The 2020 elections are the most important elections of my lifetime, and potentially the most important in American history. Will we replace the most corrupt, bigoted, and incompetent President of our times, and his shameless congressional enablers, or will we go further down the road to authoritarianism and corporatism? That sounds melodramatic, but given what we’ve learned about Trump over the last three years, it’s not an exaggeration.
The stakes are high, so liberals need to step up their game.
This isn’t about trashing liberals. Liberals have done a lot of great things for America. At a time when all of these things were quite unpopular, liberals had enough vision, courage, and commitment to pass Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the minimum wage, marriage equality, civil rights, voting rights, environmental protections, and the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
But we grassroots liberals also can be also our own worst enemies. To win in 2020, we need to make five New Years resolutions to do better than we did in 2016.
STOP THE PETTY, PERSONAL ATTACKS. With hundreds of substantive reasons to criticize Trump and his lackeys, there is no reason to stoop to snotty attacks about personal issues like the President’s complexion, hair, waistline, hand size, penis size, verbal slips, and misspellings. The same goes for personally insulting his supporters.
Among the moderate swing voters who will decide the outcome of this election, those kinds of personal shots inadvertently create sympathy for Trump and others who don’t deserve swing voters’ sympathy. I get that they are cathartic, and sometimes tongue-in-cheek. But they’re also and self-defeating in the end, and therefore self-indulgent, so liberals need to get better at taking a pass on the personal shots.
STOP THE CANNABILISM. Liberals also need to be mindful of Ronald Reagan’s 11th Commandment, “thou shall not speak ill of other Republicans.”
I understand the temptation to wage civil war. My top presidential candidate, Kamala Harris, has already dropped out of the race, and my second choice, Cory Booker, doesn’t look like he will last much beyond Iowa. Having to go to Plan C is deeply disappointing to me. Having to go to Plan D, E, F, G, H, I, J, or K, a distinct possibility in a field this large, likely will be even more disappointing to me.
In the end, I realize that I am unlikely to be in love with my Democratic Party nominee. But if I can’t be with the one I love, honey, I’ll love the one I’m with. Unless we learn something dramatically scandalous about one of the Democratic candidates in the coming months, I’m pledging to myself that I won’t trash other Democratic candidates, vote for a third party candidate, or sit out the election. For a long time, I’ve even been making monthly donations to the eventual nominee, whomever that ends up being, via the Unify or Die fund.
All liberals should make a resolution to forgo intra-party cannibalism, because it greatly increases the chances that we have four even more catastrophic years with the most corrupt, bigoted, and incompetent President of our times. That can’t happen, so we all have to suck it up and pledge to support the candidate that prevails in the nominating process.
STOP THE SHINY OBJECT CHASING. We all know that President Trump is going to do and say hundreds of things before the election that are mock-worthy and outrageous, but probably are not issues that are going to sway swing voters or motivate non-voters. Every moment we spend talking about those side issues –say, a funny golf story, a boneheaded gaffe, a stupid joke at a rally, a silly exchange with an athlete or celebrity–is a moment we’re not talking about issue differentiators that are more likely to influence voting decisions.
What Trump actions are more deserving of our focus? His giving lavish, deficit-spiking tax cuts to the wealthy. His separating young children from parents and caging them. His taking birth control and other types of reproductive health care away from women. His blocking legislation to control pharmaceutical prices. His cowardly refusal to cross the NRA to support common sense gun safety laws. His erratic Russian-friendly foreign policy decisions in dangerous places like Iran, Syria, the Ukraine, and North Korea. His repeated attempts to repeal Affordable Care Act protections, such as preexisting condition protections for 133 million Americans.
Polls show those kinds of issues work against Trump with swing voters and non-voters, so those kinds of issues should be the primary focus of conversations at the break room, bar, barbeque, or online chat.
With such a steady stream of Trump’s outrages, it’s difficult to not take the bait from the ever-outrageous tweet stream. I’m far from perfect on this front. But we liberals have to get better about focusing on the issues that matter the most to swing voters and non-voters, and that means shrugging off a lot of the side issues.
FOCUS ON ROOT CAUSES. When deciding how to spend time and resources, liberals should also consider focusing on the root causes of Trump’s electoral success. For instance, rather than only supporting individual candidates, consider supporting groups like Stacey Abrams’ Fair Fight 2020 and the ACLU. Those groups are battling Republicans’ relentless voter suppression efforts aimed at people of color, which threaten to swing close elections to Trump and his political toadies now and for decades to come.
Ensuring that every vote counts and voting is easier will help progressive local, state and federal candidates up and down the ballot. It will help preserve our representative democracy for future generations. Supporting those groups isn’t as obvious to most of us as supporting parties and candidates, but it’s every bit as important.
SPEAK OUT EARLY AND OFTEN. Speaking out against Trump and Republicans in person and on social media is frowned upon by Americans who are “non-political,” ignorant, and/or in denial about what is happening to America. That can make speaking out about Trump unpleasant and exhausting. Goodness knows, no one relishes being called, gasp, “political,” and being accosted by trolls.
