Some just want to move on and pretend that it never happened, but it did. The worst campaign in American history wasn’t the worst just because Donald Trump won. Rather, everything that could have gone wrong with the whole process did so as a result of the fact that our institutions are dying, the political parties are collapsing, and the spirit of community has been infected with a virus of selfishness. 2016 can not be ignored, because if we choose to disregard the warning signs of that fateful year we WILL see a far worse event sooner than we’d like.
Since the day after the election, many Democrats have talked themselves into a false sense of security about 2018 and 2020. To them, all that needs to happen for a reversal of 2016’s tragedy is for the American people to see just how awful Trump and his allies in Congress really are. In other words, the Democrats need to change NOTHING…absolutely nothing. Democrats are merely victims of a temporary separation from our natural place in power, and Trump was elected because of Russia, not because Hillary did anything wrong or was a bad candidate hated by large section of the population.
Worse yet, a large number of Democrats like to suggest that Trump supporters – a portion of whom had supported Obama in 2008 and 2012 – are “idiots”, “racist”, “sexist”, “homophobe”, and the list of labels continues. This is a toxic rationalization for why their choice for President #45 was given the cold shoulder by a large enough collection of voters for Trump to win the outdated Electoral College. In looking to 2020, they are hoping for a rescue by way of the investigation being overseen by Robert Mueller relative to the possibility of a conspiracy between that adversarial government and our current President’s election campaign. If Mueller doesn’t advance the case for Trump’s removal in a clear and explicit manner, the Democrats hope to use the bad taste this drama leaves in our collective mouths to propel the party to a resounding set of victories in the midterms and the next presidential contest.
All in all, the rabid reaction to Trump’s election – of which I have even played my role (and not without good reason, I may add) – is missing the point. The Democrats lost to Trump more than he won. Why? There is no single, all-encompassing answer to that question. Instead, it is a question which has to be broken down and addressed accordingly. What’s frightening is that the Democratic Party is still poised to repeat EVERY mistake they made in 2016 in the next series of election cycles. This blog entry is meant to delve into every perceivable weakness and prescribe a possible remedy one by one. Hopefully, we can stop the next disaster before we stumble into another four years of this madness and/or set the stage for something or someone far worse.
But, before I touch base with the serious systemic issues and other areas of concern, I need to make a few comments about Russia. Simply put, you can NOT talk about 2016 without addressing the Russia factor. No, our intelligence agencies have not always got everything right, but this is one area of significance where the evidence of foreign meddling is undeniable. Part of it is that we can point to several facts about our interaction with the Kremlin over the years in conjunction with that government’s policies and behavior on the international stage which all suggest that Putin and his regime have a clear motive for their suspected activities here in our country and in numerous others.
With that said, there is little more than speculation to indicate that the Russian government was solely responsible for the election of Donald Trump. Until we can conclude beyond a doubt that their meddling directly flipped votes from one candidate to another then the extent of their interference hits a wall at propaganda, espionage, and theft. Each citizen is individually responsible for the vote they cast and we still lack proof that same said right was infringed by the actions of Putin’s minions. So, we can scream about Russia all we want, but this should NOT be used as an excuse to absolve us of our own failures to harness the real energy which fueled 2016’s populist uprising.
The Nomination Process
Early on in the 2016 Campaign – which started in the first half of 2015, because we have two-year campaigns for president -, it was a foregone conclusion who the establishment of each major party wanted to promote as their favored candidate for the White House. On the Republican side, the initial darling of the future was Jeb Bush. Bush was related to two former occupants of the White House, had a record as a former, relatively-popular governor in an important “battleground state”, and he had a LOT of campaign financial support. On the Democratic side, it was clear that the party leadership wanted Hillary Clinton. Hillary had spent four of the previous eight years building up her foreign policy credentials as the nation’s top diplomat, she had made history as the pioneer First Lady to move on to elected office, where she had won two terms in the United States Senate. 2016 was supposed to be a battle between two “dynasties” with the establishment forces of both parties ensuring that their champions were sent to battle for Electoral College supremacy.
Yet, something went wrong…wildly wrong. The people were hurting (and still are, but that’s a broad subject for another day) and they were fed up with business as usual. As I discussed at the time, a populist revolution was mounting and had been festering for many years. Now the proverbial water was beginning to boil over and new champions – purportedly of the outraged citizenry – arose: enter Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump.
