The Republicans are always saying that the Democrats don't have any new ideas, and we are always saying, "Oh yes we do." Well, a friend asked me to name some of them. I did not score very well on his test.
I made my pile, such as it is, helping American business switch from manual operations to computerized operations. As part of that work we were coming up with new ideas all the time. Whenever a business was computerized, the technology made many things possible for the first time. Some good some bad, of course, but new nevertheless.
But what I hear on DKos and elsewhere: The Broken Branch, Active Liberty, Conservatives Without Conscience, The Failure of the Founding Fathers are all recent books that identify problems but propose no new ideas for solving them. They mostly talk about activism, get out and vote, throw the bums out, etc. These seem to be the only ideas we have and they are not very effective.
Big turnouts that result in throwing the bums out usually come after a period of bad behavior on the part of our elected officials. Where are the ideas for preventing these problems. To say, "We need better oversight, elect Democrats," while it is a good thing to do, is not a new idea and does little to prevent things from going to pot when the inevitable change in public opinion occurs.
So help me please to respond to my friend. Remind me of some of our Democratic new ideas that will cure and prevent the problems that the Republicans have afflicted us with for these many years.