Dems need to remember who we are and stand up to monied interests. Then start rolling back legislation put into place, beginning with the "Reagan Revolution" which gave the Oligarchs more control over media, made elections more big-money driven, etc.
The Democratic Party needs to reach back to its New Deal roots that prevailed for 45 years. FDR's "I welcome their hatred" speech needs to be familiar not just to Obama, but to national and local legislators, all the way down to citizens. We need to have the backs of Dem leaders on this. And that leaderships needs to call out the opposition any time they distort the truth or gin up any campaign of verbal bullying that originated in the 1990's from Newt and Frank Luntz.
The Democratic Party should never again allow itself to ape the Republican Party in catering to the corporate mentality. This happened partly because Republican legislation made elections more dependent BIG MONEY donations and because the party allowed itself to be defined by GOP bullying. This time around in the presidential election, thank God the difference between the two parties was plenty clear to voters - but mainly because much of America saw the ugly greed and extremism of the GOP. We must also continue to be clear about the ideals and goals of our party being the best for America and its citizens - even best for business, etc.
We must also find a way, as it was happening after the 1960's and into the 1970's, to give Americans a vision of what's important in life. Conspicuous Consumption that was promoted in the 1980's helped pave the way for average citizens to practically worship the rich and to actually believe they are the "job creators." There ultimately needs to be "a true revolution of values" like the one that King spoke of:
“A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. ... A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, 'This is not just.' It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of South America and say, 'This is not just.' The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.”
(By the way, the "true revolution of values" must also address what we do about Climate Change.)
Right now Democrats have emerged as the nation's leaders. We have the opportunity to lead this country into a different course than was set in the 1980's. Time to provide the nation with a vision for The Greater Good that rivals and succeeds anything "spiritual" that seemed to be offered by Right Wing Christianity or the Right Wing version of The American Dream ("I'm getting mine and to hell with anyone else"
.
The ingredient most needed is ignoring bogus ideas from Republicans and maintaining the RESOLVE to LEAD.
(Sorry this is too long, but I couldn't stop once I got going. Our Biggest Threat did not develop overnight.)
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