At first, both groups of establishment partisans dismissed the entrance of these outsider campaigns. The Republicans were convinced that Trump’s propensity for blunt, foul language-riddled, and overall misinformed rhetoric would sink his campaign soon. The Democrats just laughed off Bernie, often chastising the Sanders movement as a naïve fringe effort that would buckle early in the primaries for lack of support. The problem, though, is that they did not anticipate the popularity of each. Trump and Bernie quickly developed a reputation as the only two campaigns consistently drawing thousands of attendees to their rallies and with growing momentum. The people enjoyed both candidates for varying reasons, and they were especially enamored with the fact that neither hesitated to take on the entire system: parties included.
So, realizing that this populism was gaining traction, the parties frantically reacted. On the Republican side, they changed the rules for entry into the debate stage to reduce the astronomical number of viable candidates, as based on the faulty opinion polls. Their intent was to encourage mainstream Republicans to drop out so as to enable a coalescing around a single mainstream candidate who could knock out Trump, as he was in the lead for all but a handful of weeks during the crowded primaries. On the Democratic side, most of the so-called superdelegates preemptively declared themselves for the establishment candidate long before there was a single debate held, let alone any primary contests. State and local party establishments were also beating the “Hillary is our candidate” drums from before she even declared.
But, the Democratic and Republican establishments took different paths from there. While the Republican leaders were privately panicking about Trump’s rise, fearing he would easily lose to ANY Democratic opponent, they publicly remained silent for the most part. In essence, the Republican leadership knew that speaking out and openly challenging the wave of support that was sweeping the base into Trump’s camp would endanger them by putting them on the opposing side of same said base. With the pursuit and retention of power being the party’s only objective; infuriating the base is NOT an option for them. So, they let the events play out and fell in line when it became clear that he was virtually unbeatable.
With the Democrats, they did as much as they possibly could to stop Bernie. Sure, in public they acted as though the primary was welcome, but the truth is that it was most definitely not welcome. The party chair significantly reduced the number of debates and threatened that any additional debates would not be party-sponsored and would result in the presidential candidates being excluded from future sanctioned debates. There was the controversy where Hillary received an advance copy of debate questions from Donna Brazile who worked for the DNC and as a commentator at CNN. I could compose another entry entirely devoted to what the party and its leadership did to try and prevent a fair contest, but that’s not why I’m composing this entry.
Instead, we are reflecting on what the party did to boost Hillary over Bernie to shine a spotlight on what must be avoided in the future. Re-litigating 2016 is not and should not be about Bernie and Hillary, but rather about what made the controversy of that cycle possible. In the future, there needs to be serious consideration for abolishing the superdelegates entirely and to make every primary and caucus an “open” contest. To go a step further, it would be better to hold a national open primary on the same day to expedite the campaign, get us a nominee and move on to the general election. Until we achieve that meaningful reform, the probability of another controversial collision between the base and the establishment will only continue to remain high.
Inclusiveness
During the primaries, there was a lot of heartburn on the Democratic side about independents and even Republicans joining the party ranks to vote for their preferred nominee. Not only that, but the entire party leadership – and Hillary herself – used the fact that Bernie Sanders has been an independent for decades as a weapon against him. We often heard “He’s not even a Democrat!” That was their favorite attack line against him and against his coalition of support. Hillary’s supporters even attacked – and still do to this day – the calls for more open primaries. In their mindset, if you weren’t a Democrat your opinion about who should be the party’s nominee doesn’t matter. “Form your own party” was another common theme of the pro-Hillary base. The real kicker was during the closing months of the primary through to the end of the general campaign, many of Hillary’s supporters took on a tactic of telling Bernie supporters that they weren’t needed in the general, because Hillary was somehow going to find the numbers to win without them. (Yeah, that really worked out)
Interestingly, on the Republican side, we heard regular praise for the fact that Independents and Democrats were jumping on board to vote for whomever they preferred in the primaries. This was due to the fact that Trump’s coalition overlapped with Bernie’s in many respects. Working class voters across the spectrum swarmed to both campaigns during the primaries, but Trump was left as the sole beneficiary of this public rebuke of establishment politics when the vote came in November 2016. I predicted during the primaries how the Bernie campaign base would splinter during the General without him being an option, and that is sadly how events played out.
