David Norton: “The Democratic Party Serves Capital, Not You”

“. . . But the Tides Are Shifting”

David Norton is a “reel creator” who posts his video commentaries on Facebook and and Tick Tock under the name If Not Us, Then Who?. He also has a substack.

A recent reel of David’s caught my attention. Following is what he said in this particular reel.

One of the primary functions of the Democratic Party in the United States is to prevent politics from moving further to the left.

Once you begin to understand that, you can start to make a lot more sense out of headlines like why the Democrats caved on the government shutdown when they had all of he leverage and got absolutely nothing out of it.

A quick litle meeting with their ruling class overlords, who said: we need butts in airplane seats for Thanksgiving, and we need feet walking through our stores well before Christmas; so get your shit together and find a few people to fall on the sword, and get your asses back in there.

And it also starts to make a lot of sense as to why you see the meteoric rise of complete neophyte politicians like Zohran Mamdani who espouses these exceptionally popular economic policy ideas that appeal to a range of people. And everybody’s oohing and ahhing, and saying: Oh, my God, could this be our future? These little, like, tidbits of socialism. Wow, life could be okay here; we won;t be exploited by the ruling class any more. Let’s go for it!

It makes sense as to why Bernie Sanders was completely fucked in 2016 [and Marianne Williamson completely ignored in 2024] by the Democratic Party [establishment], and why you don’t see any politicians on the actual left wing [of the party] have any modicum of success [on the national stage], right? It’s because they’re not allowed to. It’s because the ruling class doesn’t want it to happen, because they don’t benefit from socialism. And they made socialism a bad word.

After FDR died in 1945, [the financial elites] began to undo New Deal era policies, slowly. The ruling class grouped together and said, That shit fucking sucked. How do we change this ASAP?

They began to work on it; they began to [work on ensuring that government would] serve capital very quickly once again. They left in place some of the very best and most popular ideas, like social security; but they began to quash all of the strongholds that the working class had began to develop. They ripped apart unions and made solidarity and community more difficult to come by. We see the rise of hyper individualism, and we eventually get neoliberalism out of it.

And now we’ve got the [corporatist/oligarchic duoply of the] Democratic / Republican Party not serving the working class at all. But you take these people who aren’t afraid to say the ideas that appeal to the working class and, BOOM!, they rock it. They skyrocket into extreme popularity.

[The ruling class, however] don’t want you to have a better life. They only want to have a larger bottom line.

– David Norton
via If Not Us, Then Who?
November 12, 2025

Related Off-site Links and Updates:
“Absolutely Pathetic”: Senate Democrats Denounced for Caving to GOP in Shutdown Fight – Jon Queally (Current Affairs, November 10, 2025).
“A Slap in the Face”: Federal Employees Feel Betrayed by Democrats’ Shutdown Cave -- Dave Levitan (Gravity Is Gone, November 10, 2025).
The Case for Centrism Does Not Hold Up – Nathan J. Robinson (Current Affairs, November 11, 2025).
House Progressives Denounce “Morally Bankrupt” Bill to End Shutdown Without Healthcare Guarantee – Stephen Prager (Common Dreams, November 12, 2025).
“Caved Too Soon”: Ro Khanna on Senate Shutdown Deal, Why Schumer Should Step Down – Democracy Now! (November 12, 2025).
“Time to Clear House”: Sunrise Movement Launches Major Primary Effort Against Corporate Democrats – Brett Wilkins (Common Dreams, November 13, 2025).
Rep. Rashida Tlaib Says “Enough Democrats Chose to Roll Over” as Trump Signs Bill to End Shutdown – Jake Johnson (Common Dreams, November 13, 2025).


See also the previous Wild Reed posts:

THE FAILURES OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY
• Kshama Sawant on the Democrats’ Shutdown Cave
• Robert Reich on the “Big Ugly Cave” by Senate Democrats
• Mike Figueredo on the “Political Malpractice” of the Democratic Party
• Ted Rall: Democrats Are Not “the Left”
• Exposing the Dark Money Network Secretly Funding Establishment Democratic Influencers
• Progressive Perspectives on Kamala Harris’s Book, 107 Days
• Why the Democratic Party Is Not Going to Save Us From Fascism
• Howie Hawkins: “The Democrats Are Not the Answer to the Trump/Fascism Problem”
• The Longstanding Fault Lines Within the Democratic Party Have Surfaced Again in Minnesota
• Jeff Cohen on How Obama’s “Corporate Liberalism” Led to the Rise of Trump
• Progressive Perspectives on Bernie Sanders’ “Fighting Oligarchy” Tour
• Eric Fernández: Quote of the Day – May 14, 2025
• Marianne Williamson: Quote of the Day – July 26, 2025
• How Democrats Can Start Winning Again


SIGNS OF HOPE
• “The Answer, Actually, Is Hope”
• Butch Ware on “Red & Blue vs Green Politics”
• Eddie Glaude: A “Radical Refusal” Is Happening
• Progressive Perspectives on Zohran Mamdani’s Win in New York City
• “No Kings”? Absolutely. But Also “No Oligarchy”
• Chris Smalls: We Need to Escape the “Two-Party Plantation”
• Kshama Sawant: Independent Working-class Campaigns Can Succeed
• The Rational National’s Take on Zohran Mamdani
• Omar Fateh: “We Need to Meet the Needs of Working People”
• “Hopeful and Grounded”: Omar Fateh’s Vision of Democratic Socialism
• In His Efforts to “Build a City That Works for All,” Omar Fateh Secures a Key Endorsement
• Butch Ware on His Run for California Governor and the Wider Goal of Disrupting the Duopoly
• Marianne Williamson on the Need for “Radical Love” in Responding to Trump’s Dismantling of Democracy
• “Protesting Is What Patriotism Looks Like in Public”