A Revival Plan For Democrats
/By Don Varyu
November 25, 2024
In the days after the election I suggested that the Democrats' defeat was a self-inflicted wound. In short, the Democrats’ error was trying to knit together a wide range of often very small interest groups, while ignoring a bigger issue which applies to nearly the full electorate. And this wasn’t just an error of the campaign; it’s an ongoing mistake by Democrats over the last decade.
I’m going to move ahead and suggest one specific solution.
___
But first, let’s take a quick look at where things stand:
(1) Democrats are doing something wrong. Amazingly, the party finally agrees-but not yet on what that wrong thing is.
(2) The immediate reaction to the election wipeout is reflexive, and damaging—obsessing over the awfulness of Trump. After eight years, haven’t we learned that this isn’t working? And that doing it for four more won’t change things? Of course, the reality-based media need to report on what he’s doing. But that’s not enough.
(3) The proper response is so blindingly clear that only the Democrats could ignore it.
So, let’s begin there.
___
Here’s some context on the issues. In the weeks before the election, Pew Research asked voters which problems were “very important” to them. Here’s a selective ranking, measuring importance by percentages, for all voters, and by party:
The easy takeaway here is that Dems should have spent a lot more time talking about the economy—after all, it was #1 even among their own voters. But in reality, this was problematic. Harris could not afford to tell the truth about inflation: that no President can unilaterally raise or lower prices. Had she tried, she would seem to admit that there wasn’t much she could do—hardly a winning position. They were defenseless against Trump's claim that Joe Biden created higher prices.
When liberals did attempt to lean forward, the posture they chose may have done more harm than good.
Let me explain with a couple examples:
On its website, the Democrats still proclaim most boldly, “we are the party of inclusion.” It lists 16 different constituencies which it serves. Included are “women,” “African Americans,” “Latinos,” LGBTQ+ communities”, and “young people.” Two words that are never mentioned on that list are “white” and “men.”
The published economic plan of the Harris/Walz campaign is subtitled, A Plan to Lower Costs and Create an Opportunity Economy. It’s 81 pages long, and to break up the heavy weight of text and graphs, there are six pictures of Harris and Walz talking to everyday voters. Not one of those voters is a man.
To be clear, I am not claiming that white men, as a group, are in any way as aggrieved as are most of those the party proclaims to “serve.” Not at all. What I am saying is that Democrats refuse to carry the banner for an issue that unites and aggravates almost everybody: class. We are a country where the top one percent owns 50% of all stocks. Everyone else realizes how corrupt this is. So why actively shove aside any of these voters, simply because they happen to be white men? They noticed the snub--and increasingly flocked to Trump.
___
Let me explain the problem another way.
Ask a second grader to solve this puzzle. There are pieces laid out on a table, and each is marked with a point total, ranging from one to 50. The object of the puzzle is to gather a total of 100 points, using as few pieces as possible. The two largest pieces are each marked as “37.” The rest are all worth much less, mostly in single digits. Because the second grader is smart, she will immediately grab the two marked “37”.
The point here is that in real-world election terms, one of those “37s” is the percentage of white women voters…and the other is white men. Why would the Democratic Party focus intently on one of them…and ignore the other? It makes no political sense.
___
Well, I promised a meaningful idea, so here it is. To begin, I’m operating on a few premises:
We must have a consistent message.
That message has to be economic, and fact-based.
It needs to be broken into small, digestible bites.
It has to be communicated in places where people will find it.
And, it has to start now—and run all the way to the off-year elections in 2026, and then on through the next general, two years later.
What I propose is a constant, weekly series of short videos, each about a minute—no longer than 90 seconds. Both the theme and target of this campaign are class-based. It doesn’t divide by race, religion, gender, geography, or party affiliation of whoever is viewing it. It appeals to everyone who thinks the amount of money in their paycheck or their bank account does not match the amount of work and effort they expend.
This campaign’s purpose is to be instructive, not preachy. Just give people the facts and let them decide. It should not directly attack Trump personally, or even billionaires as a group. The facts will reveal who they are.
These videos, and the campaign behind it, can be called, “Moment of Truth.” In other words, every week, for a minute or so, voters will be informed on how the courts, the government, the tax codes and the political finance system have economically enslaved them. If people can scream about “drug cartels” and “street gangs” they never see, they can certainly start venting about a perversion of capitalism that confronts them every single day.
