1. The problem and an attempt at a solution
A few years ago, after reading in demographic and labor market trends that somethinglike this could happen, I convoked those seriously concerned with thefuture of immigration to start some sensible action. In those years,like today, activism on immigration had been abandoned to the smallhands of those who lacked the most basic knowledge of marketing andnaughtily insisted on reducing their advocacy to the dancing marches they liked so much. But this is not a matter of taste. I would havejoined them in the dancing marches had I believed their brand ofadvocacy had any chance. Facts confirmed that it didn’t. Then,invoking my volunteer years I brought the example of Hector PerezGarcia, the great Hispanic leader who organized the Hispanic vote forKennedy and Johnson and got significant concessions in return. Considering that precedent, if you are the Democratic Party, youguess they would have been the first one interested on sponsoring thenew Hector Perez Garcia (not me, I am a terrible salesman and aleader is, above all, a salesman) if the Hispanic leadership was notup to the task, right? Well, different from Kennedy’s and Johnson’sDemocratic Party, today’s was happy with keeping the mediocreHispanic’s activism far enough away when they were not needed forphoto ops. And that’s how, finding no interest in the DemocraticParty, I convoked those who, from Daily Kos, could create a new brandof immigration advocacy, one that could prevent what I already thenhad labeled the “Dark, Long Night.” I even drafted a strategywith several tactic lines to start that new brand and, of course, alegislative proposal properly conciliated with the U. S. Code(because you can’t talk seriously about marketing without at leastone product. All those proposals are properly entered and dated in myDaily Kos record. I am not making anything up). A rally, a slogan, anad, etc., etc., are just commercials that should trigger the image ofyour product, its positioning, but you can’t have real marketing(and politics is marketing) without a product. And if you don’tdefine your product, your adversaries will. You can’t escape that.
And the Dark, Long Night came. With that, the strategic plan I drafted lost part of itsfeasibility. It would have been relieving to see at least at thatpoint that liberal leaders, realizing their colossal screw up,decided to come to a more sensible course of action. That didn’thappen though. Far from that, they engaged in the stupidity of theClean Dream Act, what would have left the rest of undocumentedimmigrants without their most presentable face precisely whenmainstream perceptions were turning against them (and not withoutthose stupids’ help). Unless a serious try was made (not Walls Madeof Cloth and Love, not DAPA dinners, not the kind of activism thatsomehow they have convinced themselves should be colorful, cute andsassy; one that would look adorable in a 5 year-old but that, in anadult, can only trivialize his/her cause when you should convince themainstream that the undocumented immigrant’s pain is not differentfrom the pain they would feel if placed in a similar situation) andwe have exhausted all other options, a Clean Dream Act was hugelycounterproductive (unless you believe that, when massive deportationsand self-deportations began based on a new law passed with Democrats’votes, Hispanics were not going to feel betrayed). The sensiblecourse of action, while regrouping, would have been an extension ofDACA in exchange of a symbolic concession on Trump’s wall, and toblock all other actions destined to please Trump’s xenophobic base.
But when you are inthe Long, Dark Night, things can only get worse. Now immigrationreform is converging to the point where the concession expected fromRepublicans is not going to be reform, not even DACA, but keepingparents and children together as they are being placed in a conveyorbelt passing before an immigration judge who is going to supposedlyfairly decide their fates in five minutes before deporting them alltogether (because, as Trump said, he is not for separatingfamilies...). Sadly, every day I find more Democrats saying that iffeeding the beast (the Alt Right) with colored immigrants is what ittakes to save the Democratic Party from its own screw ups, so be it,ignoring that doing do would only convince the beast that, nowvictorious, it can now expand to its next target.
So, this entry isgoing to be a draft about what to do and why you should care, even ifyou don’t give a damn for colored immigrants.
a) Why you shouldcare even if you don’t give a damn about immigrants?
