Hope. Optimism. Anticipation.
Those feelings often seemed a distant memory during the past 18 months, at least in the part of my life that concerns politics and the future of my country.
Then, a few days ago, Paul Glastris published an article in the Washington Monthly — Winning Is Not Enough — that is a blueprint for how Democrats can regain control of the presidency and both houses of Congress … and then govern so that we retain our control for a generation to come, allowing us time to repair damage and implement broad changes that will build a better nation for the future.
For those of you unacquainted with Glastris, he was a journalist with U.S. News & World Report for many years and then became the chief speechwriter for Bill Clinton during his presidency. He is currently the editor-in-chief of the Washington Monthly, a publication highly regarded among liberal Democrats.
In this diary, I explore Glastris’ ideas and share some thoughts and ideas of my own, often veering far off from Glastris’ points. So don’t rely just on what I write: read Glastris’ article. It’s a very long read, so take it one section at a time if you wish, but read it. It’s the most compelling and comprehensive plan I have seen for what we, as Democrats, should do, now and in the coming years.
There is every reason for hope, optimism, and anticipation of what may become a pivotal era for the United States. It’s time to renew our faith in this curious American experiment in democracy. It’s time to reach for the brass ring.
Winning time is more important than winning once
With President Traitor McTreasonface betraying the United States a few days ago in Helsinki at the Surrender Summit, the odds of Democrats gaining control of the House — and perhaps the Senate as well — probably shot up a few points. If that happens, great. But then what?
Trump would still be president for two more years. Even if Mueller persuasively demonstrates that Trump and his cabal are corrupt, both personally and officially, and if — try not to laugh here — Republicans discovered a shred of decency and a modicum of patriotism we would end up with President Pence or President Ryan to fill out the term.
Without control of both Congress and the presidency, Democrats would seem to have no strategic option other than obstruction of, and investigation of, the executive branch. That’s all well and good and must be done — but by itself it’s unlikely to draw swing voters and commanding majorities for us in the 2020 elections.
Still, we might expect to win the trifecta in 2020: the House, the Senate, and the presidency. History tells us we should then also expect to lose at least one of those in the following midterm election — and we would be right back to Republican obstructionism preventing us from accomplishing much. Another couple of years of congressional logjam and inaction and, just like clockwork, the voters would turn us out and try their luck again with Republicans.
What we need are solid and sustaining wins for a period of years, long enough to undo the damage of the Bush and Trump years and, even more importantly, long enough to advance a legislative and presidential agenda that would not only better the country and our citizenry but identify the Democratic brand as the guarantor of the benefits and improvements that we achieve.
In recent decades, our two Democratic presidents — Bill Clinton and Barack Obama — had Democratic Congresses only during the first half, or less, of their first terms, then each spent six more years battling with Republican Congresses.[1] We need a rerun of earlier times when a Democratic president was able to work with a Democratic Congress over the long haul to accomplish great changes in society and government, such as during the combined presidencies of Kennedy and Johnson. Some of the achievements of of that era include:
- Head Start
- Civil Rights Act
- Voting Rights Act
- VISTA and Peace Corps
- Nuclear test ban treaty
- Apollo space program
- Equal Employment Opportunity
- Medicare and Medicaid
- National Endowments for Arts and Humanities
Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Harry Truman had even longer to fulfill their agendas, 20 years in total with only one 2-year term with a Republican Congress in opposition (and opposition back then was a far different thing that it is today). Their New Deal and Fair Deal programs — far too extensive to list here — remade America into a society that was more prosperous and more fair than any that had come before, albeit with great work still to be done in future generations (especially in the areas of civil rights and minority equality).
Both of the extended periods above of Democratic tri-control were transformative eras that resulted in broad and deep leaps forward in the betterment of our nation.
