In my opinion the Democrats need to rediscover their New Deal roots. Abandon the billionaires and Wall Street and make it clear that they have done so. Create their own version of Gingrich's Contract with America that offers a simple list of priorities:
1) Main Street not Wall Street
2) Universal health care not predatory insurance companies
3) Universal child care and Pre-K
4) $20 minimum wage
5) Restore Eisenhower Era tax rates
6) Rein in the Military Industrial Complex
7) Her body, her choice.
8) Who you chose to love is none of my business.
9) Ban assault weapons
10) Universal background checks
11) Make schools safe from gun violence
You get my point. And no, that is not a radical leftist manifesto, that is a reflection of what most Americans want.
1-3 and 5-11 have no relevance to the New Deal. Plus, New Deal programs were either white only or had segregated benefits. It’s not a stretch to argue that political polarization is in part an effect of the Democratic Party’s attempts to extend the largesse of the New Deal to all.
How do you know that this is what most people want?
1. The Republican Party of the 20s and 30s was an amalgam of Main St and Wall St.
2. Roosevelt was uninterested in universal health care as it threatened his alliance with southern segregationists. His position changed during WW2 when the military pressed him to support UHC (because widespread malnutrition during the Depression rendered half of potential draftees to be classified as 4-F.)
5. Eisenhower-era tax rates reflected the vast number of loopholes in the tax code, most of which have been closed. We’d be better off pushing for an alignment of the capital gains rate with the personal income tax rate on the grounds that money earned from money should not be taxed at a lower rate than money earned from work.
6. The military-industrial complex is the result of Roosevelt’s strategy of reorienting the U.S. economy to be the “arsenal of democracy.”
I was the Democratic nominee for a seat in the North Carolina Senate this past election and I believe this analysis is spot on. We have a lot of issues we talk about but not a coherent message.
You want to check out my Substack. I'm building out a resource center fut everyone who wants to run for state or local office. That's where the change needs to start as that's where the opportunities are
One problem unique to Democrats is that there are two overarching constituencies that don’t entirely trust or respect each other: The institutionalist liberal center-left and the progressive populist left. The former arguably comprises a majority of the party; the latter is nonetheless significant in size as well as much more focused and charismatic. To my mind, neither has much emotional reach outside of itself. I can’t say that I have a solution other than it would be nice to stop talking past each other.
Kamala lost because of the foreign influence online network that has had years to embed itself in every segment of the population. Until a thorough analysis and understanding of this coordinated QAnon infiltration is complete we will not catch up. We need marketing and strategy which Dems are terrible at.
well, i heard Democrats were like herding cats. and i don't see a problem with that. If Democrats can unite on anything it would be hating Trump. i think that fits the "politics is about who you hate" formulation .
Republicans seem to have a winning hand with who they have taught to hate who. but I prefer to have to make up my own mind about what policies i can vote for in order to get what other policies i would like to see enacted. i think it's a matter of intelligence... or only of a flexible brain if those are not the same thing. whatever intelligence Republican have it seems to be about making money and fooling people who don't think too much about anything.
Eisenhower being the glaring exception in my experience. You might want to read Richard Striner's biography...though i suspect you will have heard stories about Ike that don't agree with Striner's take.
please don't let democrats become another Party with One Idea. we seem to have won our fair share of elections without that. Trump won this time because hate works, so does voter disenfranchisement. between the two he got more voters to vote for him. there were some "issues" that candidates did not actually talk about, but pundits did and commentators like us did ...which turned off a lot of voters. some of them turn me off...but not enough to vote aginst the underlying values which i believe to be somethng like being opposed to racism and hate and invading personal privacy...which seems to me to be a coherent package..."anti-hate"?
I've been a frequent canvasser in California's 27th district (a seat we just successfully flipped to Democrat George Whitesides!). Out for lunch with fellow volunteers after our mornings of door-knocking, our Dem shirts and hats often led to conversations with other patrons and employees -- all surprisingly positive, despite the purpleness of the district.
A couple of months ago, at our favorite burger place, the young woman behind the counter mentioned that she'd be voting for the first time in the November election. I asked if she knew who she was voting for, and she said she didn't even know the difference between the parties. Put on the spot to give her an elevator pitch, I simply said, "Republicans are for billionaires, and Democrats are for working people."
I feel like this is a very simple, true, and easy to understand message. It's one that Trump is doing his damnedest to reinforce via his appointments and alliance with Musk and Ramaswamy, and that can be easily backed up by the parties' policy priorities. Plus, it even fits on a bumper sticker!
