Build the Base - Don't Abandon It
By Mike Hersh, Jun 20, 2005

Some in the Democratic Party (and a few "helpful Republicans") demand we abandon our core beliefs and our base in order to appeal to "the mainstream." They claim we "lose" because we're too strong on personal freedom and equality - especially protecting people from government interference in their choice to become parents or not, and protecting minorities from various threats and oppression public and private. They don't understand that we are the mainstream. Most of the polls show most Americans agree with us on most of the issues. But more than that. Betrayal of people who depend upon us - and the principles upon which we depend - would be immoral, unthinking and political suicide. This is not "New Age" or even new. Harry S. Truman and FDR staked out this territory for us decades ago. Let's reclaim our birthright as Democrats and build our base - not betray it.

We should never back off from our base or sacrifice our principles. Here's the sad calculus of capitulation: For every vote we'd gain trying to mollify right-of-center voters, we'd lose three or more. We will never "out right wing" the right wing. It makes no sense to even try. As Harry Truman said, "Given the choice between a Republican and someone who acts like a Republican, people will vote for the real Republican all the time." More on President Truman later, but put plainly America doesn't need two Republican Parties. According to opinion polls, many Americans don't think we even need one GOP!

We do need a different kind of conversation. Not an acrimonious shouting match. A discussion of shared ideals and principles and ways to work together - traditional and progressive - in the public interest. Democrats do well because most of the electorate supports our positions on almost all the issues - even the most controversial ones. Most voters favor choice and equality for gays, women, and racial and religious minorities. The only issues on which we fall short concern misunderstandings based on the carefully crafted Republican disinformation about our stands and capabilities.

Republicans cast us as weak on national security, crime and other "get tough" priorities. Betraying our base would only play into the stereotype of Democratic "weakness" upon which Republicans rely. Why make it easier for them to pin the "wimp" tail on the donkey? The mushy middle voters we seek to win would see our fecklessness for what it is, as many in our base expressed disgust and turned to third parties or refused to vote at all. We'd lose support at both ends!

No matter how we try, we will never win over the fraction of the electorate stuck in a time-warp of bigotry and government intrusion into the most private and personal decisions by feeding into their antisocial impulses. We can strive to educate and inform them, to help them progress out of their prejudice, but it makes no sense to reinforce their regressive attitudes. We should offer wise, good and strong leadership and hope all follow, but there are those we cannot reach without sacrificing too much of what we are. So be it. Franklin Roosevelt laughed at his enemies, "I welcome their hatred," and so we should not fear nor should we appease those who remain hostile to our fundamental values.

Our values are popular. We should never work to become less popular! Democrats prevail even on the so-called "moral" issues. On economic issues - fair vs. "free" trade, the living wage, health care for all, protecting not privatizing Social Security, promoting good jobs at home rather than subsidizing out sourcing, and many more - we enjoy enormous advantages. All of these are "moral" issues. All of these have been Democratic issues for decades.

We should embrace our identity and build on our strong pillars, rather than engage in cosmetic surgery trying to appear as something we're not and don't want to become. As FDR explained, "No business which depends for its existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country." He also provided us with a yardstick to measure our national success: "The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little" and he explained, "Whoever seeks to set one race against another seeks to enslave all races."

These quotes indict much of the right wing program and politics. On all of these critical concerns, most voters trust and support us - not the Republicans. Why should we reject Roosevelt to stand with Rove? What Republicans call "moral issues" are really divisive "wedge" issues designed in think tanks and tested in focus groups to divide Americans. Right wing pols and consultants know they cannot win on any of them, but they press "hot buttons" and denounce Democrats as soft - on terrorism, on crime - to keep elections close enough to steal. This - not any embrace of justice and equality for all - cost us the White House in 2000 and 2004. Lack of a clear, differentiated message cost us in Congressional races as well, but let's not overstate these problems. Let's focus on the future and make progress from today forward.

How can we overcome apathetic if not pathetic mass media, and Republican message machine which dominates and misleads public discourse and the other problems we face? We can surrender unilaterally by squandering valued members of our base trying to be Republican-lite. We can squabble with Republicans over each issue until too many voters cry a pox on both your parties. Or we can rise above food-fight partisanship, appeal to the best in Americans, and win landslides by speaking to people about them and their needs directly, honestly, and effectively.

We must accept that few who refuse to support us because of their opposition to reproductive choice or gay rights would switch because we fudged on these issues. We should also recognize the need to reach out to "swing voters" while not retreating from hard-won progress. Therefore, we need to move ahead without betraying our base, presenting as weak, or taking one step forward and three steps back. Since the Republican strategy relies on exploiting national pain and exacerbating division with appeals to low instincts and fears, we can use markedly different and better ways to reach people. We can work to calm, heal, empower and unite people to move the United States ahead together.

