The recent democratic losses in special elections were not a win for Trump. But those losses should finally and fully confirm for Democratic leaders – Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, Tom Perez, Keith Ellison and others seeking to lead or influence the Democratic Party – that Democrats will get nowhere if they only define themselves as anti-Trump. Look at the Republican Party – after eight years of identifying themselves as anti-Obama they are nowhere. They are trying to take advantage of a pseudo-Republican in the Oval Office but even that effort is in disarray. Democrats will only become more irrelevant if all they do is say “No” to Trump.
Elections remain campaigns of ideas and personalities, of persuading voters that Democratic candidates and the Democratic Party represent the best opportunity for bettering the lives of voters and our nation in the near and long term. Jon Ossoff deserves tremendous credit for going as far as he did. Yet his loss emphasizes the fact that the Democratic Party has yet to find a message that is compelling for voters and has yet to find the next generation of Democratic leaders. “A Better Deal”, the slogan recently rolled out by Senator Schumer and Rep. Pelosi is a start, but has all the resonance and excitement of lukewarm day-old soup. We need something punchier and meaningful.
If Democratic candidates are going to win elections and have any chance of taking back the Senate and the House, they need to stand for something positive and deliverable and they need to let the world know it. Resisting Trump is not enough. Building a bridge between the Sanders and Clinton/Obama wings of the Party may salve egos but does nothing to address voters’ concerns for the present and the future.
The Democratic Party needs new candidates with a message that resonates with truth and integrity about who and what Democrats are, what we stand for, and why voters should elect Democrats. The Democratic message must restore voters’ hope and faith in their government and in their own ability to rise above the challenges of today to build a better world for themselves and for their fellow Americans.
“Democrats: United We Stand, for Education, the Economy, Fairness, Opportunity, Security and Service.” These are the bedrock of Democratic values and the Democratic vision to restore the American Dream for all. These principles must be the heart of every Democratic campaign and every Democratic message. They are the rallying cry that can unite voters behind a cause they can believe in and can make happen.
Democrats need to provide voters with a strategy and a plan that inspires Americans to make our society work well for all. Each candidate will also need to address local issues but candidates can do that within the context of a Democratic Party working to serve and unite the nation, with all of us on the same team with the same core goals.
Education should be the first pillar of the Democratic Party platform. Education is the key to good employment at every level. Democrats need to propose programs to provide affordable or free vocational education, college education and job retraining education for workers whose jobs become obsolete because of technology changes or off-shoring. We need to encourage lifelong learning to enable our citizens to adapt to the inevitable changes technology and globalization will bring over the next generations.
The economy is the second pillar, since jobs are the engine that feeds us all: workers, managers, owners and even the government. Fair and reasonable compensation for the work performed well should be the standard for all workers, from the shop floor to the executive suites. There is no reason that low end workers should receive only the minimum wage while C-suite executives live lavishly with seven figure incomes and seven figure bonuses by squeezing the life out of their workers. The minimum wage should be raised, with the possibility of exemptions coupled with government subsidies for very low-end workers where the minimum wage might exclude them from employment. Equal pay for equal work should be the rule. Excess corporate profits should be reinvested in the company and shared with workers and shareholders, not simply be a windfall for a few at the top.
Health care, tax reform, infrastructure and immigration are all parts of growing and stabilizing the economy. Healthcare needs to be reformed, not destroyed, and certainly not replaced with an unvetted plan written in secrecy. Tax reform needs to be fair and realistic and tied to expenditures – not to wishful thinking and debunked theories. It needs to distribute tax burdens fairly and predictably, so corporations and the government can have realistic long-term development plans and families can figure out how to plan their lives. The roughly 11 million undocumented workers need some path to lawful status. The government and the voters have a hand in their plight since enforcement of past immigration laws has never been a priority and many businesses and homeowners have benefitted from hiring undocumented workers with paltry pay. Long term undocumented aliens should be allowed to stay perhaps with an obligation to pay some taxes and/or provide community service work. Children of undocumented aliens who have no responsibility for their plight should be welcomed as full citizens. Legal immigration should be encouraged and rewarded since we need a constant inflow of new workers, new entrepreneurs and new visionaries. If we simplify our tax code and modify it to help encourage the work that needs to be done to repair our crumbling infrastructure and dilapidated cities, and to provide security at all levels – from schools to neighborhoods to transit hubs and cyberspace – there should be plenty of jobs for all types of workers.
