No tears, no meh
The Democratic Party doesn’t have a winnable political strategy
Above: Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer celebrating the 53–47 Senate vote to confirm Ketanji Brown Jackson to the US Supreme Court, April 7. Photo courtesy of the NYTimes
Indulge me.
Strategically, not much has happened since HRC’s defeat in 2016 except a vote against Trump in 2020. Now that card has been played and the Senator-occupying-the-White-House will be up for re-election at the spry age of 80.
Is this scenario what the Democrats want going into the 2022 mid-terms?
The Democratic Party needs more than stent surgery going forward. The Democratic Party needs a transplant. The blood pumping organ is under stress. The atherosclerosis is too advanced.
Let’s agree on the prognosis before we jump into another prognosis.
What do we do when the opposition disabuses self-interest? It’s been a half-generation since the book, “What’s the Matter with Kansas” was published.(1)
And fourteen months since our ‘First Lady of the Polls’ helped deliver 2 Georgia Senators sealing a President’s and a Party’s legacy, for now. (2)
The caveats which these writer-activists propose — that the opposition would attempt a war on identity politics and wage in parallel a war on the electoral process — has prompted no salient response from Democratic Party leadership. And the temporary lull brought on by a party -nominated survivor in the White House is about to end.
Soon America will be welcoming “Romneyism” as a salve masking a slow takeover of democracy.
About time to reassess, hmmm?
‘Heal thyself’
1.Stop blaming Progressives, who are doing your job.
2.Decriminalize marijuana.
3.Forgive student loan debt.
4.Confirm a generation of Black women to the higher courts.
5.Tame inflation through temporary wage-profit-price controls — spread the sacrifice.
6.Expand health care protection.
7.Lower age requirements for receiving social security benefits — aging and health care are the new domestic social issues
Which brings us to…
Visualize Strategy
1.Uncouple ‘my pocketbook thinking’ — it’s not a winnable strategy. (3)
2.Think handouts and protections.
3.Avoid self-defeating gambits: who cares except the opposition?
4.Create a ‘parallel news cycle:’ assume the opposition owns the media.
5.Stop basing strategy on white board prognosis: circulate in the streets — don’t ask, listen.
Which brings us to…
Campaign, campaign, campaign
1.If Eleanor Roosevelt could do it, where’s our moxie? (4)
2.Rally issues to the ‘fore, not Rubicons.
3.It’s never ‘over’ as Zelenskyy reminds us.
4.Learn from Marie Le Pen. (5)
5.’Build a Maidan.’ (6)
This is about tone not about who your friends are. Read political history: it’s always been about tone. Consider that a struggle can’t survive without a promise, a commitment.
Democrats — hell, ‘all of us’ — need to relearn that.
Daily, not every 4 years.
April 18–19
Notes
1-“What’s the Matter with Kansas? How the Conservatives Won the Heart of America,” Thomas Frank, 2004
2-https://rodneyclough.medium.com/elections-according-to-stacey-abrams-f7aa769e4162
For an update on Abrams’ recent court struggle see https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/13/us/politics/georgia-stacey-abrams-brian-kemp.html
3- “In particular, Democrats who want to campaign on bread-and-butter issues are assuming that voters will understand who’s actually buttering their bread. And that doesn’t look at all like a safe assumption.”
-Paul Krugman, “The GOP is still the Party of Plutocrats,” New York Times, April 4, 2022
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/14/opinion/republicans-populism-rich.html
4-David Michaelis, “Eleanor,” 2020
5-“I am not making a case for Le Pen. If she wins, the consequences for France, Europe, and the world will be terrifying, But there is some genuine populism — advocacy of policies that might help workers — in her platform.”
-Paul Krugman ibid.
6-https://rodneyclough.medium.com/thugs-ea28dee9ab01
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