The base versus the persuadables
Glastris addresses one of our biggest challenges. How do we keep our multi-cultural rainbow-ish reliable Democrats motivated while, at the same time, we appeal to those swing voters who bounced from Obama in 2008 to Trump in 2016. He is clear that we can’t jettison “identity politics” and throw women, blacks, gays, or other identity groups under the bus to placate conservatives; instead, we motivate our base groups plus we push an agenda of ideas, policies, and programs that would resonate with those in the middle, the “persuadables” rather than the “deplorables.”
Controlling the House would let us use its power to promote our agenda in a way that the public would see, through hearings, investigations, and legislation (even if it were rejected in the Senate or vetoed by the president). Remember Newt Gingrich and the Contract with America? Or the umpteen Benghazi hearings? Republicans had no chance of getting their bills passed or Hillary thrown in jail with Bill Clinton and Obama in the White House, but they didn’t let that stop them. They made waves and they made news and they made sure that every American voter took note of what they wanted to do.
Democrats need to use their power and platform in the House (and the Senate, if we get it) to be bold and forceful advocates of what we want and what we intend. Our motto can’t be “Let’s be civil and reach bipartisan compromise” because the Republicans have zero intention (or history) of doing that. We have to adopt the same aggressive stance that they have done: the opposition needs to get on board or get out of the way because we are going to do what’s best for America and its people. Our elected leaders need to get on board too; they need to adopt the can-do attitude of
“Go big or go home.”
Put Republicans on indefensible defense
If we control the House, use that power to showcase our ideas and policies and to hammer the Republicans over and over again. It doesn’t matter if a bill will never make it through the Senate or be vetoed by the president. If it’s something that would be popular with the public, write the bill. Make the House Republicans go on record, vote after vote after vote that they oppose the matter. When it gets to the Senate, the Republicans there will be forced to show their true colors as well — and we can keep hammering them with it in the next election cycle’s ads.
Grab the public’s attention and let them see a clear choice — vote for Democrats and get this great thing or vote for Republicans and not get it.
The public supports things Republicans hate. Write bills to:
- Direct the Postal Service to institute “postal banking” which lets anyone have a free savings-and-debit card account with computer-banking to pay bills. Put an ATM in every post office, where people can withdraw cash, pay bills, and make deposits to their own account or as cash payments to other accounts (such as landlords). Make the accounts interest-bearing Federal Reserve personal accounts, which means higher interest (same as banks earn) plus overnight check clearing [6]
- Get “dark money” out of politics, via constitutional amendment, if necessary. It doesn’t need to be ratified immediately; put a 20-year or more deadline on it. Let people know that if they vote for Democrats in Congress and state legislatures, Democrats will clean up sell-to-the-highest-bidder politics
- Make Medicare an option for everyone — not Medicare-For-All as an obligatory plan but a buy-in option for all who wish to do so. Specify that employers must include Medicare as an additional option to any health plans they offer, with the employer paying the same percentage of salary or dollar amount as it pays for those health plans. Eliminate Medicaid and enroll all eligible low-income applicants into Medicare (with government covering the cost), with suitable revisions so it covers pediatrics, maternity, and so on. If you like your private health plan, keep it; if you wish to save money or increase your take-home pay and still receive top notch care from doctors and hospitals you choose, pick Medicare!
- Make drug companies negotiate prices with Medicare, instead of dictating what the public treasury must pay. With state-based Medicaid folded into Medicare, mandate a national formulary for approved drugs, eliminating the traveling hard-sell sideshows that drug companies use to influence prescribers and insurers to boost market share and profits.[2] Show the public we know how to drive down the cost of prescription drugs
- Split up telecom oligopolies. Come on, this is a no-brainer — everyone hates Comcast and its equally larcenous so-called rivals. Give the FCC authority and direction to promote municipal broadband and cable services. Direct the FTC and SEC to order dissolution of corporate mergers as an antitrust measure, so that connection providers may not also be content providers. Republicans claim to love market competition so make them go on record for or against it: mandate that cable/infrastructure be run as “backbones” with customers needing only to choose and pay the end providers, freely able to mix or switch services at any time.
