Ben Wikler, center, speaks at a forum with candidates to become chair of the Democratic National Committee in Detroit on Jan. 16, 2025. Ken Martin, left, and Nate Snyder, right, are also on stage. (Photo by Andrew Roth/Michigan Advance)
Candidates for Democratic National Committee leadership posts largely embraced President Joe Biden’s warnings of an oligarchy taking shape in America during a series of forums Thursday in Detroit that ran nearly eight hours.
Marianne Williamson, who is running to lead the party after unsuccessfully seeking the White House in 2020 and 2024, said that the president’s warning is a first step towards winning back Michigan in future elections.
“I think you win back Michigan by giving a damn, and by acknowledging what is going on in this country, like when President Biden said in his farewell address he’s worried about oligarchy,” Williamson said. “You think? This is news?”
“Last night, when the president warned about a coming oligarchy, I’m afraid that oligarchy has been with us for a while,” Williamson said.
Ken Martin, the chair of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) Party, said that as DNC chair, he would ensure the party does not accept contributions from billionaires that Biden was referencing while not swearing off wealthy donors entirely.
“Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of good billionaires out there that have been with Democrats, who share our values, and we will take their money,” Martin said. “But we’re not taking money from the bad billionaires.”
Ben Wikler, the chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, expressed a similar sentiment, arguing that who the party accepts funds from sends a message about who they represent.
“We’re not going to take money from people that are actively union-busting. We’re not going to take money from the people that funded ‘stop the steal’ and tried to topple our democracy,” Wikler said. “If they try to donate, we’re going to send that money right back, because it says something about who we are.”
In farewell speech to nation, Biden warns of threat of ‘extreme wealth, power and influence’
Faiz Shakir, who managed the presidential campaign of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in 2020, entered the race for DNC chair earlier in the week but was too late to qualify for the forum.
Michigan Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist endorsed Wikler’s candidacy on Wednesday and attended a reception following the conclusion of the forum, which also featured Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, state Rep. Jason Morgan and state Sen. Mallory McMorrow. McMorrow had been floated as a potential candidate for DNC leadership herself but ultimately decided not to run.
“I’ve seen how he has built a strong organization that’s been focused on organizing, that has been creative in terms of raising money, that’s been creative in terms of how it’s used new media and that has delivered important wins in a state where that’s been hard to do,” Gilchrist said. “It hasn’t been 100% of the time, but it’s made a hell of a lot more progress.”
Williamson said that Democrats need to do a better job of getting their message out to voters, especially as many fear the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump.
“We need to be showing them every day: This is what the Democrats are doing for you today in the House and in the Senate and in your statehouses. This is what Democrats are fighting for,” Williamson said.
But Nate Snyder, a former U.S. Department of Homeland Security official, pointed to dysfunction during the final days of the Michigan Democratic trifecta last year as an example of the party sending the wrong message to working people, making it difficult for the party to win back their trust.
“When members are not showing up to vote … that says that you’re not doing your job. That says you’re not fighting for me,” Snyder said.
Democrats in the Michigan Legislature failed to pass several pieces of legislation during their lame duck period in December after Democratic state Rep. Karen Whitsett of Detroit joined all Republican members in skipping House session, denying the chamber a quorum.
Several of the candidates for DNC chair joined One Fair Wage for a press conference in Detroit urging Democrats, who still control the state Senate and governor’s mansion, to not aid Republicans in passing legislation that would revert to a separate minimum wage for tipped workers and scale back paid sick leave requirements following a 2024 Michigan Supreme Court ruling.
That’s an example of one way Martin said Democrats can more effectively get their message through to the working class.
“Instead of sending celebrities out, we should send workers out to talk to workers,” Martin said.
During the final weeks of the 2024 election, Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign sent several notable celebrities to Michigan, including Eminem, Oprah Winfrey, the “Scandal” cast, Jane Fonda, Adam Scott, Maggie Rogers and Jon Bon Jovi.
But while Martin said he would do a full review of what happened in 2024, he declined to speculate on whether Biden staying in the race as long as he did hurt Democrats’ chances of winning, calling it an “academic exercise that’s not even worth answering.”
“It does none of us any good to hypothesize about what could have happened if Joe Biden dropped out earlier, because we can’t, it’s not going to help inform the future,” Martin said.
“Some people talk about an autopsy or postmortem. Our party is not dead,” Martin added. “We have to learn the right lessons, for sure.”
Martin O’Malley, a former governor of Maryland who ran for president in 2016, also called for an after-action review, but said he also would not engage with the question that he said history books will study.
“There is a great loss of trust in our party, from people who volunteer and people who contribute,” O’Malley said. “We owe it to them, we can’t restore trust unless we acknowledge where we fell down and unless we share with people why we spent money on messaging that didn’t work when there were other messages that did. We owe it to our party, we owe it to our country, to do that deep dive.”
Audience members groaned when Politico moderators pushed for a direct answer and gave Jason Paul a standing ovation when he ripped into the media for asking questions like the one about Biden’s age, calling it a failure of their job to inform the American people.
“Our problem is that we trusted you all,” Paul said.
O’Malley took a similar line of attack, arguing that Democrats need to “take back” the party from the “entertainment industrial complex,” including news networks that he said are motivated by ratings rather than fairness.
This story was originally published by Michigan Advance. Like Maine Morning Star, Michigan Advance is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Michigan Advance maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Susan J. Demas for questions: info@michiganadvance.com.
YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE.