Democrats Get It

My Party

I am a Democrat.  I’ve been one since Mom pinned on my first campaign button, JFK for President in 1960.  Yes, I was a little young then for a fully informed decision, four; but as I grew up I found the Democratic Party represented me much more than my father’s business Republicans.  

I spent several years in the actual mechanism of the Party.  As a twenty something, I worked in Democratic political campaigns in the Cincinnati area.  I learned that “the Party” and “the campaigns” were two very different things.  As a campaigner, trying to get my candidate in office, I was single minded.  But the “Party” had a life of its own.  Candidates came and went, but the “Party” lived on.  My twenty-two year old campaign manager demands about a City Council race really didn’t make much of a dent in the old men, Mr. Weil and Mr. Wiethe, who ran the show.

There was never a lot of “order” in the Democratic Party.  Everyone was going in their own direction; they had their own priorities and commitments.  The Party didn’t “run” them, it simply was the structure they could use, or not, to help get elected.  

Dog Sleds

It’s a lot like dog sleds. There are two kinds of dog sled harnesses.  One has a single line going out from the sled, with the dogs harnessed side by side along the line.  They all pull in one direction, and they all are kept in line by the harness, and the dog behind biting them in the butt.  It’s the most power-efficient harness, but it has one major flaw.  If the lead dog falls in an ice hole, the entire team, and the sled go with it.  

The other kind of harness has each dog on an individual lead attached to the sled.  The dogs all are generally going in the same direction, but they all have their own “path.”  If one goes in an ice hole, the others avoid it, and the sled driver can pull him out. It’s less organized, chaotic, and freer spirited.  The sled eventually gets where it’s going, with a wider, more meandering path.

The Democratic Party is absolutely the second kind of dog sled.  Everyone is pulling, but each in their own individual direction.  Democratic candidates fall into ice holes all of the time. Sometimes the Party tries to rescue them, and sometimes the Party cuts the line.  But the Party goes on.

Falling in the Ice Hole

So it doesn’t surprise me that the Democrats in the House of Representatives aren’t a single, cohesive group; marching in lock step to Speaker Pelosi’s commands.  They are Democrats, and they are all pulling in their own direction.  The Speaker has them going down a similar path, but they are all headstrong, making their own decisions.  

Speaker Pelosi doesn’t make tactical mistakes on the floor of the House of Representatives, she doesn’t fall in ice holes.  When she spoke out against the President, calling him a racist for his tweets about four Democratic House members, she knew she was violating a long-established House rule.  She did this with purpose, to force Republican members to go “on the record” in support of the President’s racist statements.  She also got the House to set new precedent; if a President is a racist, they can now call him one “on the record.”

When Congressman Green of Texas prematurely pushed his impeachment bill onto the floor of the House, the Speaker let him fall in the ice hole.  Then she cut the lead, and the sled moved on.

Moving Left

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman wrote last weekend about Democrats.  He sounded an alarm about the “leftness” of the Party, about how he felt many of the candidates for President were so radical that they would end up giving the Presidency back to Trump.  His statement:  “you can have a revolution, or you can beat Trump.”  He is a moderate Democrat, and he is afraid his Party is leaving him, and the nation, aside.

The national Democratic Party ranges from the Social Democrats of Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, to “progressive” Democrats like Sherrod Brown and Kamala Harris, to “old school” moderates like Amy Klobuchar and Joe Biden.  It shouldn’t be a surprise that twenty some candidates are running for President.  And it isn’t a surprise that we go from a former Vice President to a person who claims “love is the answer.”

President Trump is going to extreme lengths to brand the Democrats as “Socialists” who are so “unAmerican” that they should consider leaving the country. He is picking the farthest extreme of the Party, and trying to paint the entire group. While many Americans are appalled by his willingness to use racism, some are still falling into the ice hole of accepting his branding. Mr. Friedman and other reasonable people need to look beyond his words, and see what the whole Democratic Party is about.

One Big Happy

It’s the Democratic Party! The harness is huge, and it’s going in lots of directions, all generally headed, well, forward.  We “Dems” are a raucous, confused, argumentative, and determined lot. We will fall in the ice-holes; some will be rescued, and some will get cut off and sink to the bottom.  There will be a lot of “not pretty” moments, and times when it looks like the whole sled is going down.  It won’t.  In our messy, ugly, confusing way, we will find a candidate for President to determine the future of America.

Our mission is: beat Trump.  Democrats get it, we all know what to do in the end.  We are just going to do some arguing and wandering to get there. 

So stay on the sled.