DEMOCRATIC TALKING POINTS
(From Now And For The Next Two Years)
I have come up with three main talking points that I think Democrats can use to explain and discredit the power monopoly the Republican party now enjoys in Washington and most of the states.
Above the fold they are briefly outlined. Below it they are elaborated on with possible remedies offered on point on point I.) sub claims, as the Republican Party is sure to call for them if challenged on these sub claims.
In the third talking point I use the terms ‘typical American’ and ‘typical voter’. These are used instead of the terms ‘average American’ and ‘average voter’. This is because the word ’average’ is a trap the Republicans love to use (and love it even more when unsuspecting Democrats use it), as it is directly tied to the statistical term ’mean’.
The ’average voter’ is far wealthier than the ’typical voter’ for this reason. The ’average voter’ probably makes between eighty and ninety thousand a year and probably has real estate, stock, and bond holdings worth several hundred thousand dollars.
The ‘typical voter’, on the other hand, probably has more debt than assets, and probably lives in a multi-generational house hold, or rents an apartment, house trailer, or as in my case just a room, or may own a house that is worth less than it was last purchased for.
The ‘average voter’ is almost certainly middle class. The ‘typical voter’ is most likely not.
With these caveats, here are my talking points:
I.) Though the Republicans have the majority in the House and Senate, their control lacks legitimacy because much of it was gained through:
A.) Gerrymandering,
B.) Voter Suppression,
C.) Making early voting difficult or impossible, and
D.) Making elections far more expensive than they ever were.
II.) The true Republican Party Agenda has nothing to offer to most Americans. It is really just about cutting taxes for the wealthy by cutting government services for everyone else. This is done under the guise of:
A.) Allowing ’Market Forces’, not government, to determine the allocation of limited resources, claiming that ’Market Forces’ efficiently allocate resources to all that need (or ’deserve them’).
B.) Assuming and advocating the idea that for profit organizations are far better at delivering services than government ones, even though they have a lengthy hierarchy of pay grades in them, and have share holders and creditors to pay.
III.) Because they have so little to offer the typical American, they can only get typical Americans to vote for them by appeals to: racism, misogyny, xenophobia, and fear and hatred of other outside groups, such as homosexuals and transgender people.
A.) This is just about the only way they can get enough typical Americans to vote for them, against their true self interests.
I.) Though the Republicans have the majority in the House and Senate, their control lacks legitimacy because much of it was gained through:
A.) Gerrymandering, The practice of drawing up congressional districts in such a way to give voters, who favor one party, a larger effective vote than those who favor the other party.
1.) Democrats have Gerrymandered too, but usually to command a greater majority than they have earned. Republicans have used it to effectively gain minority rule. Now is the time to call this practice out and to ban it for both sides, criminalizing it, as a method of election fraud, which it really is. Democrats should challenge Republicans to join them in this effort, while admitting their own guilt.
2.) Such legislation should stipulate that ‘Vote Effectiveness’ should be no less than 90% for the voters likely to vote for the least favored party.
B.) Voter Suppression, the practice of making it more difficult or impossible for voters, likely to vote for one party over the other, to vote. Such practices include:
1.) Voter I.D. laws. Laws that require voters to bring picture I.D. to the polls to vote. These laws are supposedly enacted to prevent ’voter fraud’. So far, there has been little or no evidence that such fraud happens to a statistically significant extent. However:
a.) If any jurisdiction should choose to pass such a law it should be required to make the attainment of such I.D. available at no cost to the voter, at sites that are no more than five miles away from any voter in that jurisdiction, and available, under such conditions, as early as one year before the election, and as late as one day before the election.
C.) Making early voting difficult or impossible by:
1.)Severely restricting absentee voting.
a.) absentee voting should extend at least a week before the election, without cause, and up to a month before the election, with cause.
2.) Making polling places distant and remote, as an unintended or even deliberate way of insuring that voters favoring one party over the other are unlikely to vote.
a.) An inexpensive remedy is to require absentee ballots be available for all voters who live more than one mile from the polling place, at least two weeks before the election.
D.) Making elections far more expensive than they ever were.
1.) This was done by the infamous ’Citizens United’ decision, by the Republican majority Supreme Court in the year 2010. This decision equated money as free speech, allowing anyone to dump any amount of money into any election, as long as they were not directly supporting any one candidate. But candidates run on issues, and corporate interest run ads on these same issues, so though they don’t directly support one candidate or the other, their ads have the that same effect.
2.)This has created an unprecedented arms race for money for both parties. It has had the effect of forcing Democratic Party candidates into the arms of wealthy contributors, so even though these are more often than not not the same contributors the Republican Party go to (sometimes they are!), but they are the same type of contributors. They are generally very wealthy, and depend on government policy choices to maintain their wealth (which is more often than not dependent on monopoly power of one sort or other). For the Republican Party, these large contributors tend to be in the oil, military contractor, and manufacturing industries. For the Democrats, they tend to be in the entertainment, communications, and finance industries. They don’t contribute campaign cash for any purpose other than to get some kind of larger gain from it. Though this is true with all campaign contributors, large and small, the very lopsided means advantage, these large contributors have, all but guarantees their voices will be heard almost exclusively.
a.) Remedies for this, which should pass the First Amendment test, could include:
a1.) Government funds going to the least favored campaign, until all such allocated funds are spent, or the least favored campaign achieves reasonable parity with the most favored one. These funds could come from the ‘…dollar check off’ on tax forms.
a2.) Government matching funds to all small contributions, which, in effect, would double or even triple them. These could also come fro the ‘…dollar check off’
a3.) a ‘Robin Hood’ tax on all campaign contributions, with the funds collected going to insuring means parity between both sides. The advantage of this system is that it is effectively self-funding. And no matter how much money one side is able to dump into its cause, it will never be able to overwhelm the other side. Such is not true with the other two options mentioned.
II.) The true Republican Party Agenda has nothing to offer to most Americans. It is really just about cutting taxes for the wealthy by cutting government services for everyone else. This is done under the guise of:
A.) Allowing ’Market Forces’, not government, to determine the allocation of limited resources.
1.) This assumes ’Market Forces’ efficiently allocate resources to all that need (or ’deserve them’).
a.) once this argument is shown to fail any area, it generally falls apart completely. Hence the shock and dismay Allan Greenspan expressed upon learning of Wall Street banker abuses.
B.) Assuming and advocating the idea that for profit organizations are far better at delivering services than government ones, even though they have a lengthy hierarchy of pay grades in them and have share holders and creditors to pay. They do this by advocating:
1.) private charter schools to compete with public schools.
2.) ’privatization’ of government programs such as: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and others.
III.) Because they have so little to offer the typical American, they can only get typical Americans to vote for them by appealing to: racism, misogyny, xenophobia, and fear and hatred of other outside groups, such as homosexuals and transgender people.
1.) these appeals are used with the hopes that such fear and hatred will overwhelm the typical voter’s sense of self interest, when it comes to government policy issues, effectively getting her/him to vote against his/her own interest.