The Republican Party’s public image appears to be one of exclusion. Its policies don’t seem to appeal across the board, but that is only because they – in their relentless pursuit of power – pander to their base. For whatever it is worth, the Republican Party never shies away from a fight. They stake a position – regardless of popularity – and promote it until the proverbial fat lady sings. In the meantime, this reliable positioning of the Grand Ole Party has made it appealing for almost all conservatives and a sizeable number of moderates to support them. They have effectively built a rightwing coalition which largely remains intact and tolerant of the diversity of conservative viewpoints in each major category of policymaking. While this coalition appears to be on shaky grounds given the detestable nature of President Trump, its core support network looks like it will largely survive the experience.
On the Democratic Party’s end, diversity is applauded, encouraged, and strongly promoted…in terms of culture, race, religion, gender, and sexual orientation. As far as political views are concerned? Hardly. Sure, if you want to associate yourself with the party, you are free to do so, but the moment you offer a differing opinion about the party from what the status quo promulgates you are derided and even discouraged from speaking out further. This happens openly in public meetings and even privately via direct internet message, in person, or over the phone. Party reform is often equated with tearing the party apart or being some kind of mole planted by the opposition party.
Now, this isn’t to say that the Republican Party doesn’t fight efforts for reform, but they have transformed a great deal over the course of the past 30-40 years. This was led by the base and its demands. The Democrats, to the contrary, try with great vigor to keep its base at bay. In fact, their transformation occurred over the same period as the Republicans, but away from the base. Once the established order of the party sets an agenda they have displayed little appetite for legitimate discussion on how to change. From time to time they will put on a show with some meaningless or watered down “reforms”, but the end is always the same: nothing really changes. If we want to avoid a repeat of 2016 in the future, mimicking the successes of the Republicans here is definitely something we ought to consider.
Community Action
It’s not enough to canvass for votes. Long ago the Democratic Party used to be very effective at building a connection with the working class, in large part by having a direct presence in the community. Where there was once a powerhouse stronghold for the Donkeys there is now a vast wasteland of hopelessness and confusion. The Democratic Party abandoned this engagement with the so-called base when it collectively sold its soul to the oligarchs over the past four decades.
This came to be also because the tight and once-reliable relationship between the Democratic Party and organized labor has been significantly diminished. We can link the destruction of this partnership with outsourcing, deindustrialization, and the Democratic Party’s tolerance of the all-out assault on labor – in the name of “moderation” – since perhaps the 1970s at the earliest. “New” Democrats – also known in some corners as the neoliberal/Clinton wing of the party – emerged and have helped to decimate this former arrangement. In 2016, the lack of community presence – which had previously informed the average citizen as to which party stood with them – was instrumental to Trump’s rise. Trump didn’t become a phenomenon over night, but the longstanding vacuum created by the Democrats abandoning the working class on the front lines chipped away at its base of support and was eventually filled by the false prophet propagating a misleading message disguised as populism.
The solution is to reconnect with the struggling communities throughout this country. Don’t assume that any community is off-limits. Rather, an aggressive campaign of outreach and citizen empowerment can work wonders. However, it can’t be a mission with the sole goal of electing candidates. It has to be a mission focused on making a positive – immediately and directly felt – impact on the lives of the working class. They have to know that their public servants are actually SERVING THE PUBLIC. This, a project of productive outreach, is how you rebuild the network needed to avoid the chaos of 2016 again.
Lesser Evilism
Connected to the problem of closing the doors to new voices is the false choice that both parties try to present to their base and the American people as a whole: the choice between “evils”. Which evil is the most tolerable? Which degree of evil would be okay to manage over the course of an elected term? This wasn’t just a choice facing the people in 2016 or in the past decade. Rather, this is a false dichotomy that has been force-fed to the people AT LEAST since television transformed our politics.
In 2016, this approach to electoral politics reached its predictable peak. That year, we were presented with a choice between a candidate whose deplorable nature, rhetoric, and overall behavior represented the very worst of America’s cultural character and a candidate whose subservience to the self-serving cause of saying and doing anything to get elected while quasi-secretly placating the will of the few at the expense of the many represented the very worst of our politics. It was the ultimate choice of a “lesser evil” election. The vast majority of the American people did NOT want to choose between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, but a broken partisan primary system in conjunction with the coordination of the establishment forces to tame the populist wave left us with no other viable alternative.
