Right-Wing Republicans vs. Corporate Democrats vs. Progressive Populists
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A friend and I were at a bar when someone opined that France didn't resist the German invasion in 1940. "It's true, France lost fast," my friend replied. "But they fought hard. They lost 90,000 troops in six weeks. It was a bloodbath. We lost 58,000 over a decade in Vietnam but we're still whining about it."
Every conflict ends with a winner and a loser. There is no shame in losing, only in not trying.
Democrats need to learn this lesson. Voters want their elected representatives to fight for them.
This administration is not without accomplishments: Last year's coronavirus stimulus package saved millions of Americans from bankruptcy and prevented a recession - though poorly executed, President Joe Biden deserves praise for the withdrawal from Afghanistan, and inflation aside, workers are benefitting from rising wages and record-low unemployment.
The pandemic seems to be in our rearview mirror. Now, The New York Times reports, party bosses are trying to decide on a unified message for the midterms: "Should they pursue ambitious policies that show Democrats are fighters, or is it enough to hope for more modest victories, while emphasizing all that the party has passed already?"
Democrats have been bragging about their accomplishments for months, but "Democrats deliver", their flaccid midterm slogan, hasn't delivered.
The news that the United States Supreme Court plans to overturn Roe v. Wade may well sweep aside the other issues that have been percolating in voters' minds over the last few months. But conservatives are just as energized as liberals when it comes to abortion. And many progressives are asking themselves: Why didn't Democrats pass a federal abortion rights law when President Barack Obama had a 60-vote supermajority in the Senate? At other times, why didn't they go on the record with a vote? Abortion repeal probably helps Democrats, but not as much as they think, and not enough to keep control of Congress.
Before the Supreme Court leak, Biden's own pollster was repeatedly warning Democrats that disaster loomed in November. The president's approval ratings stubbornly refuses to budge above a dismal 40%, hobbled by incredibly shrinking support among voters under age 30. Vegas bookies give the GOP 3-1 odds of recapturing the Senate and a 90% chance of taking back the House. "We haven't sold the American people what we've actually done," Biden moaned recently.
Messaging isn't the only problem. "Allies and some voters note that polling is partially driven by anger over extraordinary events, including the war's impact on gas prices, that the White House could not fully control," the Times says. Of course, it was Biden's decision to get involved in Ukraine and to impose sanctions against Russian oil and gas. Gas prices wouldn't be soaring if Democrats hadn't gone after Russia. It was an unforced error.
When you control Congress and the White House, and voters are angry at you because they don't think you have done anything for them, you don't calm them down by telling them that they are wrong, and stupid, and that, actually, you have done all sorts of good things for them that they have been too ignorant or ungrateful to recognize. There's only one way to campaign: tell people that you get it, you understand their pain, and you're going to fight like hell to make them feel better.
"People can forgive you, even if you can't get something done," Nina Turner, a progressive challenging an establishment Democrat for an Ohio congressional seat, argues. "What they don't like is when you're not fighting. And we need to see more of a fighting spirit among the Democratic Party."
For Democrats, however, not fighting, not even going through the motions of pretending they are fighting, is longstanding procedure. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi maintains a strict policy of not putting a measure up for a vote unless she is certain that a Democratic bill will pass. Like other corporate Democrats, she believes a losing vote is a sign of weakness.
Thus the refusal to try to federally legalize abortion rights.
Refusing to hold losing votes in Congress has led to one disappointment after another for progressives. After counting votes in the Senate, Obama decided in 2010 not to hold a vote on a "public option" in the Affordable Care Act. He blamed recalcitrant Republicans. Without forcing them to oppose this wildly popular idea on the record, however, Republicans could never be held to account in attack ads. ("Congressman Jackson hates people like you. That's why he voted against health care for your babies!") Meanwhile, Obama took heat from the left for breaking his campaign promise.
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