A Direction out of the Wilderness for Democrats

Straight talk to the American People

Democrats need to get real.    It is OK to be against crime and terror and corruption.

Tee Shirt of the Class.  A bunch of liberal protesters.

I sent an excerpt of yesterday's post deep into the heart of blue America: a Harvard college forum of the class of 1971, a bunch of us who were in college in the late 1960s and are about 67 years old now.   The group fit the demographics of the archetype Democrat.  Prosperous, educated with advanced degrees, with professional careers, densely urban, boomer, NY Times and Washington Post reading people familiar and comfortable with diversity.   I got a reaction from one of my classmates, a brilliant Ph.D political scientist.   

Here is what he wrote:

       "So what is the conclusion we're supposed to draw here, Peter?  That it is better to reinforce false beliefs in an effort to gain election?   I have little hope that political debates will educate people or dissuade them from holding false beliefs.  So unless Democrats can rally people with a fact-based view of America, they'll have a very hard row to hoe in the months ahead."

Note this: "false beliefs", said twice.   Here are the set of beliefs I said resonated with the American people, beliefs Trump said he shared.   
                     

**A great many Americans believe that immigrants are outsiders who are taking jobs Americans should do and they do not deserve to take them.

***They believe that outsiders, especially Muslims, are a real and frightening threat and we need to protect ourselves from them.

***They believe that crime is rampant and far worse than in the past.

***They believe that most of the problems blacks had with discrimination are in the past ,and now problems with black poverty are caused by bad personal behaviors not discrimination.

***They believe that America is militarily weaker than it used to be and they don't like it.

***They believe that "regular Americans" are being taken advantage by foreign governments and businesses in trade and foreign policy.

***They believe that privileged people get away with things regular people cannot get away with.

***They believe that government benefits privileged rich people and lazy poor people but not people like themselves, and they resent it.

***They believe that educated elites have values that are ridiculously precious and unrealistic, which shows up as a tyranny of political correctness relating to race, religion, and sex.

***They believe that politicians are corrupted by money and special interests and that they serve those interests, not the interests of people like them.

***They believe Trump will attempt to fix things because he is on their side.

                                                   #     #     #

The above statements are voiced in a tone of moral disapproval in an attempt to sound Trump-like.   Some readers will be turned off by them, as was my classmate at college.  But look closely.  Are any of the beliefs crazy or without foundation?  Indeed, are any of them actually objectionable to progressives, to liberals, to empathetic Democrats of any variety?

Click Here. 2 minute clip

But it is not crazy or illiberal to think that immigrants, legal and undocumented, take jobs native born Americans might do and that the wages of low-skilled workers might go up if that labor source disappeared.   Barbara Jordan, the black liberal from Texas, argued this.  [Liberals may have other reasons to support immigration (asylum, refugees, displaced persons) but it is not illiberal to want to control immigration.]

It is not crazy or illiberal to think that some foreigners—some of whom are Muslim—want to carry out terrorist activities against us. Some have done so.   Obama certainly acknowledges that there are some bad actors out to kill Americans.  Isn’t it OK for Democrats to admit the obvious: there are dangerous people out there and some of them are Muslim.

It is not crazy or illiberal to think crime is rampant.  Crime rates nationwide are down generally, but there is still crime in very visible places, 3565 shot and wounded in the city of Chicago so far this year.   And 692 shot and killed.   Democrats are against that, aren’t we?  Surely it is OK for Democrats to be against crime.

It is not crazy or illiberal to think there has been progress in the position of blacks in America in the past 50 years.  Barrack Obama said exactly that to the students at Howard University this June.  Liberals need not agree that discrimination has ended, but black leaders have called out bad behaviors among blacks and certainly it is politically acceptable for a Democratic candidate to do so as well.  Is it not politically safe for a Democrat to condemn drug use and street crime? 

It is not crazy or illiberal to think that Americans are subject to being taken advantage of by foreign governments and businesses.  Bernie Sanders has said the same thing.  Obama said the Russians meddled in our elections.  If Sanders and Obama both say it then it cannot be too awful to acknowledge, can it?  Cannot Democrats be firmly against an old-boy system of political cronyism?   

I will stop here, but could go on.   Democrats were distracted by loyalty to their team-mates in the Democratic coalition which caused Hillary-Clinton-style Democrats to define as "illiberal" or anti-progressive beliefs and policies  that are utterly defensible as the needs of a safe, orderly community.  A safe, orderly community is a liberal value because only in such a place can the liberal values of freedom and equality of opportunity flourish.   They are liberal progressive thoughts, but they sound "Trumpian" because Democrats ceded those ideas to Trump.  

They shouldn't have.   A liberal progressive Democrat can voice the beliefs listed above.  A Democrat would want to make clear that the condemnation was against the bad action and not the disfavored ethnicity--which is a clear distinction with Trump, and a good distinction politically.   Democrats can voice all of the thoughts above without losing their role as the anti-racist political party.

Democrats need not be racist to be against crime.

Trump's open ethnic animus  (e.g. against Judge Curiel) hurt him.  Trump's racial talk likely helped him in the primary but it hurt him in the general election. Trump secured Republican votes at the campaign's end when he stopped the overt racial talk, stuck to his teleprompter, and changed the focus of his talk to swamp draining.   

Democrats can take back ownership of values and beliefs that are not "false".  They are liberal and they are popular.   They can also take back the notion of "patriotism."  In my youth and young adulthood some of the most patriotic of Americans entered the Peace Corps.  

Public service and asking what one can do for one's country, was a liberal value.   Democrats can re-claim it, if they choose.

Democrats are considering full scale opposition to Trump as a way of stopping the destruction of the New Deal, Fair Deal, Great Society, and expanded health insurance.  They can pick their language and their battles carefully.  Some of what Trump said is completely consistent with progressive values.  It was disguised by Trump who tended to wrap those ideas within the package of white populist resentment.   Democrats can unpackaged them and then adopt the common sense progressive parts.

The risk is that progressives will hear the message and immediately define them as "false beliefs."