No serious answercan be given without making sure the right context is presented.Trump’s base is constituted by those racist xenophobes who before2016 considered even the Republican Party too soft for their taste onMuslims and Mexicans. So, before then this group brewed theirresentment and didn’t even vote. This group should not be confusedwith the groups to which Trump outreached with a populist message,for instance, former coal miners from West Virginia left on their ownwhile gas prices doomed coal, former blue collar workers fromPennsylvania suffering from significant wage cuts in the new jobscreated after the Great Recession. For the latter, health care forthem (not for the undeserving immigrants but for them) mattered. Onthe other hand, for the former, Trump’s base, the only thing thatmattered was the suffering of Muslims and Mexicans. And it’s onthis base on what Trump relies, once the white blue collars abandonhim, to block any attempt at prosecuting him for his shadybusinesses. After all, the Tea Party, thanks to the wonders ofgerrymandering, could control the Republican Party even though only aminority were nominally Tea Partiers. They just had to use the tacitthreat of challenging disobedient Republicans in primaries and theHastert rule to maintain their rule. Why could not the Alt Right dothe same? (Imagine now how the Alt Right must have rejoiced in thedefeat of Mark Sanford).
So, why immigrationshould be of your interest even if you don’t give a damn aboutimmigrants? Because the only way to deflate the Alt Right is to passimmigration reform, to take away from their reach the issue on whichthey are interested the most. Before, they were out of the system.Now, with Trump, they have realized they can win, so, unless we getJohnson-Goldwater kinds of results in the next two elections, justdefeating them in the next elections is not going to be enough.Impeachment is necessary. The Alt Right, permanently motivated byimmigration, is going to play the role the Tea Party played beforethem and the record obstructionism Obama faced is going to pale incomparison with what they are going to do to destroy, even in thebest of cases, a Sanders administration. Just a clue? Did theelectorate make Ted Cruz accountable for leading the government shutdown he led in 2013? Or for blocking Garland, Obama’s last nomineeto the Supreme Court? No, they know they can get away with it. Andafter decades of watching pussy, spineless Democrats permanentlycaving-in, the public imagination has come to accept that sabotageand obstructionism are pretty acceptable when it comes toRepublicans.
And if you bravelybelieve that the way of solving this problem is surrenderingundocumented immigrants to the insatiable sadism of the Alt Right, Ihate to break the news for you but Santa Claus doesn’t exist. Everyday I hear more and more about this option but they fail to see thateven though colored immigrants are at the top of the Alt Right’shatred, followed by Muslims, you are naive if you believe you canplacate them with just colored immigrants. As the Alt Right has shownin its evolution and previous incarnations, they would soon moveanother group to the top of their hatreds and they would be equallyinflexible until you surrendered to them this new sacrifice, only toreplace it in their list with some other group as soon as they havedevoured this second sacrifice.
So, first you haveto beat them catastrophically. The most desirable way to achieve thatis a damning Mueller report that would result in impeachment. Andhere is where we find another example of spineless Democrats (thosealready saying that they would not support impeachment unless it’sbipartisan) and of cool frat boys and Cool Protestors playingmarketer. The discussion should not be about whether we should useRussia or income inequality in the 2018 message. It’s clear toanybody who knows marketing (not the cool frat boys and the CoolProtestors) that the message should be about income inequality andhow to address it because you are not going to generate the angerneeded to support an impeachment from the details of a complexcriminal investigation, especially in a country with historic recordsof suicide, despair, drug addiction and alcoholism. But without thatrage the best you could get is a slap on the wrist, like Reagan afterIran-Contras (And here is where I believe Rachel Maddow is doing agreat job and where the rest of the media should be focusing oneconomic issues instead of imitating Maddow or doing mediocremicro-segments about this and that topic where more thoroughunderstanding of the issues is needed).
