Why Democrats make normalcy radical
Even after an attempted coup, we can't forget that if Democrats don't lead, we may be heading for a never-ending spiral.
Yesterday was one of the most shameful days in American history and certainly up there in the pantheon of despicable, un-American behavior that has been the calling card of a four-year Trump presidency. The president said at his “Save America March” early in the day that “we will never give up, we will never concede.” His supporters acted, then, to do in their minds what they could to Save America, storming the Capitol, breaking windows and doors and trying to force Congress to do something it did not have the power to do in overturning the results of the presidential election. A woman was shot and killed. All this to stop counting the votes of an election that, if facts and the truth still matter, was fairly conducted, as judged by GOP and Trump-appointed officials and judges in states and the Supreme Court.
I almost didn’t write this post — yes, about Democrats — given that the latest manifestation of right wing lunacy feels like it should consume our national conversation for the time being. Is it right to push Democrats at a time when Republicans are literally attempting a militant coup of democracy in America?
In a word: yes.
Because yesterday’s particular storm may have rained down because of one man, but it has been brewing for years and decades. Our country is in desperate shape and it didn’t get there overnight. Government failure is deemed inevitable as we spiral out of a pandemic. Nearly one in four families have gone hungry at some point just this year. Congress just rejected $2,000 checks for those suffering , which has killed thousands and devastated businesses, while billionaire Jeff Bezos has made $2,800 per second during the pandemic.
Many people may not know the details of how our national policy enriched wealthy members of Congress, or how that, coupled with a firehose of free money from the Federal Reserve and Treasury from Congress’ COVID response, has fattened the wallets of executives while small businesses and families starved.
But most do know there is something deeply suspicious and wrong going on.
As David Moore pointed out, we are being ruled not by our democratically elected leaders but by an extremist faction on the right and politicians on the left who are still acting as though this is politics as usual:
These are policy choices we’ve made, not immutable conditions. While there are many that are debating various immediate solutions to the threat by the president to upend democracy — impeachment, 25th Amendment — the long-term solution is, ultimately, boring and hard. It means winning policy solutions that allow people access to healthcare and affordable drugs, being able to live on the wage they’re paid and supporting workers’ rights, especially in rural America.
And if Democrats, who now will control the federal government, think assuaging people with moderate talk without changing things fundamentally with an aggressive policy agenda that assures people some level of dignity in life and death, they are sorely mistaken. The GOP is welcome to the table, too. But, for now, the party has been captured by Q anon conspiracy theorists who pal around with Proud Boys and white supremacists. It is a gross understatement to say that these are not serious people, interested in nothing but their own power.
Still, Democrats have a habit of seriously engaging with any and all criticism that come their way from the other side — often backing down when confronted with a right wing talking point they think will scare a mythical moderate (e.g. see the last stimulus negotiation). Democrats falsely believe that the country’s problems lie only in winning elections and wielding power, not using that power to make this country a fairer, more just place to live. And that includes lifting up people who may very well call them an enemy.
As so-called moderate Democrats (wrongly) blame progressives for their losses in the last midterm election, Democrats’ choices as they now control the federal government will be simple: choose to sink to every attack leveled at them — namely that anything they want to do is “socialism” — or move ahead anyway, delivering tangible results that will make this country a better, fairer place to live.
As Ryan Grim pointed out about the last election as Democrats bitterly squabbled about their future:
Justice Democrats and the Sunrise Movement commissioned an analysis of Democrats in swing districts who won and lost races, and it found that, in fact, supporters of Medicare for All did just fine relative to centrists. In fact, Democratic vote share declined for candidates the further they moved to the right. They shared this graphic with me.
What we’ve been told about the popularity of drastic changes, including Medicare for All, is also grossly warped, writes David Sirota:
Fox News exit polls from Tuesday’s election tell a different story: 52 percent of Georgia voters want the [Affordable Care Act] ACA partially or completely repealed, while 63 percent of voters support “changing the healthcare system so that any American can buy into a government-run health care plan.”
The question describes a public health insurance option — an idea supported by both Georgia Democratic Senate candidates, Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff.
Those numbers roughly track the national figures — 52 percent of all Americans said in the Fox News poll that they want to keep or improve the law, while 71 percent want a change in policy that lets them buy into a government-run health care plan.
