Democratic Party chair Tom Perez was elected to shake things up, but Democrats remain divided and disinterested.
Let’s be blunt: Why does the GOP, whose “base” is barely two in 10 Americans have the kind of clout that it does? How are the six in those 10, the so-called “silent majority” being shut out? The GOP may be broken, but there is an equally epic vision vacuum at the Democratic Party.
“Yes we can” was a big Obama vision to talk about a future, our future, that the decaying Dems beneath him could simply not pull it off. Republicans spent billions and 35 years to build up the zombie squad that delivered Palin and Putin’s pal, to hijack the media and dominate the debate on all issues of public policy so they resonate Republican.
How does the Democratic party kickstart itself back into relevance?
What do you do when someone is trying to wrap up rat poison for the common man and sell it as if it was Kobe beef for the masses?
Go big, go loud, or go home.
Five big ideas that Democrats should be shouting about:
1. The biggest challenge of our times is invisible. The majority of humans around the globe will lose their jobs to machines. Automation, not the Chinese or NAFTA, are job killers. There are 49M permanently unemployed in the United States. That number is expected to rise to well over 80M people, or more than half of the adult-aged workforce, by 2050.
Your job, your children’s jobs, will be no more. New jobs? Sure, but at a fraction of what we have now. Many people will not have the education or training.
Our greatest existential crisis must be addressed:
- Who are we becoming?
- What is our role in the world?
- How does a world without traditional work, work?
- Does technology benefit all of humanity, or just those who own the machines?
Will we live in Star Trek’s world of human fulfillment and exploration, or Blade Runner’s massive underclass?
2. National Health and gutting the social safety net has been at the front lines of this debate. Republicans’ answer seems to be to thin us out like a herd of deer by cutting off our access to healthcare. Rich folks with machines won’t need so many of us. So why keep millions of us alive? Healthy?
Democrats need to call this for what it is: Socioconomic genocide.
DEMAND National Health, Medicare for all. Why play into GOP games? No one can say that turning our lives over to hundreds of bureaucratic fiefdoms who manipulate us for their profit is a good thing. Doctors and hospitals wading through thousands of rules and exceptions costs billions. Our system gets more broken. Insurers get rich.
Healthcare is a human right, an American right, constitutionally protected. The real “right to life” is “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” For ALL of us.
3. Global warming is all about the wealth of the fossil fuel cartels. Republican policy is driven by three groups: American big energy, Russian big energy, and Middle Eastern big energy. Address global warming and their product, their “proven reserves” are pretty much worthless.
It’s not just Trump. The Russians are buying nationalist groups that divide and conquer; Religious groups, and even the NRA. The Neoconservative movement was funded by big fossil energy from Exxon-Mobil to the oil barons of the Middle East.
All of our major policy, our wars, revolve around big oil because we’ve let it be that way for decades.
Democrats and the media seem to forget the value of our holdings, the trillions of dollars of our land and infrastructure, our very lives, are worth far more.
4. Progressive globalism must defeat regressive fascist nationalism - One of the reasons that the ultra-wealthy are resorting to reviving fascist nationalism and lots of petty distractions is that keeping progressives’ noses in the dirt keeps them occupied and not looking at the long-game.
Globalism isn’t the bogeyman of America not being “great.” The Internet, global satellites, common products sold all over the world, from cars to medicines to household goods and products are globalism that has been with us for decades. It has lead to greater prosperity, unevenly, all over the world.
As we’ve seen in the UK’s nationalist spasm, Brexit is a catastrophe that will destroy the British economy, per their experts. Nationalism is the last century’s failed answer. Globalism is the future. No one withdraws from the world now. We are all in it together.
5. Regulate the Free Market - Excess and greed are always problems with the free market. Regulation can get out of hand, but, fundamentally people want to be protected from being physically harmed or ripped-off.
- Drug companies that charge Americans far more than any other citizen of the world pays for medications
- Allowing companies to toss cheap additives into foods that contribute to the obesity epidemic.
- Pulling protections out of the American financial systems that protect us from another round of Great Recession.
- Industry collusion counters competition. Gouging in everything from air fares to drugs to shipping fees costs American consumers billions.
Government is a force for good in our lives. For fair and equitable change, and participation by all and responsible commerce and competition. Real democracy. Democrats let Republicans hijack that notion 35 years ago. It’s time to get mad as hell, and take that back.
WHO THE @&#%@! REPRESENTS US?
Most Americans believe, rightly, that neither party serves them. As the Republicans spiral downwards into fascist madness, how are the Democrats going to take on these real challenges?
Tom Perez, chairman of the Democratic Party, came into that job with a lot of sound and fury, yet Democrats remain weak, poor on messaging, divided, despondent, disinterested.
Groups from Organizing for America to Move On to Wellstone are not coordinated. Progressives don’t respond well to ActBlue bait-and-switch policy ploys followed immediately by funding using fear tactics. Democrats just don’t have the money-motivated minions that the Republicans breed to march in lock-step out of their kool aid pools into social media.
It is time for real change, to pass the torch from hippies to hipsters. Pelosi and Perez are the rearview mirror. Perhaps President Obama could be the inspiration to motivate this generation to find a responsible, sane path forward.
We better find the next gen of progressive leadership soon.
Democrats are the only game in town who don’t want the majority of us dead in 50 years.