I’ve heard for years that the Democratic Party has been steadily moving to the right as Republicans have gone extreme right.  That belief has become an article of faith among Dems, but Five Thirty Eight has published a data study that this belief is not true and that the opposite has been occurring for 30 years.  Pretty interesting and recommended reading.

I’ve never been a real Democratic party stalwart.  Though my grandfather, who was a Methodist preacher, described himself as a Texas Democrat when I was a kid, I’ve never thought of myself that way until many years later.  In the recent past, I’ve described myself with the same label, but to be honest, I really think of myself more as a Texas Progressive. And, I think some Democratic leaders are idiots.  Sorry if that offends some sensibilities.

I was never very outspoken or political until the late 90s/early 2000s when I got led (lured?) into party involvement, primarily after I was introduced to Nancy Pelosi when she was growing the DCCC and running for Speaker.  In 2001, at my first fancy Washington dinner with Pelosi for the DCCC, I shocked my table mates declaring that I was not a Democrat, nor really anything in particular, and that I thought for myself.  They looked at me as if I wasn’t wearing any pants or something.  Over the coming years, though, I evolved, and then went all-in for Obama very early.  I was surprised by the vitriol about my decision from Texas Dems I had come to know; one even tsk-tsked me about how stupid I was to support that unqualified “guy” over the real leader, Hillary Clinton.  But I was steadfast in my belief that Obama was the right candidate at the right time for the right reasons.  That worked out pretty well.

During the 2008 primaries, though, my dislike and distrust of party politics was strengthened by the behavior of party loyalists.  The campaign was vicious, as we all know.  Hillary hung on long after she lost until the second night of the convention when she finally caved.  After the convention, though, it got even worse. All the Obama haters poured into the campaign, and elbowed out early Obama supporters like me.  And Obama let it happen, trying desperately to get Clinton loyalists into his camp.  It worked and he won, but many of us who had enthusiastically supported him got steamrolled big time by the establishment Dems.  After the election, it was back to business as usual with the same people doing the same thing in local and state parties, and especially the DNC.  It made me sick.  The resulting disaster in 2016 was easily foreseen by anyone paying attention.

Which brings us to today.  Even with the worst president in US history infesting the White House spewing racist hatred and nonsensical tirades, the Democratic party still can’t find itself.  As I’ve written about before, party leadership is so entrenched and calcified that they think their silly slogan “A Better Deal” is somehow fresh new ground in which to plant a crop of new party loyalists, but it’s simply not.  The party is controlled by east and west coast urban elites and social activists, and has really disengaged from its base of working people, unions, and just regular folks.  A new report by Cheri Bustos, a third term Democrat in the House representing northwest Illinois summarizes the problem.  She points out some pretty grim facts:

“The number of Democrats holding office across the nation is at its lowest point since the 1920s and the decline has been especially severe in rural America.”

For example, in 2009, Democrats held 57 percent of the heartland’s seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. Now: 39 percent. In 2008, Barack Obama won seven of the eight heartland states. In 2012, he won six. In 2016? Trump won six.  Of the 737 counties in the midwest, Trump won all but 63. The party has lost the heartland, at least as a reliable constituency.  Repubs control the statehouses in 32 states.  Even with horrible policies, the Repubs dominate the center of the country.  Why?  Because they push the buttons that appeal to the heartland, but not just God, guns, and gays, but government incompetence, “job killing” regulations, and the plight of working class voters.  The Dems’ problem, even when they talk the opposite, is that the party suffers from serious group think, and demands ideological purity in all issues.  There’s no room in the “big tent party” for those opposed to abortion, those who believe in more conservative fiscal policy, or have concerns different from the coasts and urban areas.  Party leadership talks all about diversity, but allows only certain brands of diversity.

As a result, many traditional voters don’t believe the national party speaks to them.  National leaders give lip service to jobs, but then don’t really do anything about jobs when they are in power.  They talk a lot about wage equality, but don’t talk to the problems of that welder from Ohio or that farmer in Iowa.  And because there are fewer and fewer Dems representing the heartland, the problem becomes a vicious circle where the remaining Dems focus on their constituencies rather than those Dems serving life sentences in Red Land by accident of geography.  That’s how you get lifelong Dems voting for Donald Trump.  His lies and promises speak to them better than platitudes from some “Latte-Sipping Panty Waist” from San Francisco.

