I read Charles Homans's piece in the New York Times Magazine on March 19 on the state of the Democratic Party with consternation over the fact that the Democrats don't seem to recognize their direct path back to the majority, and journalists seem to be reifying that dazed confusion. No one seems to start from the fact that the electorate didn't reject Democratic orthodoxy; it endorsed it with a 2.8 million vote popular plurality in the presidential election and the addition of 2 Democratic senate seats and 6 Democrats in The House. The problem with which the Democrats are faced is not lack of popular support. The problem is a lack of judgment when it comes to strategy.
Bernie Sanders was the only Democrat whom polls consistently showed capable of beating every Republican handily from the start of the campaign's plenary phase all the way until he conceded to Clinton. Clinton was never "destined" to prevail as Sanders was. Thus, the election problem is, how does the Democratic Party chose the right candidate...a desirable candidate, which I am sorry to say Hillary is not. That's how the White House will be regained. As to politics between now and then, the Democratic platform is the choice of the majority of the electorate, or at least a viable plurality, and The Party should play to that strength. The Republicans cannot say as much. So the strategy for Democratic participation in legislation until 2020 should be to say "no" not as a matter of course--not as a function of obstructionism and partisanship--but because specific things that the Republicans want to do are inimical to the well-being of the majority of the American people, and to do so loudly and often. Let the Republicans flounder around with, for example, healthcare, and if they pass a bill and Trump signs it, let them live with it in 2018 and then in 2020. In the interim, now that the "Blue Dogs" are gone from the Democratic Party, put a bill on the floor of Congress or The Senate that will save "Obamacare." Draft a bill that inserts the public option into the Affordable Care Act and let the Republicans kill it. It won't take long for the vast majority of Americans to realize that, by comparison Obamacare with that option serves our people far better than "Trumpcare." They will also realize that if the Republicans had just been willing to provide the modicum of support that was required, Obamacare--with the public option--was always the best solution our politics will allow, even in 2010 when it was passed.
The potential significance of such a strategy is that policies on issues will again be the criteria on the basis of which the vast majority of votes will be cast in national, state and local elections. If the Democrats demonstrate that partisanship is unavailing as a political modus operandi, we will return to elections in which the two poles are not Republican and Democrat; they will be liberal and conservative, which in reality is what our politics are all about. It must be understood that the strategy won't likely succeed in just one presidential term. It may require that the Democrats continually and consistently emphasize loudly and clearly that such is their goal for some time, and to be blunt, self-promotion hasn't been the Democratic Party's forte. Principle doesn't have the resonance that shameless calumny and misdirection do. But over the course of time...say ten years...a policy of candor--and by necessity such a policy entails an element of "I told you so"--if trumpeted and reiterated often could shift the emphasis of our polity from ascension to and retention of power by party to realistic and humanistic consideration of policy and its outcome. It is the lack of sincere belief in what we are doing that keeps us from full actuation of the American ideal. If we are to be great, we must also be noble...and perspicacious.
Your friend,
Mike
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