Tom Rinaldo
Tom Rinaldo's Journal2022 should be about "America's Agenda" embraced by (virtually) all Democrats
I think Democrats have to nationalize the 2022 Midterms, with a platform that highlights our priorities for America. Usually party platforms are a feature of Presidential elections, but this year, far more than in most midterm elections, it is the Democratic Party running against the Republican Party, representing sharply contrasting visions for America, more so than a typical array of locally focused congressional contests. Democrats presenting a unified national message need not shift the focus off of the Stirling attributes of our individual candidates. Nor will doing so overshadow matters of local concern. Our candidates can personalize why it is they so strongly support "America's Agenda", drawing on their lifetimes of achievement and struggles. And what exactly is "America's Agenda?" Collectively it is the measures that Democrats in Congress will fight for and deliver for the American people should they entrust us with workable governing Congressional majorities after the 2022 elections. It will be specific, and highly relevant to the lives of the vast majority of working Americans. It will be Joe Biden's original "Build Back Better" plan, and more.
OK, obviously it doesn't have to be called "America's Agenda", that's just a working "title" I'm tossing out there for the moment, harkening back to when Republicans ran a unified midterm election campaign under the platform detailed under their "Contract with America." The thing about "Build Back Better" as it was originally proposed is that it crystalized current Democratic Party ideology into specific tangible objectives that, if enacted, would positively transform the lives of most Americans in ways that are immediately recognizable. The elements of "Build Back Better" are highly popular, and easier to campaign on as an American agenda than they are as an omnibus piece of congressional legislation, where the focus gets quickly lost in discussions of specific price tags and deficit projections.
Here's the thing. The national Democratic Party, combining the efforts of the Biden Administration with leaders from across the center left spectrum of Democrats in Congress, achieved a 97% consensus on our American Agenda. And that included a straight forward wildly popular agreement on how that agenda would be paid for: Making the rich pay their fair share by rolling back Trump's huge tax giveaways to super wealthy corporations and individuals, and by closing loopholes that allow some of our biggest corporations to pay zero in corporate taxes, while the wealthiest individuals in America often pay a lower rate in taxes than their secretary's do. Americans overwhelmingly support those reforms, it was just a handful of conservative Democrats in Congress who balked and thus muddied that message, thereby raising a frightening specter of inflationary deficits (while forcing the Pentagon to spend billions more money than they asked for.)
Rather than enter the 2022 midterms on the defensive, having failed to fully deliver on President Biden's 2020 campaign pledges in this congressional session, Democrats should use these elections to go on the offensive; urging Americans to reject an obstructionist Congress where Republicans virtually unanimously opposed Democratic attempts to deliver for Americans on health care, on affordable prescriptions, on day care, on expanded preschool education, on elder care, on affordable housing, on sustainable green jobs, on affordable higher education, on combating devastating climate change, and so much more.
Wherever President Biden's legislative agenda got bottle necked by the Senate this year, that becomes a call to action. America can achieve all of that and more, if voters deliver working majorities to Democrats in both houses this November. Our political agenda should be crystal clear. Americans will benefit from in in 2023 if they elect enough Democrats in 2022.Our agenda is national in scope but the impact of it will be felt in every city, in every hamlet, and on every farm once Republican obstructionists are retired.
The American Agenda is conceptually larger than just Build Back Better however. It restores bedrock American values, like a believe in and embrace of science to address the challenges that confront us in every realm, from public health to climate change. It includes renewed adherence to the core democratic principles that have made America a beacon to all of humanity, however imperfectly that light has all too often shined. 2022 must be a contrast election. We can have the America we want if we just go out and vote for it. It's withing our grasp, but the alternative looms large also. Democrats have an Agenda for America. Republicans have more fear, grievances, and hate.
Want to avoid a Civil War? Bring the showdown with the Far Right to a head sooner rather than later.
I worry about what will happen inside this country if Donald Trump ever faces criminal charges, federal criminal charges even more so. I watched with increasing concern in recent years as far right militia types became ever more brazen in their public struttings and pronouncements. When Bundy and his followers seized federal property at gun point, and then were not dislodged immediately, I found that standoff to be alarming. As the far right continues to gain a stronger footing in Republican controlled legislatures around the nation I take the possibility of secessionist type threats seriously. I expect right wing sheriffs in rural areas to increasingly go wingnut, using their inflated sense of "legal authority" to deputize vigilante mobs opposing federal authority. All of this will explode on steroids, I fear, if and when Donald Trump goes on trial.
But the pressure that explosion will release has been building steadily for a decade at least. The NRA long ago became a front for militias, and militias long ago became a front for white supremacists who actively are seeking civil war. They are organizing at an accelerating rate. They are getting stronger with the passage of time, particularly when the passage of time shows there to be little to no direct overt effort being made to shut them down cold. They are encouraged by any lull before the storm, as that lull gives them to time and space they need to further radicalize more followers to their "cause."
I figure their timeline calls for "right wing revolution" timed with the results of the 2024 presidential elections. A presidential campaign, especially one with Trump at the head of the Republican ticket, creates the ultimate explosive conditions that they seek. Donald Trump facing criminal charges before then would force their hand to quicker action under less than their ideal circumstances. May it be so.
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