Liberty and Justice for All: A Call to the Democratic Party

MSNBC host Joy-Ann Reid often argues that if we want Donald J. Trump gone, we must focus on 2018 US Congressional elections. I accept this logic, for the conventional wisdom remains that Paul Ryan and the rest of the GOP made their Faustian bargains and won’t budge. Democrats must fight like hell to reclaim the House, if not the Senate.

However, I chafe at this logic, for some of us will not make it to 2018. With Donald J. Trump in the Oval, we are profoundly unsafe, as evidenced most recently by his North Korea belligerence and Charlottesville Nazi sympathy. Some of our families have already been ripped apart by emboldened ICE agents. And even if our lives feel untouched by Trump policies, we gamble with our survival. Nuclear bombs, or emboldened terrorists (domestic or foreign) rarely discriminate.

So, we resist in the streets, we #resist online. But at the same time, we must prepare.

This summer, I noticed a sharp uptick in “how to save the Democratic Party” pieces and Twitter threads. However, several participants were journalists and politicos in DC and NYC. I wanted to break open the conversation, if just a little bit, to include a broader cross-section of Democratic voters. Calling it the #FutureOfDems project, I extensively surveyed 46 Democratic voters from 16 states. From ages 22–82, majority female — white, black, Latinx, Asian, Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Athiest and nearly a ¼ LGBTQ.

What did participants want? Vision. They wanted Democrats to “learn how to seize the imagination of voters again,” wrote an author in Memphis, TN. They wanted message. “I want the Democrats to articulate better who they are — who we are — and not just talk about who we’re not,” shared a Detroit-born attorney.

They wanted boldness. “Start from scratch,” wrote a Bronx academic. “Dems need to speak truth. Propose radical changes. Force those changes wherever possible.”

But what about content? Yes, economics was key, but so was fairness. Justice. Not just economically, but socially. When asked to list their motivating issues, the top 3 categories were: racial justice & equal opportunity; women’s rights & wellbeing (including reproductive rights); with the economy & financial inequality tied with healthcare (including single-payer). LGBTQ and immigrant rights were not far behind.

Yet, the go-to wisdom in public political discussion is invariably James Carville’s “It’s the economy, stupid,” which can feel as true today as it was in 1992. Pocketbook issues will bring the votes — and progress.

#FutureOfDems participants made several strong cases for bold economic action — with the emphasis on bold. After noting that major programs like Medicare and Social Security have survived because all Americans benefit from them, an Atlanta attorney wrote: “Our Whitman’s Sampler of narrow-band policies won’t deliver victories on a sufficiently broad level. We have to seriously address problems in a way that promises to benefit most, nearly-all Americans.”

Thinking in terms of shared benefit is movement towards fairness. But is this enough? “The Democratic Party does very little to actually distinguish itself from systemic inequalities in domestic and foreign policy,” wrote a New York City environmental activist. He implored the party to “become about strong ideas instead of about being the being the biggest tent of disenfranchised voters.”

Instead of collecting our diverse votes, many participants would agree that race, gender, sexual orientation, immigrant status — or, the ways we’re unjustly treated based on who we are, must be directly addressed and not derided as “identity politics”. However, addressing means offering real policies. That it must be possible to propose a platform that is as devoted to shared prosperity as it is equal protection under the law. “We can talk about current economic issues and future economic progress at the same time,” wrote the Detroit-born attorney. “[And] we can do that without sacrificing inclusiveness, our commitment to under-included groups, or our commitment to social justice.”

If 2017 has shown anything, a leaderless resistance movement is a tidal wave. Our electeds stood strong, on our shoulders, in the face of Republicans bent on destroying Obamacare. They can do it again, but this time in the act of creation. And if not, they face our tidal wave washing them out, and making way for electeds who will.

We call on you, Democrats, to be the true party of liberty and justice for all. This is no time for small ball. For as the Atlanta attorney wrote: “There is no other party that is worth a damn. Either Democrats will fix things or nobody will.”

Stacy Parker Le Melle is the author of Government Girl: Young and Female in the White House(HarperCollins/Ecco) and was the lead contributor to Voices from the Storm: The People of New Orleans on Hurricane Katrina and Its Aftermath (McSweeney’s). She chronicles stories for The Katrina Experience: An Oral History Project. She received her B.A. in Political Communication from The George Washington University.