One of our inherent problems, as Democrats, is that we are organized as a “Top-down” party, with all demands coming down from the top, but none of the money to execute and fulfill those demands. We have activists all across the country, with no effective, listening leadership. That’s why we lost. We lost because DW-S decided that Hillary was going to be our nominee, and she pressed that cause as DNC chair until it became obvious that the membership (we individual Democrats out here in what are often "red” jurisdictions) rebelled. My local "Democratic Party” is, likewise, ruled as a "top-down” organization, with everybody else in the party expected to be minions who man the phone banks or go door-to-door at the last minute.
As a management consultant (now retired) to CxOs of Fortune 500 companies, I've spent most of my productive years transforming huge companies from "top-down”organization—where the belief is often that "lower-level” folks just 'don't understand the problem', when—in fact—they're in the thick of it. Generally, the mid-level managers are aware of the real problems, but the strategies that come down from on high are not relevant. The solution, in my experience, is to believe the simple mantra: "All of us, are smarter than any one of us.” The information has to flow both ways.
Now, I don't know about your local Democratic party, but mine is headed by people who believe there's only one person in charge, and that one person will decide how the rest of us spend our time...so, eventually, we spend our time like a social club, because "the orders from on high” don't make sense to us. For example, many of my local peers understand that we need to elect people to local office, not just vote in federal elections. Those local people both infuse our values into local issues, and form a "farm team” for candidates for higher office.
How do you deal with this issue? How to we make every local Democratic agency an adequately funded organization that reaches out to all the members for the best ideas, instead of sticking to obsolete "tried and true” solutions that no longer work. Just one example: We lost the election for president because we didn't reach out to and attract millenials...who were the majority of the registered Democrats who didn't even vote this month!
How you deal with this dilemma at the local level?