What is "The Establishment"?

And How are Progressive Politics Different?

In Part 1 of “Electing a Chair” I discussed candidates, networks, and the establishment network Curtis Hertel built his career in. Part 2, where I discussed Al Williams and his network, will come out on Monday at 10am. I’m posting this in between because I’ve had a lot of questions about what I mean by “the establishment” - what is it, how does it operate, and so on.

The Establishment

An establishment is a network of individuals, organizations, and narratives (ways of thinking about and doing things) bound by common interests—often power and money. It operates to preserve the influence of those already in power, using their positions in an organization to abuse, bend, break, or rewrite rules to serve their own power, sometimes the power of their chosen successors. This is how a loose network of relationships becomes an establishment in an organization, like the Michigan Democratic Party (MDP). If not stopped promptly, over time their rule breaking and other abuses of power become normalized, routine. It was not stopped promptly in the MDP, many examples are here and here and here.

In my Party Line articles, when I say “the establishment” without any other context, I mean the MDP establishment and/or the broader Democratic Party establishment. Sometimes I may mean the wealthist (analogous to racist) establishment of our country more generally; the Democratic Party establishment is a faction of the wealthist establishment in our country.

As I’ve said before, most people in the establishment don’t realize they’re in it. They aren’t bad people. When they can, they do good—like Chair Barnes and Director Jensen protecting me from establishment retaliation at the National Convention when I stood up for universal human rights and against genocide. Or when Hertel stood up for friends of mine a few years ago. But like a customer service worker constrained by company policy, their actions are mostly limited by Party leadership and their big donors.

There’s no secret cabal of leadership and big donors dictating establishment policies—these policies and their practices evolve naturally. Tactics that preserve establishment control are repeated because they work, eventually becoming “just the way we always do it.” For those raised in the establishment, like Hertel, these practices feel normal, ingrained in the culture—like shaking hands here or bowing in Japan.

Here’s an example of an establishment practice that evolved to preserve its power: when a coalition seeks representation, the establishment assumes it has the right to limit or even choose their representatives. This expectation is so ingrained in the establishment dominated culture of our politics that many groups, especially vulnerable or marginalized ones, comply in advance—submitting a list of candidates and letting the establishment decide. If rejected, they often make a new list, farther again from their preferred representatives. This self-subordination mirrors a peasant kneeling before a lord in medieval times—so normalized within hierarchy-driven systems that questioning it often draws confusion, and challenging it often draws attacks from the establishment that benefits from the practice.

In a democratic coalition, each organization expects to choose its own representatives and respects others’ right to do the same. While political elites in an establishment see subordination as the norm, the grassroots expect democracy—they want their voices heard and concerns addressed. When these expectations clash in establishment political culture, grassroots leaders face a dilemma: submit and alienate their base, or assert their sovereignty and risk being shut out of direct influence.

This pattern repeats constantly in establishment politics. The establishment offers positions to leadership but insists on choosing which representatives they’ll work with. This drives division between leadership and the grassroots, weakening both—the grassroots by dividing them into factions and their leadership by dividing their base of support, making them more vulnerable.

The MDP Chair ought to work hard to ensure our coalition partners are each as strong as possible, or, at the very least, to ensure the Party isn’t doing anything to weaken our partners and therefore our entire coalition.

Establishment politics weakens our coalition partners, and in doing so, weakens our coalition itself. This is why our Party remains a mere 8,000 members in a state of 10 million. The establishment’s way of operating—bending, breaking, and abusing the rules, violating the fundamental premises of democratic government—fractures coalitions and erodes trust. Even when people don’t know the rules, they recognize when they’re being treated unfairly. And when that happens, they leave.

How many people stick around where they’re treated unfairly? In a state of 10 million, about 8,000 to 10,000—which is where membership has stagnated for decades, except when progressives organize. In 2018, progressives nearly doubled membership to 20,000. But thanks to establishment politics, we were back down to around 8,000 within a cycle or two.

Whether establishment figures intend to drive division or not is irrelevant. What matters are the results: low membership, declining participation, and a Party slowly being hollowed out from within, down to just the people who are willing to put up with establishment politics.

This is a cultural difference between (small-d) democrats, like progressives, and the establishment. A difference in the stories we trust to produce good results, and consequently how we behave when practicing politics.

