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Why it's up to Democratic activists and rank and file voters to out-message the Republicans. [1]
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Date: 2025-02-17
On the heels of gaeldottir’s post today of More from Robert Reich [People Might Not Like All Of It], I am weighing in on what has, especially since November, become what I see as our fundamental crisis against an out of control Trump, Musk, and Republican party. Going back to Ronald Reagan.
There is much discussion here, there, and everywhere lately of the liberal / left’s Democratic communication problems as evidenced by our federal level 2024 losses. Much of this is lack of a liberal communications pipeline to gradually deradicalize conservative right wing thinking and social norms. One that approaches opposition to conservative autocratic thinking with an emotional and rhetorical challenge, as much as policy, to the delusions so many fake news propaganda consumers assume is a reality. Or conman-driven frameworks of thinking they assume will help make their lives better. One may ask why is there no equivalent liberal, Democratic alternative to the Republican messaging and social pipeline? Nor has there been?
Actually, the Republican pipeline first goes back to the 1960s and ‘70s’ pre-Internet, when the Koch brothers and others started funding think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute to gin up the fear and opposition to liberal standards of living.
The biggest problem with our side hasn't been that there isn't a recognition of the problem. It's been evident and obvious since at least the 1990s. I believe the problem is the solution.
That is, that the solution is a return to full-on New Deal and Great Society political and social structures, and a Keynesian economic system, that all worked to benefit the vast majority of Americans. The alt right pipeline came about because Democrats did such a good job with labor and antitrust economic systems from the 1930s to 1960s, building an economy mostly on ever-rising wages for workers and very strong price-busting competition in the marketplace through antitrust, Republican and conservatism could not compete against that. It was not the current economic model of the highest possible profits for companies at the lowest possible taxes. Along with the immense earnings of systematic reliance on credit card interest debt on everyone to make up for insufficient wages to survive.
Because of New Deal era policies, voters once kept Democrats in the White House, and even more so, in the Congress, in control of the federal government for the better part of 50 years.
A return to this system would mean extreme self-sacrifice on behalf of mostly very wealthy liberal Democratic politicians’ personal wealth at the federal and state levels. With huge rises in taxation on their wealth and a campaign system that relies less on campaign money contributions and more on keeping voters much more economically secure. And with strong antitrust restrictions on the wealthiest doing whatever the hell they want to do with their money for their extreme personal benefit.
What needs to be communicated is to engage everyone on the liberal / left side to insist their politicians’ public service requires a lot of self-sacrifice, similar to the public service of the military enlisted. Higher office public service expectations do not include such analogies to common folk public service. Where as a GI you have no real say in what your duties will be, where you will be stationed. Possibly when you may be commanded into service requiring the highest level of sacrifice one can make. I don’t think there is an equivalence in perhaps our starting to demand changes such as things like no personal engagement on any investments while they serve in office. Taxing many of their colleagues at high mid-20th century rates, and having the party mostly funding the top two or three primary campaigns in a locality, rather than relying on candidates to come in with a quarter million dollar piggy-bank of their own to receive endorsement.
While taxing billionaires’ entire income at President Eisenhower 90% marginal, or even effective rates, and wealth taxes on all their assets. Or at least they should be proposing it and if need be settling for 70% to start. Thus, there is no Democratic or billionaire support for such a pipeline.
A pipeline is needed to inspire a much less greed-driven breed of liberal politicians’ standard. It must be imposed on them or voted into office. And thus, it has to happen, if at all, on grassroots efforts and various sympathetic institution on the cheap. A pipeline both online and offline. Without funding from most of the Democratic party to enable such a pipeline.
How do we do this? Honestly, I see plenty of tools but no clear path. Suggestions are welcome against significant obstacles. I do know that small donor donations have contributed into large fractions of a billion dollars if we have places to spend it. My larger point is, until we recognize that the broadest solutions for workers and constituents are at odds with the economic security of most of our representatives, we won’t make demands on them to recognize this and have to face it. But by activist and rank and file Democrats, and also reaching out to the untapped resource of other Independent liberals and leftists outside the party, perhaps together building a block between Democratic and Independent liberals, we can aim to change fundamentals in our party’s ways of operating.
Perhaps with such a pipeline, we can be using it for educating voters about how strong the Democratic party was in the middle of the last century, presenting them with an economic model they have no knowledge of that worked for decades for citizens. With many historically based, ultimate challenges to right wing thinking assumptions. We may wind up bringing on board more and better Democrats than we currently have. To solve our dilemma of the Republican party of Trump and Reagan. Because the gold level standard of winning for us is, for most of our representatives regarding their personal finances, are not compatible with a return to the standards that once made Republicans and hard conservatives an afterthought in DC and elsewhere. More than that, the far-right GOP, Neocons, Tea Partiers, MAGA, more than recalcitrant Democrats, cannot stand in the way of a higher wage and antitrust based economy.
When even Dixiecrats and rich northern industrialists voted at the federal level against their bigoted, culturally repressive, and predatory self-interests for two decades or more. Keeping Democrats in control of Washington, along with all the tens of millions that joined the party starting in the 1930s, it was because the economic security of labor party and antitrust structures worked for citizens and small and medium-sized businesses.
Those social solutions, philosophies, and policies are what are required for holding office without Republican interference for decades at a time. History shows that is the only way we will be able to make all the changes we yearn for today and rebuild our crumbling and threatened institutions that we once created.
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https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/2/17/2300373/-Why-it-s-up-to-Democratic-activists-and-rank-and-file-voters-to-out-message-the-Republicans?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=community_spotlight&pm_medium=web
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