Much of the emotional fuel driving the right wing political engine arises from a sense of powerlessness against massive forces of rapid change. Fear of terror attack feeds into this exaggerated sense of victimization. This is the aim of terrorism, and the right wing unwittingly collaborates by heightening fear for partisan purpose. They also scapegoat "elites" in Hollywood, in the media and academia, and the Democratic Party as demons bent on assaulting "traditional values" - family, marriage, faith. Meanwhile Republicans also paint us as capitulators too weak or indecisive to protect Americans from harm. In a Post-911 climate - with many still suffering a post traumatic stress reaction - Democrats lose support from swing voters. Fear is a powerful tool or weapon, and the Republicans use it well.

Although these accusations lack rational merit - in fact they contradict each other: how can we be so powerful and so weak at the same time? - They've demonized us. We haven't provided an adequate response to these attacks because we cannot refute demonization by acting angry or show strength by acting weak. When we do either, the Republicans and their friends in the media "tut tut" about how we're confirming one negative impression or the other. For example, John Kerry is too weak because he changed his mind. Howard Dean is too mean because he spoke his mind clearly. Clearly this is a game we cannot win, so I suggest we stop playing and try different ways.

Republican policies fail to serve the national interest because they're based on wrong assumptions, serve tiny special interests, and generally put short-term gain for the few over the well-being of the majority. Therefore, when people vote their conscious interests, we will win. That provides us with a tremendous opportunity. The outrages go on and on, and we've been speaking out on them forever. What's different is the approach. I suggest we consciously and openly reject the right wing ethos in all its forms, but do so in a way that brings together as many people as possible. We should avoid overt conflict and debate, providing viable alternatives rather than just criticize the right wing's wrong approaches.

When not labeled as "liberal" or "Democratic" or tied to any specific candidate, we win on all the issues. Therefore, we can and should win any contest on any issue when voters understand and can express self-support for their position. Therefore, our job isn't to change ourselves or our appearance. Rather we must better educate, inform, and empower the people to act in their interests. We also have to help people heal the wounds of 911 as much as possible to free them from color-coded terror alert manipulations.

Good counselors know they cannot solve problems by telling people what to do. They foster conscious decision-making as opposed to action or reaction to unconscious and unexamined stimuli. This empowers individuals to take control of their own life and rests responsibility for actions with them. If they do something stupid, then they must accept blame for that, but they can also change their attitude and plan to act better in the future. The control is theirs.

Republicans try to tell people one way - the right wing way - is best. We will defend and promote basic American grass-roots individualism and respect for freedom of speech, religion, and thought. As they attack the New Deal and traditions like public schools and Senate rules, we will oppose their radicalism and "ends justify the means" expediency with calls for respect for progress founded on Constitutional principles.

As they scare voters with predictions of terrorist attacks, we will present sound policies to make people more secure with rational responses to terrorism as well against the wide range of threats more likely to harm them - from "loose nukes" and lack of international cooperation to global warming and environmental degradation. We will prove that Republicans' obsession with Saddam and Iraq prevents Americans from protecting themselves against serious threats. Republican polices let corporations spew poisons into our air and water and lace our foods with hormones and pesticides - domestic WMDs. This harms and kills people every day.

I began talking about using a healing / counseling approach at the Take Back America Conference last week, and got a good response from several people. It's very different from the partisan / political conflict which is turning off rather than reaching many mainstream Americans who support us on the issues. I propose fleshing out and testing this approach to reach and teach the majority of Americans who generally oppose right wing policies. I think we can get through to people who aren't paying attention if we avoid asking them to vote for any specific party or candidate yet, just get them to think and feel - to heal and deal with the 9/11 trauma, Iraq War, stolen elections and aftermath - in a non-confrontational way.

We reach out to people and find them "where they are" rather than trying to draw them to us. We offer to help solve problems instead of asking people to help us elect specific candidates - at least for now. We talk and listen aiming to make our fellow Americans more secure - from terror, but also from other threats. We work to provide high quality health care to all and fully fund scientific and medical research including stem cells, HIV/AIDS, cancer, heart disease, addiction and other killers far more statistically threatening than terrorism but often casualties of short-sighted budgetary policies, misplaced priorities, and religious extremism.

To recap: We can't beat Republicans by becoming Republican Lite. We cannot grow our support by shrinking our base. Republican failure, arrogance and radicalism hands us incredible opportunity. We still hold the high ground on all our traditional issues and now can claim many of "their" traditional issues as well - from effective national security to respect for individuals vs. intolerable interference and expense of "big government." We attract swing voters by presenting calm strength and respect for their beliefs and needs by engaging them with language of healing rather than engaging the right wing in demeaning conflict with rules stacked against us and bought-off referees.

This is nothing "new age" or even new, President Harry S. Truman gave a speech in Charleston, West Virginia on October 1, 1948 which - with few changes - any Progressive Democrat could deliver today. He said the following:

You have a choice between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. Within the memory of most of us here, a clear record has been written that shows how much difference that choice can make. The Republicans wrote part of their record from 1921 to 1933. They led the country to depression, poverty, and despair. It is easy to forget what the black days of the depression were like. Let us recall a few, just a few of the bitter facts.

In 1932, after 12 years of Republican bungling, more than 12 million men and women were unemployed. In 1932 the average worker in manufacturing industries was making 45 cents an hour - if he was lucky enough to have a job.... The working men and women in this country could not do much to help themselves, because the strength of their unions had been broken by the reactionary labor policies of the Republican administration.