___
Here's a quick look at how individual videos might be gathered under a single topic, namely corporate tax cheating, or what’s more politely known as “tax avoidance”:
How much in total tax money corporations dodge, a burden that falls on consumers’ backs.
Top five overseas “havens” that make this legal.
Top five U.S. corporate tax cheats.
History of the corporate tax rate.
How and why CEO's are so grossly overpaid.
Ratio of corporate lobbyists to total members of Congress.
How lobbyists altered the tax code to enrich the top one percent.
Evidence that “trickle down” economics has never worked.
How a minimum corporate tax rate would work.
The impact of “mergers” in making all this worse.
Here, just drilling down on one small aspect of the overall problem, we’ve created ten weeks of content.
There doesn’t have to be a single “host” for all episodes. Academics, pro-consumer advocates, politicians who want to reach the working class and even responsible billionaires could take part. Think Amy Klobuchar, Mark Cuban, John Fetterman, Robert Reich, AOC, presidents of labor unions, Jimmy Kimmel--and Kamala Harris.
The key to making this work is consistency of message and tone. So, these “hosts” don’t freelance—they read the scripts they’re given, as directed.
People will find this on YouTube and on every social media platform. And it won’t be identified as a product of the Democratic party; it doesn’t need a political sponsor. The facts stand on their own.
___
Where does the overall vision come from?
Here, I know I’m going to offend some people. Because I’m an old white guy proposing inspiration from three even older white guys. But here they are:
Bernie Sanders, 83. You know Bernie from his quasi-socialist economic rants. But his facts are irrefutable. And he brings a ready-made following, even from “the other team.” As a reminder, in 2016 the largest number of Trump voters said Bernie was their second choice.
Warren Buffett, 94. He was once the richest man in the world, and is still worth $138 billion. He has run the historically profitable Berkshire-Hathaway empire from modest offices in Omaha, Nebraska. But he doesn’t sound like the Silicon Valley tech bros. He has famously said:
“I don’t know why my secretary pays a higher tax rate than I do.”
“We don't mind paying taxes at Berkshire…last year…we sent in over $5 billion to the US federal government. And if 800 others (largest corporations) had done the same thing, no other person in the United States would have had to pay a dime of federal taxes, whether income taxes…Social Security taxes…estate taxes. It's open down the line.”
“I want to leave my children enough money to do whatever they want. But not enough to do nothing.”
Robert Reich, 78 (mentioned above). You may remember the “youngster” of this group as Labor Secretary under President Clinton. More importantly, he’s also a gifted professor, with an innate gift for explaining difficult topics. Plus, he even creates simple visual support to prove his points.
Here are a couple of his relevant YouTube videos to explain: (note: each of these runs longer than what we’re envisioning here, and could easily be separated into smaller episodes)
Why prices are still high
The tax loophole billionaires die for
___
So, who pays for the production costs and media placement? Well, Kamala’s campaign raised over $1.5 billion, so I have to believe there might be a couple million sitting around in petty cash. And once it’s established, I can’t imagine that many of her mega donors wouldn’t pony up to underwrite something that actually might work.
In addition, the party already has access to exceptionally talented writers and producers to make these things short, snappy and to-the-point. The key to success is repetition with fresh content popping up every week on your phone.
To repeat, this idea isn’t about maligning Trump. He’ll do enough self-damage all by himself. Isn’t there some religious trope that talks about hating the sin, but not the sinner? That’s the approach. Don’t put him center stage. Instead, place his bad deeds and subsequent damage in the spotlight.
___
“Moment of Truth” should talk to voters about “pocketbook issues”, the worries that gnaw at them the most. If you explain the reasons the economy seems to be stacked against them--in simple and factual terms--people will understand. It’s not one political party or another that shackles them. It’s the plutocracy that Trump himself may symbolize today…but it’s not one he invented. In my term, “pervocapitalism” has always been part of the American story.
To repeat, adopting a class message as an overriding theme helps everybody who works for a living, or tries to stretch money in retirement. That means black women, transgender teachers, and even white guys with military tatoos and a pickup truck. People are already struggling, and we're about to see how much worse our country can get during a second Trump term. He'll have no concern for working people--and increasingly, those people will become potential defectors from Trumpism. Just feed them the truth and welcome them in.
In short, these moments of truth aim to unify us, and help us rise to meet our central challenge: how do we get back to winning elections?
# # #
