Who's expecting a job doing what press coverage has barely gotten started, yet, less than seismic rumblings begin, some of which are telling - Common Dreams, here and here. The latter report, from beginning to mid-item:
In a heated caucus-wide conference call on Thursday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other centrist Democrats in the U.S. House reportedly blamed lost congressional seats on the redistributive agenda advanced by the party's progressive members, with Majority Whip James Clyburn warning that running on "socialized medicine" will result in losing the two runoff races in Georgia that could give the party a Senate majority.
The preemptive assault on universal healthcare by South Carolina's Clyburn, a top recipient of money from the pharmaceutical industry, comes just days after a series of Fox News polls showed that 72% of voters favor "changing to a government-run healthcare plan," among other egalitarian policies that received widespread support.
"Polls consistently show a majority of the U.S. electorate [is] considerably to the left of both party leaderships... on issue after issue—the environment, electoral reform, [and] Medicare for All," said Jacobin's Luke Savage, less than 72 hours before the Democratic Party establishment recycled its attacks on popular progressive policies following a underwhelming showing at the ballot box.
[...] Both Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, Georgia's Democratic senatorial candidates, support a public health insurance option that is universally accessible.
But if the House Democrats' contentious conference call is any indication, moderates' hostility to universal healthcare could push the candidates to move closer to Joe Biden's position, which is, as the Daily Poster put it, "a public option [that] would only be open to lower-income Americans rather than being open to everyone."
According to Sirota and Perez, when Biden explained his plan during the first presidential debate, "a Democracy Corps poll found that voters reacted negatively to Biden's description—the survey, using real-time dial meters, showed a steep drop in support when Biden said his public option would be limited."
[...] According to Politico's reporting about House Democrats' tense conversation on Thursday, Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington defended her fellow progressive colleagues from criticisms she called unwarranted.
Jayapal also argued, however, that "Democrats need to have 'conversations about language' as several members on the call complained about charged terms like 'defund the police' repeatedly weaponized against them during the campaign."
As Common Dreams reported Friday, leftists like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) reiterated that Joe Biden is indebted to the get-out-the-vote efforts of progressives whose broad redistributive agenda resonates with many working people and energizes those who might have stayed home otherwise.
After all, preliminary data suggests that it was progressive activists, including Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), whose on-the-ground organizing in diverse, working-class communities helped secure key swing state victories for Biden—not the long-distance courting of disaffected conservatives by the Lincoln Project, which critics say pushes the party further to the right.
Progressives went lesser evil, and Clyburn's donors now want to stomp on progressives' throats.
Leadership needs to look sincerely and thoughtfully into the mirror and admit their agenda is so gawd-awful of a failure that they need to try to play bully against the hands that closed ranks to lift them via grassroots GOTV against a strong Trump GOTV putsch (where centrist DEMs ran a stiff, a MIA candidate, a "not Trump"), when suffering and pandemic reality pressured openly and recognizably for actual, real, no-bullshit, people-friendly leadership. (Clinton blamed James Comey, not herself.)
It is a posture they take and expect us to bow because they are the existing inner party hands on the throttle. A DWT post title, "The Moment The Democrats Picked Cheri Bustos As DCCC Chair, As I've Been Saying For Two Years, They Baked Terrible Losses Into The Cake."
Tom Perez hasn't punched his weight. Ocasio-Cortez has. Ocasio-Cortez could handle Blacklist Bustos' responsibilities - competently. Plain decency for a change, despite Biden, despite Schumer, has traction as a way of assuring 2022 mid-term doldrums are avoided.
Four more good links - here, here, here, here.
_______________UPDATE________________
Please readers, do not forget Newsweek's earlier online item:
Joe Biden Says 'Anybody' Can Beat Donald Trump in 2020 Presidential Election
By Tim Marcin On 12/17/18 at 2:16 PM EST
The fact is that "anybody" did not do too fucking well at that slam-dunk job; i.e., not bringing along on the coat tails a Senate majority, for Party, and people. We want justice. Not more of the same.
Things should fundamentally change.