Democrats believe in the myth of the “center,” a Republican-lite philosophy that projects confidence in good government and speaks philosophically to big problems while practically spending most of their time catering to corporate donors and interests. It won’t work this time. People heard Biden’s plea to restore normalcy and enough turned out to give him the election.
Democrats should realize that this emergency reprieve was a one-time pass that can only be replicated if they see fundamental change and action.
There’s more evidence to support that a progressive policy agenda would be deeply popular. In this last election, we saw red and purple states pass policies on state ballots that, in the abstract, would have been deemed “radical.”
The deep red states of Mississippi, Montana, South Dakota all voted to legalize cannabis for either medical or all purposes. So did the purple state of Arizona and the blue state of New Jersey.
61 percent of Florida voters, over half of whom voted for Trump, voted to raise the state’s minimum wage to $15.
Progressive-minded prosecutors won on criminal justice issues across the country.
Not all progressive policy won but polls consistently show that solutions viewed as “radical” or “socialist” are, on their merits, popular. Every other Western democracy has a far stronger safety net and healthcare benefits (both public and private) than we do in the U.S. That doesn’t mean the federal government pays for everything. It does mean a heavier hand in regulating cost and ensuring basic worker rights and dignity across the board — which means fairer markets and fairer results. A game played by corporations with no rules isn’t a free market — it’s anarchy. Imposing rules and conditions that deliver both profit and fairness is possible in policing a fundamentally more moral, ethical capitalism.
Will Democrats show leadership, or cower? Will they spend time making half-deals and complaining about Republicans — or lead? The answer will determine the next election and beyond, and Democrats, in full control of the federal apparatus, are out of excuses.
Enraging and inspiring
ICYMI: Justin Glawe and I published a report and database in Sludge that exposed which members of Congress personally benefited from the COVID bailout they themselves wrote.
Wins in Georgia show democracy can be hacked — by showing up to vote.
Rural America needs our attention, a lesson Democrats think they can ignore because of their obsession with politics that can only gain the presidency. Sarah Smarsh:
Matt Yglesias disagrees with my post this week. He’s wrong but, hey, to be fair, here’s the counterargument:
Right now Democratic Party politics is largely polarized between an ossified and uninspiring establishment and a group of young, dynamic leftists who are wildly out of touch with political reality. Fresh faces who know how to be interesting while also knowing how to read public opinion surveys are exactly what the country needs.
I had missed this podcast from early in the year from Paul Bowers at Brutal South about a GOP operative who took mushrooms and, over time, became a socialist. Whoa.
Adam F. Naughton, a former GOP operative in South Carolina starts talking about how psilocybin — aka “magic mushrooms” — helped lead to an understanding of radical empathy. He said he read author Michael Pollan’s “How to Change Your Mind” and wanted to give it a try. He also approached it responsibly, reading about the best approaches and figuring out how to “open your brain and experience things in a new way.”
Bowers and Naughton have a candid discussion about mental illness, politics and life. “We as a species have the ability to view life from someone else’s perspective,” Naughton said. “It’s pretty cool we have access to this emotion as human beings. When you spend time thinking about what empathy means … it’s going to completely change the way you live your life.”
Barry Yeoman’s best longform journalism list is always worth going back on.
Thank you, Alex Kotch:
How did the idea of voter fraud gain traction? It’s been a years-long effort. This 2018 piece from ProPublica is a must-read to understand the cynical exploitation of small errors and mistakes to falsely contend that there has been massive fraud in U.S. elections.
Journalism can play a more productive role. Most have failed to call the Trump presidency and radicalism on the right what it is — with devastating effect.
Pushing forward
Happy New Year! 2020 barreled to a close for me, and I hope it did for you as well. Circumstances and maybe my own desire to put blinders on and shut out the utter insanity of this election and the aftermath has left me struggling for words and my own path forward. On November 3rd, America made the moral choice to try to close the book on an ugly, fractious period of tumult, violence and greed. As I’ve pointed out in this week’s post, shutting the door takes more than just one election.
While we’re thinking about New Year vows, I promise to do more to shine a light and connect dots around questions of where movements meet politics this year. As I said to a frustrated local business owner, the hopelessness is by design, and it’ll take all of us not to succumb to it.