The following is the first of two commentaries I recently shared with the rest of the Democratic Town Committee. It’s been lightly edited for more general consumption.
The other night our Congressman, Seth Moulton, tweeted after Jon Ossoff’s loss in GA-06:
Ossoff race better be a wake up call for Democrats – business as usual isn’t working. Time to stop rehashing 2016 and talk about the future.
“Time stop rehashing 2016” got my attention – “business as usual” did too but “rehashing” more so. I replied:
Yes, it’s a wake-up call but people in the Clinton and Sanders camps still haven’t hashed out the issues which were the source of tension in 2016. Until we reconcile our differences and are able to get behind a common vision – even if we aren’t personally enthusiastic about all the specifics – it’s going to be a challenge to win converts by convincing them that we have a compelling vision for the future.
That’s a big deal. Winning hearts and minds will require that we have a compelling narrative – not just a bulletized list of good things we want to accomplish for the country but an actual story which draws people in and motivates them to be a part of it and to add to it. Back to my reply to Seth though, I don’t believe that Clinton and Sanders supporters have argued out their differences and negotiated a mutually-agreeable path forward. My impression is that each side is waiting for the other to either die off or slink away. I don’t see that happening. The first step towards actually talking about the future – as opposed to offering a trite cliché about the need to do so – is to acknowledge the need to hash out current points of disagreement. You can’t negotiate without first acknowledging difference and agreeing to sit down at the negotiating table. We need to get there or Franklin’s adage “We must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.” will become a painful truth.
Hold that thought but I want to get back to Moulton. He tweeted later, maybe the next day:
We need a genuinely new message, a serious jobs plan that reaches all Americans, and a bigger tent not a smaller one. Focus on the future.
I have a net favorable impression of Moulton but statements like that set off my bullshit detector. Say “new” and “serious” in the same breath without offering specifics and you’re pretty much guaranteed to set it off. In searching for the specific text of the tweet above – I recalled the nature of it but wanted it verbatim – I came across this post from Jon Keller which summarizes my concern:
And inquiring minds want to know – what, exactly, does Moulton want this “new message” to say?
Go to the issues page on his website and you find the following: a call for more “investments” in government programs… higher pay for women and minimum wage workers… support for Obamacare, and so on, a fairly typical center-left Democratic agenda.
Not much help there.
Unemployment is low and employment-to-population ratio is respectable. There’s room for improvement but the economy isn’t in the tank. What problems will a “serious jobs plan” address and how will it do so? Does higher pay for minimum wage workers mean $15/hr? $12/hr? Other? Is empowering unions part of a serious jobs plan? (Workers wages generally go up when there’s union presence.) What about Medicare For All or single-payer health care? Either of those would help control rising health care costs, which would be good for both employees and employers, no? Is that part of looking to the future? Bigger picture: GDP is growing steadily and corporations are making profits hand over fist. Are the economic challenges the average American faces due more to lack of employment opportunities or to how corporate profits are distributed? What does Moulton think? I say a serious jobs plan will need to address income inequality and the fact that wage share of gross domestic income has been falling since ca 1970. Does he agree?
What else is part of Moulton’s vision for the future? Does he propose to end the state of perpetual war? Does he propose to prosecute white collar criminals? How about war criminals? (The Obama administration did neither, apparently preferring to look forward rather than back.) Do we hold people accountable for their misdeeds or is that looking back not forward? The 2008 financial crash put a lot of people out of work and subsequently forced them to drain their retirement savings. Are current banking regulations too strict, too loose, about right? How about a financial transaction tax, would that be a net benefit to people who work for a living? More generally, if our goal is to create more decent-paying jobs do we continue to allow capital to flow more freely than people, thereby giving an advantage to capital over labor? (Hard for American workers to compete with workers overseas making $0.50/hr. Should we enact barriers to capital flight? Should we put tariffs on imports from low wage nations?) Do we invest in improving public transportation? Enact paid family leave? Will we need to raise additional revenue to make the elements of our “new message” a reality?
I want to hear what Moulton has in mind re the above. I hope it’s good. I fear it’s empty rhetoric.
Along those lines of hopes and fears, in a recent memo about recruiting candidates for office the DCCC Chair, Rep. Ben Ray Lujan, wrote
“Let’s look outside of the traditional mold to keep recruiting local leaders, veterans, business owners, women, job creators, and health professionals [to run for Congress].”
People in those groups are part of our constituency, they can be good public servants and we should encourage them to run. That stated, 1) Lujan’s list strikes me as straight up traditional mold not the least bit outside it and 2) it bugs me that’s the extent of the list. Perhaps I’m too cynical but I don’t feel like the list was inadvertently cut short. What about teachers, nurses, construction workers, farmers, Black Lives Matter activists, environmental activists, neighborhood organizers, clergy, public defenders, home healthcare aides, stay-at-home parents and union organizers? To name just a few. (h/t to Corey Robin for much of that list.) They’re part of our coalition too. We need to support them to run for office. We need to be reaching out to and making common cause with them.
Bring a long commentary to an end. I know it’s only a couple day but I don’t like the vibe I’m getting from Party leadership since Ossoff bit the dust. It feels like they’re planning to rebrand Third Way/Bill Clintonism – for which I have no enthusiasm. Am I off-base? Too cynical? What are your thoughts?
Chris