The Democratic Platform for 2020?

I have argued for years that Democrats need to have a cohesive positive vision for America that speaks to the average American, and policies that flow from it (see my book, We Still Hold These Truths, and my post “The Perennial Search for the Democrats’ Mission”).  Never has that been more important than for the 2020 election.  

We have a mad President to whom roughly a third of the voting electorate is in thrall.  In typical populist style, he has whipped them to a frenzy.  The rest of the electorate is not in thrall and indeed rather disgusted by the President.  

This is an opening for Democrats.  The key to winning is getting the uncommitted people who normally vote, and who voted for Trump in 2016, to vote for the Democrat in 2020.

But If activist progressives have their way, that opening will be squandered and Trump will win another term.  Some of their ideas are just off the wall.  Others have merit but the way they are expressed and their attitude towards those who oppose them creates ill will among a far larger group of people than those they appeal to. 

They have no nuance; no willingness to compromise.  They have no understanding what leadership involves.  Because they won their seats, they think they have a mandate; they don’t understand that the rest of the country may feel very differently.

For example, while most people would like better and cheaper health insurance, most are by and large happy with their current employer-provided insurance.  They need to be convinced and allowed to choose Medicare For All, not be forced into it by eliminating private insurance off the bat.  That scares them and creates a feeling of insecurity.  Let’s get back to the initial goal of making all Americans health care secure by providing access to those who don’t have it now.  Medicare For All should initially be an option for all.

Most people want to treat immigrants and asylum seekers fairly.  On the other hand, regardless our history as a nation of immigrants, many feel that things are different now than in the 19th and early 20th century.  We cannot have open doors.  And so the idea of decriminalizing illegal entry seems wrong-headed.  And providing health care by right to all illegal immigrants would not only encourage illegal immigration, millions of our own citizens don’t have that access.  

The progressive immigration reform agenda used to be to provide a pathway to citizenship for the illegal immigrants already here and who are part of our society and economy.  That people could understand and support, depending on the details. But that goal seems lost in the current debate.

The first Democratic debate does not bode well for winning over the uncommitted group in the middle.  Despite activist progressives representing only a small fraction of the Democratic voting base, their strong presence on social media and the Squad’s in-your-face press conferences, led most of the candidates to voice positions or raise their hands in solidarity with the activists but striking fear into the rest of us who worry about another 4 years of Trump. 

I consider myself a progressive and have argued in these pages for major changes in the relationship between government, business, and the people.  But these changes must be approached incrementally; otherwise there will be no mandate for those changes.   We need a progressive candidate who is reasonable, not strident; who will appeal to the Democratic base and beyond. 

A.O.C. and Rep. Omar scare me.  That they bring a smile to Trump’s face scares me even more.

The Problem with a President Bernie Sanders

Senator Sanders is a good, intelligent, forthright man.  His heart is in the right place.  And he certainly believes strongly about what is right and what is wrong.

But there’s a problem with Sanders as President.  It lies in primarily two areas:  rhetoric and policy development.

When it comes to rhetorical style, Bernie Sanders and his fire-breathing progressive allies share much with Donald Trump.  It is confrontational in both tone and substance.  As Trump and many autocrats have shown, this is certainly the way to build a devoted, unwavering base.

But such a style and the unwavering … dare one say, unthinking … political support it engenders does not bode well for the future of our democracy.  If Sanders, or AOC (Ocasio-Cortez), or Trump say something, their followers take it as gospel truth and praise the speaker.  A healthy democracy depends on people thinking, sifting through competing ideas, not leaving it to leaders to think.

This style also exacerbates the us v them aspect of politics and social dynamic.  Before the recent extreme polarization of American politics, people were usually sorely disappointed when they lost an election, but the call by all was for unity, for forming a “loyal” opposition.  In Congress or elsewhere, there were political disagreements, people took their stands, but it was with the feeling that everyone had the country’s best interest at heart and so there was civility in the midst of disagreement.  People could agree to disagree.

Gone are those days.  While the problem started with Senator Dole's very negative relationship with President Clinton during his 2nd term, it became all -consuming when Obama was President and Republicans in Congress, led by Mitch McConnell and John Boehner, decided that they were just going to say, “no,” to anything floated by Obama; their only purpose in Congress was to defeat him.  It went so far as to not giving Obama’s 2016 Supreme Court nominee a hearing in order to keep the slot open should a Republican win the next election, even though that was almost 8 months away and the start of the new term 10 months away.

There is a danger in Sander’s campaign style as with the combative style of some of the newly-elected progressives in the House.  The danger is that you may win some battles, but you will ultimately lose the war. You will not change the culture/government in the ways you would like because you have alienated many rather than generated good will among your opponents.

The other problem with Sanders as President comes in the all-important area of policy development.  Let’s take as an example Sander’s Medicare-for-All.  A wonderful idea, but as I explained in my post, “Medicare for All or Some?” not the way to ultimately get to where he wants to be ... universal single-payer coverage.  But Sanders has no use for discussing all the problems, all the dislocation, inherent in implementing his health plan should it pass.  

I draw from this, in combination with his rhetorical style, that Sanders is not a reasonable man … meaning that one cannot reason with him and he can’t employ reason with those not on his team, convincing them to support him or finding a place for compromise where both sides win.  It’s like W saying, “Either you’re with us or against us.”  Like it’s impossible to imagine the reality of someone being on your side but having a difference of opinion on tactics.  What we very much need in a President is a reasonable man.

So I was not for Sanders in 2016 and I’m not for him now.  But not for the reasons of the Democratic Party establishment.  Not because he fights the larger ills of our culture and government.  Not because he sees the ills of capitalism.  Not because he thinks the super rich are richer than they need be.  I have no problem with any of those positions.

It is rather because his rhetorical style will leave us with a country which drifts even further apart.  Where the concept of an American social contract is even more distant.  Where the phrase “my fellow Americans” becomes an unimaginable anachronism.