A Call to the American People

My fellow Americans.  Our democracy is under attack from within.  The well-being of the American people, the environment, and our historic values are at risk.  

But we must do more than resist.  The American people must rally, touch their basic goodness, and be freed of feeling they have to fight for their lives alone.  This cancer impacts all Americans … rich and poor, white and people of color, young and old.  The stakes have never been higher.  We are all in this boat of life together and we either all rise or we all sink.  We are in truth all “fellow Americans.”

The role of Democrats in this upcoming election must be to guide the American people back to the safety of dry solid land, back to the clear light of the mountaintop.  This is not about winning an election; this is not about one interest winning over another.  This is about the survival of American democracy, the light that has guided the world for more than two centuries.

Democrats often are not good at telling their story, their vision.  The Democrats' vision is to be found in the words of the Declaration of Independence.  It is past time for Democrats to regain the rhetorical upper hand and reclaim their position as the party of the people, the party of America’s historic values. And it is past time for Democrats to expose the radical Republican Right for what they are … hypocrites masquerading as the party of the people. It is the Democrats who are the party "of the people, by the people, and for the people."  For the sake of our country, we must proclaim our vision for all Americans clearly and effectively.  We must regain their hearts and minds. 

Here is my proposed Democratic Party Mission:

“To build a country of greater opportunity where:

• each and every American has a real chance to experience the promises made in the Declaration of Independence … ‘that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights … Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness;’ 
• government meets its responsibility as set forth in the Declaration … ‘to secure those rights,’ within the constraints of fiscal responsibility; and
• all citizens have a shared responsibility to support the government’s efforts to secure those rights and promote the public good, each according to his ability.”

For more go to www.westillholdthesetruths.info, and

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNlt8hc7GM4

Trump Wants Americans to Be Like North Koreans

One of the more amazing, and revealing, statements made by Donald Trump after the Singapore Summit was the following, referring to the relationship between Kim Jong Un and his people, “He speaks and his people sit up at attention. I want my people to do the same.”

So now we have proof of what we’ve feared: at heart, Donald Trump is a dictator.  He wants everyone to agree with him.  He brooks no disagreement.  He wants the American people to take his word as gospel and follow it accordingly.

Donald Trump does not have the understanding that when he was elected President, he was not given sweeping powers to do as he will.  He did not receive a mandate to remake the Presidency and government in his image.  His core supporters may well have given him such a mandate, and that amounts to perhaps 1/3 of voters.  Certainly that’s significant, but that does not give him the power and latitude he seeks..

Normally, our system of government … the famous checks and balances … would stop a President like Trump doing what he will.  Unfortunately, at this point in time, there is no check or balance because all three branches of government … executive, legislative, and judicial (the Supreme Court) … are in the same hands.  Not even the civil service can act as an internal check on the executive because he has placed at the heads of each agency people who are antagonistic to the very mission of those agencies to protect the public.

OMG!  It wasn’t until I wrote these words that I realized that Donald Trump has created the core of a dictatorial government … one where all think the same and do the master’s bidding.  The people gave him a like-minded legislative majority.  He gave the Supreme Court a radical conservative majority through his appointment of Justice Gorsuch to the court.  And as I just stated, he has placed at the head of each federal agency people who are determined to change the mission of the agency from one dedicated to protecting the public, to one dedicated to supporting big business.

We as a country are in graver danger than I ever realized, even in the short-term.  Viewed in this light, the significance of the upcoming mid-term elections are even more critical.  The control of Congress, or at least one of its houses, must pass to the Democrats in order to place a brake on this dictatorial presidency.  

As Democrats talk to the people, this needs to be one of the talking points.

”They Were Never Going to Let Me Be President.”

Those words, spoken by Hillary Clinton when she was informed that she had lost the election, as recently reported in The New York Times, speak volumes about what was wrong with Hillary as a presidential candidate.  

Who were this “they” that she referred to?  The deplorable people?  The NRA?  No one kept her from being president.  It was her own flawed campaign that caused her to lose the presidency that was hers to lose.  While she has finally admitted some mistakes, she has never owned up to this basic fact.  It was always someone else’s fault … especially James Comey.  And that makes her a weak person, despite all her strengths.

Democrats have a history of losing because of problems with their campaigns, as opposed to the strength of their opponents or shifting demographics.  When Gore lost it was because of problems with his campaign, not the agony over Florida’s “hanging chads.”  When Kerry lost, likewise.  When Hillary lost, ditto.  The recent Democrats who didn’t lose … Bill Clinton and Obama … won because their campaigns did not have major problems.  They were candidates who spoke to the people in a way that the people understood, and the people heard and voted.

Ever since the 2000 election, I have argued that Democrats run flawed campaigns.  To me, the biggest problem is that they do not have a vision and they do not know how to speak to the people in a way that the people get.  So they aren’t able to get someone out of his apathy or change someone’s mind.  And so the people on the margins of life, the people who need to be convinced to cast their vote, just don’t vote; and people leaning to the other side vote that way.  And that’s a lot of people.

In 2004 I wrote We STILL Hold These Truths to show the Party the way to win the hearts and minds of the American people and win the election.  Sadly, despite my repeated efforts to bring the book’s message to the attention of party leaders and candidates, my advice has fallen on deaf ears.  Lucky, Obama didn’t need my advice because he did have a vision.  And he instinctively knew how to speak to the people, just as Bill Clinton did.

Now we are preparing for the 2018 midterm elections and are in the lead-up to the 2020 presidential elections.  Democrats have to be more than the anti-Trump.  They have to be clear on what they are offering the American people, especially the middle class and the poor (they comprise 79% of US households), if they are to win, certainly to win decisively.

So far, all I see is a muddle.  There is no clear voice, anywhere.  

