Democrats, Whore Thyselves

After a weird presidential election where the loser won on the quirks of an arcane and warped electoral system, and the winning party won congressional majorities on the back of the fortune of what senate seats were up for grabs and gerrymandered state districts, the Democratic party is doing some sole searching … to put it mildly. A better description would be that they’re freaking out, and probably too much.

For some on the fringe of the party, this is an opportunity to try to force the party in a more narrowly leftist direction. You can’t blame them for trying this, that’s how politics work. When your opponents are weak you try to take advantage, whether its taking the upper hand over the opposition party or growing the influence of your own faction in your own coalition. The same thing happened during the losing years for the Republicans during the Clinton and Obama years.

But the country didn’t vote the Republicans into power because they agree with that party’s policies. These are voters who think that corporations get away with too much and don’t pay enough in taxes, while in truth Republicans want to reduce regulation and corporate taxes. These voters think that Wall Street bankers are evil and deceitful, while in truth Republicans want to gut bank regulations and penalties and let the market run wild. These voters think that other countries have stolen our jobs, while in truth Republicans have always been the most pro-free-trade of the two parties.

So why would these voters pick Republicans? Sure there are a handful of issues like racism, anti-feminism, and other forms of xenophobia that certainly played a part, but I don’t think it swung the election (seeing as the Republicans have been working on locking up the racist vote since the 1950s). I think a better explanation comes in the form of the voter we’ve all come to love to make fun of: the moron who revels in the repeal of Obamacare, not realizing that his ACA healthcare is the same thing. This is a variation of the idiot who decried the passing of the ACA because they didn’t want “government-controlled healthcare” taking away their Medicare. It the same jackass who complains about people “on welfare” as they get all of their withholding taxes back from the government each year and stock their fridge with stuff the bought on food stamps.

Yes, part of it is just that people are stupid. But a bigger part is a real problem: All of these voters who benefit from progressive policies have no idea that they benefit from progressive policies.

In this way, the Democratic Party has failed miserably. Despite the undeniable fact that progressives have been on the (mostly) winning end of every major policy fight since Reconstruction (income tax, universal suffrage, civil rights protections, workers rights, child labor laws, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, affordable housing, women’s rights, environmental rules, health and safety regulations, and the list goes on and on and on … ) most people don’t actually give progressives and the Democrats credit for any of it. Some of it, like Social Security, have been a part of our society for long enough that everyone takes it for granted. Almost no one actually believes that any politician would be stupid for foolish enough to actually try to privatize and take that basic retirement safety net away from us … until someone actually tries and the voters wake up with a start.

But while many of these victories have become part of the core of what it now means to be “American,” much of the fault lies with the Democratic Party and their inability to take credit for their own successes. The Republican Party does not have a problem with this, and never has. Donald Trump is a caricature of this, taking credit for not only everything he has accomplished loudly, arrogantly, and brashly, but taking credit for everything that wasn’t his doing and twisting failures into successes too. (For the latter, see how he “saved” the manufacturing jobs at Carrier in Indiana by pressuring them. In reality, he bought fewer than half of the jobs that were going to move to Mexico with a posh $7 million state tax incentive. In fact, 350 of the 800 jobs that “stayed” were engineering jobs that were never going to leave, and when the union leader at the plant spoke up about the phony numbers and posh deal for the company, Trump smeared him on Twitter.)

But the point here is not that Donald Trump is a despicable man who does despicable things. Plenty of other people are writing that story. The point is that Trump takes credit for everything, relentlessly. The Republicans do the same. Over time, this coalesces into a narrative that they are a successful, effective political party for the majority of Americans, when really that mantle belongs to Democrats and progressives.

But in this war of popularity, the Democratic Party has a major advantage. They have real success stories, and happy tales to tell. Lots of them.

Too often, the party gets dragged into a race to the bottom, negative campaign after negative campaign. Of course, the Republican Party wants a dirty fight, because they can’t win a positive one. (I mean, seriously? “I want to privatize your Social Security and Medicare, take away your public schools and food stamps, put a toll on every road and bridge, and replace all income taxes with massively regressive sales taxes” is not a platform on which you win elections.) The Republican Party needs negative advertising and slimy elections. They need both sides down in the mud, because that’s where they can win. On the rare, rare occasion that an ordinary American citizen is actually benefitting from the GOP, the party makes an enormous fucking deal out of it, and they do so in such an ecstatic rush that they don’t even vet the source. (Remember Joe the Plumber?)

The Democrats, on the other hand, have millions and millions of success stories and tales of people (ordinary, hard-working Americans) who have been helped by their policies. There are about 40 million people who collect SNAP benefits (food stamps). And these don’t have to be shameful statistics. Where are the stories of the people who used these while working to get their family out of poverty and send their kids to school? Where are the doctors and successful businesspeople out there who were fed as kids by money from food stamps and apartments paid for with public housing dollars? Millions of these stories exist, but do you know the name of a single one of them?

How about the hated, hated “Obamacare.” There are, quite literally, 20 million people who benefitted from this. People who are alive because of the law. People who aren’t bankrupt because of the law. Do you know the stories of any of these people? How about the millions who are suffering because their Republican state leaders refused to expand Medicare? Do you know any of their stories? I mean, even Speaker of the House Paul Ryan went to college on money that he received from Social Security survivor’s benefits when his father died when he was growing up. HOW THE FUCK IS THIS NOT A DEMOCRATIC PARTY COMMERCIAL ON EVERY NETWORK?!

The Democratic Party should be creating articles, videos, commercials, and more to promote all of the good that their progressive policies have done. Videos of people whose lives are better because of progressive policies. Instagram feeds of successful adults who share photos of their families when they were young and lived in housing projects and lived on food stamps, benefits that allowed them the opportunity to pursue their dreams and be successful. Facebook pages of happy gay couples and their adopted children who are lucky enough to grow up in such a loving environment. Articles by gun owners who are in favor of expanded background checks and eliminating gun show loopholes. Op-eds by successful business people like Warren Buffett and Bill Gates on why the rich should pay their fair share in a very progressive income tax system and how we should be spending more on those less fortunate than ourselves.

The Democrats have been fighting the Republicans’ dirty game for a long time. It’s a fight they won’t win. So maybe it’s time to change the battlefield. The Republican Party can’t win a positive campaign, but the Democratic Party can.

Yes, after such a shocking electoral defeat, the Democratic Party should do some soul-searching. Progressive policies aren’t merely the policies of the past, they are also the future, and we need to make sure that the party is ready to fight for them. But before this happens, maybe the party needs to start doing a better job of promoting all of the good things it has already done.