I don’t have an answer to the problem more than imploring organizations like the DCCC and local parties to stop raising money from Dems in red states to shore up the base in blue states.  Plus, they’ve GOT to talk about other issues besides marriage equality, abortion, and religious tolerance.  Those issues are certainly important, but they’re not the ONLY issues. They’ve GOT to address infrastructure; they’ve GOT to streamline the bureaucracy for businesses.  Being in business myself, I have to reluctantly admit that the federal bureaucracy for certain businesses in glacially slow.  In one of my companies, it routinely took FOUR YEARS to get a remediation plan for a gas well site on federal land approved.  FOUR YEARS?  And the entrenched bureaucrats would take the maximum time to get anything done.  If the time limit was 30 days for them to respond to a permit, you can bet on the 30th day at 5 pm, you’d get another data request or modification requirement that would stretch the time another 30 days.  This kind of bureaucracy, historically favored by Dems, is intended to improve safety and protect the environment, but it’s used as a weapon by unaccountable bureaucrats to make it as expensive as possible for private industry to operate. And I’m speaking from personal experience.  Like it or not, that kind of policy destroys jobs, pisses people off, and shifts votes to idiots like Trump.

The Dems have a once in a decade chance here to make some progress.  But if they don’t stop doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result, they will be able to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, á la 2016.  And the country simply can’t afford that result again.

“I’m not a member of any organized political party…. I’m a Democrat.”

“Democrats never agree on anything, that’s why they’re Democrats. If they agreed with each other, they’d be Republicans.” – Will Rogers

I live to stir the pot, so I’m going to stir it again this morning.  Yesterday, I put Oprah at the top of my list for 2020, and the suggestion was met with considerable pushback.  “Amateur” and “celebrity” were some of the pejoratives used by readers to say no to Oprah.  Some people fled to their own corners, decrying outsiders and calling for mainstream politicians to run.  The very same mainstream politicians who have driven the Dems to minority status in DC and in 32 states.  Over the last 20 years, with only a few flashes of hope, the Democrats have SUCKED at what they are supposed to be doing, which is attaining, and keeping, political power.  You can’t govern if you can’t win and keep power in DC and state houses, and the Dems have failed miserably at that for over two decades.  I was active in party politics from about 2001 to 2012, when I threw up my hands in frustration at the incompetence and petty battles between factions (not to mention a lot of my dollars flushed down the toilet).   When Dems would call a meeting, they’d spend 75% of their effort counting noses rather than doing business.  The party structure wasted millions and millions of donor dollars, and the result was that the only ones doing well were the same political consultants that lost every race they managed. It drove me crazy, so I withdrew to hide behind my keyboard and…stir the pot.

Many years ago a wise political sage told me that Dems and Repubs run their parties very differently, especially since the 60s after Goldwater lost to Johnson.  For 20 years after Goldwater, the GOP rebuilt themselves from the bottom up starting at precinct chairs, local school boards, county commissioners and so on.  When they would then get control of the local level, they would go to the next level.  Once they finally controlled a state, they would then immediately gerrymander themselves into what Karl Rove called the “permanent majority”. The GOP has organized itself as a pyramid with a strong base from which leadership grows.  It worked, and worked really well until Trump turned the party on its ear.  What’s comes next is an opportunity for Dems, if they don’t blow it.

Dems, on the other hand, have relied on traditional constituencies – unions, working class, minorities, and machine politicians.  When they would win office, though, the lip service to their constituencies would go silent and it would be business as usual.  They, too, have relied on gerrymandering, but not to the art form it has been raised to by the GOP.  Dems are generally far less organized between elections and then scramble to rally around a presidential candidate who rises to prominence.  Barack Obama is the textbook example of this characteristic.  The Dems are organized in a pyramid, too, but an inverted one where the entire organization stands on the shoulders of the presidential candidate.  It worked for Obama, but failed miserably with Hillary as the standard bearer.  The party needs to change, but it won’t, especially with its calcified leadership parodied by Saturday Night Live last fall:

The textbook example of this calcification?  It’s the Dems idiotic program it rolled out last year dubbed “A Better Deal”.  “A Better Deal?” What moron thought that slogan was a good idea?  How about, “We Don’t Have Cavities”, or “Make America Just OK Again”?  Here’s a good one – “We Didn’t Get a Flat this Morning”.  Stupid.  This kind of silly sloganeering and message massage is what kills momentum. Trump has provided the biggest opportunity for Dems to grab control since Bush/Cheney, but they’re doing everything they can to blow it.  Again.

