The Democratic presidential nominee has been chosen: in effect, in essence, for practical purposes, however you want to put it. My candidate, Bernie Sanders, has acknowledged as much. I hope he keeps going to influence the platform. I hope he keeps pulling the discussion to the left after decades of it being wormed the other way. Mostly, though, I hope he and the rest of us now close ranks and get on with what matters: electing Democrats from the top of the ballot on down.
To those so haunted by bitterness from the primary that you would sit out the general election, I am not asking that you ignore differences with our candidate or with an apostate Party establishment. I am asking that you recognize how little value ideological purity has when you are out of office.
I also am asking that you recognize the threat when Republicans are in office. They have a penchant for doing anything they can to get power and for using power any way they can to hold it. Charles Pierce, writing in Esquire, described Kansas Republicans in a way that I believe is close to the matter for most of today’s Republicans.
“They recognize no limits to their power, no curbs to their desire. There are few frontiers in democratic government that they will not work to violate, or to twist to their own purposes. And they absolutely will not stop.”
Republicans seem to believe that they are entitled to power and have demonstrated a willingness, regardless of the cost to the country, to destroy those who get in their way.
This is the real threat, and it is an immediate threat. It may feel good to think about tearing down the Democratic Party so that you can rebuild it in your image, but that would condemn our most vulnerable fellow citizens to abuse now, while, in the long run, there is no guarantee that you are that good a builder. Fight for the country today; fight for the Party tomorrow. Reverse that, and the second fight might be lost before it’s begun.
To achieve the effect of unity without its essence, then, let’s recognize those beliefs that we do share, and let’s remember our dependence on each other to actualize those beliefs. Toward that end, this is an invitation to join a small exercise here at DKos.
My motivation grew out of the Democratic Debate in Flint Michigan. Someone asked why the people of Flint should see the candidates’ interest as anything but opportunism. My first thought was, “Because they’re Democrats, stupid.” The ethos of the Democratic Party is antithetic to everything the Republicans have done to Flint: from nullifying its representative government, to deciding that potentially poisoning its people was an acceptable risk to reduce government spending, to their merciless indifference in continuing down that path after risk had become actuality.
Then, I thought again. The Democratic Party did abandon many of its constituents in quest of Wall-Street gold. That that never was rectified could be a problem this year. And worse duplicities seem continually in the offing. This no longer is the Party of Franklin Roosevelt, not at the top. It no longer is sufficient to say, “Because we are Democrats.”
How do we get that back? I tried to start that process by listing principles that I thought Democrats should stand for. My intention was to accentuate the differences between progressives and the Party. My result was a stark rendering of the differences between parties.
Working through it, I realized that the above comments about Flint and the Democratic Party still are true. I realized that Democrats still are the Party of civil rights and of voting rights. I realized that we are, still, the Party of Social Security, of Medicare, and of health-care for all. The real revelation, though, was the threat posed to every principle on my list by a Republican in the White House working with a Republican House and Senate: putting ultra-conservative, religious zealots on the Supreme Court to continue a 40-year dominance, crushing unions, suppressing the vote, entrenching inequality, destroying the environment not to mention the atmosphere, codifying iron-age morality, and redistributing both wealth and rights upward.
Think about that threat, and sitting out the election becomes unconscionable. First and foremost, every one of us must stand – together – between Republicans and power up and down the ballot.
To that end, my list of principles is below. It is a rough draft in no particular order and too wordy at that. Why publish such a thing? Because, even if polished, my list never will mean anything. Our list might. Since it was the process that helped me, then, an exercise for the reader: use the comments or your own blog or the back of an envelope to take over the list – make it your own or make your own. Add to it or subtract from it. Organize, prioritize, and simplify it. Trash it and start over. Do anything that will replace the recent rancor with a constructive discussion.
We have a fight ahead of us, and it would be good to know where other progressives stand going in. If that stance is at odds with that of the Party, if we cannot in good conscious answer “because we are Democrats,” we have other fights ahead – but after we have dealt with the real threat, the immediate threat.
The list.
Climate Change is a Real, Man-made, Existential Threat
A Safety Net is the mark of a civilized society.
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Social Security should be expanded and can made solvent as necessary by raising the cap on incomes taxed.
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Single Payer Medical care that covers everyone.
A Living Wage for everyone, including tipped workers.
Big Government CAN be the Solution. The right question is, “Who is the government?”
The Middle Class is the great stabilizer of society
- Middle class consumers drive the economy.
- End corporate welfare and privilege.
Corporations are not people. Labor trumps capital.
Money is not speech. Wealth has no right, inherent or otherwise, to dominate the political debate.
We are unions. Unions are the only voice that working men and women have.
- Right-to-work laws are right-to-fire-or-exploit laws.
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Jobs, good jobs, are as important as anything else for which we stand.
A strong Manufacturing Base: to be great, a nation must make things.
Voting Rights are sacred.
Concentration of Wealth is Dangerous.
Unregulated capitalism is predatory capitalism.
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The free market is a myth.
- Regulations are all that stand between us and exploitation.
- Tax inversion must come with prohibitive penalties.
- Corporations profit from our infrastructure, our education policies, our environment, and our stability. It seems to me that they owe us a maintenance fee.
Education is a human right. It also is a guarantor of democracy and of a better society.
To maintain a Strong Defense, do not squander it on wars of choice, of hatred, or of stupidity.
Now, it’s your turn.
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