The Democratic National Committee has formally invited the anti-police Black Lives Matter to host a presidential town hall. It’s the latest move by the Democrats to kowtow to a movement whose hero Assata Shakur is currently on the FBI’s most wanted terrorist list.
The official courtship dance began yesterday with a demand for a Black Lives Matter debate in a petition posted by the website IAm.ColorOfChange.org that was addressed to DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz. The petition began:
The #BlackLivesMatter network and our allies urge Democratic National Committee Chairperson Debbie Wasserman Schultz to allow for more Presidential candidate debates leading up to the Presidential election in 2016, and to support a #BlackLivesMatter themed Presidential debate.
Why is this important?
It is not enough to poll the Presidential candidates on whether or not they think “Black Lives Matter” or “All Lives Matter” — we deserve substantive responses and policy recommendations. We deserve substance and not rhetoric. In fact, we demand it.
While they did not support a full-fledged debate, the DNC response was rapid and enthusiastic, praising the “commitment to progressive values” of the group that screamed, “Burn everything down” at their Netroots Nation takeover. As posted by Black Lives Matter on their Facebook page, the DNC’s Amy Dacey said in part that the group that chanted “Pigs in a blanket, fry ‘em like bacon!” after the murders of police officers would be “an ideal host for a presidential candidate forum”:
Given your organization’s active grassroots membership and its commitment to progressive values including an end to institutional racism, we believe that your organization would be an ideal host for a presidential candidate forum – where all of the Democratic candidates can showcase their ideas and policy positions that will expand opportunity for all, strengthen the middle class and address racism in America. If you choose to organize such an event, we at the DNC would be happy to help promote the event.
The move was immediately trumpeted by many on the left, including progressive magazine Mother Jones, who wrote about the other connections between the Democrat establishment and the radical, violent black power movement in an article titled “Black Lives Matter Just Officially Became Part of the Democratic Primary”:
In August, the DNC passed a resolution declaring its support for the movement. Bernie Sanders introduced a criminal justice platform days after activists from the Black Lives Matter network, which was founded after the 2012 shooting of Trayvon Martin, interrupted him at a rally in Seattle over the summer. And members of the police-reform group Campaign Zero, which is also affiliated with the Black Lives Matter movement, introduced a well-received criminal justice policy agenda.
The Black Lives Matter movement was not as impressed with the DNC’s offer, with Black Lives Matter organizer Elle Hearns telling the Washington Post, “Their response to our request is unsatisfactory.”