Let’s look ahead and talk about how we can realign the Democratic Party to regain power.
It isn’t as if the party is on life support as so many media people are saying.
At least 50 percent of the reason Republicans control the House is gerrymandering. We have 48 Senate seats, and our candidate for president won the popular vote.
So what do we do?
First of all, we become Democrats again. We stand for the things we always have and not pretend we’re Republican Lite.
Second, we stop accepting campaign money from Wall Street and the investment banks. Sure, that means we’ll be way short of cash, but we make up for it by working harder. In fact, when it comes to campaign contributions, we refuse to accept any larger than $100.
Third, no PACs.
Fourth, we stop being a boutique party made up of all sorts of special interest groups. We get back to being the party of people who get paychecks, not the people who sign them.
Call this one four-A: We stop talking about the middle class. We’re the party of the working class. Period.
It’s doable. We got so far off track that working-class people gave their votes to the party that sent their jobs overseas, looted their pensions and is trying to loot their Social Security.
Fifth, we stop being part of the problem when it comes to the economy. Pollsters found that people believed CEOs made 30 times as much money as the average employee in their companies. It’s actually 300 times.
How do we stop being part of this problem? We start by telling the CEOs we don’t want their money.
Sixth, we accept the fact that people of faith don’t agree with us on everything. We accept that and try to find common ground in the areas where we do agree.
This is just a start.
I’ll say more on this later.
— November 2016, after the election
***
I wrote that seven years ago, just after Donald Trump had been “elected” president, and I’ve got to be honest. I never thought he could have have been half as awful as he turned out to be.
I would never have imagined someone who could get so many votes from other Americans could go so far in selling us out to countries that hate us. The low point came when Trump met with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki and demanded there be no witnesses to or recording of his meeting.
And Republicans allowed it.
Think about that. There is no record anywhere about what Trump gave Putin, and Republicans — who used to be against Russia — cared only about their power and what Trump could do for them.
Tax cuts and Supreme Court justices.
Joe Biden got seven million more votes than Trump in 2020, and right-wing media convinced the idiots who love Trump that the election had been stolen. In fact, I even saw people claiming that the Democrats had stolen the vote in California, where Biden got 65 percent of the vote and won five five million votes.
The fact is, too many people have gotten too stupid to be part of the solution.
Anyone who says Trump really won the 2020 election is either an idiot, a liar, an insurrectionist or all three.
As Democrats and real Americans, we need to say no more. Republicans have admitted all over the country that if everyone votes, they cannot win. Even in so-called red states like North Carolina, they put so much effort into gerrymandering and preventing people from voting that they are traitors to our Founders.
Nobody wants people voting who aren’t eligible to vote.
But this is not a conservative country. Look at a so-called red state like Ohio, where 56 percent of votes both legalized marijuana for recreational use and guaranteed Ohio women’s right to make their own reproductive choices.
Harry Truman said that Democrats don’t win elections by acting like Republicans. He said if the choice is between a Republican and a Republican, they will vote for the Republican every time.
One problem is that liberals look for happy mediums. They try to find compromises.
Conservatives don’t. They’re willing to tear things down to get their own way. They are willing to hurt millions of people to win the battle.
Use whatever metaphor you want. Say our country in on the critical list or on life support. Say we’re on the edge of a precipice looking into an abyss.
Whatever your metaphor, it’s right wingers pulling the plug on life support or forcing us closer and closer to the abyss.
It has to stop.
We are not the party of Bill Clinton, of triangulation with evil. We’re not the party of the middle class or Wall Street CEOs.
We are the party of the working class, of FDR, Truman, John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson.
And dammit, we are the party of Joe Biden, who truly cares about people who work for a living.
So get serious.
The hour is drawing late.