See https://open.substack.com/pub/sharonlawrence/p/elections-where-is-our-project-2025. I do a deep dive into this subject, promoted by Elissa Slotkin's question, "Where is our project 2025?". I've appended to that post a document I wrote in 2020 comparing the Democratic and Republican party platforms. (Hint. The comparison was not favorable.)
I did some research and pulled out Democratic party platforms from 80+ years ago as examples of better strategies. I'll be doing a post on that shortly.
It might be argued that the Democratic party hasn't had something like that to stand for since the new deal and the Great society. Formulating these positions and making them core to the Democratic identity is important.
Sadly what's also important might be who they hate. Since hate seems to be such a great motivator in politics.
1) Equality--equal citizenship and equal civil rights for all citizens
2) Economic fairness for ordinary people
These are the reasons I vote for Democrats. Both of these distinguish the party from Republican patriarchs, royalists, and plutocrats.
On the first, equality: I am a woman. The Democratic Party is the only party in my lifetime that has given more than lip service to my equality. It is, no doubt, what keeps people of color and those who belong to minority religions voting mostly for Democrats.
On the second, economic fairness: This encompasses support for unions, the social safety net, progressive taxation, bank and securities regulation, anti-monopoly laws, and all the other Democratic policies the New Deal is famous for. It's a less convincing foundational belief to campaign on today, since so many Democratic politicians cozy up to rich people, but it is a traditional Democratic principle.
I don't see why "We're the party of equality and economic fairness" wouldn't be a total winner, if promoted consistently.
This is really helpful and I look forward to further installments. I hate it that every time we lose an election, a lot of voices scream -- "drop the inclusiveness bullshit." Can't go there; it's the main reason I'm here. And it takes all of us, somehow. Where's the vision thing?
1) Government should serve the interests of ordinary people, not the rich
2) every one deserves basic education, food, healthcare
3) govt should stay out of personal decisions that don’t affect others
In my opinion the Democrats need to rediscover their New Deal roots. Abandon the billionaires and Wall Street and make it clear that they have done so. Create their own version of Gingrich's Contract with America that offers a simple list of priorities:
1) Main Street not Wall Street
2) Universal health care not predatory insurance companies
3) Universal child care and Pre-K
4) $20 minimum wage
5) Restore Eisenhower Era tax rates
6) Rein in the Military Industrial Complex
7) Her body, her choice.
8) Who you chose to love is none of my business.
9) Ban assault weapons
10) Universal background checks
11) Make schools safe from gun violence
You get my point. And no, that is not a radical leftist manifesto, that is a reflection of what most Americans want.
I have a post coming sharing the Democratic party platforms from the new deal era. Look for it
1-3 and 5-11 have no relevance to the New Deal. Plus, New Deal programs were either white only or had segregated benefits. It’s not a stretch to argue that political polarization is in part an effect of the Democratic Party’s attempts to extend the largesse of the New Deal to all.
How do you know that this is what most people want?
1. The Republican Party of the 20s and 30s was an amalgam of Main St and Wall St.
2. Roosevelt was uninterested in universal health care as it threatened his alliance with southern segregationists. His position changed during WW2 when the military pressed him to support UHC (because widespread malnutrition during the Depression rendered half of potential draftees to be classified as 4-F.)
5. Eisenhower-era tax rates reflected the vast number of loopholes in the tax code, most of which have been closed. We’d be better off pushing for an alignment of the capital gains rate with the personal income tax rate on the grounds that money earned from money should not be taxed at a lower rate than money earned from work.
6. The military-industrial complex is the result of Roosevelt’s strategy of reorienting the U.S. economy to be the “arsenal of democracy.”
I was the Democratic nominee for a seat in the North Carolina Senate this past election and I believe this analysis is spot on. We have a lot of issues we talk about but not a coherent message.
You want to check out my Substack. I'm building out a resource center fut everyone who wants to run for state or local office. That's where the change needs to start as that's where the opportunities are
One problem unique to Democrats is that there are two overarching constituencies that don’t entirely trust or respect each other: The institutionalist liberal center-left and the progressive populist left. The former arguably comprises a majority of the party; the latter is nonetheless significant in size as well as much more focused and charismatic. To my mind, neither has much emotional reach outside of itself. I can’t say that I have a solution other than it would be nice to stop talking past each other.
This is why probably of people will move to a third party.
