Ever since the Fuhrer was able to occupy the White House with less that 25% of eligible voters and a minority of votes cast, several propel have published articles on how to recover the Democratic Party in order to enable it to take America away from the Republican Reich, an alliance of billionaires and misanthropes, and represent the people. While I can't say I agree with everything these authors have to say, here it is for your consideration.
Democrats are still reeling from Hillary Clinton’s unexpected loss last November. Democratic leaders such as Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer are leading the opposition to President Trump’s proposals to overturn reforms such as the Affordable Healthcare Act. But history suggests that opposition to the president and vows of action to reconnect with alienated voters will not suffice. The Democrats will need new ideas, better alignment with the spirit of the times, and fresh new candidates to make a comeback and recapture the presidency.
They can learn from the experience of their party in the 1950’s. Their presidential candidate, Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson, campaigned in 1952 mostly on a platform of continuing and expanding the programs of his Democratic predecessors, Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman. He lost to Dwight Eisenhower, a World War II hero who vaguely promised to uproot corruption in Washington and end the Korean War, ongoing since 1950. Republicans won majorities in both houses of Congress.
The Democrats came back, but it took eight years. They mainly followed five strategies.
1. Analyze reasons for the loss
Democrats need to examine frankly why they lost in 2016.
In 1952, Stevenson lost for two reasons. One, Eisenhower, a popular military hero because of his World War II leadership, ran convincingly against corruption in Washington and the threat of communist aggression and promised to end the war in Korea, which had begun two years earlier. It would have been very difficult for any Democrat to defeat him in 1952.
Two, more relevant for Democrats to recall today, Stevenson, governor of Illinois, came across as detached, waffling and indecisive. He was a reluctant candidate, not entering the race until just before the convention. He was eloquent and witty but bland, uninspiring, and inconsistent, something of a lukewarm liberal. He endorsed and promised to continue FDR’s New Deal and Harry Truman’s Fair Deal policies. But he also expressed disdain for federal programs on public housing, aid to education, and farm subsidies. He favored self-restraint, government frugality, and state action on economic issues. We should not “do in Washington what can be done in Indianapolis” or “ask Uncle Sam to bridge Catbird Creek,” he insisted. He was a proponent of civil rights but skeptical of federal intervention and asserted the issue was a state responsibility. He said there was “no easy answer” to the Korean War. Stevenson’s loss was due in part to not having clear, distinct, credible positions on key issues.
2. Develop new ideas
Democrats need a fresh set of ideas and policy proposals.
Early in 1953, John Kenneth Galbraith, an economics professor who had served as an advisor and speechwriter on Stevenson’s 1952 campaign, wrote him with a suggestion. “How can we do the most to keep the Democratic Party intellectually alert and positive during these years in the wilderness?” Galbraith asked. “We have all told ourselves that mere opposition is not enough. Yet it would be hard at this moment to say what the Democratic Party is for. On domestic matters we are for good and against evil and for tidying up the unfinished business of the New Deal. We want an expanding economy but there are few who could be pressed into any great detail as to what this means or takes…. [W]e are still trading on the imagination and intellectual vigor of the Roosevelt era and that capital is running thin.”
The answer, said Galbraith was “some organization in or adjacent to the Democratic Party” where political leaders and intellectuals could discuss issues and develop fresh new proposals.
Galbraith, with Stevenson’s encouragement, assembled an informal group of thoughtful economists, political leaders, academics, and foreign policy experts. The group met every month or two for the next three years. It became known informally as the Finletter Group because it assembled frequently at the Washington home of Thomas K. Finletter, former Secretary of the Air Force. Stevenson attended occasionally. The group’s discussions were lively and imaginative as they explored ways to draw on traditional New Deal/ Fair Deal policies but come up with fresh ideas that would take the Democratic Party to a new level and help it project a new, winning progressive image. They debated strategy, developed new ideas, and wrote substantive papers on national security, disarmament, taxation, social security, income distribution, agriculture, education, international trade, disarmament, and the U.S. role in Southeast Asia.
The whole effort brought forth new perspectives and fresh ideas for more proactive, interventionist federal policies. Several Finletter Group veterans worked for Stevenson’s campaign in 1956 and later served as policy architects in the Kennedy Administration…
From <Raw Story>
I shared the first two of the author's six steps. Click through for the other four.
Like Stevenson, Hillary Clinton was a weak candidate. Had she been able to combine party support and the ability to stir up a crowd the way Bernie Sanders could, she would have won easily. Democrats need candidates that can motivate voters. Hillary could not.
I think that rather than lots of new ideas, Democrats a commitment to the American people. There can be no doubt in people's minds that our candidates represent them and not some billionaire or huge corporation.
What do you think of the rest of the authors' points?
13 Responses to “Recovering the Party”
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1. Analyze reasons for the loss. Yeah. How do we do that? Every attempt I have seen has turned into a pie fight. And worse, they are using those pies from "The Help."
2. No, we don't need FRESH ideas. That's how we got into neoliberalism, my God. We need our consistently tried and true GOOD ideas. Stevenson's 1956 platform looks darned good to me, as far as it goes. Now, a fresh way of presenting these ideas – that's different. We probably do need that.
