 I think it's evident that successful primary challenges to corporate Democrats like Joe Crowley, it absolutely terrified the Democratic Party establishment, because if they see that there's this new insurgent left and they're successful at taking out the old guard, individuals like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, then that poses an existential threat to them. So what are they now doing? Now that 2020 is upon us and there's going to be a lot of primary challenges that will be emerging, well now what they're doing is they're going to try to use whatever institutional advantages they have to beat back any potential challenger to a corporate or incumbent Democrat. And it's dirty, but it's not too surprising. So the DCCC, which is an organization that is supposed to get Democrats elected, that's supposed to theoretically be their one and only job, here's what they're doing to essentially protect the status quo. As Akilah Lacy of the Intercept reports, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee warned political strategists and vendors Thursday night that if they support candidates mounting primary challenges against incumbent House Democrats, the party will cut them off from business. The news was officially announced Friday morning paired with a statement on the committee's commitment to diversity in consulting, which obviously is just to give themselves cover a Democratic political consultant who learned of it Thursday told the Intercept. The consultant asked for anonymity given their relationship with the DCCC and the party organization's professed strategy of blacklisting firms that don't fall in line. To apply to become a preferred vendor in the 2020 cycle, firms must agree to a set of standards that includes agreeing not to work with anyone challenging and incumbent. I understand the above statement that the DCCC will not conduct business with nor recommend to any of its targeted campaigns any consultant that works with an opponent of a sitting member of the House Democratic Caucus, the form reads. It's no secret that the DCCC and national party leaders often interfere on behalf of preferred candidates or that they otherwise jump into the game too late if they don't completely write off newcomers who don't meet their standards. The DCCC is known for prioritizing candidates and direct them to its own consultants, most of whom are alumni of the DCCC, which is known in Washington as a consultant factory. The latest move only reaffirms that reputation and sends a warning shot to grassroots and progressive consultants. So this isn't a new tactic and it's certainly not surprising because of course the Democratic Party establishment is going to do whatever they possibly can to beat back any existential threats to the status quo. And the DCCC has essentially become the organization that safeguards threats that any progressive may pose to establishment Democrats. And even if it's not necessarily surprising, it doesn't make it any less problematic. And to show you how big of a deal this is, it's already having an impact. It's already discouraging potential primary challengers from running in 2020. And as Monica Klein of Seneca Strategies reports in an article for the Intercept, she says that her consulting firm is already seeing a potential primary challenger wanting to drop out since consultants are essentially jumping ship because if you're a consulting agent, you want to make sure that your firm isn't going to be blacklisted by the DCCC because that's essentially a death sentence. So if the DCCC can find a way to threaten these consultants financially, then they could be that much more successful at thwarting off potential primary challengers. They're not going to thwart off every single primary challenger, but they can at least make their lives more difficult at the very minimum. And as we'll lead Shahid puts it, they're essentially using financial leverage in order to thwart off primary challengers. Now, the good news is that progressive organizations are still refusing to back down. Democracy for America tweeted, we see exactly what you're doing DCCC. Don't think for one second that it'll stop us or the grassroots army we stand with from backing bold, inclusive populists who will better represent their districts in Congress over neoliberal corporate Democrats. And that is encouraging to see now, certainly not every single progressive organization or progressive consulting firm will be this bold. But you know, it is important that democracy for America takes this stand. But I just want to think about how strategically idiotic this is. Because what you want to do is if you're the Democratic Party establishment, the way that you win is you make sure that your party is dynamic and they're constantly changing to better reflect America. But what they're doing here is they're saying, no, we don't want to change, we don't want to adapt to the evolving political climate that's increasingly more left wing, more progressive. We want you to fuck off. That's essentially what they're doing. Now, why is this harmful to them? And why is it hurting their own interests in the long run? Because if the Democratic Party is less appealing to voters, they lose. They lose. Republicans win. Because what you see on the opposite side of the political spectrum is a Republican Party that is dynamic, like it or not, they're constantly changing. And even if they're changing in the wrong way, they're moving more and more to the right and becoming more and more extremist. Well, they're still changing nonetheless. And they know that they have to adapt in order to reflect their base, which is not static. It's dynamic. It's constantly changing and reshaping itself. And that's one thing that the Democratic Party establishment needs to learn. And I think that they probably know this because you can't not know this. You've got to be at least somewhat savvy if you're going to be a consultant or be part of the establishment, but they know this. They just don't care. I think it's clear that a lot of individuals within the establishment would rather lose than win with progressives. And we kind of got a glance of this on a recent episode of Morning Joe. When somebody said, I can't remember who it was in particular, but they said, I would rather vote for Donald Trump than Bernie Sanders. And then he had to correct himself. And then he said, well, you know, Bernie Sanders would be horrible for this company. I mean, country. So I mean, it's clear that they're all about safeguarding the establishment. And it's not necessarily because they just have this intrinsic love for the establishment. People like Nancy Pelosi or Joe Crowley. It's because the establishment will do the bidding of the Democratic Party's corporate donors. And what they really care about, the underlying issue here is that they want to protect the gravy train. So I'm not even surprised reading this, you know, it's par for the course. I expected this. And it's probably not going to be the last we hear of the D triple C doing some type of fuckery or the DNC doing some type of fuckery to screw progressives because they're constantly doing it. They're constantly trying to concoct new ways to fuck over the new left. But all we're hearing are screams and cries from dinosaurs who see the asteroid coming. They know they're going extinct, but they're trying to prolong something that they can only prolong for so long. They're only delaying the inevitable. And in the long run, I don't think this is going to work. Really, really good job. Many people are telling me about how wonderful the humanist report is. Bigly.