I am elated that Joe Biden, an American patriot will become the 46th president of the USA.
In our pandemic dominated year, his victory is all the more poignant and resonant of a time that was “normal.”
I feel as if we have come back from 4 years of abseiling in the dark, dangerous and treacherous waters of Davy Jones’ Locker to skydiving in Dubai, an infinitely less risky option.
The Democrats haven’t won a Senate majority, limiting their ability to govern, but this doesn’t make me as anxious as how unprepared the DNC is to win the 2024 election and what is at stake if they fail to do so.
I write this for two reasons: the 71,493,834 voters (as of 10 November 2020) that supported a Trump second term, and in my view, America is not ready to have a woman of colour, with both a questionable prosecutorial record and ideology, become an occupant of the Oval office. (see also, The American Presidential election: the problem with Kamala Harris).
The Democrats current strategy for winning votes will not work in 2024
As a non-American, it has been instructive to read /watch the incredulity with which Democrats view anyone who voted for Trump. Arguments I have seen include:
- A depressing lament about America’s decline into anti-intellectualism to
- Ignorance is no defence to stupidity and
- My favourite, how American farmers are already on welfare (through their subsidies), so really, they should be thankful that New Jersey is kind enough to bankroll them.
Apart from intellectual elitism that has become synonymous with the word “Democrat”, the Democrats, lack empathy and under-estimate the GOP.
Empathy is an essential quality for any public office and successfully running any organisation. A successful CEO should be able to see everything around them and be politically astute (and manipulative) to cajole everyone into action. To do this, the CEO must have the capacity to be empathetic.
1) The Democrats lack empathy
There was a period in my life soon after my father died that my family lived close to the bread line (which is slightly above the poverty line).
Thank the Lord we did not stay in that economic state for long.
When I went to business school many years later, I lied to a man and said my father had left me a trust fund to justify my being at school. The truth is there is extreme shame associated with being poor and the loss of a parent I had suffered.
I was deeply ashamed I had a difficult life and that through the hard work of my family, I could come to business school.
I am no longer ashamed of who I am or where I have come from, but I want to tell you that when you do not fit in with ordinary people, you continuously feel shame and are desperate just to be accepted. You run to the first person who empathises with you. Terminology such as Republicans of African-American descent, Republicans of Cuban-American descent are inclusive terms compared to the Democrats archaic descriptions of black and Latino voters. The Republicans for all their failings show more empathy to “lost causes” than Democrats do. The Democrats fail to see the 71,493,834 voters as they see themselves.
When Democrats ask what went wrong, there is a propensity to intellectualise the problem: lack of education, different socio-economic backgrounds, white, male, no college degree etc.
If you only reduce a person to their pro-life view or their inexplicable admiration of Trump, you have already lost their vote. It is not uncommon for women of lower socio-economic groups to be pro-life – look to less developed markets. Their lives are inextricably (still) entwined with patriarchy, where someone else (man or God) is claiming ownership of their body (chattel). And quite frankly, if you are a stripper from a trailer park in the middle of nowhere, Trump may not be the worst man you know. However, her vote counts for as much as a Los Angeles yoga instructor.
Democrats need to find a better way of communicating their message of (e.g.) Why should she care about climate change?
Make the case Democrats at the grassroots level and not from your ivory tower.
2) The Democrats persistently under-estimate the Republican party and the GOP
The Republican Party is no longer the party of Lincoln
This is a short study by a bunch of academics, and its sole purpose here is to demonstrate the change in ideology of the Republican Party. While the Democrats have pretty much maintained their centrist view, the Republicans have radicalised to resemble authoritarian rule or “the illiberal right.”
Authoritarian or autocratic parties in themselves are the anti-thesis (and not just) a threat to America’s hard-earned democracy. (Note how the Republican Party sits just underneath India’s BJP).
Autocracy begets working-class allegiance.
You and I implicitly know that the Republican Party fails to represent the issues that affect ordinary, low and middle-income Americans. I could point to climate change, education, healthcare, reskilling, job creation, wealth distribution etc. etc. I am not even going to write about the copious number of tax breaks that the Republican party continues to give corporate America and Big oil. And don’t get me started on America’s lack of capital gains taxation.
Despite this, the Republican Party has become the party of working-class Americans – dairy farmers, factory workers, the single mother working 2-3 jobs and so on.
How?
Well, the Republican communications machinery (Trump, the GOP, Fox News and everything else owned by Rupert Murdoch etc.) is so street-smart that they can paint anything that the Democrats do to something that is shockingly poor form.
E.g., comparing police reform to being soft on Law & Order, rioting & looting is not a protest but a failure to uphold property rights (mom & pop stores, immigrant businesses all suffer). Finally, any discussion of a minimum wage is associated with socialism and communism, which ostracises immigrants from (e.g.) Cuba.
The Democrats are too soft on the GOP.
I always feel that the Democrats bring a rubber duck to a firefight: they are unprepared and overwhelmed by the GOP’s tactics.
To an extent, I blame the Democrats for embracing too literally Michelle Obama’s often quoted catchphrase, “When they go high we go low.”
The GOP do not care about the well-being of the American people – at least the 240k deaths from a deadly pandemic and over 2 million ill would suggest so.
The Republicans care ONLY about staying in power because they are incapable of winning the popular vote. Democracy by which I mean one person-one vote does not work for Republicans and therefore, they have no incentive to respect it or protect it.
The GOP’s current support of Donal Trump is not out of allegiance to him as president, its appeasing Trump’s base without losing their loyalty. In the process, Republicans do not care two cents about how they undermine the institutions and mechanisms that protect America’s democracy.
And do not doubt the aggressive will of the intelligentsia that support the Republicans: they are only interested in preserving the status quo as any progress threatens them. This is true about the ruling class in any autocratic regime.
3) What should the Democrats do?
DNC strategists in their ivory tower would do well to start with acknowledging that by most metrics, the American dream is dead. Contrary to what more than three-quarters of Americans still believe, sheer hard work is NO LONGER the most significant contributor to success. The circumstances of your birth determine how real the American dream is for you.
In 2017, Raj Chetty and many economists published a mobility report based on the date of 30 million college students (1999-2013).
As the Economist writes,
The data show that attending an elite college is a good way of securing an upper-middle class lifestyle—graduates of Ivy League-calibre universities have roughly the same chance of breaking into the top 20% of the income distribution, regardless of family background.
However, children in the lowest income group can’t rise to the 1% income group irrespective of their college degree.
This acknowledgement gives the Democrats freedom to envisage and America that they believe in and sell that story.
Are healthcare, a minimum wage and education the universal right of every American? If so, this is not socialism but redistribution of wealth.
Secondly, corporate America, especially tech companies and their owners, need to pay more in taxes. They can enjoy the successes that they do because they can take advantage of the ecosystem (talent, capital etc.) that exists only in America.
Paying for this privilege on their way to becoming trillion-dollar companies is the least they can do. America should not become the Tale of Two Countries.
Closing: the nuclear option
Finally, the Democrats should start the groundwork for abolishing the electoral college votes and let the popular vote carry the elected president into the future. The conditions that favour the Democrats are a thriving and healthy democracy and the institutions that support it. An illiberal right-wing party, such as the Republican party is a constant threat to what everything America stands for and by default, the Democrats.
There is no winning for the Democrats against the demagoguery of the GOP. The Democrats need to be more radical in defending themselves and democracy.
If the GOP bring an entire arsenal of weapons to their fights, the Democrats should at least start by parading around the nuclear football.
This is the only way that democracy survives in the USA.