3. And yes, we need to base our campaign on ideas. GOOD ideas.
4. Focus on issues that matter to voters. Well, duh. Show you can get things done. OK, see #6.
5. Burnish the party's image. Good luck with that. We have the internet now.
6. Find a dynamic Presidential candidate to give GOOD ideas popular appeal.
There are others I'm sure. One point, though, is that some of the best and most competent people we have we are not, in my opinion, in a position to ask to run, in today's polarized environment. What kind of sadist wants to put, say, Elizabeth Warren, or Kamala Harris, through the kind of shredding that Hillary Clinton received? And who among us is so deluded as not to realize that would happen?
There is a great deal of food for thought in this article, and it is well-considered and well researched. But it is not, as it stands, a cure-all. It is definitely a basis for discussion.
#6, I think that we need a viable, energetic candidate who speaks the truth, and who is behind the people who have concerns, issues, whether it's personal, or community/state wise. Go to town halls, or meetings, and hear what is being said. Listen to the candidate, and support(ing) him or her is important too. Together, we can DO this.
Thanks, Tom.
We need a fresh face for the Democrats.
I don't know about the strategies, but I believe I do know that the Dems need to find someone with passion that shows (maybe Hillary had some, but it was not evident), that people can relate to but that is not built on hate. Bernie, Liz, would be possibilities.
There was an article in the NY Times Magazine, of April 16th that sought, and successfully, I think, to draw the line between the conservative hate, and passion for it, back to the KKK of th 1920's. It is called "The Correction," and is by a historian named Rick Perlstein, who blames historians, including himself, for totally ignoring that dark underbelly of America for so long. I can not get the link to it because I have used up my free readings for the month. If no one else gets it, I will try to do so on May 1st.
Actually, Hillary has plenty of passion, and is perfectly capable of showing it. During this campaign, she didn't. Why not?
I suspect it was because "Women are emotional," "Women make decisions with their hormones," and all that crap, made her and her campaign believe that it would be better strategy to show her as a rational leader. It actually made sense to me. In hindsight, boy, were we (all of us who felt this way) wrong! Or maybe not. Maybe if she had shown passion she would have been crucified on that.
I think this must be your article. It doesn't appear to be the same title, but the author and the subject matter fit, and it is recent.
Democrats need candidates that can motivate voters. Hillary could not.
An unreasonable assertion, given that she won more votes than any Presidential candidate in history other than Obama. The reasons for the defeat boil down to Russian interference and, more significantly, the Electoral College which over-weights the votes of small-population states (which are mostly rural and Republican-leaning). We need to address that problem before 2020, and it can be done without amending the Constitution. We also need a much more aggressive response to vote-suppression laws in Republican-run states. There's no point in coming up with better strategies if we're going to let the enemy get away with cheating.
A more solid and less timid left-populism would help, but Sanders and what he represents are not the answer. The primaries showed that he was unable to appeal to the black and Latino base of the party, without whom we have no hope of winning nationally. His tendency to de-emphasize social issues such as abortion rights and make them secondary to economic issues is tone-deaf and unacceptable to any Democrat worthy of the name. In fact, his basic problem is that he tends to reduce everything to economics, which just doesn't work with social and racial issues.
The opposite policy, and the one politicians instinctively embrace, is tacking toward the center — and that will definitely not help. It's not that kind of electorate any more. The kind of people who voted for Trump will not vote for us against the next Trump just because we decide to be a little less tough on Wall Street. Today, you win by firing up the base. Going hard-right no longer hurts the Republicans. Going hard-left won't hurt us. It's the way to win, because our base is bigger than theirs.
Perhaps I shoul;d have said that Hillary could not as well as she needed to. While Bernie could not win sufficient Black and Latino support, Hillary lost far to many young whites to Jill Stein and the couch.
Points 1, 2, 3 and 5 are at odds with 4: Focus on issues that matter to voters and show you can get things done, the other four are just more of what the Dutch call "belly-button staring", a purely in-group thing behind closed doors which further disassociated the Democratic party from its base, especially those progressives who have not left yet because of Bernie's program.
If Democrats do not know by now what went wrong, they never will, and they are losing valuable time before either reforming or allowing a new party to emerge from the rubble. And they are loosing even more valuable time resisting Drumf & Co. at this very moment, and losing the last bit of connection they had with their voters. Focusing on the issues that matter and getting things done right now, not in 4 years time, is what matters. As for their agenda and connecting with voter's issues: just compare the "New America" platform to Bernie's and see the huge overlap in socialistic ideals.
If the "new" party can find a platform all its leaders and all its voters can aspire to, and if it can purge itself from the dinos and staunch establishment representatives, the image of that party will automatically reflect what it stands for and a new charismatic candidate for president will announce him or herself in time. Democrats shouldn't go looking for that person but get their agenda and their base reconciled first, because in the end the candidate should stand for all of that agenda and for everyone in that base and not for what's in it for him or her.
AMEN! Ummm – we'll need some luck there, I fear.
Democrats also need to represent middle America. In the last election, we were a coastal entity.
Well, I'd settle for Sherrod Brown or Al Franken, on either line. I was NOT impressed by Martin O'Malley. I really picked those two, besides loving Jeff anyway, because Jeff's filibuster and Adam's appearances for the Intelligence Committee brought both to national attention.
If I had my druthers, it would be Jeff all the way, but as long as middle America thinks Democrats don't care about them, like the time Obama ridiculed their God and guns, and that we are about just identity politics, we're screwed.
Thanks all! Hugs!!