The Democratic Loyalist Puts on Her Mom Face.
They're my party. I love them to pieces. And for the first time in a long while I agree with The New Republic as they take the Dems to the woodshed.
The Democrats are my family. I was born into them, I married into them, I’ve defended them and cheered for them and made excuses for them. And I’ve voted for them my entire life. Without fail…
…Except that once, when I voted for Bill Milliken for governor of Michigan. I can’t remember who the Dem candidate was but he must have been a doozy if I turned against him to vote for a Republican. (Milliken was a Republican like Eisenhower was a Republican. So I can be excused.)
My heart and my loyalties have always been with the Democrats. Even when I’ve been ridiculed not just for being partisan but for being partisan with that bunch. I’ve never swayed.
So I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking this is leading up to me telling you I’ve suddenly seen the light and now I’m going to pile on the Democrats during this all-important election year, as so many others have taken up doing.
No. I won’t be doing that.
In fact, over the coming months I’ll be right here doubling down on the reasons my party should be the victors come November. And I won’t let up. I am a Democrat through and through.
Not averse to preaching to the choir.
I’ll demand that you look at the big Democratic picture—our successes, our hearts, our history, our potential—and I’ll warn you to stay away from that infuriating nitpicking over every little hiccup. (You want to complain about Joe Biden tripping over his own feet or pausing too long or saying something silly? Take it somewhere else. November is coming and Donald Trump is not allowed to win.)
Just so we’re clear.
Still…
As I began reading this New Republic piece the other day I was already preparing to argue against every single point. That headline! “The Democrats are Blowing the 2024 Election”. Coming from the New Republic, that mag now presenting itself as the scold to end all scolds, but only to the Democrats, I had no doubt it was a hit piece.
It wasn’t. It went more like this:
What do the Democrats stand for? Who are their enemies? What fights do they want to pick? Can they even answer these questions? Because while they dither, the public is forming some wild opinions about what should go in the spaces they’re leaving blank. Recent polls indicate that half of Americans think that Biden got favorable treatment from Hur in the document probe. Another recent poll indicates the public blames Biden for killing the border deal, despite the fact that Trump publicly browbeat GOP electeds into nuking it. After the expiration of the expanded child tax credit, voters who had received those benefits swung their support to the GOP, despite the fact that they were the most prominent opponents of the expansion. And majorities of voters still don’t hold Trump responsible for the repeal of Roe’s abortion protections.
I have to admit they got it right. The Democrats, my tribe, are the worst at promoting themselves or defending themselves. We’re perceived as too nice. Too fair. Too modest. In this climate that’s music to every bully’s ears.
I don’t know what to make of it. It’s not that I’ve never rapped the Dem’s knuckles. I have. I do. I will. But I’ll admit I’m having a hard time of it now. Because I’m so frantic over November, I’m more inclined to declare a moratorium on any bad words against the Democrats. I’m in protective mode. Fighting mode. Mom mode. My battle is with the enemy, not with my tribe.
And it’s damn hard to fight when I’m fighting my allies as often as my enemies. I’ve never understood the need to go on the attack against the only party that can fix things when the real enemy is the only party working hard to break everything.
“Well, yeah, those Republicans! But the Democrats aren’t any better.” This from our own side, when every one of them should know by now the Democrats are far better. We’ve always been better. We always will be better. The other side is so goddamn bad we can’t help but be the better choice.
But we’re not the lesser of two evils. And the reason I’m highlighting this particular New Republic article, signed by Jason Linkins, Deputy Editor along with the link inside to Michael Tomasky’s article, see below, is because neither of those articles is suggesting we are.
How refreshing.
For the most part, the articles are surprisingly even-handed and fair. (I don’t agree with the assessment of Kamala Harris. I think she’s an asset and not a liability.) They’re taking the Dems to the woodshed but they’re doing it as concerned citizens trying to light a fire under the only party that has the power to squash the Republicans. No Jon-Stewart-style cynicism, no gratuitous insults, no calling for punishment for the Democrats. Only understandable concern. And an attempt at offering solutions.
I’m shaking my head here. Breathing easy. At last.
