Forward and Backward
Ten years ago, I would never have considered myself a hateful person. I would have described myself as decent, kind, openminded, carefree, and happy.
The last 10 years have changed me into someone I almost don’t recognize. Like many of us, I’m not afraid to say that I hate what this country has become.
I hate Donald Trump and everything in the MAGA movement.
I hate that there are family members I can’t and don’t talk to anymore.
I hate being fearful for my grandchildren’s future.
I hate that my rights as a woman are being stripped... AGAIN.
I hate being suspicious of everyone I meet.
After being faced with 3 men on a street corner wielding AK 15s during a peaceful protest on Women’s Right to Choose, I hate that I am scared to participate in protests any longer.
Who is this hate filled and foreign person in my body? Where did I go and what can I do?
Recently a glimmer of light has started to flicker. A way back to common decency and shared goals and values. Democrats 101 has spoken to me, to my heart. An easy or quick fix? No. But a way forward? YES. A starting point.
BUILDING A COUNTYDEMOCRATIC PARTY COALITION: Part Two
Cheboygan and the surrounding area have seen great boom times, as well as downturns since the start of the lumbering community in 1844. Along with lumberjacks and sawmill crews, immigrants came from Canada, Poland, and Sweden. They were bankers, teachers, doctors, shopkeepers, and farmers. The population explosion created a great demand for increased manufacturing and commerce. Boom and bust cycles continued through the 1900s.
In 2015, the City of Cheboygan and the entire county had been experiencing an economic downward slide. The hospital had closed. The once-flourishing, nationally branded paper plant closed and was reorganized in a much-diminished way. Several businesses had closed recently on Main Street, leaving 27 vacant storefronts in a four-block stretch. There was debris on the sidewalks, along with many cracks. Streets and roads were cracked and potholed, having a look of overall decay.
BUILDING A COUNTY DEMOCRATIC PARTY COALITION
November 8, 2016…a turning point in American Democracy. Surely, all of us remember the shock and horror of the election of Donald Trump.
Immediately thereafter, that surprising development motivated a group of Michigan Democratic Party County leaders to brainstorm and organize a new approach to confront the dangers they recognized in this depressing turn of the political landscape in America.
That approach was to build a coalition of County Democratic Parties in Northern Michigan, to collaborate to build our strength as a unified whole against the dangers of a Trump Presidency.
Originally, this group consisted of County Democratic Parties in one State House District in a predominately rural area. In 2023 this coalition expanded to 3 Northern State House Districts that now includes 14 County Democratic Parties.
We believe this is a model of collaboration that all County Democratic Parties nationally (especially rural counties) can endorse and embrace.
Barbarians!
They are at the gate. They’re at the side door, too, and the back door, and crawling through the basement windows. They’re everywhere, because the Barbarians aren’t really a person, they’re an idea: that social progress can be turned around, that history can be undone, that if you close your eyes tight enough, you can make it 1950 again.
Yes, Donald Trump is real. And so is the threat of another Trump Presidency. And, yes, we have to do everything in our power to defeat it, every bit of campaigning, every attack ad we can think of. But if defeating him in November is all we do, then we’re going to be left standing right where we were in the aftermath of 2020, the same place we’ve been for the past twenty years: stuck in the mud, looking at an endless struggle to win 51%.
The Barbarians have a message. They have a powerful message, and it’s about more than Donald Trump. It's a clever message that allows you to believe whatever you want as long as you close your eyes and join in. It’s powerful because it’s simple, it’s universal (for them), and it’s emotional.
how we changed the vote
There are 35,000 registered voters in Huron County, Ohio. 20,000 are unaffiliated, and it’s getting worse. Vitriol .. the constant barrage of phone calls and texts and direct mail that filled 2020 .. drove away more than 3,000 of those Democrats, right into the ranks of the unaffiliated.
And then there’s 2023. Democrats comprise just 9.4% of the registered voters, yet last November, 44% of all registered voters in the county voted Yes for Issue One, Ohio’s protection for Reproductive Rights. That happened because everyone worked together, tirelessly. But most of all, this victory happened because the special election was about basic rights, about the kind of core values that are held by most Americans, the kind they recognize and care deeply about.
One If by land, two if by sea
The British aren’t coming this time, but something else is. It’s dark, and it’s dangerous, and it’s definitely out there.
Hope is still leading the race .. the recent votes in Ohio and Kansas demonstrate it clearly .. but Fear, and Confusion, and Hate are right behind, spreading their wings, and their tentacles. But this isn’t a race between us and MAGA, that’s what we desperately have to realize. This is a race between us and ourselves. Are we going to focus on what’s ahead, on the bright light that is our country’s future? Are we going to seize this pivotal moment in American history, when the very direction of our national soul is at stake? Are we going to become the champions of hope? Is our mission going to be setting this country firmly on the road to a just society? Or are we going to remain obsessed with the dark shape that lies behind, the one that always seems to be gaining on us? Are we going to be lost into endlessly defending?