Leading up to that election, most – if not all – of the mainstream political experts were convinced that Hillary would win. They “knew” this was certain because – despite the historical trend of populist candidates toppling establishment candidates during populist eras – Trump was such an abhorrent figure that his detestable characteristics would inhibit him from capitalizing on his key advantage of being the perceived populist. These experts – the punditocracy, if you will – were convinced that the American people would choose to continue down the path of systemic failure with the “devil we know” (that is, the quintessential politician) instead of taking a chance with such a chaotic figure whose candidacy threatened to come in like a wrecking ball (apologies, Miley). Long story-short…they were dead wrong.
The 2016 election debacle should serve as a lesson for all of us – FOR GOOD – that the politics of “lesser evilism” must die. It did not save us from a Trump presidency. In truth, a series of successive election cycles over the course of many decades which presented this choice have only helped to create the groundswell for Trump’s rise. This is because the elected “lesser evil” has either promoted neoconservatism or neoliberalism; which - together - has placed the needs and concerns of the working class to the side while serving the interests of the oligarchy in domestic, trade, and foreign policies.
We are at a rare period in history where the people are fed up with being ignored. When the only candidates getting elected are the people who pander to the wealthiest and readily-powerful few over a sustained timeframe, then you have a recipe for populist uprising. The people, the working people, of this country have been in agony for a long time. The fruits of their labor are obviously not as bountiful as they once were despite the fact that Americans are working harder and are more productive than ever before. This very issue – the widening disparity between the rich and poor irrespective of the efforts of the poor – is the inescapable heart and root cause of Trump’s rise.
Continuing lesser evil politics will only make matters worse. Yes, even worse than Trump.
The Oligarchs
Lastly, 2016 illustrates the fact that the American people are fed up with and ready to reject the will of the oligarchy. Hillary Clinton was successfully portrayed as being the puppet of this nation’s wealthy and powerful elite, and before her Trump was able to topple all the other mainstream Republican candidates, each of whom had their own billionaire supporting them via some shadow Super-PAC. Much of Trump’s appeal to the people was that he “couldn’t be bought”, because he was supposedly a “self-made man” and would answer only to the people. Likewise, his populist counterpart – Bernie Sanders – also rejected the help from the “Billionaire Class” or even of allied Super-PACs, as he essentially refused to be “bought”.
The remarkable success of Bernie and Trump to galvanize the disaffected masses demonstrated that the bulk of the populace wants to dismantle the emerging oligarchy and restore our democratic power. Anyone perceived as allying with the wealthy few still – even as we begin Trump’s second year in office – elicits a groan from the collective. For that reason, it would be wise to take note of the outright rejection of those who would pander to the pockets of the men and women who would love nothing more than to enjoy plutocratic rule. It would be especially helpful if the Democratic Party didn’t cater to big corporate interests with terrible records in labor relations and environmentally to sponsor their next convention.
In the wake of the drubbing that Walter Mondale suffered at the hands of Ronald Reagan in 1984 and the near-equal ass kicking suffered by Michael Dukakis via his loss to George H.W. Bush in 1988, the Democratic Party saw an ideological coup from within by the so-called “Democratic Leadership Council”, which ushered in the neoliberal “New Democrats” championed by Bill Clinton. This wing of the party – as highlighted briefly earlier - made it a point to reach out to the nation’s high dollar donor class in an attempt to beat the Republicans at being the new servants thereof. Ever since, the party has systematically converted its purpose and mission from standing arm and arm beside the working class against the worst abuses of unhinged capitalism to now assisting the obscenely rich in their exploits all the while claiming to still be on our side.
2016 taught us that the American people – particularly the working class – is ready for a return to the principles which made the Democratic Party the undeniable defender of working families, starting with the presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. What’s ironic is that FDR was actually quite wealthy, as was the immediate inheritor of his vision and passion in the progressive cause: JFK. Where Hillary Clinton, her husband Bill, and Barack Obama felt content placating the silver spoon sensibilities of their campaign financiers, FDR once proudly and boldly boasted in defiance of his bankster opponents: “I welcome their hatred!!”
Is it too much to ask that the Democrats welcome the hatred of the oligarchs once again?
Tonight’s Conclusion
These are merely my observations from the chaotic and painful 2016 election cycle alongside my growing awareness of history and political science (have I mentioned before that I have a Political Science degree as well as a minor in history?). Still, I care passionately about the future that I leave for my children and their children. I deeply care about the functionality of our democracy. If we don’t learn from 2016 we WILL repeat it…and go further down the orange-haired rabbit hole.
#NotMeUs #OurRevolution #TheResistance #ImpeachTrump
Purchase my manifesto, “The Pillars of Unitism”.
Until next time…
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