- Tackle student debt. Revamp federal student loans and grants to favor public (state and local) colleges and universities with lower interest rates and doubled allotments. Allow federal student loans to be paid off by voluntary part-time community service; rather than deferring a new career an alumnus could repay the debt by working five or ten hours per week in approved programs (home support care for the elderly, tutoring children, skills training for job seekers, and so on), with doubled payback compensation for loans at public colleges. Steer federal research grants to public colleges that keep student costs down, boosting their revenue and prestige. Tie repayment sums to graduates’ income and job category (for example, teachers and nurses might get a lot of debt relief as occupations vital to the public good). Unfair competition for private colleges? Too damn bad, it’s called “public good” and Democrats know a robust and open public higher education system is vital for America’s future.
- Mandate sensible gun safety (not “control”), like trigger locks or gun safes, thorough background checks, ban of high capacity magazines, permanent records of firearm purchases, and removal of guns from those who have proven to be risks to others, such as domestic abusers. Even gun enthusiasts approve of measures to increase responsibility and safety in gun ownership
- Reclaim the public’s airwaves for political discourse. Order broadcast television to set aside appropriate times for election season debates, both primary and general, for candidates for the House and Senate (presidential debates are already widely broadcast). If more than one station covers a congressional district, random lots can be drawn to assign obligations (for example, Station X carries the primary debate, Station Y carries the general debate). They are our airwaves and we have the right to demand their fair use for the public good.
- Empower individuals against faceless corporations. The Supreme Court has gone rogue in terms of its decisions regarding forced arbitration for employees, customers, unions, and more. Bottom line: conservative justices have simply invented non-existent “facts” and history to justify their desired outcome.[4] Frequently, they state that Congress has expressly favored arbitration over the court system and class actions: put that lie to rest by Congress updating the Federal Arbitration Act and explicitly confirming the rights of collective litigation and forbidding courts or corporations from requiring arbitration without the free consent of all parties (i.e., no fine-print mandatory arbitration clauses). Restore the power of individuals to band together to seek redress for wrongs committed by powerful businesses.
My list above are all populist issues. They are programs and policies that would appeal to independents and moderates, not just progressive Democrats and our rainbow minority subgroups. If we win the trifecta and can implement them, they would become as popular as Medicare is even among the Tea Partiers who hate “the government” but don’t want their Medicare taken away.
The items I listed are just my own ideas. Shoot them down, improve them, come up with others — it doesn’t matter. What is important is to come up with bold and solid plans that can be encapsulated in bullet points and that the majority of American voters will embrace. We can’t win — and keep winning for years — with wishy-washy abstract ideas like “Address income inequality” or “Reduce healthcare costs.” Do those phrases get you excited? Do they sound like concrete plans that you can count on or just waffle-twaddle without conviction?
We can’t capture the attention and imagination of voters that way. We have to package strong, bold ideas in sound bites. Wrap it up in a ten-words-or-less slogan and explain it in no more than three sentences. Leave the pontificating about details to the talk show pundits — our audience is voters, not talking heads and policy wonks.
Americans may trust in God but they don’t trust democracy
The American National Election Study, a survey of citizens’ opinions about our nation’s governance and democracy, has dismal news about the public’s trust. Half of all Americans — Democrats, Republicans, and independents — believe that they have no say in what the government does. Even larger majorities believe that government is crooked and corrupt.[7]
They are right to feel that way. Sure, we get to vote every couple of years … and then what? Our elected leaders often don’t follow through with what they promised. They are theoretically in charge yet we see that they bend over backwards to please or placate corporations and big donors, captives of the necessity to relentlessly raise funds for re-election. And they’re not wrong about the need to do that — if they’re kicked to the curb at the next election, they won’t be in a position to accomplish anything.
It’s a vicious cycle and it has a vicious effect on the public’s sense that government works and that it works on their behalf. It’s time to break that cycle, to unlink campaign donations from access to legislators. It’s time to have them represent us — all of us — rather than the few with money to buy their attention and efforts.