But it’s equallystupid not to see that impeachment is the best way of sending the AltRight back to the same trailers where they brewed their hatred fordecades before they realized they could win (unless you believe, as Imentioned before, that you can get Johnson-Goldwater kinds of wins inthe next two elections). What bring us to the obstacles: Republicansfiring Mueller, spineless Democrats accepting Mueller’s firing thesame way they accepted the obstruction to the Garland nomination.Worse, the unequal recovery imposed by Republicans to Obama is nothelping because people is not able yet to see the consequences of theeventual correction after an almost nonexistent period of wagerecovery (And, for this, Trump should be eternally grateful toObama).
But yes, this is theonly way of beating the Alt Right because, otherwise, the Alt Rightis going to be a cancer destroying even the best candidate we couldput in the White House through their control of the Republican Party.Thus, between expecting Johnson-Goldwater kinds of wins in the nexttwo elections and impeachment, impeachment sounds like a morerealistic option. That is the only way. Not only the polls but everyqualitative indicator screams that fact.
Finally, and thoughI myself welcomed Tom Perez’s apparent aperture to Ellison andBernie’s wing after his election, most recent developments arereally disappointing. On the other hand, the juvenile campaigns manyprogressives have made in the primaries (Peace over War, Cake overSoup) have made this problem only worse, as many progressive defeatswill be seen as product of Perez’s bias for the establishmentinstead of product of the juvenile stands of these progressivecandidates. So, be prepared for the Cool Protesters to again claimvotes for Crazy Stein invoking Perez’s poor management of the offerhe himself initially made to the Bernie’s wing. And this is anotherobstacle we can’t ignore because when the Democratic Party had toopen its arms to its populist wing, when the country is in a populistmood, Perez’s tenure of the Chairmanship of the DNC has shownmultiple instances of bias in favor of establishment candidates thatare going to be used by those imbeciles (the Cool Protestors) whobelieve they are doing a great thing by atomizing the liberal vote(while the Tea Party and the Alt Right concentrate it amongconservatives).
b) So, what is theright course of action in this royally screwed moment?
Passing seriousimmigration reform as a stand-alone issue is practically impossibleat this moment (and, as the trends that have conduced to thissituation and to Trump in the White House deepen, every day thosechances are getting worse). So, let’s look at history forinspiration. During the New Deal FDR had to make painful concessionsto Southern Democrats with respect to civil rights, more than Eleanorwould have been happy to accept. Housing and Social Securityregulation from those times incorporated clauses destined to preservesegregation. But it’s also true that without the New Deal, in timeswhen our social safety net was nonexistent, countless lives of themore vulnerable color people would have been lost in the country(where landless workers where over represented by colored people). Ofcourse, a safety net protecting those landless peasants would nothave been supported as a stand alone issue. But as part of the NewDeal they had a chance. And it saved lives.
So this is the taskat hand: A New New Deal where immigration reform andgerrymandering are addressed as part of the package. It’s not easytask for all the factors mentioned before but I don’t see any otherway. With 2020 at sight (It’s too late for 2018), we would have todefine a limited list of priorities and immigration reform andgerrymandering would have to be part of the package. This monumentaltask of marketing, of course, requires products, not little dances.We need sound proposals on education, health care, basic consumerprotection regulation, immigration, gerrymandering and a few otherissues that can be added depending on the alliances we can make tocreate this new brand. In most cases, you won’t have to reinventthe wheel (if the research has already been made or the billscreated) or even to come with an only one product. You may come witha line of products to please different preferences among candidatesas long as they are compatible (For instance, immigration reform billproposal A contains a $10,000 fine and bill proposal B contains a$5,000 fine but a commitment to volunteer for 100 hours. They arecompatible. Another example, Clinton and Bernie had compatiblevisions on higher education. When they were assembled, the finalproduct was even better than the inputs). This requires commissionsto make sure we all have accurate understanding of the issues (Forinstance, you don’t have an accurate understanding of immigrationif you propose them to send undocumented immigrants to the back of“the line” when in reality there is not a line, there aremultiple lines (with different waiting periods depending on countryof origin and family relationships) for some and no “line” forothers.) This requires contacts in think tanks, though many issueswill require more than that.