And the DNC is wasting energy and creating more negative political capital than positive with their new lawsuit against the Trump campaign for working with the Russians to defeat Hillary.  I see that as doing more to undermine the Special Counsel’s legitimacy than anything the Republicans have done, because it will appear to many people that Trump has been right in his claim that the issue of collusion is a Democratic-inspired with hunt.

The 2018 and 2020 elections are once again the Democrats to lose.  Whether they win or lose, it will be a result of the strength or weakness of their campaigns, not a problem in the American people.

The Real Challenge for Democrats in the 2018 Election: Getting Non-voters to Vote

If the Democrats are going to have a good change at winning the 2018 mid-term elections  in a decisive way … which is what is really needed … then we have to do more than convince disaffected Trump voters to vote Democratic.  That could be enough to change the balance of power in Congress, but it would result in a very close election with no clear mandate, other than an anti-Trump message. We can do better than that.

What Democrats need to do is get those people who routinely don’t vote to vote.  In mid-term elections, the voting rate is usually around 35 - 40%  The vast majority of the non-voters are people who just don’t vote, as opposed to those who vote in Presidential elections but not in off-year elections.  (In Presidential elections, the voting rate is typically between 51% and 56%.)  This will not be an easy task.

The reason why this is potentially so important is that those who don’t vote are demographically different from those who do.  Non-voters are younger; people of color form a larger percentage; and they are less affluent and less educated.  In short, non-voters are more likely to vote Democratic than Republican if they voted.

Why does such a large proportion of eligible voters routinely not vote?  No other advanced, industrialized country makes such a dismal showing of citizen participation in the basic act of democracy - voting.  What follows are the primary reasons.  Two could be easily fixed; one is more difficult and almost endemic to politics.

1.  Voter registration is often difficult.  And Republican-controlled legislatures are making registration and voting even more difficult.  Of those who are registered, a high percentage (84%) typically vote.  While many just have no interest in voting, a lot of people don’t really get caught up in political races until the last stages, but by then it’s too late to register in most of the U.S. (exceptions: in Minnesota you can register on election day, and in North Dakota you don’t have to register at all).

There should be no barriers to voter registration.  It should be automatic.  If you are a citizen, you are registered.  Why not?  Voting is a right of citizenship.  Period.  However, how to do that would be more difficult than in some European countries where everyone must register their residence at the local police station.  In those countries, they know at all times where people are.  But I’m sure that there are ways to do that.  Automatic registration when you get a drivers license is good, but that leaves many poor people out.    Additional means must be found.

Also note, this would be different from the current practice in states that connect drivers license with voter registration.  These states either allow people to opt out of registration or they must do something, however minimal, to register.  Given the prevalence of the “who cares” attitude, registration must be automatic.  It is a duty of citizenship and so should be automatic; also that way if someone decides at the last minute to vote, they can because they are registered.

2.  Voting day is a work day.  In most other countries, voting day is either a national holiday or it is on a weekend when fewer people work.  Although legally, employers have to allow people to take time off from work to vote, for many people, especially lower level employees, their job is a lifeline and they won’t do anything that might jeopardize their job.  Few employers actively encourage people to take time off to vote.

There should be no barriers to voting.  There is no reason why election day should not be a national holiday.  We have them for all sorts of reasons, most not particularly important.  This one is important.  Barring that, election day should be changed to a weekend, preferably a Sunday.

3.  Many people think that voting is a worthless exercise.  They are disgusted with politics.  A pox on both your houses.  They don’t think that either party is truly interested in helping better their lives, which is what matters most to most people.  

This reason will be harder to resolve.  Even the passage of Obamacare, which did make a difference to millions, did not shake this alienation.  To them all the party platforms are just chatter.  And of course this is partly true.  The reason why Trump won is that he was able to convince people, running as an outsider, that he really heard them, felt for them, and was going to do something that would benefit them.  And now they are learning that this was also chatter.

How do you get people to suspend their deep feeling of disbelief in politicians?  I don’t have the answer.  But it’s not telling people all the wonderful thing that Democrats have done in the past for the working class and poor; those things are true, but people take those things for granted.  People still don’t feel good about their lives.  They need something more meaningful than food stamps and various forms of aid. They need better schools, better pay, better jobs.  They need to feel good about what they are doing.

Some politicians appear more trustworthy and charismatic than others, but while that may impact an election, it won’t pull the nonvoters out of their habit-energy.  Not even Obama broke the 60% barrier in the 2008 election.  If I were in charge of the DNC, I would conduct focus groups of nonvoters to find out what it would take to get them to vote.

But for starters, the Democratic Party and its politicians must speak to these people, directly and honestly.  They must show the forgotten that they are not forgotten.  And they must have a new all-inclusive Mission at their disposal that will hopefully convince people to give them a chance.  The prospective voter after all has nothing to lose.

As for the Mission, here is what I’ve proposed:

To bring to life the promises set forth in our Declaration of Independence.

To build a country of greater opportunity where:

* each and every American has the best chance to experience the promise 

‘that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with 

certain unalienable Rights … Life,  Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness’;

* government meets its responsibility as set forth in the Declaration …  

‘to secure those rights’,  within the constraints of fiscal responsibility; and

* all citizens have a shared responsibility to support the government’s efforts 

 to secure those rights and promote the public good, each according to his ability.”

These words from the Declaration of Independence are the moral philosophy, the heart, the soul of American democracy. This is America’s common faith.  Together with the concept of shared responsibility, this is America’s social contract.  To further that promise of equality and opportunity with fiscal responsibility is the Mission of the Democratic Party.  

Stop playing identify politics; speak to the American people.  While providing continuity with the past, this Mission provides a new start for the Party and for the country,