In 2016 our country – to the amazement and consternation of many – elected Donald Trump as president.
That wasn’t supposed to happen.
In 2020 we’ll have another presidential election and, depending on events over the next three years, Trump could be on the ballot and he could win a second term.
Wait, is that supposed to happen again?
It could because once you’re on the general election ballot you’re in the finals and anything can happen when you get that far, as was proven last year.
That’s pretty unsettling news to those of us who view Trump as the most incompetent and corrupt president in history and find the pro-rich, anti-poor, anti-immigrant, anti-minority, anti-environment slant of the Republican Party appalling.
How could a president as unfit as Trump get reelected, especially after we’ve had a chance to see him in office for four depressing years? Surely the Democrats will turn things around starting in 2018 and go for the kill in 2020.
Surely the Democratic National Committee, under its new leadership, will perform like a well-oiled machine. After all, Trump is so unfit on multiple levels that knocking him out of office will be like hitting a softball off a tee.
It’ll be a cinch. Won’t it?
Actually, no.
The DNC has become pretty much a national embarrassment, reminiscent of the man who was on the first floor of a 10-story building when a fire broke out. Instead of running out the front door, he raced up to the 10th floor and jumped out a window.
A Washington Post column by James Downie entitled “The Democratic Party Needs to Get Its Act Together” took a look at DNC Interim Chair Donna Brazile’s claims about what she calls an “unethical” 2015 financial agreement between Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the committee.
Follow-up reporting by NBC News showed that the DNC struck a deal with Clinton that gave her campaign input on some party hiring and spending decisions, but required they be related only to preparations for the general election, according to a memo obtained by NBC. It also left the door open for other candidates to make similar arrangements.
So maybe it wasn’t as unethical as it first sounded, but it still lead to revisiting the accusations that the DNC “rigged” the primary in favor of Clinton over Bernie Sanders, something that Sanders’ supporters have claimed all along. The division between the Left and Centrist portions of the party won’t be helped by this latest revelation.
There’re bigger problems beyond the frustration of Sanders’ followers. Downie’s piece paints a pretty bleak picture of the DNC in just the area of basic competence.
He writes that “Brazile’s allegations are only the latest evidence of the Democratic Party’s troubles, and why the party establishment is ill-equipped to solve them.”
Look, there’s plenty of blame to go around here and plenty of fingers ready to point in that regard.
As Downie wrote: “Facing a Trump-ified GOP, Democrats need to rediscover competency more urgently than ever. The failures of the past decade suggest that their best chance lies with bringing in leaders and ideas that have been outside the party’s power structure.
“There’s not much reason to expect sweeping change though. Tom Perez’s victory in February’s race for DNC chair ensured the party remained in establishment hands, though the appointment of left-wing stalwart Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) as vice-chair was a notable change.”
You can read the column here.
So now what do we do? For one, we can take a lesson from the Sanders phenomenon and his better-than-expected showing in the primary.
I voted for Sanders, and it was an easy choice. After listening to him talk and reading about him it was clear that he had a message that would resonate with people. I knew he was an underdog, but I thought he could connect with the public if given the chance.
Sanders, as we know even more now, was truly a one-man gang, taking on, and at times overwhelming, Clinton and the Democratic establishment with the strength of his message and the enthusiasm of his followers. He put together a grassroots campaign and a small-donation fundraising approach that was stunningly effective.
Whether he would have won in the general election is subject to debate. He wouldn’t have carried nearly the baggage that Clinton had, but then again the GOP would have tailored its campaign to address his own set of question marks. It would have been dirty and ugly and who knows how he would have held up against that onslaught.
Still, for 2020 we need a Sanders-like candidate. We need someone with a powerful message that touches the voters. Someone who doesn’t come across as a good-old-boy political hack. Someone who doesn’t carry the baggage of being just another programmed politician.
We don’t need a DNC darling. We need someone who can stand on his or her own two feet independent of the party’s big-money interests. We need someone bigger than the DNC, with a clear, easy-to-understand progressive message of not just what needs to be done but how it will be done and why it will work.
We need a rock star. In a way, we need what Trump was to the Republican establishment in 2016.
That doesn’t mean an establishment pick won’t be the best choice. We won’t know until we see how it plays out. But who’s going to inspire you to get out and volunteer and donate and vote, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer?
Who knows? Maybe it will be Sanders. If not, there are a number of promising possibilities. We just need one of them grab hold of our imagination and show himself or herself to be the kind if leader to pull our country out of the downward spiral it’s experienced with Trump as the pilot.
We all have to make our picks and do what we can. But all of this won’t work if one other thing doesn’t happen – the coming together of all sides after the primary to back our party’s nominee.
Protest votes, abstaining from voting, things like that will ensure one thing: Four more years of Trump as president and continued control of both houses of Congress by the Republicans.
The disappointment of the Sanders’ voters is real. And there will be disappointment again after the next primary. But at some point pragmatism has to take over if we want to get anywhere.
Don’t buy the false equivalency. We aren’t the lesser of two evils. We’re fighting evil. It’s the other side that’s evil.
Divided we fall. United we have a shot.
I’d rather have a shot.
How about you?
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You can read all my blog posts at Musings of a Nobody
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