How to Rebuild the Democratic Party — Part 2: The Solution

Empower Members, Grow Trust, Build Grassroots Power

To rebuild the Democratic Party, we need to restore democracy inside it: power shared equally, exercised transparently, and bound by rules the members themselves make and enforce fairly. Including rules governing access to our collective resources, conditioned on respect for our rules and alignment with our interests, as collectively expressed in our platform.

Though we need to do all of this at the same time, I’m starting with rules because if we don’t get the rules right and enforce them fairly, we won’t get anywhere.

For those new to my writing, I’ve been an active member of the Michigan Democratic Party (MDP) for years. I have serve on County and Congressional District Committees, Caucuses, and their Rules Committees. I have served 8 years on the MDP State Central Committee (SCC), 4 years on the MDP SCC Rules Committee, and 4 years on the Democratic National Committee (DNC), where I was proud to stand up for universal human rights and against the Zionist genocide of Palestinians. I ran now-AG Nessel’s 2018 campaign for the Party endorsement, nearly doubling Party membership in the recruiting drive I lead. I am currently an officer of the SCC, and Chair of the MDP Progressive Caucus Rules Committee. I am also a founding organizer of MISolidarity, which has organized, run, and won the largest block of progressive delegates on the SCC each of the past three terms.

I know how the Party works on the inside. I’ve witnessed it. In depth and detail.

Here’s how we start fixing it.

Rules Reform

Why do we need rules reform?

Fair, democratic rules are the foundation of trust among a large group of mostly strangers — like the 10,000 members of the Michigan Democratic Party. Without that basic level of trust, we can’t organize efficiently or effectively.

Because people don’t believe the rules are fair or fairly enforced, they believe the Party only serves the big donors. And they’re absolutely right. Consequently, membership has stagnated around 10–12,000 for decades. The only major uptick was in 2018, when the recruitment drive I led for the Nessel campaign nearly doubled membership. I know what brings people in, especially young people.

Every year, I talk to folks entering and exiting the Party. Newcomers arrive hoping grassroots democracy might work. People leave depressed, often angry, convinced it can’t in the Democratic Party — convinced the Democratic Party won’t let the grassroots shape policy if it conflicts with donor interests.

They’re demoralized by the same cycle: grassroots members pour in time and money, only to be betrayed by candidates who pivot to serve donors—like Whitmer and the eight legislators who cut tipped workers’ wages by 50%, after campaigning against cutting their wages. Members might not know the rules, but they know when people aren’t treated fairly, or are being abused. Unfair or abusive treatment is anti-democratic. Volunteers went to work on the belief Whitmer would support tipped workers’ wages because she said she would. Betraying that belief is abusive. It’s taking advantage of voters and volunteers, taking their time, energy, effort, taking them away from their families, their kids, to vote, call, or canvas etc, thinking they’re working to elect a vote or signature for the policies that brought them into, for example, Whitmer’s campaign. When they’re betrayed — as Whitmer did, as establishment Democrats do consistently — volunteers have effectively been robbed of their time, energy, and effort. Their time, energy, and effort to elect Whitmer was used to benefit their bosses, while punishing them. That’s obviously abuse.

Those in power don’t see it as abuse because they have what I sometimes call establishment brain: a worldview that rationalizes keeping power in the same hands, no matter what. Here’s one common way this manifests in Democratic establishment types: do the bad thing now, so you can at least do some good later. We live in a capitalist society so we should understand this in capitalist terms. The job is to follow donor orders, because that’s how you get the money to stay, and if you don’t stay you can’t do any of the good you’d like to do. If you stay, you still can’t actually do much you’d like, because you first have to satisfy the big donors. People with an establishment worldview don’t typically think about it this way, but that situation has volunteers busting their asses for scraps, hoping the 99% might occasionally benefit at least little bit.

That’s just outright feudalism hiding under euphemisms: the overseer (candidate, politician) gets the serfs (voters, volunteers) to do the work (voting, calling, canvassing, etc) with the promise that the overseer (candidate, politician) will try to sneak them some better scraps from the masters’ (big donors’) kitchen (where the sausages/laws get made).

Why won’t Schumer or Jeffries endorse Mamdani? Why did Newsom kill single payer after running on it? Why do Democrats like Slotkin, Stevens, and McMorrow try to split the difference between genocide and no genocide, or mass murder for profit (privatized healthcare) and no mass murder for profit (single payer healthcare)? Establishment brain says: serve the big donors.

The excuses shift, but the driving force (money) and the outcome (big donors get what they want while the 99% get abused) remains the same. They follow rules when it suits donors, ignore them when it doesn’t. When the Senate parliamentarian blocked spending on the 99% by the reconciliation process (where you only need 51 votes), Harris said well, those are the rules — ignoring the fact those aren’t the rules. The actual rules say the VP can override or fire the parliamentarian. Republicans override or fire parliamentarians they don’t agree with. Harris just chose not to, because that served big donor interests better.

