NY Democrats Demand Loyalty Oaths to Silence Dissent

Several NY Democratic county committees are demanding "loyalty oaths" from their members. The worst is a proposal by the Chemung County Dem chair demanding all committee members sign on to a "code of ethics" not to oppose "the activities and candidate endorsements made by CCDC, State or National Democratic Committees." This did not come out of the blue (pun intended), but from supporters of Gov. Cuomo.

From The Intercept:

The controversy started last week when Jim Carr, the party chair, sent an email to the executive committee announcing that they’d convene on Tuesday, an hour before their already-scheduled Chemung County Democrats meeting. [...]

The code of ethics document, which seemed to come out of the blue, proposed that all committee members “promise to be loyal” to the Chemung County Democratic Committee “by supporting the activities and candidate endorsements made by CCDC, State or National Democratic Committees. Such examples of disloyalty include, but are not limited to, activities such as displaying political signs or other activities for candidates opposing Democratic candidates. This also includes any form of social media.

Cindy Emmer, another Chemung County Democratic Committee member, sent the language at Carr’s request. Both Emmer and Carr sit on the New York State Democratic Committee, a body that is closely aligned with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who is now facing a primary challenge from the left.

This is obviously a heavy handed attempt to force Dem committee members in that county not to support Cynthis Nixon, as the NY State party is unlikely to endorse her over Cuomo before the primary. Progressive committee members in Chemung county saw this as an attempt to silence them and squash dissent.

“It’s totally undemocratic and unconstitutional to tell me I would need to support a Democrat even if they don’t display Democratic values,” Lynch said. “This has nothing to do with party loyalty — it has to do with the establishment wing of the party not understanding why some of us are still so upset about the 2016 primary.”

Another county party in New York, Washington county, also includes a loyalty oath, though not quite as stringent as the one proposed by the Chemung County Dem. Comm. Chair, and a third county, Tioga, has a vague statement about not being disloyal to Democrats without specifying what that means. Progressive Democrats see the hand of Governor Cuomo behind all this:

Some New York progressive activists suspect the new Chemung County loyalty oath can be traced back to the governor. Bellanca, of the Washington County Democrats, noted that the timing of the ethics directive came down in the middle of a big gubernatorial primary contest and just weeks before the state’s Democratic convention. “They’re basically trying to close the primary,” he said. “It looks like they’re trying to say, ‘You can’t support anyone but who the group supports, even if they’re a Democrat.'”

“I’m very familiar with the New York state Democratic Party, and everything is structured in a way to benefit Andrew Cuomo and his agenda,” said Nomiki Konst, a Bernie Sanders-appointee to the Democratic National Committee’s Unity Reform Commission. “He uses fear tactics and deal-making, and the New York state committee is made up entirely of Cuomo loyalists.”

I know you're all shocked to see Establishment Dems trying to rig a primary election against a progressive candidate by a conservative neoliberal candidate. Not. As we all know, Democrats purged hundreds of thousands of registered Democratic voters from the New York voting rolls before the 2016 NY Presidential primary, a fact they admitted in 2017 to settle a court case.

New York City voters who were purged from voter rolls ahead of the 2016 presidential primary won a court victory on Tuesday as the city Board of Elections agreed to federal oversight following the lawsuit over a mass purge of voter rolls that resulted in over 200,000 voters stripped of the right to vote before that year's primary.

Anyone who believes the establishment Democrats will play fair when it comes to primaries at the local, state and federal level are deluding themselves. We've also seen this play out in Florida with a Debbie Wasserman Schultz supporter and Broward County board of elections supervisor illegally destroying paper ballots that were part of Tim Canova's court case regarding voting irregularities in his 2016 primary challenge to Wasserman Schultz. And we've seen the DCCC go after progressive challengers hard this primary season.

If NY Dems screw over Cynthia Nixon, as I expect them to do, I hope she runs third party as the Working Families Party candidate. Enough of this anti-Democratic horse manure from the oxymoronic "Democratic Party."

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mimi's picture

Service oath for public servants of ... you know who:
"I swear: I will be faithful and obedient to the leader of the German Empire,err CCDC, State or National Democratic Committees and its leadership decisions, to observe the law, and to conscientiously fulfill my official duties, so help me God."

Smells like brown shit. Excuse my french. With apologies to the French people. Why don't you burn the social media? One comment and essay at a time?

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gulfgal98's picture

is antithetical to concept of human free will. It is a demand for loyalty under any and all circumstances. I personally find loyalty oaths repugnant. And this is exactly Markos did with his March 15 edict.

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

mimi's picture

@gulfgal98
I agree fully with you on that.

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@gulfgal98 "I pledge to vote for the candidate who cheated my candidate and whose policies are repulsive. I promise to eat shit and vote as the bosses say."

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@gulfgal98
Bullies sure do f**k up our World. Imagine how nice things would be without bullies.

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Beware the bullshit factories.

gulfgal98's picture

@Timmethy2.0 The party cannot win on ideas so they resort to bullying their own members. This speaks to the weakness of the party itself.

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

Alphalop's picture

@gulfgal98 @gulfgal98 I love this decision by the Democratic Party!

It is a demand for loyalty under any and all circumstances. I personally find loyalty oaths repugnant. And this is exactly Markos did with his March 15 edict

And I expect it to have the exact same backlash as that from The GOS.

