What the 2024 Elections are Really About-Opportunity & Freedom:
Beyond mere Anti-Trump/GOP Rhetoric, Democrats urgently need to-and can-offer a progressive vision of their own. Plus a highlight of recent news and other scoops from late March.
Happy Easter to all who celebrate! Let’s begin with some under-appreciated headlines you might have not heard about (it’s going to be a long article today):
First, our prayers to the people of Baltimore and their loved ones.
Pharmacists across the country, working for chains like CVS and Walgreens, are now pushing to unionize, continuing a long streak of unionization efforts and labor expansion all across this country since the start of the pandemic (and not coincidentally under Biden’s presidency).
Speaking of the pandemic, the FTC has noted in a recently published report a dramatic increase in consumer price gouging as supply chains clogged up, partly accounting for the staying power of inflation today (and even as interest rates will very likely decrease later this year).
A “red alert” has just been issued by the World Meteorological Organization over the impending threat of the climate crisis in the next several years-including now in 2024.
Sam Bankman-Fried has been sentenced to 25 years in prison for fraud at his crypto company FTX. More reason to call out the dark money in our elections right now-including in down ballot Democratic primaries.
Gun violence has soared to astounding records. As of a month ago, 5,000 people in the United States have died from gun violence and mass shootings. And we are only just getting into April this week.
In Alabama, a political earthquake that may indeed shape the course of the 2024 elections. A State House seat was picked up by a Democrat in a landslide this past week, after that same candidate lost in 2022 by 7 points. This was in a district Trump won by 1 point in 2020.
And here is the current state (see link) of the 2024 presidential contest according to key pollsters and strategists.
Here is a question for 2024: will reverse coattails down ballot propel Biden’s path to reelection? Feel free to add your thoughts on the blog.
Not much news these days on Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo. Rather surprising…
So let’s get into it.
Democrats have a messaging problem (far unlike Republicans). They can govern, but they struggle to brand their accomplishments well, as many party insiders themselves would admit. Marketing classes at Providence College might be a good starting point for improvement.
There is also a presence problem defining the recent erosion in non-white voter support over the past several years. Looming questions over the extent of Trump’s gains remain, but it hard to deny the mood of African American and Hispanic & Latino voters who feel the Democratic Party has taken them for granted; even to a party on the opposite side that demonizes minorities and immigrants. Biden’s advantage among African Americans has narrowed to 50 points, while Trump holds a slight advantage-2 points-with Latino voters (as well as young voters generally). Democrats have struggled greatly to regularly engage and fire up the party base up to this point. Part of the problem-as it was known back in 2020-was the lack of party outreach with base constituents until the closing months of election season (September, October, etc.).
On the other side, Democrats have allowed Republicans to chew up new voters the party has neglected in recent times-what we call as a whole Trump Country. While suburban voters have shifted in their direction, blue-collar working class voters of all races have realigned ever closer to the Republican Party since 2016. The Industrial Midwest and parts of the southern United States that had once been competitive just a few years back have consolidated into Republican territory. Rural America over the years has delivered crushing margins to Democratic presidential tickets and down ballot candidates in favor of Republicans. As of now, 0 rural advisors are employed at the DNC for the 2024 election cycle. The infrastructure for rural outreach is woefully inadequate in the contests that matter most-especially in the many closely contested races for control of the Senate and House.
What made Democrats so successful in 2006 and 2008 (50-statewide state party investments, continuous rural voter engagement, talk radio advertising, redistricting litigation, grassroots campaigning, intense party base enthusiasm, etc.) will be key to their hopes this year as well. Democrats need to reach out to Trump Country.
It explains why Republicans won 60-75% of the rural vote (and which comprises 20-40% of the total electorate) in states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, while urban turnout lagged in those same areas in 2020. Comes down to a few words: one being “Presence.”
Unlike Trump’s GOP, Democrats have a hidden advantage for 2024: the campaign issues themselves.
The choice for 2024 can be pretty simple to brand-for ensuring “Opportunity & Freedom.”
The contrasts between Trump’s lack of presidential accomplishments in his own right, vs. the success of Build Back Better agenda items and key Biden Administration priorities are as clear as day to tout on the campaign trail.