An open letter from a red county Democratic Chair
Like many of you, I am a Democratic Party Chair in a very red rural county (Huron, Ohio) where just getting a Democrat to run for office is almost impossible. But, I look at my grandkids and think I have to do something. Something to begin the necessary conversations to raise awareness of the dangerous times we are in.
Those conversations cannot begin with policies. We have to reach common ground first. Freedom, Justice and Opportunity are values that are difficult to claim as belonging to only one party - they belong to all of us, Democrat, Republican, Unaffiliated. Defining Democrats as having these values is critical to having our views listened to and having credibility.
2024: Chaos, or unity?
The chaos part is easy. “2024” means November 5th, and that means fear. Trump. That one word. And we’re all determined to stand against him. All the way. But is that enough? Is that even the right way to look at it? If we attack him relentlessly, then defeat him again the same way we did in 2020 .. by the same margins .. what changes? What will another 51% victory leave in its wake?
The forces that created Trump will still be there. MAGA and its adherents, and the vast money machine that created them, will still exist. So will the deep tribalism they have managed to create. Their ability to take fear and hate and a coordinated campaign of lies, and turn it into a political machine capable of challenging for control of government, that will still be there as well.
And once we’ve defeated Trump permanently .. and losing a second Presidential election will do just that .. what do we do? Once we are no longer united by fear of Trump, what becomes of us? Do we go back to fighting each other, Progressives versus Moderates, elites versus the heartland? Do we go back to pushing this policy and that while regular Democrats, the lifeblood of our party, go back to feeling alienated and demoralized? Fear of Trump has united us. What will unite us once he’s gone?
Ohio, Kansas and you
There’s real hope following the recent victory on Issue One in Ohio and the votes in Kansas. These votes weren’t really about abortion, on a fundamental, emotional level they were about who owns a woman’s body. It shows that when people are given a clear choice about basic concepts of justice, especially when they can see a direct effect on their lives .. they respond firmly, and decisively.
STIGMA
As Democrats, we have two identities. Our internal identity, the way we see ourselves, is the same one we’ve had for a very long time: a traditional political party, focused intently on winning the next election. We like to view ourselves as enlightened, the good guys, the defenders of democracy, but we spend every ounce of our energy on winning the next election. That makes us a traditional political party.
Our external identity with the American public .. the voting American public .. is the one the Republicans have stuck us with. Forget “baby killers” and the MAGA folks. What counts is that huge swath of Americans who don’t really follow politics .. but decide elections. These are the people the Republicans have gotten to. These are the voters that have come to accept that we’re somehow tainted, some vague amalgam of “Socialist” and “taxaholics” and anti-religion and anti-family .. take your pick. We go crazy over the specifics, the “facts”, but that misses the point. What counts for these people is that, subconsciously, Democrats carry the stigma of “bad”. That’s their gut reaction: Democrats = bad, and they may not even know why. It’s the power of endlessly repeated lies: if there’s smoke, there must be fire.
A special letter to every angry Democrat in this country
Two counties in rural Georgia have just sent a message, and they’ve sent it to you. There’s nowhere redder than Oglethorpe and Gilmer Counties, no people more surrounded by MAGA hats and giant Trump flags and endless personal harassment .. no Democrats more angry and fed up. And now they’ve taken a stand. They’ve said enough! They’ve adopted the Democratic Creed officially, and with it they’ve sent a message
INSPIRE
“Inspire” is the word we’re missing. It’s the emotion we’re missing, as Democrats, as Americans who care about guiding this nation towards a future as a truly just society. If we’re not inspired towards our ultimate goal, if we don’t see it clearly, how will we get there?
MAGA inspires. Trump inspires. They inspire a sense of emotional identity, of enduring passion, something far deeper and far stronger than politics. Why don’t we inspire? Forget the next election campaign and the latest issue, why doesn’t the Democratic Party itself inspire? Why doesn’t who we are as a party cause Democrats to stand up with pride all over this country, sweeping independents and unaffiliated with them?
DEMS 101: the idea spreads!
Delta County (Michigan) Democratic Party will host an evening with Democrats 101 on Wednesday, November 1, 2023. Bryan Watson will be the featured speaker before Democrats from around Michigan's Upper Peninsula. If you'd like more information, please contact the Delta County Democratic Party at deltademsmi@gmail.com.
words, words, words
“… 80% of people in this country who share the ideals of our founding, who share the idea that all men are created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among these life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness .. at least 80% of this country shares the same basic values that we do.”
Quick, who said that?
Abraham Lincoln 2. Barack Obama 3. Joe Biden
or 4. Vivek Ramaswamy
Yes! Vivek Ramaswamy, the Trump wannabe did. He said it just the other day, and you shouldn’t be surprised. It’s what’s been going on for decades .. decades .. right in front of our noses, the theft of language. We have, in fact, all but helped them do it.
That quote is accurate, of course, he just mixed up the parties. But to his listeners, he didn’t get it wrong at all, he hit the nail on the head. Why? Because it sounded good. It made them feel good. And that’s what happens when messaging has no purpose beyond gaining power.
