Down the Drain

LOOKING BACK

News reports tell us that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, the grande dame of the Democratic Party and its amazingly successful fundraiser, has asked the Biden Administration for a new slogan to drive the Congressional races now taking place before this November’s election.

Does Nance think that a slogan like “Democrats Deliver” is what the Democratic Party needs to succeed? Well, let’s see…

It has taken a bit more than 200 years since some Jeffersonian stalwarts in Virginia and a group of shrewd political bosses in Albany, NY got together to bring the Democratic Party to life.

And in all those years just three Democratic Administrations in the 20th Century proved able to make the Party what the founders wanted it to be: focused on helping hard working Americans see a future and a life for themselves in an economy that seemed only to work for those ‘at the top’ and that kept hard working families in an endless squeeze to make ends meet.

Today we call it living from paycheck to paycheck. In a capitalist economy there is an endless dance between good and evil with a lot going on in that ‘in-between’.

Those administrations were Woodrow Wilson in the early years of the 20th Century when Robber Barons ruled and immigrants gave them the cheap workforce they wanted; Franklin Delano Roosevelt leading a victorious America after the Second World War when corporations and labor unions had worked cooperatively to first win the War and then the World’s first middle class; and Lyndon B. Johnson, as he pushed a nation to recognize that all Americans deserved the same chance at opportunity and justice despite racial differences.

Wilson’s administration began to break up the trusts established by the Robber Barons as they controlled the growing industrial might of America. With his own racist views well known, Wilson had the hugely influential Democratic South to assist him in passing legislation that attacked the monopolies which existed and controlled the production of steel, rail transportation, electricity and the production of automobiles. In Wilson’s first administration, the Democratic Party promised farmers limited by tariffs, laborers working long hours for little pay and those who saw “Wall Street” as the power which ran America, that it would make key changes to that status quo. It did. It legislated the first tax on the richest Americans and instituted an eight hour day for railway workers…an extraordinary first step in freeing a growing and organized labor force from its weakened position.

While these changes were made between 1913 and 1916, by 1930 such major corporations as General Motors and Westinghouse had welcomed union members of the newly formed CIO. The Congress of Industrial Organizations was a far more liberal union structure than the older, established American Federation of Labor and opened its doors to all workers of all races.

Roosevelt’s New Deal and his Democratic Party succeeded principally because of the growing unionization of the American worker. They brought America to a unique time in World history…the development of a middle class where workers could afford to buy homes, send their children to college, live outside crowded cities, own a car and take vacations.

There was no question that the Democratic Party’s two major constituencies – a unionized labor force and a powerful Southern Democratic bloc -were aware of the efforts of Martin Luther King and others to bring a new measure of equality and opportunity to the lives of black Americans.

How they felt about it was a challenge for President Lyndon Baines Johnson, a different kind of Southerner, who still believed in the liberal America of the Roosevelt years. Despite heavy lobbying from many sources within the Party, he successfully passed legislation to bring greater civil rights and voting rights to all Americans regardless of race.

He achieved his goal despite the ferocious opposition of the openly racist southern Democrats many of whom were his political and personal friends. They warned him that by winning he would lose the entire southern wing of the party. They were right and that loss has never been completely regained. Today there are signs that some of the South, led by an increasing number of black Mayors and State legislators, may be turning back. But that voting bloc is still missing. And votes the Democrats have had in North Dakota, Iowa, Nebraska and Oklahoma are gone.

Since then the Democratic Party had Bill Clinton, learning from the Reagan years of welfare queens in Pink Cadillacs and large corporate tax breaks so “they can afford to invest in America” what had to be done to be reelected. He was able to triangulate the party out of its basic policies and what was left of its constituents.

Clinton ended welfare as it existed. Attending to the needs of his friends on Wall Street, Clinton ended the New Deal laws separating investment banks from commercial banks and made certain that Student Loans would follow borrowers to their death removing them from all Fair Lending legislation.

By the end of his two terms in office the Democratic Party had become the political party of the college educated, futures-secured people on both coasts who are now known as ‘elites’.

Barack Obama tried to bring the old constituency back but his very presence as a highly educated, mixed-race individual who appealed to “hope” made no appreciable difference. He was an ‘elite’ whether he thought that way or not. He managed to pass just one piece of legislation in his eight years – the Affordable Care Act. But he stood on the Democratic stage alone…against a Republican legislative body pledged to stop every single policy he proposed. “No” became the Republican response to everything Democratic. In Trump’s bid for reelection, the Republican Party didn’t even bother to write a platform.

LOOKING AHEAD

Today, the Democratic Party has no solid, dependable constituency.

Only ten percent of all working Americans belong to a labor union. The two largest are the Teachers Union and the government workers. While they can help during elections, their numbers make little difference in national elections.

Joe Biden is President today because just enough white, middle class women of middle age in certain key States had enough of Donald Trump and his Covid lies and voted against him.

The Democratic Party under Biden passed the American Rescue Plan which helped Americans get through these pandemic years with money to spend. They passed billions in money for infrastructure rebuilding which is critical for the future.

But while people liked much of the Biden-Sanders ‘Build Back Better’ legislation the problem was it was too much at once and “liking” something doesn’t mean people will work to get behind it or vote for its passage. “Like” is not enough.

Trying to imagine another FDR result, Biden and Sanders sought too much: child care money, healthcare additions, climate change measures, national Pre-K, free community college etc – the legislation sprawled across such a wide terrain of interests and concerns that there were too many different constituents for its “pieces.” One needs a unified program to build a unified voting bloc.

There are some signs of hope. The effort to unionize Amazon, Google and Starbucks indicates a new interest among a working public who have previously shown no signs of interest in unions. The pressure on Starbucks is so intense that the founder, Howard Schultz, has returned as CEO.

But the Democratic Party is now divided between the newly arrived and young “progressives” and its moderate leadership.

The progressives have gained a great deal of publicity for their support of “Black Lives Matter”, an immediate end to fossil fuels to counter climate change, the needs of the L.G.B.T.Q community and recently a new bail law to free people who cannot afford bail from long periods of jail time. Again, as with the progressively designed Build Back Better, there is no unifying element here to build a voting constituency. Nor are there simpler answers like introducing a new group of Judges to alleviate the slow legal process rather than freeing those who may be habitual criminals.

One must recognize a simple fact about our legislative process: numbers count. When FDR passed so much of his New Deal program there were 96 members in the Senate…only 25 of them were Republicans. Joe Biden has a majority of One.

A MESSAGE

Nancy Pelosi is looking for a slogan. We’d suggest a message.

As we see them now, the Democratic Party seems to be heading towards an abyss.

And it has “picked” the worst time in all these years to be in this spot.

Recently an unnamed liberal policy organization tested a message that went something like this: People are living paycheck to paycheck. Struggling to pay bills and taxes. They need a government designed to look out for them, to care about them, to focus on rebuilding the middle class and supporting working families. They don’t need a government which jumps whenever a giant corporation sends money and lobbyists. My approach, our approach is blue collar. We will do everything humanly possible to help those who work hard, to create jobs and to rebuild the middle class again.

According to the organization they saw a backing from Democrats that jumped from three percentage points to eight points which would be enough to win Congressional seats in every battleground State.

While the frenzy of the pandemic, which continues with new signs of infection from yet another variant and the nervousness over what Putin is doing in Ukraine, there is a feeling of dread that the Biden Administration has yet to overcome. It is a lot to ask. But the Democratic Party, which has no known leadership behind Biden, must understand that need for a message…one that helps them rebuild a constituency.

There is no longer time to waste or room for failure.