Big donors fund both Rs and establishment Ds because both follow the same script. Republicans and Democrats break norms and follow rules or switch it up and break rules and follow norms as needed for the big donors to get what they want either way. Both protect donor power by ensuring that whichever way either Party needs to position themselves, the different forms of tension created can be shifted to ensure donor demands are met, while the will of the people is sacrificed on the altar of one sacred cow or another (like the parliamentarian). The 2024 Convention Rules Committee rigged the rules to block any challenge to Harris — breaking both norms and rules. I was on the DNC at the time and experienced this myself.

They’re quick to break rules or follow norms, or not, depending entirely on what works best for the establishment which means what works best for the big donors. That’s how establishments survive — by cloaking power in propriety.

Sometimes the rules themselves are the problem—designed or distorted to block democracy. The SCC, for example, can’t vote on resolutions directly. The rules require all resolutions to go to the Resolutions Committee first. As if the SCC needs a chaperone or an overseer. As if the SCC isn’t competent to decide for itself if a resolution needs more work or not.

Since the Resolutions Committee hasn’t met this term — they were appointed in April, six months ago — this one rule and establishment inaction has frozen resolutions in the Party for a year. That’s no accident. It means no votes on the grassroots anti-genocide resolutions, opposed by big AIPAC, JStreet, and other allies of the Zionist genocide against Palestinians, including military contractors with deep pockets. At the August 2024 State Convention, establishment leadership refused to even count the votes to table that resolution, they just declared the resolutions tabled, violating our rules. Counting votes is democracy 101 — and they refused. Because they were afraid the anti-genocide faction of the Party won the vote, and the establishment supports genocide because enough big donors support genocide.

Here are some specific examples of anti-democratic Party rules:

• Seating unelected proxies before elected alternates.

• Appeals Committee rulings without public hearings — or at least hearings open to all Party members. If we can’t see how power is used, we can’t know if it’s being misused, or what might need improvement, or hold anyone accountable. Without transparency there can be no democracy.

• Appointments instead of elections. Appointments centralize power; democracy distributes it. Elect everyone.

• Requiring Resolutions Committee review before SCC can vote. As if the SCC needs a chaperone or an overseer.

Sometimes, the rules are fine but they’re ignored when it’s inconvenient for the establishment. For example, MISolidarity filed an appeal regarding the appointment of officers-at-large to the State Central Committee (SCC), because the rules explicitly require offices to be elected. Then-Chair Barnes said it was fine to do appointments because that’s the “customary” way we’ve done things. The Appeals Committee agreed, in direct violation of our parliamentary procedure, Robert’s Rules of Order, which explicitly require written and democratically adopted rules to override unwritten “customary” rules, which obviously haven’t been democratically adopted. Here’s my article on the incident. There’s nothing to suggest the Appeals Committee has improved, and good reason to think it hasn’t.

Some examples of anti-democratic “customs” in the Michigan Democratic Party:

• Appointing officers to the SCC = overturning the proportional voting election of the SCC. This has been done every term I’ve been here, including this one — though this term, we were promised that wouldn’t be the case. Leadership did a little better this year, engaged with progressives at least, said some words, but the actual process was fundamentally unchanged: appointment, where the rules specifically say election.

• Reducing SCC meetings post-COVID. We haven’t held quarterly meetings, as required by the rules, since 2020.

• Gerrymandering SCC delegations with secret maps and unclear election processes.

We must have rules reform in order to rebuild the Democratic Party, because not having fair and democratic rules fairly enforced drives people away from the Party. The establishment’s aversion to democratic rules ensures membership remains around 10,000 in a state of 10,000,000 — barely 1 tenth of 1 percent.

To move that needle much, to grow the Party in any significant way, rules reforms are necessary. Not just rules reforms, but reforms with teeth that make clear our Party empowers the people to run the Party, and collectively the Party will hold candidates and officeholders accountable for their positions, their votes, and their campaign finance behavior. This is necessary to ensure the grassroots get the policy benefits of their participation in the Party, not their bosses or their boss’ shareholders — not the wealthist 1%.

These reforms must be made proudly and loudly.
We must make it clear and obvious that membership = more political power than just your vote.

Not just exploitation of volunteers.

Necessary Reforms

One Member, One Equal Share of Power
Every member counts equally. When feasible, every member should vote on Party business directly. When that’s not feasible, delegate structures must remain proportionate, transparent, and temporary. No unelected proxies. No appointments overturning proportional elections. No caucuses instructing members to vote with the caucus majority — that kills individual independence, and independence is necessary to access our collective intelligence, a key advantage democracy has over every other political system.

One member one equal share of power is both fair and scientifically necessary.

The Condorcet Jury Theorem and collective intelligence research show that large, diverse groups of independent thinkers counting their votes equally make better decisions than any alternative decision-making system. That’s not opinion — it’s math demonstrated to manifest in the real world by science. Here’s a short video introducing some of the modern research on collective decision-making.

Opposing these reforms is actively choosing worse decisions. Opposing these reforms is rejecting science, rejecting democracy, and opposing good government. The four pillars of better collective decisions — large, diverse, independent, equal — must be designed into our processes and systems.

