During the Civil War, General Grant is alleged to have said regarding General Lee, "Oh, I am heartily tired of hearing about what Lee is going to do. Some of you always seem to think he is suddenly going to turn a double somersault, and land in our rear and on both of our flanks at the same time. Go back to your command, and try to think what are we going to do ourselves, instead of what Lee is going to do."
Perhaps the Democratic Party needs to take Grant's advice and start thinking about what they are going to do for themselves instead of worrying about what the Republicans are going to do.
Take for example the issue of voter suppression. Back in the 1980s, Paul Weyrich presented the Republican viewpoint on voting and democracy.
"I don't want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people, they never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down."
Republicans don't want more people to vote. It is not in their interest. Their strategy has been to suppress the vote as much as possible. With control of many state governments and with the assistance of the Supreme Court they have passed laws making it more difficult to vote.
Now we can inveigh against the injustice all we want. The Republicans are not going to change their minds. In fact I will wager that when they hear the complaints, rather than feeling ashamed, they feel smug and proud.
So what do we do? Please follow me over the fold.
In the last election cycle, the Democratic Party spent hundreds of millions of dollars on campaign ads, mostly ineffective as the results have proven.
My proposal is simple. Take some of those millions and organize a campaign to register voters. Not simply placing ads promoting registration, but going directly into the communities adversely affected by the voter suppression laws and assist people in registering to vote. Walk them through the hurdles. Help them secure identification that will meet the requirements. Arrange transportation if necessary to get them to the appropriate registration venue. Check back to make sure that the process has been completed.
Publicize the campaign and don't back down. Make it very clear that the Republicans have declared war on the poor and working class and that they are fighting back. Of course the Republicans will cry foul, imply fraud, and attempt to discredit the effort. They will very likely compare it to ACORN. Who cares? Why should any Democrat care what the Republicans think? Tell them to stuff it and go right on registering voters.
Republicans will most likely attempt create new laws to block such efforts. There will attempts at intimidation. The registration campaign should expect new challenges and roadblocks but have a strategy in place to counter the new attempts at voter suppression.
Get organizations such as Act Blue and Move-On involved. During the recent election season, I was bombarded daily with requests for money from these organizations. I would much rather donate to an effort that would assist people in overcoming the voter suppression laws. That would be IMHO be money well spent.
I am old enough to remember when people risked their lives to register to vote and when others risked their lives helping people to register. We, in a sense, stand on their shoulders. We owe it them not to allow these hard earned rights to taken away.
Of course once these voters overcome the obstacles to voting and are registered, then the Democratic Party needs to give these folks a reason to vote Democratic. But that's another diary