But in America today, we have politicians who are all too willing to separate brown-skinned kids from their parents and put them cages indefinitely. We have politicians trying to repeal health protections for 133 million Americans. We have a party that gave a massive, deficit-ballooning tax gift to the wealthiest 1% at a time when we have the worst income inequality since 1928 and record deficits. We have a President taking birth control and other reproductive rights away from women. If we don’t vote out this crew, we could easily have much worse developments on the horizon in a second, even more unhinged Trump term.
All of which is to say one person’s “politics” is another person’s life, livelihood, and rights. A while back, writer Naomi Shulman helped put this issue in proper perspective for me:
“Nice people made the best Nazis. My mother was born in Munich in 1934, and spent her childhood in Nazi Germany surrounded by nice people who refused to make waves. When things got ugly, the people my mother lived alongside chose not to focus on “politics,” instead busying themselves with happier things. They were lovely, kind people who turned their heads as their neighbors were dragged away.”
I’m not saying liberals have be jerks and nags to their friends and relatives. We don’t have to be the turd in the punch bowl. In most cases, we should be calm, respectful, factual and measured when we speak out, even when the respect isn’t deserved and returned, because that’s usually the best way to win hearts, minds, and votes.
But we do have to speak out, because silence implies consent. As Martin Luther King famously said of another movement in another time:
“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
The same is true of the movement to save America from Donald Trump and his Republican enablers. I’m about as conflict averse as they come, but unfortunately that excuse just is not going to cut it with so many lives hanging in the balance.
So my fellow liberals, this New Years Eve raise a glass of your favorite truth serum, and make some challenging resolutions that nudge you outside of your comfort zone. Your country needs you now more than ever.
Good words Joe… they need to be repeated, and repeated as often as possible in these upcoming months. It is easy for people to get sucked into the the republican web of fear mongering, money grubbing, and pseudo religion… something republicans have perfected as Americans slept during Reagan and the Bushes.
I worry about Democrats who are “tired of being the wimps picked on by the bullies” go “eye-for-an-eye” on childish behavior, lying, and cheating. If that happens, there will be no good guys left.
I like them, Joe, and I’ll pledge to go along…..but I have just one little, niggling thing that bothers me. It’s the sleaze. Somehow, while I agree that we need to avoid the personal attacks and name calling, we have to point out the pettiness and sleaze that seem to define this President. And I say that because I know so many republicans who are repelled by that pettiness and sleaze. Everytime Trump tweets, they cringe. A lot of them are suburban soccer moms who seem to be deserting the GOP right now, and we need to be sure to remind them why they feel so uncomfortable (probably because none of them can imagine being in a room alone with the President—much less one of their daughters being alone in a room with him).
The best response I’ve heard from any one of the candidates that accomplishes this is to refer to Trump as our “porn star president”. But I am willing to listen to alternatives.
What else have you got, Wry Wing Nation?
I’m ok with people pointing out the most egregious examples of him an being an unstable dick, because that is relevant to a job where relationships and demeanor is key. I just hate the “orange-skinned, weird-haired, small penised, shitty golfer, who probably doesn’t last long with the prostitute” chatter, because it sounds to grown up swing voters so similar to Trump’s mindless, childish chatter.
Another reason I’m not that thrilled about focusing on Trump’s personality: I think most people already know Trump has been a dick to handicapped people, women, war heroes, people of color, dead people, etc. That has hurt him, but it’s old news, so pointing it out more probably doesn’t hurt him too much more.
I’m less sure that enough persuadable voters know or remember that Trump is doing things that are very bad for ordinary people – deficit ballooning, health care repealing, farmer crushing, billionaire enriching, environmental protection repealing, pharmaceutical price negotiation blocking, gun background check bill blocking, etc.
This is great, Joe! Very thoughtful and a good push to speak out as respectfully as possible. I agree that not speaking out is equated w/ consent. I will be sharing this blog w/ lots of friends and relatives.
Thanks Mary. Happy New Year.
As usual, Joe, you are the adult in this small room of sophomoric ranters. I of course take to heart the admonition to be less … well, less sophomoric than I often am. I’m putting it on my New Year Resolution list. Right next to dating Sophia Vergara. But seriously … as I watch Trump’s polling numbers firm up among his base (not all of whom are the drooling goobers I occasionally describe) and as I anticipate stronger, more toxic and more unprecedented election interference from Russians, Saudis, North Koreans, FoxNews, Mark Levin, etc. my attitude toward TrumpNation sadly does not improve.
I vow to make my attacks here on a subsidiary of Loveland LLC more adult-like and thoughtful, but a part of “speaking out” is, I think, the regular reminder to the apolitical default Republican reader (we have a lot of them, right?) that this shit isn’t normal or moral or even legal.
An ancillary issue to that, which I have actually thought quite a lot about, is the burden of shared of responsibility among both hair-on-fire liberals and TrumpNation. There’s been a lot of high-minded, church sermon pleas for liberals to be gentler, calmer, less confrontational and accusatory toward any and all who prefer Trump … to anyone else. But I can’t help but notice the vacuum from modern conservative thought leaders — e.g. Limbaugh, Ingraham, Levin, Carlson yadda yadda — urging similar civility and respectfulness on their [insert sophomoric invective here] audience.