Now, withoutarticulations with grassroots, a new brand becomes just anintellectual exercise. Nowadays campaigns are led by cool frat boyswho send recruited people, who have previously memorized scriptscreated by another cool frat boy, one who swears he is artistic, tocanvass on maps created by VAN with smartphones because the paperscopies created by the same VAN are no longer cool. These cool fratboys are convinced that if they send you over and over to the samedoor repeating exactly the same scripts, the prospective voter isgoing to give up and go to vote for your candidate because how couldyou not surrender when somebody comes so many times to your doorshowing you that he is cool? At the end, the directors and managersare proud of the list of updated email addresses, which they canbombard with flashy emails created by the same cool frat boy whoswears he is artistic, because if you receive such emails, how couldyou not open them when they are obviously coming from somebody who iscool? Also, these frat boys are proud of their toys, their belovedgadgets, and they never miss the occasion to mention how these toysmade possible the victories of 2008 and 2012 (though they can’texplain and actually get angry when you ask them why they were notequally victorious in 2010 and 2014, and specially in 2016, when theyhad those same toys), as they are proud of their brainy members whoin 2012 used data to discover what has been known already inmarketing for many years as micro-targeting. And they are alwaysproud of their artistic team (No sentence should omit this word,team), whose main credential is also a long record of being cool,professionally.
And because idiocyis rampant and these people are autistic to the world of results,recruiting grassroots that can help put this new brand’s feet onthe ground is not going to be easy either. But it’s necessary. Evenif it is intended as a new brand to support grassroots campaigns, in-house grassroots are as necessary as store brands in a supermarket. But yes, the idea is not to compete with grassrootsorganizations and campaign organizers but inviting them to adopt thisnew brand and helping them to adopt a successful messaging. We helpwith the marketing. They do the sales. For instance, they don’thave to reinvent the wheel on issues but we have to make them lookstrong on the issues (And this is very important because when you seta proposal, you set the parameters of the debate. If you are afraidof defining your position on the issues, your adversary is going todefine it for you. Just think of Heritage Action! Where is theHeritage Action of the Left? This new brand aims at filling part ofthat void). We can even help them with a Web page that doesn’t looklike Alison Hartson’s. We train their candidate to look not like awell-intentioned teenager with the smile of a sad receptionist butlike another Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders. And this is another example of a lesson progressive candidates have not learn as shown inthe last primaries. Another one comes from the Democratic establishment. When I learned that the opposition research file hacked by the Russians was labeled “The Misogynist in Chief" in a country where that rates of heroin addiction, suicide and alcoholism have skyrocketed, I realized we were royally screwed. In short, our messaging SUCKS. And this brand could be an answer to that problem.
And then there isthe problem of how to survive because probably getting sponsors isgoing to be easier than expecting to be paid for this job, especiallywhen it is common wisdom that campaign job is what cool frat boys doby drawing VAN maps and getting their artistic member to write a coolscript.
And you may ask,have you ever tried to share this ideas with the people on theground? Multiple times, always rejected even though they could notdeny the results and even though they were making the same stupidmistakes in the next elections.
This is the challenge, this is also a virgin niche among liberals. If somebody isinterested on working this seriously, get in contact with me privately and let’s see what can be done. If you just want toengage in sassy wars of words with me in 140 characters, I am notgoing to answer comments, so you are going to look stupid trying totroll me in the Comments boxes.
2. Literature and political humor.
If somebody wouldlike to help me bringing these ideas to emotive, entertainingstories, a contact with a publisher will be greatly appreciated.People interested in creating something new in animation (Blender)are also welcomed. The stories are already written, one is alreadyfully edited.
And for those wholiked my political humor, I live in Montgomery County, Maryland. Ifthere is people who would like to create a podcast in the style ofthe Daily Show with this sense of humor, I would need two people toread a fake newscast (I write the script) and one to help with themarketing, which may be one of the two anchors. If so, contact meprivately and we could start something in a month or two.