Only larger, because unlike Markos' dictatorial decree this one is actually significant (unlike his delusional echo chamber's irrelevancy) and will continue to put some much needed attention on that corrupt ass club.

The Democratic party cannot collapse under the weight of it's arrogance, corruption and hypocrisy soon enough for me.

Every last one of those duplicitous murderous sellouts could die in a fire and I'd host a S'mores party...

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"I used to vote Republican & Democrat, I also used to shit my pants. Eventually I got smart enough to stop doing both things." -Me

She didn't anticipate either Reagan or Trump.
Reagan's strategy was to tell and retell his lies regardless of clear refutation. "The sky is greeen." "No it's not, look." "The sky is green! Why do you hate America?" (or Hillary with her RUSSIA!!! lie festival)
Or the Trump strategy - tell anything but the truth, especially if it's different from the lie you said yesterday. "The sky is green." "No, it's blue, look." "Like you said, the sky is orange. Why are you changing your story?" (in this case Hillary's lies serve Trumo's purpose, not only can Trump not be believed, but no one can)
I am surprised that Arendt would say what she was quoted at, the Nazis invented the first strategy and Orwell wrote about the second. Perhaps she was narrowing her analysis to America, which was only just experimenting with the Lie State?

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On to Biden since 1973

You know, maybe that's the answer. Don't think up some catchy party name. Just call it "Third Party" state what your aims are, don't pander, or turd way it. Don't make any allegiance with the democrats or the r's unless you get something, never be taken for granted. Maybe push a not affiliated or independent voter drive to not register with either party....let them guess who's going to vote in coming elections. The democrats are worthless to us.

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k9disc's picture

"I'm voting 3. "

@Snode

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“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu

@k9disc @k9disc 3... Three....Something....progressive, left, it gets lumped in, externally defined, as being with the democrats. Everything they do just screams we're your betters, we KNOW better, we're superior, just like the Kochs and the christian right. There's just so little they've done for the workers and the poor in the last 40 years.

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@Snode
But I guess The Corruption Party or the Oil Party or the Pharmaceutical Industry Party wouldn't get enough votes.

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Beware the bullshit factories.

@Timmethy2.0

to list all of their corporate sponsors in their Party names?

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

Roy Blakeley's picture

@mimi These are nominally peaceful demonstrations. A few Gazans have tried to cut the wire at the border and a few kids have tried to float balloons carrying homemade Molotov cocktails over the boarder to no effect. For the most part, however, these have been peaceful demonstrations by unarmed Gazans. The Israeli Defense Forces, however, have simply been using the Palestinians for target practice, shooting them in the legs with bullets that are designed to cause massive damage. Thousands of Gazans have been injured and we must be up to about 90 total deaths during these demonstrations. The IDF has lost no one, of course.

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@mimi and the killing, we wouldn't even hear about the Palestinians at all, it would just be another day at world news Disneyland.

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A generalization of course. Progressives are loyal to their morality, values, policies. Democrats are loyal to their party regardless of what the party or its leader supports or do. I suppose it is much like a soldiers oath where loyalty is professed to the Constitution, and not to party or individuals.

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ggersh's picture

@MrWebster

Hitler oath
The term Hitler oath — also often referred to in English as simply the Soldier's Oath or Soldiers' Oath — refers to the oaths of allegiance, sworn by the officers and soldiers of the German Armed Forces and civil servants of Nazi Germany between the years 1934 and 1945. The oath pledged personal loyalty to Adolf Hitler in place of loyalty to the constitution of the country.
More at Wikipedia
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I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish

"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"

Heard from Margaret Kimberley

Roy Blakeley's picture

The DNC, DLCC, DCCC, DSCC and the relevant state committees should not endorse candidates at the primary stage, in my opinion. They should be neutral. After the party's candidate for the general election is selected, it is not unreasonable to ask a county committee member to refrain from openly opposing the party candidate in the general election. A committee member may find a candidate so unpalatable that the aforementioned committee member chooses to resign, of course.

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Steven D's picture

@Roy Blakeley where Cuomo likely will be endorsed by the party before the September primary.

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"You can't just leave those who created the problem in charge of the solution."---Tyree Scott

Wink's picture

with an "loyalty oath."
@Roy Blakeley
if - If - the Dim party was the old party, B.B. (before Bubba),
And certainly the party B.H.H. (before Her Highness), there would be no need for a loyalty oath, as most Dems were on the same page. Alas...

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the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.

The Aspie Corner's picture

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Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.

Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.

Lily O Lady's picture

that I am up to no good. At least as far as the iron hand of the Democrat leadership is concerned.

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"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"

Outsourcing Is Treason's picture

when they’ve got Super Delegates?

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"Please clap." -- Jeb Bush

Amanda Matthews's picture

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I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa

If for no other reason than to send a message.
I was really upset when Mayor McScumbag did Andrew's dirty work to keep WFP from endorsing Teachout last time around. I along with many others sent messages to the WFP leaders letting them know they did wrong. I promised in writing never to vote for any candidate on the WFP line of the ballot again.

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gulfgal98's picture

He calls it out as a cult.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xw7IFUr2XKM]

Key comment: The Democratic party has a problem being democratic.

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

Bob In Portland's picture

can the Democratic Party exist without a soul?

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Wink's picture

to find out.
@Bob In Portland
I suspect not long.

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the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.