By breaking that cycle, we can restore the public’s confidence in our democratic institutions. We will not only get better legislators, we will also get a better public, citizens who turn from resigned defeat to involvement and expectation that their representatives will deliver results that improve their lives.
Despair depresses the vote which concentrates the effect of the rabid deplorables, guaranteeing that the cycle of hopelessness for the rest of us will rinse and repeat. We can turn that around in one fell swoop, empowering the average citizen and wiping out the dominating influence of corporate and wealthy donors.
feed the citizens and the beast will starve
You have to give credit where credit is due. Donald Trump’s campaign came up with an appealing slogan, “Drain the swamp.” Yes, we knew it was bullsh*t and that they really intended to restock the swamp with even worse monsters but the public loved the idea.
So let’s tell them frankly exactly how we will rid Washington of the swamp creatures and give every voter the same clout as a billionaire donor.
Many Democrats and some Republicans have tried for decades to whittle around the edges of campaign financing to reduce some of the pernicious influence of money in politics. Campaign finance “reform” hasn’t worked. In fact, we’re worse off than ever before after the Citizens United decision.
So give it up. Just let it go.
Our politicians and candidates look weak and hapless when they say “We hope to diminish the influence of fatcat donors in elections.” Voters don’t believe that we have a workable plan for doing so.
So let’s surprise them and give them a real plan. Let Democratic politicians say “We are going to pull the rug out from under the fatcats by giving you, the voters, the purse strings to fund election campaigns. You will decide who gets campaign money, not secretive groups and anonymous billionaires.”
We’re not going to “reform” campaign financing. We’re going to upend it entirely. We are going to outspend the fatcats … and ultimately save taxpayers money by doing so.
Instead of trying to stem the flow of special-interests money into campaigns, we will open the floodgates to even more money, courtesy of the U.S. treasury, rendering the comparatively feeble fundraising of special interests and billionaires useless and toxic.
- Give every registered U.S. voter a “campaign credit” of $50 that can be accessed via his or her postal banking account. Voters can supplement that amount with up to $50 of matching funds of their own. Using the postal banking system, the voter can direct any or all of the money to the political campaigns of his or her choice — the whole amount to one candidate or $1 to 50 (or 100) candidates. That would be about $7.5 billion of public funds plus as much as $7.5 billion more if every citizen matched the public money, more than double the $6.4 billion spent in the 2016 combined congressional and presidential campaigns [5] … but it would be money allocated by citizens participating in direct democracy, not special interests and corporations. The small amount per person may not seem like much but its cumulative impact would be even greater than “dark money” is today. Also, making every voter a donor means the voter will want to get informed and involved in order to decide how to distribute his or her credit. Invest in the people and let them invest in the politicians they support.
- Candidates who accept Federal Voter-Directed Contributions are not allowed to accept any other campaign contributions, except a small amount of “seed money” to get their candidacy up and running (bean-counter types can figure a reasonable amount). The initial seed money would be required to be small donations, perhaps $50 per person or less — not enough to indebt a politician for his or her soul. Politicians who participate not only have access to potentially an enormous amount of money but they also get bragging rights for ads: “I accept zero contributions from special interests and fatcats. Period. I work for you.” Those who refuse to participate mark themselves as easy targets: “Candidate Jones doesn’t want your money because she’s sold herself to fatcats.”
- Give states the option to participate in the postal banking-campaign donations program. If a state wishes to remove the malignant effects of endless fundraising and big donors from its elections (state or local), let it tie into the same system — an extra “button” or “tab” where the voter can find the “campaign credit” account for his or her state’s donation system and participating candidates.
Freed from the burden of spending more time and energy raising funds for re-election than actually doing their legislative jobs, our politicians can say “No” to the lobbyists and wheeler-dealers who used to buy them by the bushel. They don’t need to sign on to pork barrel projects and boondoggles to please a donor or vote for legislation to give the donors special tax breaks and loopholes.