Fairness – a level playing field – is critical to all we do as Americans. Nothing dampens enthusiasm to meet the challenges of the day more than the belief that the system is rigged and biased to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. As Michael Steele, the former Chairman of the Republican National Committee, has said, “Not only do we need a system and plan to ‘float all boats’ but we must make sure that all our citizens and immigrants have boats to float.” This does not mean pure hand-outs to Mitt Romney’s supposed “47%”. It means a government and employers and educators and legislators working to make the system fair so that everyone can get ahead with hard work, persistence, and a bit of luck. Fairness includes affordable health care, the closing of tax loopholes, regulations that help make our businesses safely productive without stifling creativity or creating burdensome barriers to success. Fairness means sharing the wealth. The top 1% and even the top 5% certainly can afford to invest in the society that has enabled them to achieve so much by paying more in taxes. Fairness means the end of gerrymandering and the fair and balanced administration of justice throughout our land, a land where all lives matter.
Equal opportunity for all has long been a refrain of our national consciousness, but it has hardly been a reality. Discrimination of all types has served to limit the success of some and entrench the success of others, whether based on race, gender, religion, age, etc. Yet diversity has also been the hallmark of American success. We are a nation of immigrants who have melded together under the banner of democracy. While we work to preserve and expand to all within our shores the benefits the American way of life, we must strive to eliminate discriminatory inequalities so that all residents see that they have a fair and realistic chance to get ahead.
Security is critical from safety at home to safety in the workplace to freedom from cyberattacks and terrorist threats. But we must be realistic about the threats and recognize that we live in the most secure and safe society in the world. The more we do to create a fair society with equal opportunity and access to good education, good employment and good health care, the less susceptible we will be to radicalized and rogue actors. The more we help stabilize the world and help enable other countries to provide more for their own citizens, the less the U.S. will be at risk for influxes of refugees and low wage workers. The U.S. benefits itself by supporting institutions such as the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund and many other multinational organizations. The security we receive from the State Department’s international diplomacy and foreign aid programs can never be equally obtained by building border walls and bombs or by endlessly sending U.S. troops into civil wars overseas.
Service to our country and to our fellow citizens and other residents, and to some higher calling or faith often gives purpose to our lives – a reason to live, to succeed, to share, to love and to grow. To help unify the country, to help us recognize in a concrete way that U.S. citizenship and U.S. residency are blessings that come with duties and responsibilities, all citizens and all immigrants should have to participate in some form of national service. Military service is a given. We might also have a domestic “Peace Corps” that helps rebuild neighborhoods or clean parks or provides child care to single parents. There are no doubt thousands of needs to be served in such ways that would help each immigrant and each citizen recognize that the freedoms of America come with a cost that is well worth the time and effort it might entail. With every citizen an alumnus of a common “club” – a national military or non-military service organization – that may help all of us realize that we are all in this boat – this country, this planet – together and that we need each other to fully enjoy the benefits of our lives as Americans.
Rebranding the Democratic Party has become a topic of discussion in the wake of the Ossoff loss in Georgia and the fact that Democrats have lost all four interim elections resulting from Trump’s draining some swamps to Washington. Democrats need both a slogan and a message that reassert and broadcast the Democratic Party’s longstanding commitment to serving and bettering the lives of all workers and all citizens though equal opportunity, non-discrimination and justice for all.
Democrats, at every campaign and every forum need to deliver a message of unity, of optimism, of vision and strength and our commitment to helping all Americans improve their way of life today and for generations to come. The Democrats need to proclaim now, throughout all upcoming elections that “United We Stand – Rebuilding the American Dream for ALL”.
© Eliot Clauss, SCN Politics 8/1/2017