This is part 4 of my series discussing the progressive electoral failure of the Democratic Party over the last six years. There’s other stuff I’d like to talk about, so I think I’ll wrap this discussion up (for the time being) in today’s column.
I’ve said before in this space that the most defining characteristic of any political party is not what it stands for, but who it stands with. I finished last week’s column by saying:
“There is a crying need for jobs for the 70 percent of the country I mentioned previously that do not have college degrees. And not just any old job, but jobs that:
– Do not require a college degree;
– Pay middle-class wages;
– Are plentiful enough that employers have a hard time filling them.”
That 70 percent I mentioned previously has seen their incomes more or less steadily decline for most of the last 40 years, under both Democratic and Republican presidents and Congresses. That is both an incredibly sad commentary on how the pain of a large majority of our population has been ignored and neglected by virtually everyone in any party who matters in the national power structure, and an incredible opportunity – both moral and political – for any political entity willing to engage that problem constructively and creatively.
The Democratic Party, particularly the generation of that party’s leadership that designed and implemented the New Deal, the Fair Deal and the Great Society, is the only entity in American history to seize an opportunity like that and directly and forcefully work to alleviate the suffering of the 70 percent.
There are two paths for the Democratic Party, going forward. You and I have a choice to make.
One path is to continue the complacency and hubris described by progressive pessimist Thomas Frank – author of What’s the Matter with Kansas and other books – in a recent column for the Guardian newspaper in the UK:
“Somewhere in a sunny corner of the country, either right now or very shortly, a group of tech tycoons or well-meaning private equity investors will meet to discuss what went wrong in this election cycle. They will consider many things: the sexism and racism of Trump voters, the fundamental foreignness of the flyover, the problems one encounters when dealing with evangelicals. They will celebrate some activist they learned about from NPR, they will enjoy some certified artisanal cuisine, they will hand out prizes to the same people that got prizes at the last event they attended, and they will go back to their comfortable rooms at the resort and sleep ever so soundly.
“These people think they know what liberalism includes and what it doesn’t include. And in the latter category fall the concerns that made up the heart and soul of liberal politics a few decades ago: labor and work and exploitation and economic equality.
“…Maybe they will change their ways now? Perhaps the well-meaning folks at those Florida resorts will finally close ranks with working people and their representatives?
“…I doubt it. Liberalism today is an expression of an enlightened professional class, and their core economic interests simply do not align with those of working people. One thing we know about professionalism is that it exists to shield insiders from public accountability. If coming up with a solution to what ails liberalism means listening to people who aren’t part of the existing nonprofit/journalistic in-group, then there will be no solution. Liberals would rather lose than do that.”
The other path was described by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in his second inaugural address, an address that perfectly captured his unshakeable faith in the power of democracy to right the wrongs then besetting the country.
“I see a great nation, upon a great continent, blessed with a great wealth of natural resources. Its hundred and thirty million people are at peace among themselves; they are making their country a good neighbor among the nations. I see a United States which can demonstrate that, under democratic methods of government, national wealth can be translated into a spreading volume of human comforts hitherto unknown, and the lowest standard of living can be raised far above the level of mere subsistence.
“But here is the challenge to our democracy: In this nation I see tens of millions of its citizens—a substantial part of its whole population—who at this very moment are denied the greater part of what the very lowest standards of today call the necessities of life.
“I see millions of families trying to live on incomes so meager that the pall of family disaster hangs over them day by day.
“I see millions whose daily lives in city and on farm continue under conditions labeled indecent by a so-called polite society half a century ago.
“I see millions denied education, recreation, and the opportunity to better their lot and the lot of their children.
“I see millions lacking the means to buy the products of farm and factory and by their poverty denying work and productiveness to many other millions.
“I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.
“But it is not in despair that I paint you that picture. I paint it for you in hope—because the nation, seeing and understanding the injustice in it, proposes to paint it out. We are determined to make every American citizen the subject of his country’s interest and concern; and we will never regard any faithful law-abiding group within our borders as superfluous. 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.”
Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean ran for the Democratic nomination in 2004, in a populist campaign that energized a lot of Democrats, particularly young voters. I will always remember how he closed his speeches during his run: “The power to change this country is in your hands, not mine.”
The power to return the Democratic Party into something recognizable to the New Dealers is in our hands, my fellow Democrats, and not in the hands of our failed leadership.

Matt Talbot is a writer and poet, as well as an old Benicia hand.

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