So there’s lots of anger and grief today as people come to terms with Hillary’s loss, and the losses sustained by the Democratic party. There’s acrimony between Bernie’s supporters and Hillary’s support, blame being placed for being too “establishment” in a “populist” wave, discussions decrying neoliberalism and exhorting greater progressivism, and there’s a lot of people just in shock that so-called evangelicals could vote for someone like Donald “grab them by the pussy” Trump. That’s all understandable. But this isn’t the time for us to be turning on each other. This is an opportunity to look at the real reasons why Democrats have failed in this election.
And that reason is really pretty simple. We didn’t show up. And I’m not really talking about the voters here, though that is a major effect. Democratic politicians didn’t show up, and haven’t shown up, for quite a while now. Content in their power-centers in urban areas, they’ve become complacent, and all too often corrupt, or apparently so. The Democratic Party doesn’t stand for anything in the eyes of most voters, except for national politics, which they rightly distrust, because that’s all the Democratic Party has invested itself in.
How many of us saw, on our ballots last night, Republicans running unopposed? How many of us, who live in “safe” Republican districts, saw as many Democratic mailers as Republican ones, or were visited by Democratic candidates, to talk about their issues and their vision? Democrats allowed the Republican Party to define itself as the “anti-establishment” party, in spite of the fact that they have controlled 2/3 to ¾ of our governments from the local level on up, all because we have a President that has refused to take the offensive on the bully pulpit until this election season, and even when he did, it was to defend a government he has allowed the Republicans to render intransigent and ineffective. Because we have allowed them to attack the media and paint false equivalence as balanced coverage. Because our message and platform is not delivered by local politicans who have gained the trust of their constituency by repeatedly reaching out to them, talking to them, and working with them, but by a national politician that most of the country didn’t trust, whether that lack of trust was grounded in fact (it wasn’t) or not, and that more importantly, couldn’t rebuild that trust because she lacked any kind of grounding in local politics and the real lives of everyday people.
To drive this point home, I want to point out my own personal bright spot in this whole debacle. Missouri State House District 17, was finally won by a Democrat, my brother, on his fourth attempt. Make no mistake, this is a Republican district. His first loss, in 2010 was against one Myron Neth, who lasted a single term and was sent home due to, well, let’s say personal indiscretions. But those indiscretions didn’t lead to a win the next time against Nick King, or the third time, when he came within a handful of votes. It took King being defeated by a radical Republican in his primary, to be replaced by a carpet-bagging Mary Hill, before he pulled it out. And he did it by trying, and trying, and trying again, and then trying one more time, until it finally took. He made connections in district, and walked houses and shook hands and distributed fliers and mailers.
That’s what Democrats need to do, starting today. We need Democratic school board members, and Democratic mayors in rural and suburban towns, and Democratic County Commissioners, and Democratic State Senators and Representatives, and on and on. We need a Democratic presence in rural and suburban areas, whether we win or not. We need those mailers, we need the speeches, we need them in parades, and we need them talked about in local papers. And we need to accept that we won’t win. Not the first time, or the second, or even the third. But we might win the fourth time, if we keep showing up. We need to demonstrate to rural and suburban voters that we’re on their side, by being at their side. Not figuratively. Not rhetorically. Literally.