Politicians could focus on what is good for their district or state and good for the country — and consequently the treasury would save far more than the $7.5 billion allocated every four years to the voter donations program. Sure, you rolled your eyes but tell me, seriously, don’t you think politicians who have zero obligations to corporate and 1%-er donors can pare a measly $2 billion per year of pork from the federal budget?
Give it a slogan or catchphrase and promote the heck out of it. How about “Our government is your government. Make your choice.”?
Make lobbying transparent
With robust public financing, members of Congress wouldn’t need to spend half of their time — or more — soliciting campaign funds.[3] They could — control your gasps, please — actually meet with regular constituents instead of representatives of fatcat donors.
But professional lobbying does have a purpose, letting informed people explain advantages and drawbacks of proposed legislation to their elected officials. We would support Planned Parenthood encouraging a congress member’s vote on a bill so thus the Heritage Foundation should be able to do the same. By divorcing money from lobbying and putting campaign donations in the hands of the citizenry, advocates would have to argue their case on its own merits rather than by implications of financial support from backers.
Require that all meetings with registered lobbyists be video recorded in the office (no off-the-books wining and dining); we have AI good enough to generate transcripts with high accuracy which can be made public. Redactions could be made on request for trade secrets, national security, and the like by a professional non-partisan staff, similar to the Congressional Budget Office.
Let the sunlight in to disinfect.
Two audiences but only one matters
The measures I proposed above should appeal to voters in three of four groups: our Democratic base and independents. Besides getting out our own vote, we should easily be able to peel off a small, but electorally significant, slice of those who voted for Trump and Republicans in 2016.
Let’s look at the “persuadables” in comparison to the “deplorables.”
We’ve seen the mainstream media hiking to remote podunk towns to find examples of people they consider the “backbone of America” who went with a wild longshot due to their “economic anxiety.” Many of us have decried that as nonsense, that they really were just indulging their inner “worst demons” of racism, homophobia, misogyny, and so on.
For many of them, that’s true. For others, I would say “Maybe.”
Have you ever had a bad day at work — rude customers, a snotty boss, a traffic jam and minor fender-bender on the way home — and then snapped at your spouse, kids, or good friend? If so, you can’t really say “That wasn’t me!” It was you, but not the best of you. Stress lowers our social inhibitions and our own “worst demons” erupt, to our later chagrin.
I think some of Trump’s voters succumbed to stress and anxiety. They see downsizing and job uncertainty, other good-paying jobs disappearing, healthcare costs rising, college costs out of reach for their kids, and government so polarized that it seems little gets done for the common folks while those at the apex of society get whatever they demand. That’s stressful and it shouldn't be surprising that some of them lashed out at the status quo, desperately hoping that even someone as obviously unfit as Trump would “shake things up” and somehow that would make things better for them.
Those are people we can persuade and reach, with the right ideas and with a clear united commitment to carrying through on our agenda. The truly “deplorables” who are nihilists at heart, more eager to see everything burn down than to build anyone or anything up? Forget them, they’re lost to us … and we don’t need them to capture the reins of government. Remember how close most elections are; we just need to bring a few percent of “persuadables” over to our side.
A populist agenda can do the trick. It has to be reduced to a manageable set of easy to understand results and hammered home over and over again, just like the Republicans did with their Contract With America in the 1990s. Then, once we gain power, we have to deliver those results and remind the voters that we did it and we will be the party that guarantees they can keep enjoying those results.
But what about US???
Yes, the independents and “persuadables” have been getting all the attention so far in this diary. They’ve also been getting all the attention in the media, with endless pontification about how Democrats must keep to the center and ignore the “fringe” and “extremists” during the next election season. In other words, we should tell people of color, LGBQT folks, environmentalists, and so on to go to the back of the bus … and maybe even just chuck them off the bus entirely to make room for voters in the middle.
Wrong. Ethically and strategically, just wrong.
Hey, I’m a gay man, I have no intention of piping down and slipping back into the closet just to get some moderates or center-right voters on board the Democratic bus.
