The 2016 Election – Part 5 – What is to be done?

Given the preceding analyses of the election (Parts 1-4), the question we need to answer is where does the progressive movement go from here? Perhaps the easier part is to begin with where we shouldn’t go, since much of the renewed political activism seems to be guided, either explicitly or implicitly, by what I would argue are incorrect or incomplete evaluations of how we got to where we are today.

One position is that we (and here I mean progressive Democratic Party activists) need to double down on what we’ve been doing. Whether it’s work harder (organize more effectively, have more personal contacts, have a 50-state strategy, etc.) or work smarter (utilize the internet, voter identification software, etc.) or raise more money, it is essentially the same prescription we’ve heard for years. The problem here is that this is exactly what the Democratic Party has been doing, and it hasn’t worked. “Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is …” (I assume you know the rest of the quote).

Another position, put forth by the Indivisible folks, is to take up the “strategy” of the tea party. I’ve dealt with my critique of that in part 3 on the election, but it deserves further comment since it has come to dominate a great deal of the activist response to the Trump election. At the risk of sounding harsh in response to the genuine sentiments motivating this approach, it leads to knee-jerk reactions to every obscenity coming from the Trump administration. One can almost imagine Trump's advisers urging a particular action by telling him “This will really get a reaction from the liberals. Let’s keep them busy.”

There many problems with this approach. First, it generally reaches only those already part of the “choir”. It does little to change the minds of those who sat out the election or voted for Trump because he was someone who gave the establishment the finger. If anything, it reinforces their view that the opposition does not speak for them.

Second, it will almost always come up short (if the strategy couldn’t block the Betsy DeVos nomination, where do the Indivisible folks think we can win?) which will demoralize many of the newer activists. True, it can help to give Democrats in Congress some backbone, but beyond that, it accomplishes little. And I believe there are better ways to shore up weak-kneed Democratic lawmakers.

Third, it may focus attention on less, rather than more, critical aspects of the assault on ordinary Americans, allowing the Trump administration to push through more damaging measures without significant opposition. Feint one way, run with your reactionary politics in another direction.

But most importantly, it fails to develop a conversation around the assumptions of the existing political establishment (both liberal and conservative). In other words, it fails to offer a real alternative vision to the Republican’s assault on all of us.

So, what do we need to do?

A.    FOCUSED RESISTANCE

I am not saying that resistance isn’t critical. I believe that we need to resist with all our might, but that resistance needs to be focused in three ways; first on the defense of those most vulnerable, second on issues where we can draw clear lessons which can begin the change the conversation and third on issues where we have at least a chance of winning.

A good example is the resistance to the Muslim ban. It focuses on defending a vulnerable minority, it allows us to frame our resistance as supporting a basic tenet of our democracy, and it is complemented by a legal strategy that could produce a win for the resistance.

Likewise, the battle to defeat the nomination of Betsy DeVos. It had an outside chance of winning; it focused on defending poor and minority children, who are those who are most affected by the attempts to dismantle public education; and it gave us the opportunity to rise up in support of maintaining public, rather than privatized, education – a defense of the “commons” against the privatizers.

I would argue that, in the immediate future, our resistance needs to focus on the battle over health care. This should include not only preserving Medicare, Medicaid and the ACA and fully funding Planned Parenthood, but expanding affordable health care to all by creating a single payer health care system. A vigorous defense of the existing programs which provide healthcare insurance for millions of Americans (many of whom may have voted for Trump) combined with a clearly stated plan which would guarantee benefits to all Americans would allow us to begin changing the conversation.

B.     CHANGING THE CONVERSATION by CREATING A VISION

Much of the efforts of progressives have been focused on mobilizing our forces opposition to particular actions or policies of the Trump administration. The problem is that this does not reach those who feel they are disenfranchised or have been scammed by the right-wing alt-facts (aka, lies). After the massive protests on Jan. 21^st, Trump tweeted asking why the protesters didn’t vote. Well, he was wrong, as usual. They did vote and not for him. But how did this action reach out to those who didn’t vote or voted for him?  The answer should be obvious – it did not.

Progressives need to create a vision, a big picture that counters the picture that the right has cultivated for the past forty years. Like any big picture, it requires an overarching theme that ties together the various issues and constituencies that can make up the majority of Americans. I would argue that the theme must be the fight against inequality.

That fight means more than just raising the minimum wage, or taxing the rich or free college tuition at public colleges and universities. It requires rejecting what Les Leopold refers to as the “Better Business Climate model” and the idea that economic competition always leads to a better life. It requires us to accept that the economy should serve the interests of the society rather than the other way around; that cooperation trumps competition in promoting the interests of all. It means rejecting the “Race to the Top” with its winners (and therefore its losers) and adopting the guiding principle of the labor movement that we all advance together ("the union makes us strong").

This is, unfortunately, not the big picture that has been projected by the Democratic Party (and in Europe by the Social Democratic, Labor or other “left” parties). It is, as a number of authors have argued, the central reason for the decline of these parties and the populist explosion since the Great Recession. It is why we must concentrate our efforts on make the Democratic Party a true part of the people.

C.     RESTORING THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY AS THE “PARTY OF THE PEOPLE”

There is nothing wrong with a big-tent party bringing together various electorates under the guise of identity politics. But a big tent needs a center pole that provides support for the entire structure and a political party needs a central tenet that unifies its constituencies under a single banner. I would argue that a “party of the people” needs to build its program around the fight against inequality and for economic as well as social justice. Despite its progressive platform (largely ignored during the election campaign) the Democrats have not done that for fear of alienating their Wall Street and Silicon Valley supporters.

How can the Democratic Party merge an all-out struggle against inequality and the assumptions that arise from accepting competition as the be all and end all of progress and still maintain its big tent? By tying the struggles against racism, sexism, homophobia, and xenophobia to a broad movement against inequality which can unite us all (well, except for the 1%).


We must point out that everyone loses when working people allow politicians to turn us against each other. We need to project an image that is more than a coalition of groups and an inclusive organization that fights for each group’s demands. We need to show explicitly that behind that support for each issue is the overriding issue that unites us all. Then and only then will the Democratic Party be able to reclaim the mantle as “the Party of the People” and capture the populist tide that has swept the country.