Security has five dimensions:
- National security
- Law and Order
- Right to Religious and cultural practices
- Economic stability
- Safe products and environment
Republicans once claimed the promise of security as the basis for their appeal to voters. But at least since Ronald Reagan, (and since Goldwater and Nixon in some areas) that promise has been widely betrayed. Under Republican administrations:
-“National security” has morphed into the war on terror, xenophobia, coddling tyrants, and weapons sales.
-“Law and Order” has morphed into the war on drugs, racist policing, domestic terrorism, overt public corruption, political encouragement of a gun culture.
-“Right to Religious and cultural practices” have morphed into discrimination, systematic racism and tolerance of white supremacy.
“Economic stability” has morphed into the greatest income inequality in the developed world, soaring headline inflation (including food and fuel and which are not counted in official core inflation calculations), high child poverty rates, unaffordable health care, rising monopolization, and financial fraud
“Safe products and environment” has morphed into tainted water, opioid epidemics, crumbling roads, bridges and dams, unenforced occupational safety regulation, accelerating climate change, environmental degradation with associated ‘natural’ catastrophes, antivaxxing, and successive waves of disease including HIV, H3N2 flu, SARS, ebola, covid-19.
The vacancy of the Republicans on these issues leaves a space for the Democratic Party to become the party of security. It cannot let this moment pass.