The Republican bubble burst in 1929, and when it burst: There was no minimum wage to cushion the blow. There was no unemployment compensation to carry the working man's family along. There was no work relief program to help people through the crisis. But the party of privilege was ready to carry big business through the crisis. It created the Reconstruction Finance Corporation for that purpose. The banks, the railways, the insurance companies - they got relief, but not the American people. For the unemployed, it was Hoovervilles and soup kitchens. Veterans were encouraged to go into business for themselves - selling apples. That is the Republican record.

[T]he Democratic Party began to build prosperity for business, labor, and agriculture. We wrote into law the right of the working men and women to organize in unions of their own choice, and to bargain collectively. We put a floor under wages. We outlawed child labor. We created a great insurance system to protect working men and women against the hazards of unemployment and old age. We wrote into law a system of price supports for farm products, so that the bottom would not drop from under the farmer's income the way it did in the 1920's. We put a curb on Wall Street speculation, and stopped the money changers from gambling with people's savings.

With these reforms and many others, the Democratic Party brought the country to the greatest period of prosperity ever known in the history of the world.... And business hasn't suffered too much under the New Deal! Corporations had a loss of $4 billion in 1932. But in 1947 they had a profit of $17 billion, after taxes. These same corporations - these same corporations now claim the Democrats are hostile to business. If I were in their shoes, I would want some more of that kind of hostility....

[A]ll this did not come about by accident. Some people would like to make you think it did. The leaders of the Republican Party would like you to believe that the country just drifted into the great depression, and that it just drifted out again into prosperity. They would like you to believe that the Democratic New Deal had nothing to do with recovery - and that the Republicans had nothing to do with the Hoover panic. That is not true and the people know it is not true.

The country was driven into depression by the policies of a Republican administration and a Republican Congress that served the selfish interests of the rich and powerful business groups. The country was brought out of the depression by the intelligent foresight and planning of the Democratic Party - and above all by following the fundamental belief of the Democratic Party that the true road to prosperity begins with looking after the little fellow. The Republicans believe in taking care of big business first and letting the little fellow take care of himself. The Republicans would like you to forget these fundamental differences between the two parties....

I know, of course, that there are many fine people throughout the United States, who from habit or choice are members of the Republican Party. To them I say that the national leadership of their party has failed them miserably.... The Republican leadership started out to follow the same policies that nearly wrecked the country under Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover. Some people have accused me of failing to cooperate with the Republican leadership in carrying out those policies. Now, I must confess to you that I am going to plead guilty to that charge. Of course, I did not cooperate in carrying out policies that I knew would bring disaster on the American people. But I will tell you how you can get some cooperation in carrying out those policies - if that's what you want. I will tell you how you can achieve unity in a headlong dash toward another depression.... What did this Republican Congress deliver for the future of the country?

For one thing, it delivered a body blow at labor in the form of the Taft-Hartley Act. The fundamental purpose of the Taft-Hartley Act is to weaken organized labor. Its supporters want management to have the upper hand in collective bargaining. Do you know why? They want management to have the upper hand so that wages can be driven down. What else did the Republican Congress deliver for the future of our country? It delivered a body blow at nearly a million workers by taking away their social security rights. It delivered a body blow at millions of our veterans by refusing to provide a decent housing program....

I can't cover them all tonight, but I will tell you about just one more. That is the rich man's tax relief bill. The Republican Congress passed a tax bill that reduced the revenues of the Government by more than $5 billion. That Congress passed it three times and I vetoed it every time. But on the third try, they passed it over my veto. I believed that the safety of our national finances required that we make large payments on the public debt in times of prosperity. I still think so. But the Republican rich man's tax relief bill has brought us face to face with the prospect of going into the red again.

I believed that when the wartime taxes were reduced, the poor man should be relieved first and most. I still think so. But the Republican tax bill doesn't work that way.... It's outrageous what they did to the country on that. That Congress delivered for the interests that had their lobbyists swarming all over the Capital. It delivered for special privilege groups that put up the big money at election time.

They are doing that right now in this election. That same bunch of lobbyists and people whom they represent are paying for the Republican campaign right this minute. [T]hey passed a great many [bills] - not a great many, but several - among them this tax relief bill and the Taft-Hartley bill.... Now, if you want unity and harmony and sweetness and light in getting more deliveries of the kind I have been describing, just shut your eyes and vote Republican. But if you want something delivered for labor, if you want something delivered for the farmers, and if you want something delivered for the small businessmen, and for the white-collar worker - there is just one way you can make your vote count. Vote the Democratic ticket.

Today, the Democratic Party is the party of the American people. It was the party of the people under Jefferson and Jackson. It was the party of the people under Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt. Today, we of the Democratic Party express the will of the American people to move forward, under liberty, yielding neither to communism nor to reaction. Today, the Democratic Party stands before the country a living force for peace and freedom. Today, we are rallying our forces for the greatest struggle in our history. In that struggle, I ask your support. Just give us the votes on Election Day, and we will do the job.

See: democraticunderground.com/index.php/Harry_S._Truman

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