Opinion | Katya Yindra
On February 1, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) elected Ken Martin as its new Chair. The DNC, whose function is to craft strategy and messaging for electoral gains, has been in a state of disarray since their failed attempt to prop up Kamala Harris as the next chief of US imperialism.
As the 2024 electoral farce spiraled to new depths, Democratic leadership revealed itself to be increasingly more rudderless. Now, in 2025, they have elected Martin, who is also the chair of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party. Selecting Martin as the face of what is essentially the Democrat PR team exposes a desperate attempt to ignite working-class voters in the Midwest after hemorrhaging their votes in 2024. To understand this trend, one only has to look back to January 2021 when, coming off the heat of the George Floyd Uprisings, the DNC elected Ken Martin’s predecessor, Jaime Harrison, a Black man, in an attempt to neutralize mass outrage and reabsorb it into the electoral machine.
On matters of policy, the Democrats grow increasingly less discernible from the Republicans. Only through manipulation of rhetoric and optics do the milquetoast Democrats attempt to distinguish themselves. With no real commitment or values, they vacillate between trends hoping that something sticks long enough to win them votes. In the case of Ken Martin, the DNC is following the trend of jingoist-populism that has seemingly been successful for the Republicans.
Before his election, Martin took the stage at the DNC winter meeting, boasting about his participation in a march with “labor leaders” outside of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. He recounted singing the old union song Which Side Are You On? and claimed that for a “pro-labor progressive” like himself, it struck a deep chord. “Democrats need to ask ourselves each day, whose side are you on?” he said before firing some rhetorical questions: “Are we on the side of the robber baron, the ultra-wealthy billionaire, the oil and gas polluter, the union buster? Or are we on the side of the American working family, the small business owner, the farmer, the immigrants, and the students? Let me tell you, I know which side I’m on.”
Following his election, Martin sought to reinforce this contrived pro-worker image, proclaiming, “The fight is for working people. The fight right now is against Donald Trump and the billionaires who bought this country.” He called for Democrats to “go on offense,” accusing Trump of filling the Oval Office with billionaires who “mine, extract, and profit off of our government.” Martin insisted, “This is our time right now. It’s the people’s government. It’s not another resource for ultra-elites to exploit.”
At Politico’s DNC Candidate Forum back in January, Martin attempted the same populist script. When asked about DNC funding, he claimed the party shouldn’t take money from billionaires “who have no interest in helping the working-class.” But when pressed further, he quickly clarified: “There are a lot of good billionaires out there that have been with Democrats, who share our values, and we will take their money. But we’re not taking money from those bad billionaires.”
But how does Martin discern between so-called good and bad billionaires? One standard for him, it seems, is whether a billionaire has an “interest in helping the working-class.” But what billionaire reaches that status due to their interest in “helping the working class”? Martin’s hypocritical performance is designed to placate a disillusioned base while maintaining the Democratic Party’s corporate backing.
The Democrats are no stranger to billionaire funding. During the last election cycle, Harris’s campaign received more billionaire support than Trump’s. Bill Gates publicly backed Harris’s campaign, but when Trump won, Gates wasted no time pivoting, meeting with him at Mar-a-Lago and later stating he was “frankly impressed” with Trump’s enthusiasm for “driving innovation.” The ruling class does not care about party affiliation; their interests remain protected regardless of who is in office. Martin’s claim that the DNC should only take money from billionaires “who share [Democrat] values” begs the question: what values?
Perhaps he means their shared values to uphold the imperialist hegemony of the US. This allegiance is observed in the Democrats’ unwavering support for Israel and all its corporate lobbying across the country.
Look no further than the Democrats’ financial ties to pro-Israel lobbying groups like AIPAC, which has funneled over $28 million to 152 Democratic politicians. Fortunately for these Zionist groups, the Democrats prove their shared values by putting their faith in Martin, who has consistently aligned himself with Zionism and demonstrating an eagerness to attack any criticism of Israel.
On October 9, 2023, he tweeted at the Twin Cities DSA, claiming that the slogan “From the river to the sea” was used by “extremists to support the destruction of Israel.” He criticized the DSA’s statement for failing to acknowledge the deaths of Israeli and American civilians, calling it “disgusting.”
A day later, Martin quoted a tweet that posted a now-debunked claim from The Jewish Chronicle alleging that Hamas had beheaded babies during Operation Al-Aqsa Flood. Martin added a personal comment about previously visiting Kfar Aza Kibbutz, stating that it was “the closest Kibbutz to Gaza” and that the people he met “were some of the first impacted by the Hamas terrorists who crossed the border.”
On October 12, he quote-tweeted the national DSA, saying, “The true cause of this [war] is Hamas, an Iranian-backed terrorist organization which decided to deliberately target innocent men, women, and children and murder them in cold blood. Facts. Check ’em then GTFO.”
The election of Martin as chair is not a new development; it reaffirms the party’s long-standing strategy of reactionary adaptation. The Democrats move further to the Right in an attempt to compete with the Republicans for securing ruling-class support. Martin’s politics is not a break from Biden and Harris, but a continuation of the same tired formula, proving that the Democrats have nothing new to offer.
Whether through corporate donations, Zionist lobbying, or strategic endorsements from the ultra-wealthy, the Democratic Party continues to serve as a vehicle for ruling-class domination. The question Martin asked at the DNC meeting—“Whose side are you on?”—has already been answered. The Democrats are, and always have been, on the side of the ruling class.
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