Our base expects us to tackle the problems and issues that may loosely be grouped under “identity politics” as well as general liberal issues like climate change and income inequality. We should promise, loud and proud, to work on all of those things if elected. Then we should deliver on those promises if elected.
Our working agenda must include both the populist items as well as our traditional “liberal” items. There’s no reason to exclude or downplay either set.
The “persuadables” that I talked about above don’t truly care much, one way or the other, about the “liberal” items. They’re hoping for measures that will directly better their own lives and their families. If gays get married or police stop shooting blacks on sight, they’re not going to panic — if they feel secure about their own futures and believe the government will be looking out for them as well.
The “deplorables”? Screw ‘em. Let them fuss and holler about how they are the true victims of liberals, Democrats, the government, and whatever new conspiracy twaddle they dream up next. I don’t think their behavior has persuaded the middle in the past; I think it was just a confluence of circumstances that left the middle feeling that they had little control and less hope and that an over-the-top gamble on Trump might pay off somehow. We can’t win them over and we don’t need them.
So, let’s rally our base and inspire the middle at the same time. We can put together an agenda of a dozen or more specific goals that are a mix of populist and liberal ideas. We can upend campaign financing and pass ENDA; make healthcare (Medicare) available to all who want it and improve our immigration system; relieve student debt and reform the police and prison systems; invest in job-creating infrastructure, including green energy, and rejoin the world in climate change mitigation.
We can do it all and we should make it absolutely clear that we would implement all items of our Top Dozen (or whatever number) agenda within 180 days when voters grant us the levers of government. Invite them to keep track and tick the items off the list as we achieve them.
But — oh noes! — the Supreme Court!
I’ll keep it short and sweet. F*ck ‘em.
Make it clear that we won’t be blocked by a conservative court, ruling that our programs and policies violate some invented constitutional prohibitions. FDR threatened to pack the Court when they smacked down his New Deal programs and guess who won? That’s right, the populist and incredibly popular president; the Court suddenly changed its tune.
John Roberts can get on board or join his four fellow conservatives on the sidelines when we “reform” or “expand” the Court with two new seats. ‘Nuff said.
All aboard! The Democratic train is departing. Next stop, the future!
It’s time for Democratic leaders to get with the times — we’re in deep trouble and navigating perilous waters. Counting the life jackets while the captain and crew steer the ship toward the iceberg isn’t going to help any of us, passengers or crew. It’s time to mutiny and seize control of the boat.
The biggest obstacle to achieving progressive and populist goals — which will benefit every citizen, of any political persuasion — is the oppressive hand of campaign funding by the rich and powerful. I’ve shown above how we can eliminate that constraint with a simple legislative act.
There are no excuses for Democratic politicians to oppose it, other than cowardice. If they prefer to remain servants to their moneyed masters, we have no use for them — they will only be dead weight that prevents us from reclaiming our country. They need to sign up and pledge themselves to that first critically key step — upending campaign financing — or they need to be replaced in the primaries by Democratic voters.
The DNC and other Democratic, liberal, and progressive bodies must unite to push through campaign finance transformation and create a priority task list of goals that we can promise to the American people.
Our Democratic leadership needs to lead. Develop a workable exciting agenda and unite behind it, 100% with no exceptions.
Get on board or get left behind. This train is leaving. Now.
Sources
[1] Political power in the United States over time at Wikipedia
[2] Medicaid Under The Influence: How Drugmakers Sway Medication Options For Patients by Liz Essley Whyte et al. at NPR
[3] '60 Minutes': Fundraising demands turning lawmakers into telemarketers by Cyra Master at The Hill
[4] Corporations nailed shut the courtroom door: forced arbitration steals your rights and money by Krotor at Daily Kos
[5] Cost of Election (1998-2016) at OpenSecrets.org
[6] How to make the Federal Reserve the people's bank by Jeff Spross at The Week
[7] Americans distrusted US democracy long before Trump’s Russia problem by Ian Anson at The Conversation