Cui Bono?

First, here’s the right attitude towards yesterday’s censure vote:

Anyway, after the censorship vote, the following was leaked to Axios by Democratic leadership:

What was the consultative process that some of the best and brightest in the caucus had to experience? I don’t know, leadership didn’t leak that to Axios when it decided to air dirty laundry. But my guess is that it centered around money, and how these members would be cut off if they didn’t toe the leadership line.

After the same House leadership decided to fight AOC’s rise to the ranking member of Oversight, their consolation prize was to put her on one of the “money committees,” Energy & Commerce. This was leadership’s idea of doing her a solid, I’m sure, because this committee is one where members can fundraise like hell, since the committee handles legislation on energy, tech and healthcare. So, whether or not AOC felt that this was a solid (since she is able to independently fundraise from small donors), leadership did, because C.R.E.A.M is the way they look at the world.

When reader J reached out yesterday to ask who benefitted from some D’s voting for censorship, I really had no idea. But putting it in context with the leak to Axios and a few other things I’ll mention below, I’m guessing that Jeffries and team are under pressure from big donors to keep a lid on the protests. Jeffries recently completed a fundraising trip to Silicon Valley to “mend fences” with donors. In January, the DCCC reported raising $2.5 million from the lobbying firm that represents SpaceX and Palantir, Peter Thiel’s firm.

And why do donors want Democrats to keep their opposition on the down low? Let’s start with Elissa Slotkin’s interview at the Atlantic:

Then we’ll continue to Newsom’s anti-trans podcast featuring Charlie Kirk, and make a few stops at all the unnecessary confirmation votes and Laken Riley Act vote to a conclusion that the consultants who feed the donors information and polling have decided on a fantasy narrative about the Harris campaign. Those consultants created a campaign where Kamala Harris spent days on the stump with Liz Cheney, that prepped Tim Walz to debate JD Vance by agreeing with him as much as possible, that didn’t put a millimeter of difference between Harris and Biden on issues like Gaza, and that barely, if ever, mentioned trans rights.

But that campaign lost, so the most convenient explanation for the loss of a campaign that, in reality, was a pitch to the center by the consultants certainly can’t be that they made a mistake. Instead, it’s in their interests to sell donors is the fantasy that Slotkin repeated: it was a base-only campaign.

With that in mind, we can see the two groups who benefit from censure votes and trips to the principal’s office if members have been bad: First, the leaders who need to satisfy the big-money donors. Second, the consultants who make their money from those donors, and from the leadership that users that donor money to pay consultants for advice and ads.

We all know that back in ancient times, around 2008, there was a presidential campaign funded by small-dollar donors that was successful. But, after the first Obama run, Democrats decided porque no los dos when it came to money — why not get donations from big-money donors as well as small-dollar donors? Then, Citizens United happened, and PAC spending went through the roof. And here we are: