A Moderate Dem Party

Yesterday I offered a pretty bleak assessment of where things are at. My point was that societies are closing down all over the world and turning over power to corrupt authoritarians, like Donald Trump. It has happened before in history when more educated urban elites grow much richer and far more culturally progressive than the greater numbers of less well-off and culturally conservative citizens.

Today, the plan is to be more hopeful. We can’t reverse these powerful historical cycles, but maybe we can blunt them. We can do that by trying to narrow the cultural gap between those who have benefited richly from technology and trade and those who have benefited much less. The only political tool we have to do that is the Democratic Party, but the party is heavily identified with the very elites that the majority of voters reacted against.

So, how do we fix the Democrats? I float this idea every chance I get. Last Tuesday’s slaughter gives me another opening to suggest a new Moderate Democratic Party.

Here’s the idea. Take a page from Wisconsin’s Progressive movement. The early twentieth century Progressives weren’t actually their own party for most of their existence. Instead, they were a subset of the Republicans. They held their own conventions, wrote their own platforms and nominated their own candidates, but it was all under the umbrella of the Republican Party. So, the candidates they nominated ran in Republican primaries. If they lost there, most Progressives supported whoever got the Republican nomination.

The Progressives also presented themselves as reasonable moderates, standing between much more radical socialists and the conservatives who didn’t want any social safety nets or government regulations in the public interest.

I like this idea because third parties, as a rule, don’t work. A third party made up of moderate Democrats would siphon votes from the party and just end up helping to elect Republicans. I have my issues with the hard-left in my own party, but they pale in comparison to my distaste for the Trumpian Republicans.

So, what would a Moderate Democratic platform look like? Well, since at the moment I am the only member, that also makes me chair of the Platform Committee. So, here’s what I would suggest.

First, start out with a simple statement: If you work hard and play by the rules we’ll make sure you’ll get ahead in America. That brilliant formulation comes from the best political communicator of his generation, Bill Clinton, in 1992. It’s brilliant because everybody can understand it and because it celebrates middle class values (working hard, following rules) along with the traditional Democratic posture of using government to support them.

Second, make a statement in support of those middle class values and also in support of classically liberal values. By classically liberal I mean things like free speech, the rule of law, reason, pluralism, tolerance, a sensibly regulated free market and similarly regulated free trade. Basically, we’d be for what is thought of as an “open” society. We’d also be for middle class values. Things like hard work, personal responsibility and merit.

Third, drop the Democrats’ social agenda. Social progress is rarely made through government anyway. After all, laws against gay marriage are still on the books, even now. Social progress happens first in the broader culture and then government catches up. But the Democrats’ edgy social agenda is absolutely killing the party. Trump’s most effective ad was the one about taxpayers paying for sex change operations for prisoners.

So, support simple fairness and equality, but definitely not “equity” which has come to mean active discrimination to make up for past discrimination. Make the enemy discrimination itself. Gay marriage happened because everybody knew someone who was gay. They saw them work hard and simply want the same rights everybody else enjoyed. I have some faith that most Americans are fair-minded. They just oppose special treatment on the basis of belonging to a group. Along these lines. support the reform or abandonment of DEI programs. They’re way more trouble than they’re worth.

Fourth, be pro-choice until viability (just like Roe), but don’t parse the electorate into identity groups. The Mod Dems will not aim a policy at women here and people of color there and on and on. Doing that has turned out to be one of the great weaknesses of the Democratic Party because it prevents them from having a unifying message and because those who don’t get their own pitch (white men and men in general) hear their exclusion loud and clear. The party has become a collection of identity groups, each with their own set of, sometimes conflicting, grievances.

Fifth, support the popular stuff that’s already in the Democratic agenda: support for Social Security, Medicare and the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). Promise to steadily improve those things and add some stuff like paid family leave, but don’t go so far as to scare voters off with big government, Drop the “Medicare for all” and “Green New Deal” rhetoric. Incremental change is best.

Sixth, on the economy we’re taking the High Road. The High Road Economy is a phrase coined by my friend and certified really smart guy, UW Prof. Joel Rogers. The High Road tries to take advantage of all the good stuff in an open society and a free market economy while lessening the bad stuff. It’s the furthest thing from socialism. A High Road economy invests in workers and reduces waste while providing everybody with cleaner air and water. So, let’s not see the market as the enemy — blue collar workers don’t.

Seventh, do not talk about taxing the rich. Bernie Sanders has this wrong. Blue collar voters do not resent rich people. They want to be them. They resent down the economic ladder toward people less well off, with the view that they’re less well off because they just don’t work as hard. So, try to maintain some semblance of a progressive tax system, without talking too much about it.

Eighth, deemphasize a college education. This is a big one. Democrats have become the party of the third of American adults who have a college degree. They turn up their noses at the two-thirds of voters who didn’t go to college. You can do the math. So, for the love of God, stop trying to pay off college debt. And do what Josh Shapiro did in Pennsylvania: remove the requirement for a college degree for 90% of state jobs.

Ninth, let’s be realistic about immigration. We are not going to deport the 11 million people or more who are here illegally. But let’s admit that they are, in fact, here illegally. And it’s not okay. So, let’s create a path to citizenship for them, but a first condition is that they admit to having committed a crime and they pay a fine. And let’s harden the border both physically and through policy, but in exchange for increased legal immigration. We need the workers and we need the younger people for our aging society.

Tenth, let’s be against crime. Crime is bad. We will not talk about the “root causes” of crime, which sounds like we don’t take it seriously and we’ll get around to fixing it whenever. Instead, we’re for locking up the bad guys so that they can’t hurt anyone else. But we’re for locking them up in humane facilities, not hell holes.

Eleventh, be for an active involvement in world affairs. This is a tough one because there has always been an isolationism on the far right and far left. It ebbs and flows and right now it’s flowing. But we need to make a case for why our involvement in the world benefits us here at home. The idea is to make the world a less dangerous place that is more friendly to America. The idea isn’t to put American boots on the ground, but to work to avoid wars altogether. It’s withdrawing into ourselves that’s really dangerous.

Twelfth, try to do more about climate change without being preachy about it. People get the problem, but they’re tired of hearing Democrats tell them how they need to live their lives. Emphasize how family budgets can benefit from energy conservation. Talk around the issue to try to get to the same policy points without even mentioning “climate change” if it can be avoided.

Finally, talk about government efficiency and create an image of a party that wants to be careful and responsible with taxpayers’ dollars. That would be a nice contrast to the chaos that we can expect out of another Trump administration.

The overall idea for the Moderate Democrats would be a party that supports people who want to work hard and follow the rules, a party that wants to make sure they don’t get cheated when they do that. And also a party that’s for clean, efficient and honest government, so that taxes are as low as feasible and that every hard-earned taxpayer dollar is used wisely. And a party that wants to give everybody a fair shot to succeed as individuals, regardless of anything that doesn’t have to do with hard work and merit. A party that renews its opposition to discrimination.

In two years the Democrats have the chance to come roaring back. It’ll be a midterm election when the party in power usually takes a beating. And Trump voters have proven that they show up only for Trump while Democrats are much more inclined to vote in off year elections. They did that in 2022, when the Democrats did pretty well even when they were the party in power. And the Republicans will have to defend a lot more Senate seats, the reverse of what happened this year.

But if Democrats stay on their present course, their recovery will be muted and their long-term prospects will remain dim. The party needs to move to the sensible center, but that will be powerfully resisted by the various interest groups that make up the party’s activist base. There needs to be an organized voice for moderation.