Kamala lost because of the foreign influence online network that has had years to embed itself in every segment of the population. Until a thorough analysis and understanding of this coordinated QAnon infiltration is complete we will not catch up. We need marketing and strategy which Dems are terrible at.
well, i heard Democrats were like herding cats. and i don't see a problem with that. If Democrats can unite on anything it would be hating Trump. i think that fits the "politics is about who you hate" formulation .
Republicans seem to have a winning hand with who they have taught to hate who. but I prefer to have to make up my own mind about what policies i can vote for in order to get what other policies i would like to see enacted. i think it's a matter of intelligence... or only of a flexible brain if those are not the same thing. whatever intelligence Republican have it seems to be about making money and fooling people who don't think too much about anything.
Eisenhower being the glaring exception in my experience. You might want to read Richard Striner's biography...though i suspect you will have heard stories about Ike that don't agree with Striner's take.
please don't let democrats become another Party with One Idea. we seem to have won our fair share of elections without that. Trump won this time because hate works, so does voter disenfranchisement. between the two he got more voters to vote for him. there were some "issues" that candidates did not actually talk about, but pundits did and commentators like us did ...which turned off a lot of voters. some of them turn me off...but not enough to vote aginst the underlying values which i believe to be somethng like being opposed to racism and hate and invading personal privacy...which seems to me to be a coherent package..."anti-hate"?
Human rights, civil rights, personal liberty, and justice for all.
I'm doing a series of posts in this, starting with this one, https://open.substack.com/pub/sharonlawrence/p/elections-where-is-our-project-2025
I've been a frequent canvasser in California's 27th district (a seat we just successfully flipped to Democrat George Whitesides!). Out for lunch with fellow volunteers after our mornings of door-knocking, our Dem shirts and hats often led to conversations with other patrons and employees -- all surprisingly positive, despite the purpleness of the district.
A couple of months ago, at our favorite burger place, the young woman behind the counter mentioned that she'd be voting for the first time in the November election. I asked if she knew who she was voting for, and she said she didn't even know the difference between the parties. Put on the spot to give her an elevator pitch, I simply said, "Republicans are for billionaires, and Democrats are for working people."
I feel like this is a very simple, true, and easy to understand message. It's one that Trump is doing his damnedest to reinforce via his appointments and alliance with Musk and Ramaswamy, and that can be easily backed up by the parties' policy priorities. Plus, it even fits on a bumper sticker!
See https://open.substack.com/pub/sharonlawrence/p/elections-where-is-our-project-2025. I do a deep dive into this subject, promoted by Elissa Slotkin's question, "Where is our project 2025?". I've appended to that post a document I wrote in 2020 comparing the Democratic and Republican party platforms. (Hint. The comparison was not favorable.)
I did some research and pulled out Democratic party platforms from 80+ years ago as examples of better strategies. I'll be doing a post on that shortly.
It might be argued that the Democratic party hasn't had something like that to stand for since the new deal and the Great society. Formulating these positions and making them core to the Democratic identity is important.
Sadly what's also important might be who they hate. Since hate seems to be such a great motivator in politics.
Sadly.
The whole point of being a Democrat is not hating people.
My suggestions:
1) Equality--equal citizenship and equal civil rights for all citizens
2) Economic fairness for ordinary people
These are the reasons I vote for Democrats. Both of these distinguish the party from Republican patriarchs, royalists, and plutocrats.
On the first, equality: I am a woman. The Democratic Party is the only party in my lifetime that has given more than lip service to my equality. It is, no doubt, what keeps people of color and those who belong to minority religions voting mostly for Democrats.
On the second, economic fairness: This encompasses support for unions, the social safety net, progressive taxation, bank and securities regulation, anti-monopoly laws, and all the other Democratic policies the New Deal is famous for. It's a less convincing foundational belief to campaign on today, since so many Democratic politicians cozy up to rich people, but it is a traditional Democratic principle.
I don't see why "We're the party of equality and economic fairness" wouldn't be a total winner, if promoted consistently.
Cheat Sheet: What Democrats Believe
(and why we should use government to do it.)
https://reframingamerica.substack.com/p/cheat-sheet
This is really helpful and I look forward to further installments. I hate it that every time we lose an election, a lot of voices scream -- "drop the inclusiveness bullshit." Can't go there; it's the main reason I'm here. And it takes all of us, somehow. Where's the vision thing?
Also, Trump cheated. Not a doubt in my mind.