Freedom, Justice, and Opportunity are what we stand for as Democrats, what we all feel is in our hearts. But we have never written it down. We have never stood up and declared it in simple, unequivocal English that everyone can understand. And we have never gone on to declare it, over and over again, until every American in this nation has started to believe it. That’s the problem. Our sensing it is not enough. That so many of us assume it isn’t, either. These things, these ideas, have to be made public, and they have to dominate.
PURPOSE
What is our purpose as a political party?
Have you ever thought about it? Why do we exist? Is our purpose winning the next election? Is that what we are, a political machine to win elections?
Or are we something more? Is our unstated purpose to build a better nation, to make people’s lives better? Is that unstated purpose why LBJ worked so hard on his vision of A Great Society, sacrificed so much? Is that why the Kennedy’s stood up for black Americans in the 60s? Is that unstated purpose part of why we admire Lincoln, why Democrats have been part of every movement for social progress in American history? Think back to Obama. “Yes, we can!” inspired each and every one of us. It wasn’t because we knew it would help us win an election, it was because Obama’s words touched something much deeper, because it touched our unspoken purpose.
Politics is wishy-washy. It’s about compromise, the art of the possible. It’s also about money and everything cynical imaginable. Politics is necessary. It’s a fact of life that we will be engaged in forever, but by itself, politics doesn’t inspire anybody. In fact, it turns off incredible numbers of people, Democrats included.
our moment
We are standing at a true moment in American history, a fork in the road that will decide our future as a nation. This fork isn’t about Donald Trump, and it isn’t about the next election. It’s about something much, much deeper. For the first time ever as a nation, we are actually facing up to the fundamental principal American democracy: are all people created equal? Do all of us .. everywhere .. have the same right to equal Freedom, equal Justice, and equal Opportunity? That is what’s really going on.
We have nibbled at the concept of equality for nearly 250 years. Back in 1776, of course, we had virtually none. Wealthy white males didn’t just dominate society, it was considered normal. Women didn’t count at all. Blacks and Native Americans were considered subhuman. Being born gay was considered an aberration worthy of either prison or death, and Catholics were considered spawn of the Devil.
An ohio story
In December, 2021, the Huron County Democratic Party .. a rural county in northern Ohio .. gathered for their annual holiday party and meeting. During the event, several persons spoke. The last person, the chairwoman announced, would speak about a book, Democrats 101, by J. M. Purvis. What follows are the words that Tim used:
“In 1776, American patriots gathered in taverns to hear the reading of “Common Sense” by Thomas Paine. “Common Sense” was, and still is, the most widely circulated publication in American history. It laid down all the facts and reasoning for overthrowing the British monarchy and gaining independence and self rule.
Like the patriots in 1776, we are gathered here tonight at a time of peril. Where their fight was to overthrow monarchy, ours is to save democracy. And the way we do that is by getting more people to identify as Democrats, and more to vote Democratic. And to do that we must state our identity. What is a Democrat? What do we all agree with?
politics versus identity
Politics is how you make things happen.
Politics is about getting people elected, the endless campaign work, the messaging and meetings and rounding up volunteers and getting out the vote. And money. Politics is about endless amounts of money, and all the problems that brings.
Politics is also the art of governing. It’s about the mechanics of passing legislation, deciding on which issues to take on, fighting over policy and fending off (or giving into) the endless interest groups that overrun everything. Above all, politics is about compromise. Be it be it a local campaign for city council or passing a budget in the House of Representatives, politics is very, very much the art of the possible. It’s not about perfect, or even desirable, it’s about possible.
Identity is something else entirely. It’s permanent. It’s who we are. It’s why we got into this in the first place. Identity is our core values, the unchanging truth that makes us Democrats. Unchanging, and universal. As true twenty years from now as it is today. As true for all of us as it is for any of us. It means we are Democrats first and foremost, no matter who we are or where we live, or what else we believe.
We need both.
Anger and frustration … and hope
I’m here because of anger, and frustration .. because of yours, and mine, an awful lot of people all across this country. Under everything else, you hear the same thing: an overwhelming sense that something’s wrong, that we’re adrift as a party, adrift as a nation. One party official put it this way: we’re like a ship that’s lost its mooring.
There is a way out of this mess. Yes! Absolutely. The way out of this mess is you … the county leaders … and it starts with understanding what’s really going on.
This country .. our country .. is in the early stages of a slow-motion social, cultural, and economic revolution.
evil is evil
When are Democrats going to stop reacting? When do we stop defending? Yes, Florida Republicans used language in a bill that says somehow, some part of slavery might have benefitted slaves. Yes, it’s sneaky. Yes, it’s despicable.
Our response? To lament the action. To send the vice President down to show outrage. That, is defending.
Our response should be a powerful, public statement of just how evil slavery was. A once and for all, clear and unequivocal statement of just how destructive the institution was, for the slaves above all, but also for the country .. morally, in blood, in destroyed lives, in the endless racism we are still paying for today. Slavery was evil. Period.