Democrats can fight the GOP noise machine- the facts are on our side.
We are fighting every day for the economy, the environment, for voting rights and fair elections, for common sense regulation of firearms, for the right to privacy and choice and more. The GOP is not.
I had a long talk with a college student this week. She grew up in California and studies in New England. She is smart and politically engaged.
She told me Republicans are awful, but she fears they will win because democrats care more about what to call a pregnant person than they do about the economy. She said people in the middle of the country have no patience for that because they just want someone who will lead on the issues that touch them directly.
The conversation stuck with me.
Her easy dismissal of identity affirming language surprised me for two reasons. First, she is about as far left as anyone I’ve met, and second because her assertion that that’s the issue Democrats are eager to talk about is just wrong.
That got me thinking. Wow… The GOP really has our number, and they are really good at setting traps they know we will walk right into. By and large, Democrats care about individuals and about justice. GOP operatives know that if they go after a trans kid, we will respond. They know that if they can find a single instance in the whole country of a person who identifies as a man and is pregnant, they can loudly call his life is a liberal lie and they can make his already difficult life miserable knowing that we will respond. And they are right. Because we will say to him, we see you, you’re okay, there’s room in our world for you.
When did love thy neighbor become a political liability? Maybe when we let the routine cruelty of Republican politicians pull us off message. There are now more than 332 million Americans. And despite what it looks like at GOP rallies, we cannot all be exactly the same. I’m happy to make this deal with Republicans- stop being cruel to people in order to provoke a reaction from us. We agree up front- we are the party that cares about all Americans.
Then we should change the subject. College students need to know about our successful fight to pass the American Rescue Act, and our continuing fight to reshape our economy in ways that will benefit the middle rather than the top.
When they say, as young people always do, that we have not done enough, tell them to get us more votes! Because it’s the other guys that are standing in the way1.
There’s another reason the conversation struck me. The unintentional slight to those of us who live here in the middle of country reminded me of the book pundits once loved, a book called What’s the Matter with Kansas. When I reminded her that I am from the middle of the country, she explained that she meant Trump voters.
Well, some Trump voters were once Obama voters. They want change. They want a democracy that is responsive to them. And, like everyone else, they are very sensitive to what might feel like elitism. Which, again, got me thinking.
Wow, those GOP operatives are smart. They know that they can turn Democratic frustration at the voting patterns of Americans, into something that sounds like broad and partisan elitism. They can goad some commentators and some authors into language is not respectful of the widespread faith and work ethic of much of America.
Of course, Democratic candidates in these states never make that mistake. But the GOP does a fabulous job of finding left leaning folks on the coasts who do- and making it harder for Dems in places like Iowa and Nebraska. By the way, the hard-working women and men of Massachusetts and New York have a lot more in common with the hard-working women and men in Michigan and Montana than either do with the commentators on TV.
One more thing stuck with me. Even though this young woman absorbed some of the things the GOP operatives say about Democrats, she knew in her core that today’s GOP is awful. She may have thought Democrats feckless, but the GOP made her fear for the country. And, again, that got me thinking.
People are complicated. We believe many things all at once, and some of our ideas contradict other ones we hold with equal certainty. The GOP may have walked Democrats into a few political traps, but this time they have walked themselves off a cliff.
Let’s have this fight.
Let’s say to America-
Hey, you may not like us because we refuse to be cruel to people who feel they are different than the great majority of Americans. But who among us has not at some point experienced what it is like to be different than the people around you? A little compassion is not a liability, even in politics. And it might get you into heaven.
Meanwhile, we are fighting every day for the economy, the environment, for voting rights and fair elections, for common sense regulation of firearms, and for a women’s right to privacy and choice. On each of these, today’s GOP would impose laws that the great majority of Americans do not want. Let’s review:
Today’s GOP promises to change our system of laws to allow the nullification of elections. They are running candidates who promise to overturn results they don’t like. Their bloc on the Supreme Court has promised to take up a case that will make the John Eastman memo the law of the land. Talk about stupid. Americans love democracy- even the ones who stormed the Capitol thought they were doing so to protect the Democracy- because that’s what their president told them.
Today’s GOP promises to radically reduce our ability to fight climate change. Also stupid. Most Americans want us to lead the world out of this global disaster, not use it to line the pockets of the oil company shareholders.
Today’s GOP promises make abortion illegal in every state. Really stupid. They pretend, at least through the upcoming election, that they want the people of each state to decide for themselves. But they have already declined to support a law granting women the freedom to travel from one state to another. Americans know this is preposterous. The anti-abortion crowd says a woman’s body may not be fully her own- but even they don’t really want to live in a place where her body belongs to the state.
Today’s GOP promises to defeat every effort in every state to regulate the proliferation of firearms. Quite apart from the slaughter they have brought to American streets, this is, again, stupid politics. Uvalde, Texas and Highland Park, Illinois cover a pretty wide spectrum of America. What unites them is the horror of high velocity, high-capacity weapons of war on our streets. America is appalled and won’t put up with this much longer.
On every important issue, today’s GOP is so far from the mainstream that even those who believe their rhetoric about Democrats know they cannot be trusted to govern.
But there’s one more thing. Today’s GOP is not ashamed to force its unpopular views upon the rest of us. They will remake all of the country in their image or bring us down trying.
In fairness, no country can long endure divided on fundamental issues like these. When totalitarian China gained sovereignty over democratic Hong Kong, Beijing promised one country, but two systems. Yet withing a few years that other system, the democratic one, has been snuffed out. Lincoln quoted the Gospels when he warned that a house divided against itself cannot stand.
This is the fight we are in. And, by all means, bring it on. The GOP can try to scare Americans by warning that Democrats think trans kids are, well, kids. Spoiler alert: they are! And most Americans will see through the rhetoric so long as we are tough enough not let the GOP use our compassion as a smoke screen to hide their efforts to destroy everything most Americans hold dear. Our freedom, our privacy, our prosperity, our safety.
Today’s GOP has determined that all America will all be as they wish it to be. But it is not up to them. Americans by large numbers reject the GOP’s ideas. And the power of American elections is a great majesty.
When Abe Lincoln looked at pre-civil war America, with its divisions and the way the Supreme Court of his day colluded with the pro-Slavery powers in the Senate to spread the institution everywhere, he counselled Americans not to argue for bi-partisan incrementalism. Instead, he concluded his House Divided speech by saying this: To meet and overthrow the power of that dynasty, is the work now before all those who would prevent that consummation.
These next two election cycles will determine whether we can. I am confident we will.
That’s not to say Democrats are 100 aligned on every issue. We aren’t. We are a big and diverse party. Joe Manchin, for example, has angered many Democrats. The answer is not to replace him with a Republican. It is to elect more Democrats.