and the Green New Dream? In Beltway conservative circles, opposing those initiatives is what makes someone "serious" and, apparently, "moderate."
Bustos, they continued "is refusing to budge, despite drawing ire from prominent progressives like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who has encouraged her millions of social media followers to halt donations to the campaign committee in retaliation." [Notice how the boogey man was just created in the narrative, the boogey man who the "moderate" shall vanquish.] Let's see what can they do to make Bustos sound all-American and heroic?
Then it suggests how to read the earlier linked Politico item, as to Politico specifics. Is the language too over the top? It is how Down With Tyranny is written, so remember, over the top does not mean actually wrong in argument or detail. Read it with an open mind, that way. Truth shows itself, regardless of rhetorical style.
FURTHER: Bustos and allied House cohorts have taken one self-touting step in the right direction, but their letter should have been aimed at the entirety/enormity of any/all DHS and ICE money being flowed to privateers. The letter down-parsed the size of the thing.
FURTHER: One of the better debunking of the mythological Cheri Bustos spun for us in the Politico item, Politico text first, the quote within a quote, and DWT rejoinder:
[... Politico being quoted]
While running for the DCCC post, Bustos pitched herself as a Democrat with a unique ability to appeal to Trump voters while not shying away from taking on the president. The fourth-term lawmaker hails from a rural district in the northwestern corner of Illinois that Trump won in 2016 even as it reelected Bustos by 20 points.
Only a Democrat as tragically lacking as Hillary could lose that district, which was gerrymandered by the Democratic-controlled state legislature so that Bustos would never lose her seat. Hillary's 1 point loss to Trump brought the PVI down to D+3, hardly the red district the Bustos cheering squad makes it out to be. Obama beat McCain there by a whopping 60.0% to 38.5% and then beat Romney 57.6-40.6%. Last year Bustos beat Republican Bill Fawell 142,659 (62.1%) to 87,090 (37.9%). Politico -- and most House Dems -- are too dull-witted to look into the bullshit Bustos has spewed about her epic battle to win the hicks in Trump country. IL-17 may not have embraced Hillary, but this district was drawn for Democrats, and very successfully so. You want Bustos to teach you how to win in a red district? All she can tell you is to make sure your state legislature gerrymanders the Republicans out of it and into IL-18, where the PVI suddenly shot up from a stable R+11 to a blood red R+16. Easy as pie. Now elect me DCCC chair too.
That looks to be an ideal place for a real Democratic Party progressive to primary. It looks like Joe Crowley land, except not a primarily Hispanic demographic carrying an establishment regular white guy; but more of a Blue Dog pound. Still, someone offering a Bernie agenda should give it theo old college try. A Bustos defeat there would be a Cantor-like occurrence, because it would not have the Crowley "changing demographics" excuse set in place. It would be a total repudiation of big money DCCC mindset. Especially if the challenge were conducted on that - get big money influence mongering out the door policy norm - as one of several progressive-change issues. Bustos ousted, would be other than business as usual. And even should a primary challenge fail, at least it would be Bustos still rather than a seat lost, somehow, to Repubicans. It would either way on a primary keep that seat in the "razor-thin" majority Bustos says she'd like protected. Just, protect it with a better human being.