As if Tuesday weren't bad enough, I woke up on Wednesday to this depressing article. According to author Jonathan Chait, Republicans are destined to remain in power for the foreseeable future: Mitch McConnell knows, and is taking advantage of the fact that, the public is hopelessly ignorant of what is happening in Washington. No matter what Congress does, voters will blame the President for the gridlock and the lack of any solutions to the problems that matter most to them.
In fact, only about 40 percent of the public even knows which party controls which chamber of Congress, which makes the notion that the Republicans would face a backlash for a lack of success fantastical.
McConnell’s next play is perfectly clear. His interest lies in creating two more years of ugliness and gridlock. He does not want spectacular, high-profile failures that command public attention — no shutdowns, no impeachment. Instead, wants tedious, enervating stalemate. McConnell needs to drain away any possibility of hope and excitement from government, so that the disengaged Democratic voters remain disengaged in 2016.
But that can't be all. I also saw something interesting happening on Tuesday. Yes, voters were angry, blamed the President, and punished the Democrats. But voters in Alaska, Arkansas, Nebraska and South Dakota all
agreed to increase the minimum wage. Arkansas, Nebraska and South Dakota also
elected Republican Senators and Governors. (Alaska's senatorial and gubernatorial races are still too close to call as of the time I'm writing.) Colorado and North Dakota voters
rejected "personhood amendments", even while Coloradans were voting to unseat Mo Udall (D-Colo.) and North Dakota's voters were electing a Republican as their sole Representative.
So, while voters may not care about politics and what is happening in Washington, they aren't stupid, they do care, and they do make progressive choices on specific issues. Also, I think there's a converse to Chait's depressing political nation view: Young people and other potential Democratic voters may not register or turn out to vote for a Congress that they do not understand and do not consider helpful to them in their daily lives, but they could be energized and motivated by an issue that is important to them. Local and state initiatives to increase minimum wage, require paid sick days, provide public wifi, increase public transportation, etc. could be the trigger to encourage new voter registrations and voter turnout. Follow me below the Great Orange Croissant for a proposal on how we can make this happen.
We have enormous potential power through Daily Kos. Navajo and others have been working to establish local groups of Daily Kos activists, and to encourage networking between the groups. In Los Angeles, Shockwave and SusanS organized a series of Meet The Candidates forums in the months approaching the November election. I was able to attend a couple of those forums, and I met an amazing group of "Kossacks" with enormous energy, enthusiasm, skills and ideas. There are other, similar groups in San Francisco and San Diego, and some of their members were visiting Los Angeles for the meetings I went to. And there are dozens of groups in other states.
So why can't we use that energy and those skills to identify at least one potential local initiative/project per city, and one potential state initiative/law, and start now to make them happen through the local Daily Kos groups and by networking with other Daily Kos groups in the state, and with other progressive action groups that may be working on or interested in the same project. I'm talking about actually writing statutes or initiatives, or working directly with city councils and local agencies to implement specific projects.
Once these projects reach a sufficient level of completion, they can be married with voter registration and participation efforts by circulating petitions and including voter registration information -- because you can't sign an initiative petition if you're not registered to vote, and most other petitions, e.g., to legislators, or much more effective if they are signed by registered voters. If the project is sexy enough, and close enough to what most people really need -- better pay, better workplace benefits, more local jobs and amenities -- they will be motivated enough to register, sign a petition, and go to the next poll. For states with restrictive voter ID and voting laws, include steps to make sure new registrants have the correct ID and information on the best way to vote.
But for this to help in 2016, we have to start yesterday. I would love to show Jonathan Chait there is another way. Can we do it? I promise to help.