That’s why I say Oprah.  In the general election, you have to get a good portion of the middle 6% who doesn’t pay attention until the end of October when they tear themselves away from The Voice or Dancing with the Stars long enough to drag themselves to the polls.  Turnout is key.  Obama won twice because of turnout.  Hillary lost because of turnout.  Turnout is everything.  I look at Oprah as that turnout machine.  Because the Dems SUCK at GOTV, the candidate has to pull the vote.  Oprah will do that, hands down.  The base of the right wing will hate her as they do all Dems; no Dem will get that vote.  So, turnout of the base and the majority of the middle is required to take it.  Oprah can accomplish that like no other Dem on the bench.  Period.  AND, Oprah is a super successful business person as well as a television personality with gigantic recognition numbers.

People say she’s an amateur and inexperienced.  I say hogwash.  Obama announced for president 23 months after he took office in the Senate.  Was he perfect?  No, but he was a hell of a lot better than McCain or Romney would have been.  Oprah can inspire, she’s successful, she’ll pull the middle vote, and she’ll have her pick of the best and brightest for her advisors who will readily serve.  And, the big bonus is that she’s not nuts.  She’s not a malfunctioning narcissist.  She’s not lazy or self obsessed.  The key, though, is that after she took the White House, the Dems would have to stand on their hind legs, get themselves organized and raise money (and candidates) as fast as possible during that first term.  New leadership and a fresh bench are the only assets that will help cement a longer term influence on national politics.

You purists out there who want to keep doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result knock yourselves out.  Me, I want to win 2020, and I damn sure don’t want that task in the hands of the same good folks who got us in this mess in the first place.

Our readers who are Hillary loyalists don’t like when I write about the disaster of her campaign last year and the mess that is the Democratic Party.  Like it or not, though, the criticism is true, and I’m not the only one.  Tim Dickinson wrote a lengthy piece in Rolling Stone this last week that talks about how the party got hollowed out during the Obama years especially during Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s term which set a low watermark for corruption and plain ol’ incompetence.  Even Tim Kaine, Hillary’s running mate and former DNC chair, got into the act and was quoted in the piece saying, “That congresswoman had no idea what she was doing.”  And that was the polite criticism.  Rather than grow the party, she actually used her position for self promotion to launch a campaign to land her in House leadership.  That blew up and she dug in when even Obama tried to oust her from the job.  We all know how that story ended.

It gets worse, especially for Hillary’s campaign.  An unnamed Democratic strategist described her candidacy in blunt terms:

“And she was really surprised by how strong Trump was – and part of it was she just sucked. At a really fundamental level we gotta get people to acknowledge what a f*****g piece of sh*t her campaign was, because Donald Trump should not have won this election.”

Well, OK, then.  That’s about as blunt as it gets (even more blunt than me).  The rest of the article speaks of how Tom Perez is trying to un-fossilize the party, recruit new candidates, and resurrect the money machine that it became under Howard Dean and Barack Obama during the very successful 50 state strategy in 2006 and 2008.

However, the job is not a simple one.  During the Obama administration, Democrats lost all over the country in state and federal elections due to simple neglect (and DWS’s incompetence).  No one, including Obama, was in charge during that time, and his staff had no national plan except to get him re-elected in 2012.  There’s now a huge deficit to make up for all that neglect, and Trump is certainly leaving a huge opportunity for the Dems to hoover up if only they don’t blow it…again.

This Rolling Stone article is a sobering read, and will certainly piss off loyalists.  But truth is truth, and facts is facts. This chapter is long from over, and the sooner progressives recognize what a complete disaster 2008 to 2016 actually was, the sooner they can fix it.