What is the Harris Doctrine exactly? Remember Medicare for All? In 2019, as Democrats scrambled to adjust around Bernie Sanders’s presence in the primary field, Harris herself proclaimed that it was a “human and civil right,” but now it’s all but off the table.
A Green New Deal? Yeah, right. A cease-fire in Gaza? We’ll see, but only if you stop raising a ruckus. But, hey, aren’t you psyched about our subsidy program to incentivize corporate developers to build a small number of slightly-below-market-rate units? Let’s hear it for removing medical debt from credit scores! No, we will not do anything drastic to eliminate the medical debt itself. Or the student debt, for that matter.
Well here’s the deal… (/Clinton)
Unless you want a do nothing Republican House/Senate majority by sticking to your ideals, or worse yet a repeat of 2016, then a repeat of 2008 seems like a decent enough result to me.
The DNC should be all talk, only a bitesized trickle of policy soundbites. In order to earn enough votes to bring on a blue wave, Democrats need to court young people, old people, rich people, poor people, Jewish people, Islamic people, cityfolk, countryfolk, suburbanites, red states, blue states, climate activists, factory workers, Bernie Bros, disillusioned Trump voters and everything in between. Sanders knows this, AOC knows this, Tlaib knows this, Harris knows this. Part of Michelle Obama’s speech alluded to “we’re all human; don’t let perfect be the enemy of great”.
The USA needs to obliterate Trump’s party with the overwhelming weight of the vote from all sectors. Then with that power, repair the political system where it needs to be fixed, and enact monumental change at a moment we need it greatly, until every trace of Trump’s destruction in government is eliminated. Once that’s done, then the progressive wing of the party can break off into its own group.
Don’t these people get it? The party of Trump got popular because he pretends to offer a solution to anyone who is upset about anything! As long as you hate someone or something, welcome! Trump’s got a cope just for you! The Overton window won’t ever shift towards progressivism if we keep gatekeeping what progressivism is. The Democrats are after 8 years finally planting the seedlings for a healthy, forward thinking discourse to emerge. The words Republicans have kept to their side and twisted like “Freedom” are beginning to be reclaimed.
We have to run on vibes because many voters choose based on vibes (and Trump had more in 2016), but you can rest assured that Harris and Walz are a competent team. They can translate a mandate and a supportive Congress into a new era of more progressive leaning politics we may not have seen since Carter.