Donald Trump’s presidency scares the daylights out of many
liberals. During the campaign, we made the mistake of taking his words
literally but him not seriously. Now we are making a worse mistake, taking both
him and his words literally, and letting them both terrify us. In my opinion,
to minimize the injustices and harms that he and his Republican colleagues will cause, we need
to take a calmer and more calculated approach than has yet materialized.
The ultimate aims are to preserve our democracy, to act
consistently with our core national values, and to serve the public interest. The aim is not to defeat Donald Trump or the Republican Party. On the contrary, preserving democracy and core values requires Republican collaboration, because a deeply divided country cannot long function
democratically. And not everything that Trump proposes is bad, whereas the
Republican tactic against Obama, of total opposition to everything, is rooted
in un-American values and destroys democracy.
The approach I advocate, then, is based on three pillars:
First, create a credible, popular opposition party that provides voters,
including Republicans, with a good alternative. Second, distinguish between policy
disagreements based on core principles, those based on expected results, and
those based on political gamesmanship. Each type requires a different tactical
approach. And third, focus on creating effective ways to influence public
opinion.
A Credible Opposition Party
In winning an election by about 60% of registered voters,
Donald Trump received 63 million votes,[1] only 27% of the eligible voters. About 90 million of
the eligible voters failed to vote at all. Nor does Trump's vote represent support, since many of his votes were reluctant ones, motivated mainly by dislike of Hillary Clinton.
For the Democrats to succeed, then, it is not necessary to
cater to the Trump base, but rather to focus on the more than 70% of eligible
voters who did not vote for him. In my view, although the Democratic Party’s
platform was good, there are two other obstacles that Hillary Clinton could not
overcome and that virtually any Democratic candidate would face in the future.
One is the extraordinary ability of the radical right wing
press to smear any Democratic candidate. We saw this with Kerry, with the
race-based opposition to Obama, and with the extreme about face in the
popularity of Hillary Clinton, who quickly went from being a highly admired
Secretary of State to being a widely vilified candidate. Any Democratic
candidate will face the same deadly propaganda barrage unless the Democrats
greatly improve their communication skills.
The second obstacle is the loss of credibility with both
white and blue-collar employees. In part, this is due to the extraordinary
decline of union membership, a decline that Republicans have strongly promoted,
but that has other causes as well. But in addition, the loss of credibility
derives from a perceived Democratic neglect of worker and middle class interests, leaving a
vacuum that Trump tried to fill.
On the surface, it may seem that Trump’s appeal was unique
to his personality, and no doubt that played a role. But I think that at a more
fundamental level the Democrats have unnecessarily created a vulnerability that
any Republican can exploit. The actions that the Trump administration will undoubtedly
take should give the Democrats excellent opportunities to remind voters who is their friend, and who is not.
Policies
Some of Trump’s policies, such as the ban on Moslems and the
mass deportation of the undocumented, including people brought here as
children, are so contrary to moral and civic values, so destructive of our
integrity as a nation and our standing in the world, that we must resist them
by all feasible means, the fiercer and louder the better. There can be no
compromise, no quarter in such struggles.
Some of his likely policies, such as repealing Obamacare,
emasculating or eliminating the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, stripping
the Dodd-Frank Act, giving coal and oil free play and more subsidies, or reducing
taxes on the very rich, and so forth, seem to be very harmful to the public
interest, but are essentially policy differences rather than challenges to our
sense of America. Democrats must and should oppose these pollcies and work with
Republicans to ameliorate them whenever possible.
Finally, some of Trump’s possible policies, such as reducing
regulatory burdens on small business, getting NATO members to pay their fair
share, or modifying the business tax code in sensible ways may deserve
Democratic support if the final legislation does what is promised. I think
Democrats should make this three part division in their responses clear to the
public, and stick with it.
Public Presentation
President Obama’s budgets and State of the Union proposals,
and Hillary Clinton’s Democratic Party platform offered excellent policies that
would have well served the interest of virtually all Americans. But who knew?
They both slighted effective public presentation of their ideas, despite plenty
of expert advice to the contrary. In committing this political malpractice, they gave the radical right wing press a free field of fire against their goals and ideas. A continuation
of this disregard for effective public presentation guarantees the same results
in the future.
And now, we face not only Fox News and its ilk, but an
electronic horde of cyber attacks, fake news, and hacking that Putin and others
have launched against our freedom, our rule of law, and our humane values. Blocking
this new Mongol invasion of the West is clearly crucial, but so
will be the ability of liberals and Democrats to vastly improve their public
presentations. How to do so is well known; it is the perception of its
importance that has been lacking so far.
[1]
Total votes: United States Election Project, http://www.electproject.org/2016g
Trump’s votes: CNNPolitics.com, http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/21/politics/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-popular-vote-final-count/
Both accessed 2/17/17.
