Populist Reform of the Democratic Party
In reply to the discussion: Some basic inaugural discussion about goals? [View all]starroute
(12,977 posts)I read something the other day -- I don't recall if it came through here or at Facebook -- that more or less said, "Democrats have positions but Republicans tell stories."
I didn't agree with all the details of the piece, but the general thrust of it was persuasive. Most Americans don't follow policy arguments. Even issues like preserving Social Security and Medicare don't necessarily favor the Democrats, because the Republicans have gotten very good at using words like "save" and "reform" when they're really talking about cutting and privatizing. So we need a way to catch people where their hearts are.
The Republicans have recently managed to capture the main narrative of American history -- partly because progressives have gotten too embarrassed over slavery and genocide to quite embrace it -- and they're going even further now by trying to portray the Founding Fathers as Bible-quoting Christians. We need to push back against that. We need to retell the story of America as a nation of immigrants, of people learning to get along with others who weren't just like them, of an ever-widening circle of inclusion and acceptance that has been the source of the amazing creativity that has characterized this nation at its best.
It also wouldn't hurt to talk about things like free or low-cost education and health care as a way of freeing up the entrepreneurial spirit and allowing Americans to take risks and commit themselves to new ways of doing things. Or to pitch the process of responding to climate change and promoting alternative energy sources as an extension of the can-do response to challenges that has always made America great. In short, we should be figuring out where the GOP message finds its greatest appear and rather than ceding those issues to them we should be translating them into progressive terms (and showing up the GOP as hypocrites).