The first thing a democratic politician says to a group offering up the power to choose their representative for them is: “No, this is your choice. No one has the right to choose your representative for you.”

The establishment answer is, “Cool, I’ll take that one”.

The establishment politician making that selection may not recognize the authoritarianism in simply accepting the offer—but that doesn’t make it any less authoritarian than a lord accepting fealty from a peasant. They may not see the deeper dynamics at play—how vulnerability and marginalization in an establishment political culture push some leaders in those communities to self-subordinate, risking fractures within their coalition. But regardless of intent, the impact remains the same: subordination and division, which ultimately weakens the Party.

Democratic politics is about empowering constituencies by inclusion and equality.

Establishment politics, by contrast, is about consolidating power by dividing and attacking any opposition to establishment dominance. When the establishment talks about “unity,” what they really mean is unity in service of maintaining establishment control. Those within the establishment often don’t even recognize this dynamic, but that doesn’t change the facts.

These are not just philosophical differences—they are structural. Democracy, by definition, means rule by all the people equally. Democratic leaders analyze the full context of a situation, seeking to strengthen coalitions through shared power in solidarity. Establishment leaders, by contrast, act to reinforce establishment advantage. When that advantage is handed to them, they accept it without concern for how it weakens the broader coalition and its members - as Hertel did with the People’s Coalition.

Again, this isn’t about bad intentions. The authoritarianism is so deeply normalized that establishment figures don’t even question it. They genuinely don’t see anything wrong with selecting someone else’s representative because it’s what they’ve always known. It’s what their network does, what they expect their peers to do—it’s simply standard practice in establishment political culture, much like shaking hands is a routine greeting in U.S. culture.

Democracy means rule by all people equally. In a democratic political culture, decision-making processes that fail to equally reflect everyone’s preferences are unacceptable. For example, the idea of being given the power to choose someone else’s representative is not just inappropriate—it’s fundamentally undemocratic. It directly contradicts the very principle of equal representation for all. Un- and anti-democratic systems and processes weaken our Party’s ability to make good decisions, and undermines our ability to sustainably manage our common resources, like staff and volunteer hours, money, and infrastructure.

This isn’t just theory—it’s backed by all the research on decision-making. Groups make vastly better decisions vastly more often when they are large and diverse (large + diverse = inclusive), their individuals come to their conclusions independently, and they aggregate their preferences equally. In other words, inclusivity, independent thinking, and equality strengthens decision-making. The 2009 Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded to Dr. Elinor Ostrom, for her research characterizing the key features an organization need to manage common resources sustainably, one of them is democracy.

Democracy fosters smarter, more resilient choices that produce better outcomes. Establishment authoritarianism, on the other hand, prioritizes self-interest over collective wisdom, leading to weaker, short-sighted decisions that ultimately drive people away, keeping the Party weak and easier for the establishment to control.

The recent Michigan Senate vote to gut One Fair Wage makes this clear. Senator Kevin Hertel—Curtis Hertel’s brother—sponsored the bill. Governor Whitmer, Curtis Hertel’s major establishment patron, who campaigned supporting it, now signals she’ll sign the bill gutting it. Floor Leader Singh and Majority Leader Brinks also once backed One Fair Wage, but fell in line under pressure from the establishment network.

This is the establishment protecting the interests of their wealthy donors—the 1%—at the expense of the 99%. Hertel’s brother, 7 other establishment Democrats including top leadership, and Whitmer all caved to establishment pressure, siding with the elite over working people. In a democracy, this is a losing strategy that drives people away from the Party. The only way politicians can keep serving the 1% while holding power is through establishment authoritarianism—not democracy. There is nothing in Curtis Hertel’s history suggesting he isn’t as vulnerable to establishment pressure as his brother, Whitmer, Singh, and Brinks.

If we want to to build a winning coalition, it needs to be large, must authentically celebrate diversity and inclusion, and prioritize individual independence and collective solidarity. No establishment can ever build that coalition, because they’re focused on maintaining the power of the already powerful to serve the 1%.

Establishment politics can only keep driving people out of the Party.

Only democratic politics can build a large, diverse, inclusive coalition of independent thinkers grounded in equality and solidarity.
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