Where To Go From Here—Part 2: Moving Past Denial

It was reasonable to wonder how the Democratic Party would react to one of the worst drubbings in any election since the Reagan era.  How would they attempt to keep their loyalists from losing hope?  How would they account for the more than $1.5 billion they spent, only to lose both the White House and Congress to the party that spent far less?  What new and clever ploys would party leaders devise to gear up fellow Democrats for the long, grim struggle ahead? 

I found out not three days after the election.

They asked for money.  Two days later, they asked again.  And then again.

I confess, I did not bother to read through the messages before I hit unsubscribe or replied “STOP” to the texts.  $1.5 billion!  Do they really think the Democratic rank and file is so stupid not to realize how much of that incredible sum was wasted?  Do they believe their voters have not caught on that, despite the constant flash of media scorecards, the party that spends the most does not always win?  If so, they are as deluded as pollsters who, after being wrong time and time again, issue predictable explanations of why they weren’t really wrong, and the ones that happen to be right gloat until they are wrong in the next election.  We can now include Allan Lichtman in that group, even though he is not a pollster.

And what does the party intend to do with any new contributions they manage to wheedle out of despairing supporters?  Spend it the same way?  Pay themselves handsome salaries and rent private jets only to lose again in 2026 and then in 2028?  Run more ads that voters will ignore but enrich the networks, so their executives can pay themselves handsome bonuses?  This is not politics—this is corporate welfare.  Republicans were supposed to specialize in that.

Did party leaders really not see what happened on November 5?  That effective candidates running polished campaigns were thunderously rejected?   Do they not realize an entire reboot is necessary?

Unfortunately, the incredible chutzpah displayed by pleading poverty after the debacle is part of a general move among many to pretend that the election was an anomaly, something that can be corrected with slightly better messaging and a shift in strategizing.  If this fantasy is adopted, it follows that the party should indeed be directing its resources, yet again, to campaign executives and advertising, with the promise of a better result next time.

That promise will not be kept and more money will be wasted.

What the party actually needs is a far more effective means to bring its message to Americans who were not persuaded by ads, Taylor Swift, John Kelly, or anyone else Democrats trotted out.  And the way to do that is to go directly to the people.

Trump’s promise to take a cleaver to federal spending and abolish or desiccate safety net programs will create opportunities for Democrats to demonstrate that using government to improve the lives and fortunes of ordinary Americans is more appealing than hoping for-profit companies will do it.  And so, instead of pouring money exclusively into the next campaign, a good bit should be diverted and used to actually make people’s lives better. 

Three areas in which Trump cutbacks and policy initiatives will hurt the most are health care, education, and disaster relief.   There will also be a dire need for legal services for those negatively impacted by the Trump administration’s policies, as well as hunger relief and a variety of other areas in which the non-wealthy will suffer.

Instead of asking major contributors and small donors to kick into candidates’ coffers, Democrats should endow a fund that will, to some degree, replace what Republicans take away.  Key is that these initiatives should not be confined to traditional Democratic strongholds or favored policies but should also target lower middle-class communities that were once Democratic but have been converted by the false promises of conservatives.

In disaster relief, for example, assuming FEMA funding is cut back, Democrats can finance local teams to mobilize and provide aid to those affected, employing resources a denuded FEMA will no longer possess.  In health care, they can establish local clinics, especially for childcare, targeting families no longer eligible for a shrunken Medicaid, or create a health care cooperative in which members can obtain basic or supplemental health insurance at discounted prices.  They can even endow private schools that stress secular education and teach, gasp, history and civics.  For older children, they can provide scholarships.  Democrats can fund legal services for those caught in the web of Trump’s discriminatory judiciary.

Priorities need to be established and proper mechanisms installed but there is an enormous amount that can be accomplished if even half the money Democrats wasted in this past election were channeled directly to communities. To be effective, however, two rules must be observed. 

First, the money cannot be spent exclusively on causes Democrats favor, such as abortion services, but instead must be focused on the real needs of local residents.  Second, every program funded by Democratic money, every aid worker or doctor or lawyer hired through the Democratic Party needs to be publicly identified as such.  Recipients must have no doubt where the money came from and why Democrats felt the need to spend it on them.  The services can be provided through local community organizations or new groups set up specifically for the purpose, all “courtesy of your local Democratic Party.”

This seems vague, I know, but it is an idea, not a plan, a way to rethink how a political party should be spending its money, taking it back from the “professionals,” many of whom, like Wall Street traders, go from one failure to another, but always get hired again because they are “insiders.”

And yes, this also must seem fanciful. Perhaps it is.  But it should not be forgotten that this was the way politics used to work, particularly for Democrats. Tammany Hall was certainly corrupt as was, say, Huey Long, but they sure knew how to turn out the vote. Present day Democrats do not need to pay people off, merely to provide services that government will not.

And it also must be borne in mind that during the early days of the Cold War, the USSR and Communist China won over any number of converts by this very method, providing aid and then making certain recipients knew where it came from.  In fact, on more than one occasion, local communists labeled American aid as instead coming from Russia or China, marking packaging in local languages that Americans did not understand. 

There is no question that, with the federal government gone, the best avenues open to Democrats are at the state and local level.  If Democrats want to win elections there and begin the road back, the first order is to convince voters that the party cares more about them than front row seats at the next Beyoncé concert.