Even more significant are the different visions for a 2nd term to emphasize so succinctly, as it is here.
Unlike Hillary Clinton in 2016, President Joe Biden represents the starting point of a true return to a Democratic Party representative of its renewed commitment to build on the foundations of the New Deal & Great Society. A party committed to taking the next steps from where we left off with the Civil Rights Movement and its leaders like Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Dolores Huerta, and Cesar Chavez (whose son has come out firmly against RFK Jr. and endorsed Biden, after Kennedy suggested all of the civil rights leaders would support him if they were alive today). A party committed to economic fairness, financial opportunity, social equality, & political freedom in the mold of his most signature legislative accomplishments like the Inflation Reduction Act, the American Rescue Plan, and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Donald Trump, on the other hand, represents a continuation of the conservative status quo going back to Reaganomics and trickle-down; with more Trump Tax Cuts, corporate welfare, and Affordable Care Act repeal-and-replace schemes.
President Biden took American from the heights of the coronavirus pandemic and its economic recession to new heights of greater prosperity and success. He will continue to lead in that direction. Trump, on the other hand, took a good economy post-Great Recession into the gutter by the historically failed response to COVID-19. Just like his own businesses, and his presidency after January 6th.
President Biden and Congressional Democrats can take the opportunity to reinstitute the pandemic social safety nets that fueled the economic recovery before Republicans ended them (like the Child Tax Credit, Medicaid coverage, student loan borrowing, school meals, heating aid, housing protections, state & local government supports), and end the filibuster that has obstructed so many popular pieces of legislation (like voting rights, civil rights, LGBTQ equality, criminal justice reform, marijuana legalization, DACA protections, border security, etc.). Plus, he will go after the big issues of our time, like corporate greed, workers’ rights, fair trade, supply chain repairs, a broken healthcare system, the costs of higher education, lowering prices, housing affordability, and the impending climate crisis. That is opportunity for working families and the middle class.
A much better economic populist choice is at hand than Trump’s agenda for more budget cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Head Start, and Food Stamps, more tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires, more giveaways to large corporations and defense contractors, more corporate consolidation and deregulation for Big Business and Wall Street, more environmental degradation at the behest of the fossil fuel industry, and more privatization by Big Pharma and the charter school lobby. More of the failed War on Crime and War on Drugs. Trump champions more for the lazy and greedy, and less for the hardworking and needy. That is not opportunity for us where it matters most.
Beyond the Biden Democrat brand of economic populism, is the fight for freedom. The fight for freedom in a nation where guns outnumber people. In a nation where military weapons and high-capacity magazines are used on our city streets. In a nation where rape, incest, or the threat of a mother’s life is not enough of a reason to have an abortion. Where IVFs are limited for some unimaginable reason. Where suppressing minority voters and young voters is the solution to “stolen elections,” like the one in 2020. Where books can be canceled because Republican politicians “don’t like them.” Where immigrants are demonized as “poisoning the blood of our country.” And where Hitler and Putin are heroes, while Roosevelt and Obama are mortal villains.
These are not hyperboles. They are actually major policy contrasts for this coming election cycle. People in red states and blue states in our United States alike are confronted with these realities every day, like the steel worker in Pennsylvania, the impregnated Ohioan, the Hoosier abortion doctor, the librarians in Missouri, the public schools in Iowa, the residents of Highland Park, IL, the black activists in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the environmental advocates in Minnesota, the Florida college students, the North Carolina “Fair Maps” voices, and the Texas mother. Look at that State House race in Alabama. The people want their voices to be heard.
Is it not a coincidence that the GOP has fully embraced autocrats in the mold of Putin, while turning a blind eye to democracies like Ukraine?
And the last point is very clear cut. When Democrats seek to build on their bold agenda, or even find common ground, Republicans will be there to obstruct. Obstructionism is the motto of today’s Republican Party.
“Opportunity & Freedom” are the words that will singlehandedly define this upcoming election cycle. Will the Democrats embrace this crucial advantage, or will they let Republicans off the hook?
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