#patrick deval

The contest for control of the Democratic Party between left and center is continuing apace. The latest battleground is over a handful of minority Democrats being groomed by the centrist establishment to run for office: Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), and former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick.

If the center wants to win over a suspicious left, they can start by clearly explaining their policy orientation, particularly in areas where they might have fallen short by the supposed standards of the modern Democratic Party — which all three of the above candidates have done in various ways. If they want to deepen divisions, they can use cynical accusations of bigotry to try to beat back any leftist challenger.

Let's take each in turn. The former attorney general of California, Harris is mistrusted by the left mostly because of her roots as a prosecutor. The Black Lives Matter movement has put anyone with law enforcement history under close scrutiny, and California's criminal justice system is notoriously brutal (though it has improved recently). While she is obviously no Jeff Sessions, Harris has sometimes displayed a rather Hillary Clinton-esque tendency to say the right thing but not follow through in a vigorous way. Most notoriously, she refused to prosecute Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin's old company OneWest for numerous instances of almost certain illegal foreclosure, against the advice of her own Consumer Law Section, and has so far refused to say why. (She was also the only Senate Democratic candidate to get a donation from Mnuchin himself in 2016.)

Booker is mistrusted because of his ties to Wall Street. Most notoriously, when President Obama attacked Mitt Romney during the 2012 campaign for his long career as a bloodsucking financial parasite, buying up companies only to strip their assets and drive them into bankruptcy, Booker defended Bain Capital on Meet the Press. Why? Because New Jersey is just across the river from Manhattan and both parties are drowning in Wall Street cash.

Patrick is least trusted of all because he actually works for Bain Capital as a managing director. If he were to run for president, as Obama's inner circle is apparently urging him to, President Trump would just have to copy-paste Obama's 2012 ads.

In other words, there are quite substantive reasons why a leftist might not trust any of those candidates. The probably accurate perception that all three candidates are being groomed by the same big-money donors that clustered around Hillary Clinton will only deepen the divide, because it suggests that — like pro-union rules, or the public option in ObamaCare — any adoption of Sanders-style proposals are mostly bait to be cast aside when it comes time to actually pass something.

If they want to win over the left — and Harris, who has expressed at least mild support for tuition-free public college (for families with income less than $140,000), a $15 minimum wage, expanded Social Security, and Medicare for all, would probably be the most credible person to attempt this — they need to first explain their recent history.

Second, and perhaps more importantly, they need to make a symbolic rhetorical break with the despised donor class. The left generally likes Elizabeth Warren because she ferociously criticizes Wall Street and corporate abuse. Adopting a harsh anti-economic elite line will reassure young Sanders Democrats that anti-establishment policies aren't just window dressing. Meanwhile, steps like refusing to take PAC money and running mostly on small donors will signal independence from the donor class (and as Sanders discovered, might actually lead to a gusher of campaign cash).

But if they just want to have a retread of the 2015-16 primary, the center could just try to win dirty. The left, they might say (working hand-in-glove with sympathetic columnists), just doesn't like minority or female candidates because they are racist and sexist.

I would bet quite a lot of money the centrist Democratic establishment will opt for the latter strategy. Indeed, some are already doing so — like Neera Tanden, head of the Center for American Progress, elite Democrats' in-house think tank.

POST-SCRIPTUM 773

BARNEY WILEN, Moshi (1972)

Dès 1967, en compagnie de la pianiste Irène Schweizer, du trompettiste Manfred Schoof et de la section rythmique du groupe allemand Guru Guru, Barney Wilen tisse déjà des liens entre jazz et musiques du monde sur l’album Jazz Meets India produit par Joachim-Ernst Berendt, critique de jazz pionnier en la matière.

De même, Barney Wilen se montre sensible au free jazz américain qu’il honore alors à Paris, au Requin Chagrin, en compagnie du vibraphoniste Karl Berger, des bassistes Jean-François Jenny-Clark, Beb Guérin et du batteur Jacques Thollot, alors qu’à quelques encablures, dans une même veine, le pianiste François Tusques sévit à La Vieille Grille. C’est l’époque où François Jeanneau, Michel Portal, Bernard Vitet et quelques autres animent des nuits d’effervescence particulières, ce dont témoignent l’album Le Nouveau jazz de François Tusques (en 1967 toujours), et Zodiac (un an auparavant), signé par Barney Wilen celui-là. Ces deux disques ont tout du bras d’honneur au conformisme ambiant, que d’ailleurs Barney Wilen réitère sur Dear Prof. Leary, en référence au grand manitou du LSD et afin de rendre notamment hommage à Bobby Gentry, Otis Redding et aux Beatles, ce qu’il fait en compagnie du guitariste Mimi Lorenzini, transfuge encore adolescent (et allumé) du groupe du chanteur de variétés Claude François !

1968 : la séquence free se poursuit dans un hommage au pilote de l’écurie Ferrari Lorenzo Bandini, mort en course lors du Grand Prix de Monaco l’année précédente. Bareny Wilen : « Quand je souffle, je ferme les yeux et je vois des images. Ces images correspondent à des états vagues plus ou moins précis qui renvoient à ce que j’ai vu, entendu ou lu. » C’est aussi l’époque où le saxophoniste part en Afrique vérifier sur le terrain ce qu’il sait de la musique pygmée et de l’afrobeat. Avec sa compagne Caroline de Bendern, égérie de Mai 68 célébrée par une photo des événements où elle apparait juchée sur les épaules du plasticien Jean-Jacques Lebel, Barney Wilen fait sienne – en le rejoignant – l’innocence sauvage du collectif Zanzibar (Philippe Garrel, Serge Bard, Daniel Pommereulle, Patrick Deval) dont les expériences comptent parmi les plus fascinantes du cinéma français.

Sahara, Mali, Niger : Barney Wilen et Caroline de Bendern prennent la route, et de Tanger à Zanzibar la vie s’écoule. Caroline de Bendern : « Trois Land Rover peints en jaune, orange et rouge brillant, une caméra 35 mm et tous ses accessoires, beaucoup d’instruments de musique, amplis et magnétophones… Je crois que vous avez compris… On n’est jamais arrivé à Zanzibar ! » Heureusement, au fil des rencontres, les bandes s’accumulent par dizaines. Initiatique, ce voyage est suivi d’un second, plus bref mais pas moins nécessaire à la réalisation d’un disque (le fameux Moshi) pour Saravah, le label de Pierre Barouh. Face au matériel sonore ramené, Barney Wilen et son groupe célèbrent donc le « moshi » sous la forme d’une transe faisant la part belle aux rituels traditionnels et parcourue d’une spiritualité joyeuse dialoguée en re-recording, avec un gros clin d’œil au Karma de Pharoah Sanders. Barney Wilen : « Le swing participe de la magie. C’est une manière de faire ou de dire des choses, telle qu’on est toujours dépassé par ce qu’on fait. »

American Indian Women by Patrick Deval