Sadly, Carl Bernstein and others are correct. We are in a “cold civil war”. Trump (and Bill Barr and Stephen Miller and Mitch McConnell) are not playing for reconciliation and peace. They are playing to impose (very) long term damage to fundamental constitutional/cultural values, and they require the complicity of our TrumpNation neighbors and relatives to make it happen.
Whatever the reasons for that complicity — ignorance, racism, the existential fear of losing the entitled standing of white male America — they aren’t noble or excusable.
A side issue that fascinates me whenever I hear someone suggest I should “reach out” and “listen” to Trumpers I know, is how regularly the Trumpers I know have self-segregated themselves, offering fewer and fewer contacts with … well … vulgar, sophomoric name-callers like me.
To again quote Bette Davis, “Fasten your seat belts. It’s going to be a bumpy [year.]”
First, I very much admire your posts, and no admonition was intended. Seriously never crossed my mind. Your bottom line arguments are always truthful, logical, and persuasive. I’m reacting more to what I often hear from liberals on Twitter, FB, and TV coverage of protests.
I’m certainly not under any illusion that Trump loyalists can be convinced to flip their votes, either by being nicer or meaner. That’s a fool’s errand, because that audience just is not in play.
I’m only interested in trying to persuade 1) Trump regretters, such as the “independent” 2016 Trump voters who voted for Democrats in the 2018 midterms after voting against Hillary in 2016 and 2) the masses of Dem-leaning non-voters and potential non-voters. (e.g. About 4.4 million 2012 Obama voters stayed home in 2016, an election decided by about 80,000 votes in PA, MI, and WI.) Doing even a tiny bit better with those two groups could swing the election.
For them, I think “Trump is trying to take away health coverage when your loved one gets sick” is more likely to be persuasive than “Trump is orange, fat, and stupid.” I worry that too much “Trump is orange, fat, and stupid” style personal insults feeds into swing voters’ “both sides are equally bad” cop-out that frees them to either stay home or vote for Trump even when they disapprove of him, as so many indies did in 2016.
So, I’m not saying liberals need to give an oh-so-civil Citizens League-like seminar in the break room or chat room. I just think liberals are more likely to be persuasive to indies and non-voters if the level of dickishness is not as over-the-top and personal as what you hear in Trump rally speeches and tweets.
P.S. Of these five issues, intra-party cannibalism is by far my biggest concern. I can already feel “Bernie or bust” type rumblings coming from several different candidate camps that are feeling aggrieved. This is going to be a close race, so the country is screwed if even a relatively small number of Democratic primary voters stays home or votes third party in the general election.
Well, it was a combination of my guilty conscience and fear that either my wages here at WWP would be cut back or I’d be outright terminated, that got me to worrying. So I appreciate the reassurance, (even though it sounds a lot like what George Steinbrenner used to say just before he fired Billy Martin, again). I do hear your concern about “cannibalizing”, but frankly I’m more concerned about the inevitable (as I see it) third-party campaign. These may be the same thing if one of the current Dems splits off. sadly, the most likely to bolt are the (very) deeply invested “Bernie bros”, who seem to regard anyone other than Bernie — and certainly every “middle-laner” — as a corporate sell-out. This attitude got them to Jill Fucking Stein or Gary Johnson in ’16. A “principled” stand that if you look at the results substantially outweighed the 78,000 votes in six counties that swung the electoral college to Trump. So yeah, I feel your concern.
Lambert served it up so let me take a swing at it—at our undemocratic presidential election itself. Let’s be willing to denounce the electoral college, and emphasize as the Dems have fatally failed to do that the American People voted for Gore in 2000 and H. Clinton in 2016. Imagine what the thugs would have said and done if the outcome had been the opposite–electoral college defeat but popular plurality for Junior in 2000 or Dumbo in 2016.
In 2000, Bush/Cheney would have conceded the office but used scorched-earth politics to sabotage the administration (the tactic used by McConnell successfully against Obama!) In 2016, Trump and ultra-right mass media would have incited armed rebellion and attempted a putsch combining mass armed demonstrations with insurgent police and military forces. Recall Trump’s point-blank refusal to agree to accept results of the election “unless I win.” Did you not take him seriously? Did you think it was beside the point since “he couldn’t possibly win”?
My approach to 2020 is also to try to elect “Any Functioning Adult” but that won’t work without a clear sense that the Democrats ARE willing to stand up against bullying, ARE willing to fight, ARE capable of more than explaining the nuanced details of specific issues—but can articulate a unifying patriotic message more persuasive than Trump’s divisive nationalism and white supremacy. Most national elections aren’t decided by thoughtful voters weighing pros and cons on serious policy issues. [The electoral college was designed of course to give a certain number of thoughtful voters the authority to choose the president after weighing pros and cons on serious policy issues. And right from the start, it didn’t work as envisioned. After the Bill of Rights, more constitutional amendments have been concerned with the election, installation, succession, limitation, of the office of president, than of any other portion of the original charter. If the republic is to survive, some more protections against autocratic abuse must be spelled out!]