Delegates, Not “Representatives”
Delegates carry power, they don’t own it. Members may delegate power, but retain the right to override or recall their delegates’ use of their power. This is the only way the grassroots can remain in control.

Democracy means rule by the people.
Democracy only exists when the people — grassroots — are in control.

Democratically Written Platform
No consultants. No donors. Members write it, vote on it, and revise it regularly. Here’s an outline of how this could be done effectively and efficiently:

• County Parties draft platform planks in open meetings.

• Planks go to statewide public review and comment.

• Delegates are elected to a state conference to refine and rationalize planks.

• Final planks are put on a ballot and the Party membership votes on them.

Those planks with over 50% support become the platform.

Platform Enforcement
A platform that doesn’t bind candidates is a fake.
It’s not empowerment—it’s a placebo.

Big donors command with money, and the threat of withholding it — or giving it to a rival.

Grassroots members don’t have that kind of money on their own.

If we want grassroots members to command as much attention from candidates and officeholders as big donors, the Party needs to provide members with the power to command that attention. The only source of grassroots power like that is a democratically organized political party. The only way for a political party to do that is with a platform enforced with real teeth, that holds candidates and officeholders to a set of clearly, publicly defined standards created by a collective decision of the membership.

We can’t match dollars.
But we can match leverage — with collective enforcement and solidarity. That’s organizing collective power behind policy, not just candidacy. That’s the difference between begging a politician and binding a politician.

Begging leaders with nothing but persuasion is feudalism.
Under feudalism, politics is about what’s good for the lords, and their overseers (a king for example), not everyone else. Getting constituents’ needs met is a matter of showing the lord how serving their constituents’ is good for the lord, not why or how it’s good for their constituents. How many voters they can sway, according to polling? Or how many millions they’ll get from the [fill in the blank] lobby if they just support the [fill in the blank] bills and causes.

This is why Heritage-Foundation/Romney/Obamacare is a giant government handout to the wealthy. The politicians (overseers) convinced the big donors (lords) to give the serfs (everyone else) something (Obamacare), by designing it to benefit the lords (big donors).

Binding leaders to follow the will of the people is democracy.
Under democracy, politics is about what’s good for the people and their communities. Getting constituent’s needs met is a matter of individual and collective responsibility, not the responsibility of some outside or on-high authority — the officeholder. The officeholder is just the people’s servant, delegated to accomplish the people’s purposes. The people are empowered to reverse their servants’ decisions, or remove their servant(s) and delegate the responsibility to another. Under feudalism, the focus is on how the politician (lord) can benefit — “enlightened” establishment politicians often say this is necessary so they can at least do something for their constituents. That’s an establishment worldview talking, making up an excuse to serve the 1% rather than the 99%. This is another angle that comes to how we get things like Obamacare that hemorrhage public money into private accounts by maintaining the legality of mass murdering of US citizens to ensure corporate profits. Literally trading human health and lives for shareholder profits. Under democracy, the focus is on how policy can benefit all the people, not just or mostly corporations and big donors.

When we have a democratically determined and clearly enforced platform, every member of the Party walks into a meeting with real power to hold candidates and officeholders to account for their votes and campaign donations. When we don’t have a democratically determined and clearly enforced platform, only the big donors have any real power to influence candidates or officeholders.

It’s that simple.

Either we grow a party that empowers the people, or we die as a party that empowers the wealthy.

It’s up to us, the membership, what kind of Party we want to be.
I provided some draft rules language to enforce the platform a few weeks ago.

Build Trust, Growth Follows

We cannot re-earn the trust of the American people until we first reclaim the trust of our own members. Show that hours poured into the Party return real power over its direction and agenda, real leverage with candidates and officeholders.

This democratization must be loud, not whispered.
Announce it publicly. Work with local Party units to ensure everyone is well-educated on the rules, the platform, and how to use them to hold candidates and officeholders accountable. Let every voter and journalist know that the Democratic Party is remaking itself into the most democratic institution in American politics. Be as open and transparent about it as we believe the government should be open and transparent about our public business.

Demonstrate that we stand for democracy by actually being democratic.

Then burned-out members will return. Lapsed members will rejoin. New members will join — because now membership means power, not servitude.

People won’t believe us at first.
We’ll need to be very public, very clear, and very deliberate about these changes. We will need to demonstrate by concrete action that we’re actually changing the way we do things.

Not just saying it, as the Party has done so many times before.

The Work Ahead

To rebuild trust and participation, we must:

1. Organize a Truth and Reconciliation Process
   To face the harm the Party has caused, listen to those alienated, and, most importantly, use their experiences to design fairer rules.

2. Rewrite the Rules — clearly, simply, and democratically, making the grassroots visibly sovereign.

3. Draft and Adopt a Democratic Platform — through an open, participatory processes.

4. Adopt Rules to Enforce the Platform with Real Power — ensuring the Party delivers tangible political power to our members, making membership valuable.

Do that, and the Party becomes a democratic engine capable of resisting the billionaires, delivering for working people, and reviving the promise of a government of, by, and for the many, not the few.

Do that, and people have good reason to join the Party again.
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