“Autopsy: the Democratic Party in Crisis”

Since the election of Barack Obama in 2008, the Democratic Party has lost not only the presidency and congress, but more than 1000 seats in state legislatures. Democrats control both the governorship and the legislature in only six states; the Republicans control 26. How did Democrats manage to become the minority party after eight years of the Obama administration? How can it recover from this debacle?

The recently issued report, “Autopsy: The Democratic Party in Crisis” https://democraticautopsy.org/ offers a thoughtful, objective analysis of how the crisis developed, and proposes an agenda for recovery. At our January Forum, we will hear from two of its authors and examine how seriously the party is moving to implement the Autopsy’s recommendations.

Speakers:

Norman Solomon is the coordinator of the online activist group RootsAction.org. He was a Bernie Sanders delegate to the Democratic National Convention and the national coordinator of the Bernie Delegates Network. His books include “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.”

Karen Bernal is the Chair of the California Progressive Caucus and an executive board member of the state Democratic Party. She served as co-chair for the California Bernie Sanders delegates to the Democratic National Convention.

Moderator Rose Aguilar is the host of “Your Call,” a live call-in daily radio show on KALW, which was named "Most Valuable Local Radio Show" on The Nation magazine's 2017 Progressive Honor Roll. Her book, Red Highways: A Liberal’s Journey into the Heartland, is based on a six-month road trip she took across the U.S.

Co-sponsored by Progressive Democrats of America—San Franciscpo; San Francisco for Democracy, San Francisco Berniecrats; the Bernal Heights Democratic Club, and the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic ClubDemocratic Club