I've been listening and reading about how the Democrats should position themselves for the upcoming elections. Here are just a couple of articles in today's media.
I've also heard some people saying the Democrats need to "return" to the way they were long ago and "stand for the working man". I don't think that's really possible either.
The argument that Democrats need to move to the Left would mean losing a lot of centrists who simply don't fit as Republicans. It may be that they support Civil Rights or unions or a more sane foreign policy, but there are many people who view themselves as on the Left, but not Liberal or Socialist. Moving to the Left would lose some of those. In fact, during the early years of the Obama presidency we had several Conservative Democrat senators who kept irking the party by breaking off and not supporting the president's agenda at critical moments. Support for those senators dropped and they lost their seats. This cost the Democrats the majority in the senate and we have seen what that means in terms of judicial appointments and running the senate with normal order. Under Mitch McConnell (R-KY) it's been a disaster. If you prefer Democratic majority in the Senate you have to accept some centrist or Conservative Democrats.
There are several arguments about how the Democrats should position themselves regarding economics. There is the Black Caucus view where fairness is critical. There is the working man caucus where a strong economy with employment is critical. There is the Wall St. view which is that the economy should just go faster, so they can make more money. All of these are rational and important. From the 1980s when the Democrats sought new campaign funds and Wall St. responded and from the 1990s when Silicon Valley (near San Francisco) responded, our Congressional numbers are very strong with New Yorkers and Californians and our campaign coffers are doing well enough. We can largely thank Bill Clinton and Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer for those. But, where does that leave us on the economics? Generally, under both Clinton and Obama, we have run the economy fast, encouraged free and fair trade deals, and tried to get more fairness in the share of corporate profits each group gets. Republicans have favored the first two, but have stopped most efforts at the last. Under Pres. "Dubya" Bush there was a minimum wage increase which helped alleviate some of the problems of the first recession, but when Pres. Obama took office the Republican Senate refused even a minimum wage raise during the great recession of 2007-09. We still need to look at ways to make the economy work better for EVERYONE. That's a key Democratic goal.
In the 1960s & 70s the Democrats were the party of the working man and we supported unions 100%. Then Nixon invented the Southern Strategy and a lot of the racist working men went with Ford and Reagan and the unions began to take a beating. Democrats still support the unions, but the unions are a lot less powerful today. If the racists prefer Democratic policies to Reagan, Bush, and Trump policies, then vote for Democrats!
Generally, if you want support from the party you vote for the candidates and you give money to campaigns. It has worked in the past and will work in the future.
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