Pass the torch. Pyramid might be interested

Pass the torch opinion

Pyramid, Some of this article may resonate with you Words from my big brother in an opinion  piece he wrote

He worked supporting social change  and protecting the less fortunate in his life / career 

He left Harvard as a freedom fighter to register black voters in Mississippi in the 60s . Ended up getting a masters in political science at Harvard. And by choosing a life of activism on he never made any money in his career and is completely ok with that 

a bright man that rejected Yale law school and returned to Harvard at his PS professors request to gat his political science masters 

He chose a life of service and activism 

Vista volunteers

Black lung clinic 

And public radio comprised most of his career

He is (more than) kind of a hero to me 

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“Let the word go forth, from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans ...” — John F. Kennedy, inaugural address, Jan. 20, 1961

•••

I was just a week shy of my 18th birthday when I heard JFK give this speech, equally famous for “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” I spent six years of the 1960s and most of the ’70s answering Kennedy’s call.

This year, 40 years after Jimmy Carter was defeated by Ronald Reagan, the torch part of the speech rings most loudly in my ears. And I think it’s time to pass the torch once again.

Kennedy was talking about passing the torch to his generation, the one we now call “The Greatest Generation,” the generation of my parents. In West Virginia politics, you could call it the start of “The Byrd Generation.”

In that time, and for 30-plus years after, Democrats were walking in high cotton in West Virginia. We took the House of Delegates by 91-9 in 1976, the year Carter was elected. As recently as 1990, Democrats held the State Senate by the astounding margin of 33-1. And, for a six-election stretch from the early 1980s to the early ’90s, dropped below 30 of the 34 senate seats only twice — and, in those years, they won 27 and 29 seats.

But times were changing in West Virginia politics, as the power of the United Mine Workers of America and other unions was gradually wiped out while the power of the Coal Owners Association and other “Friends of Coal” continued unabated.

By 2010, the string of Democrat dominance came to an end, in part because of the end of Sen. Byrd’s unmatched, nearly 60-year congressional career.

The Coal Owners Association and the Republican Party went on the attack with their “War on Coal” campaign, while the Democrats, formerly the party of policy, resorted to playing defense, taking their lead from Gov. (now Sen.) Joe Manchin, a member of my generation, who tacks, successfully so far, between Democratic and Republican positions. He is considered perhaps the most bipartisan member of the U.S. Senate and, with his ascendancy, the state Democratic Party has become as much an extension of his personal political operation as it is the voice of the rank and file Democrats in West Virginia.

Things came to a head in 2016, when Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., carried all 55 counties over Hillary Clinton in the primary election, getting 125,000 votes to her 87,000, and a flock of Bernie supporters showed up at the state convention to support their candidate and ask for changes in the governance of the state party.

This influx of new energy was rebuffed by the established leadership, which perhaps saw them as destructive “Johnny Come Latelys” rather than as legitimate advocates for a “new look” state party.

The disaffection of this new group was complete when, with the use of 8 super-delegate votes, the national convention delegation cast 19 votes for Clinton and 18 for Sanders, despite his overwhelming victory in the West Virginia primary. This breach has not yet healed.

In the 2016 general election, Donald Trump and state Republicans won in a landslide; West Virginia vied with Wyoming for producing the highest percentage of Trump votes for president.

In 2018, with no Trump on the ticket, there was a modest comeback for the Democrats, but 2020 was an unmitigated disaster. With Trump again at the top of the ticket, the Republicans swept all statewide offices, the U.S. Senate race and all three congressional seats. And the Legislature, in January, will have Republican supermajorities in both Houses. This downward trend continued at the county levels, where Democrats also experienced big losses.

So the era of the Democrats who came of age in the 1960s and ’70s — one might call it the “Manchin Generation” in West Virginia politics — comes to a close with the biggest electoral disaster since 1928, the election just before the Great Depression — the worst West Virginia Democratic Party performance in 92 years.

But this isn’t just about Trump; the decline had started at least by 2010, back when the idea of him running for president would have been considered a joke.

My conclusion: It’s time to pass the torch to a new generation of West Virginians. My generation took over a strong Democratic Party and let it fall apart, year after year, until there’s almost nothing left.

It’s time for our generation, the young insurgents of the 1960s and ’70s, to step aside, to give up the leadership roles we have so poorly carried out. I firmly believe that the elected party leaders on all levels, from my lowly position as vice chairman of the executive committee of one of the smallest counties in the state (41st in population) all the way up to the officers of the state executive committee, need to make way for a new generation of Democrats.

A longtime party leader, who has resigned all his posts, wrote me:

“I am and will always remain a very proud and dedicated member of the Democratic Party. If I have any remaining role in politics it might be to help mentor and encourage young people who may be willing to pick up the pieces and assume the mantle of responsibility in furthering the important values and principles of our party.”

As a generation of Democrats, we’ve been weighed in the balance and found wanting. If we have a useful role to play, it’s as mentors and advisers to any young leader who might choose to seek our help.

Otherwise, it’s the park bench and the Hardee’s morning coffee group for us.