In Michael Tomasky’s article, It will be an Election Unlike Any We’ve Ever Lived Through. Are the Democrats Prepared?, published on January 1, he first explores the dangers ahead if we don’t take our fight with the Republicans to the mat, and then he lists his most important points of advice. This is one of them:
Name names. Name bad guys. Go after them and shame them. This is the only way to get people to really pay attention. Democrats and liberals sit around wondering why Biden, despite all the policy successes, isn’t connecting with the working classes? This is a big reason why. Those voters will far more readily know he’s on their side if he’s regularly flaying the people who are picking their pockets. I happen to think the junk fees issue, while no one’s idea of a revolution, is political gold. But the White House has to name specific villains. If Biden managed nothing this year but to end Ticketmaster’s practices, that alone could win him millions of votes from low-information voters. It’s uncomplicated, and it’s the kind of thing everyone sees, like a governor lowering a bridge toll.
This is how it’s done. It’s true Tomasky also says he’s sure the Dems won’t take his advice, but the Democrats have much to consider and only a few months to get it right. They need to hear these things without so much anger and judgement they’ll only be half-listening.
This is new. This is genuine concern couched in a way that shows some respect and says we really are in this together.
In the coming months—if you’re on our side—you’ll need to help the Democrats with this. You’ll need to show your concern while being by their side. They don’t need attacks from their own side, they need support, they need encouragement, they need the hammering against their already pathetic inferiority complexes to stop. (Yes I said that. They have inferiority complexes because no matter what they do they can’t win. Decades of that will take its toll.)
The Democrats will need to be braver and we’ll need to push them to greater courage. We can do that by being with them instead of against them.
The Democrats are good people, good citizens, good choices. There is much to point to on the positive side. They’ve had far more successes than failures in the past three years, considering the obstacles deliberately put in their way.
They may be at fault for not playing up their successes, but we’re at fault, as well, for not playing up their successes.
We’re in this to win. Let’s take a cue from these concerned journalists-as-citizens (and hope it’s a trend) and figure out how to get there as a unit, as a community, as Americans.
Further reading:
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This is a new Substack for me and I need to do some reading to get caught up on your thinking.
However, you are spot on, IMHO, about what the D’s have not been doing and need to do to wake the voters up. All of them.
It’s like the D’s are playing by the Queensbury Rules of boxing, a more “gentlemanly” form of boxing, while the R’s are fighting under a much loosened set of UFC cage fighting rules with one-eyed brain dead referees, aka, MSM.
Further, some factions within the D hierarchy are incorrectly elevating “less important” issues in the current “battle for the life of democracy” and splintering the D’s forces.
This splintering plays into the R’s unhinged cage fight game, particularly when the R’s are currently controlled and directed by TFG, who has nothing to lose, through his acolytes who follow his every whim out of abject fear.
The R position is actually much more threatening after Reagan merged the White Christian Nationalist religious faction with the RNC by using the so called Southern Strategy to gain southern voters. The WCN groups seek nothing less than a Bible based white Christian theocracy where world history is only 6000 years old and humans lived with dinosaurs.
Add in corporate voices as “effective citizens” under Citizens United, FEDSOC, Leonard Leo, the Heritage Foundation and a now heavily biased SCOTUS, and the R’s written long term strategic plan (Project 2025) and the HF’s supporting “Conservative philosophical writings”, the R’s have a strategic battle plan to work with.
The R’s strategic battle plan gives rise to the many “short term” tactical plans (the recent Abbott “border invasion”, the Congressional “border bill” debacle, Roe, “immigration”, etc) that are dauntingly difficult to thwart under the D’s self imposed Queensbury Rules.
The “only” D written “plan” that I’m aware of is the DNC’s national platform that lists its “goals and principles.” However, that platform is not a strategic or a tactical plan and offers no specific guidance to anyone about how to win the Battle for Democracy. Like any capable commander, the R “leadership” has been taking advantage of those two facts for more than 50 years without any effective opposition, and still are.
Continuing to babble ineffectively about MSM, bothsideisms, TFG being a rotten skunk, the Freedom Caucus and R’s cowering in fear of TFG’s stinking and possibly deadly retribution, etc, simply won’t work.
I could go on, but my message, like yours, Ramona Grigg, is that the D’s must focus their strategic efforts like the point of a spear, and back that up with legions of tactical archers, to win this battle, then keep going until the “Conservative voices” are subdued fully.
I think it’s interesting that the republicans that brought us to this point using this strategy are now trying to get the democrats to use it. I say to all the Never Trumper republicans. Go at it. Use your skills to take down the monster you created, but I think my side should still tout our successes and not stoop to the lows the republicans have used for the past half century that have nearly destroyed this country.