Democrats,
it’s important to protest and march, but it’s time to organize. Yes, it’s time to take the lesson from the 2009
Republican playbook and run with it in every state across this great land. It’s time the launch the People’s Party. Not an original idea, well how many really are,
and does it matter? We have a job to
do. Why the People’s Party? Because it’s time to remind the electorate,
not to mention ourselves, that we are the party of the people. To borrow the iconic Coca-Cola claim, it’s
time to declare that when it comes to people’s needs, we are “the real thing”. And what is that real thing? Ultimately the goal has to be what Barack
Obama talked about in his 2004 convention speech, to be the united states of
America. That will require more than aspirational
rhetoric. Bill Clinton so effectively
would tell people, “I felt your pain”.
But empathy can only go so far.
What the many people who are suffering from job loss and our
increasingly economically bifurcated society need is that something be done to
redress their seemingly hopeless state.
They are, or feel they are, drowning and must be lifted out of the
water. We can’t really have the “united
states” without addressing and mitigating this distress.
Donald
Trump won an Electoral College victory. Her
popular vote plurality notwithstanding, Hillary Clinton and Democrats lost
support of voters in their natural constituency, American blue collar
workers. These are exactly the people for
whom the party ideology speaks and will continue to speak going forward. They should be a core constituency of the
People’s Party. But saying that is not
enough. The anger and angst being
expressed, the protest marches against Trump and his administration are not
only appropriate, they make tactical sense.
Turning that rejection and disdain on the people who voted for Trump does
not. The essence of a working democracy
is that we all have the right to our individual opinions, and equally we all
have the right to being respected as citizens and, yes, as human beings. Bigotry may have moved some Trump voters as
racism may account for some of the opposition to President Obama. But we shouldn’t assume that the majority of
those who supported the current president or opposed the past one are bad
people. A large number of Americans rightly
feel left behind – feel that they have been ignored – and that includes a good
number of Democrats who supported Bernie Sanders. The growing inequality of our time crosses
party lines. We must turn toward each
other in solidarity not against each other.
And
that may be the significant philosophical difference between the Tea Party and
the People’s Party. The former grew out
of and was sustained by anger. “No” became
more than a strategy, it became an ongoing sustaining mindset. True to the ideology of the Democratic Party,
the People’s Party must be driven by aspiration. “No” may, and will, be a necessary immediate tactic,
but “yes” must remain the core belief. That
difference is important, but strategically what we can learn for the Tea’s is what
they learned and refashioned from our own Tip O’Neill’s dictum: all politics is
local. The People’s Party may
express a national sentiment, but it’s focus and working battleground must be
local. The problems that require redress
are found at home, in the cities, towns and villages in individual states. It’s got to be a state by state –
legislatures, mayors and governors – a systematic and substantive effort.
Much
was made of an assumed Democratic Party demographic advantage. Given the result not merely in the
presidential contest but perhaps more so on the state level some may rightly
question if that assumption has legs. I
don’t. It’s a fact that younger
Americans along with growing minority communities, perhaps especially
Latinos, are becoming a much more significant percentage of the electorate. Perhaps I should say potential electorate
because numbers don’t mean anything unless and until they turn into votes. Tomorrow’s majority, today’s younger Americans,
seem more in tune with the Democrat’s progressive views. Issues like LGBT rights, marriage
equality or reproductive choice, for example, are no brainers.
Latinos, while not a monolithic community, also tend to be more aligned
with Democratic positions, certainly on equal pay and immigration. The challenge for the People’s Party is to
marshal the voting potential of this changed demographic into a reality. While hopefully this past election made that
point, we still have to convince citizens of all stripes that every vote does count. We have to up our voting game.
Equally
important is taking on the problem of job loss and deteriorating job pay. Part of that effort has to be turning back so-called
“Right to Work” anti-union laws in place or being enacted in an increasing
number of states. It is an anti-worker
trend that gives lie to Republican and specifically Trump claims of being for
all those people in America’s heartland.
We must also admit that part of unionism’s decline can be attributed to labor
leadership’s inadequate response to automation and other factors
that have impacted their member’s workplace.
It’s above my paygrade – I don’t have the "what’s needed" – but I suspect
unions and unionism has to be reimagined for our very different age. Union leaders have often succumbed to the
same corruption of power that is found in the political sphere. Self-interest and a wish to maintain their
own, often cushy, jobs has kept them for any such reimagination. Unions have generally supported Democrats,
but their frustrated and often anxious members don’t necessary feel that
they are getting any meaningful return on that investment. That has to change.
Donald
Trump is fond of calling himself the leader of a movement. He has certainly stoked the anger and, I think, unrealistically raised the hopes of many Americans. Whether someone so into himself can really
sustain a movement, real or imagined, is an open question. It’s also irrelevant to the task that lies
before us. We need to reenergize ourselves,
become a viable and potent movement. Not
a movement merely to combat, certainly not the loyal opposition that seeks
compromise when there is nothing about which to agree, but a movement that
looks forward. That works for a future
that will truly benefit all. A People’s
Party that has legs and substance, that can through hard work keep the promises
it makes.
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