Hello Democrats.
I’m one of you and I have some ideas.
Please read them and share your thoughts.
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1. Dear progressive organizations, please consider relocating some significant portion of your infrastructure away from the expensive rents and office spaces of deep blue cities and states. This doesn’t just make sense economically, but it makes sense from a mission-based point of view, as well. There’s organizing and persuasion to do and red states and districts are waiting.
2. We need a Million Person Move. There’s a ton of great reasons for people to consider a move from dense liberal areas to gerrymandered districts and Red States. Retirees looking at the possibility of spending their golden years under Trump could make a big impact moving to Wyoming, Montana, Arizona, Maine or South Dakota. Folks with the ability to telecommute and a commitment to changing the electoral map could consider setting up shop in Kansas, Texas or Missouri. New families (especially those of young teachers and healthcare workers) looking to contribute to a local economy and find affordable housing might consider small towns in Nebraska, Iowa, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and Wisconsin. Artists and entrepreneurs, as well as the more established companies who love their cutting edge aesthetic, should consider joining those who’ve already started a movement to Ohio and Michigan and North Carolina’s converted industrial spaces.
The point is, there’s a cost to liberals staying bunched up in 80% Democratic districts...and when people look at the perceived costs of moving someplace new...they should also think about the very real costs of staying. Fact is, this nation is so gerrymandered that this is one idea that works both ways. Liberal bastions should welcome new arrivals from conservative strongholds, and with open arms. We have nothing to lose, and much to gain.
3. On the topic of immediately addressing xenophobia, racism, religious tolerance and multiculturalism, there’s an overlooked voice that needs to make itself heard and that we need to call upon. That’s the broad swath of corporate America where comments and behavior like our incoming President exhibits and encourages would get you fired. We need a consortium of American businesses that value a diverse and collaborative workforce to come together to express that long-established standards of conduct in the American workplace are also standards we expect in our public life.
Further, these corporations need to lobby on behalf of these principals just like they do for their other agendas. This is happening. Democrats need to join in support when people do the right thing.
4. I remain convinced that the progressive left position in American politics is best expressed in the form of principled engagement with the Democratic party, specifically engagement that seeks full, ungrudging and wholly participatory membership in the Democratic coalition, shoulder-to-shoulder with every other group and no better and no less than anyone else.
5. As a corollary to the above, you can’t call yourself progressive if you don’t actively support the efforts of local unions and working people, including joining picket lines, and working with local government on every level to pass legislation that raises wages and benefits, protects the vulnerable and works to make a sustainable planet.
Everyone working to make progressive change on the local level knows just how absolutely difficult it is to make significant reforms even in places like Berkeley, San Francisco and Oakland. If your progressive politics is more about your choice of presidential candidate than about making change in your community then not only are you doing it wrong, but you are actually making this important local work harder and more difficult.
When it comes to true progressive reform, it’s not about a movement to elect President Sanders, it’s about a movement to elect 100 Mayor Sanders. And that’s been true this whole time.
6. The Obama administration’s main argument justifying their strategy of the last eight years has been based almost wholly on the premise that they executed flawlessly to deliver the best possible policy outcomes given Republican (and internal Democratic) obstruction.
The yield of this strategy politically, however, is that Democrats are effectively out of power. The GOP claims 31 Governors, Republicans hold 67 of 98 State Legislative bodies, and the GOP has functional majorities in the U. S. House and Senate. Further, President Trump will nominate the next Supreme Court Justice. Nearly all of Obama’s accomplishments are now vulnerable to roll back, reversal and erosion.
This is and has always been about more than Hillary Clinton and her campaign, or whether our new emerging majority emerged or not.
Given the likely direct human cost and consequence of all of the above reality to the members of our Democratic coalition, we need to have a sober and complete reassessment of President Obama’s political strategy. We may all, and I certainly do, continue to love and admire our President. But the time is now to assess and review how, when the votes were tallied in 2016, we got this so wrong when we had eight years to get it right.
7. Read this article by Eduardo Porter as you consider what I wrote above.
8. We need to have hope. Not merely in personalities or technology. But in the resilience of people and movements.
Take three examples from my home state.
California passed Prop. 187 (Aka, the “Save our State” or “SOS Initiative.”) in 1994 and the people were resilient and created a backlash.
In 2003 California elected a charismatic, superstar chief executive who promised to “Make California Great Again.” And by the end of his governorship, the state GOP was virtually broken and we emerged with the best environmental laws in the nation, to boot.
On November 4, 2008, Californians passed Proposition 8 and within months we were organizing and training rank and file LGBTQ activists and allies how to go door to door and tell their story for marriage equality. And at the end of the day, we won.
We are ready for the challenge of Donald Trump. The question is only how far are we willing to go outside of our comfort zone. That is the limit of the possible.
9. If I controlled the DNC, I would buy 10,000 hats. The hats would say “Democrats USA.” I would hire 1000 organizers to recruit 9,000 volunteers of all ages, backgrounds and sizes, and I would send them out to diners, shopping centers and parks across the entire country,
I would teach all of these folks to start conversations that are more about listening than talking.
I would train them to identify leaders and issues and to identify new activists.
But first I would teach each of them how to begin a rap that starts, “Hi, my name is Paul and I’m from the Democratic Party, how are you doing today?”
It’s called organizing. It can’t be hacked by the Kremlin. And if you don’t do it, you lose.
And that’s something we are all too familiar with, unfortunately.
Those are my ideas for now.
What are yours?