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Learning To Talk about Democracy, Patriotism and the GOP’s Radicalization - As I learned during my stint with the DCCC in 2017-2018, Democratic pollsters have felt very strongly that Democrats needed to steer away from conversations about Trump’s manifest illiberalism, and stay focused on “kitchen table” issues like the economy, health care, defeating COVID. It’s hard to argue with this rationale, as Democrats have in the last few years won the Presidency and retaken the House and Senate.

But with Trump’s illiberalism now becoming the politics Republicans have chosen even after their significant electoral losses in recent cycles, it is time Democrats elevate up the threat the GOP poses to our democracy into a kitchen table issue. It is not just the right the thing to do, but a new paper from Stanford suggests there is significant electoral opportunity here for Democrats too. In this study weak Republicans and independents were able to be pushed away from the GOP brand when exposed to a better understanding of the GOP’s ongoing attacks on our democracy.

Many believed that the best way to confront the growing radicalization of the GOP was to defeat Trump and knock the GOP from power. That strategy, however, has proven to be insufficient. It is my belief that we must now take on the illiberalism of MAGA head on, and not just defeat the party and its candidates but the argument itself. Leaning into the radicalization of the GOP can bring several other benefits for Democrats:

1) It creates an opening to explain how radical the rest the GOP agenda has become– from the economy to guns to health care the GOP’s ideas are just as destructive as their those about our democracy

2) It creates an opportunity for Democrats to find a language grounded in patriotism and love of country, understanding that patriotism is a powerful, benevolent and perhaps necessary antidote to nationalism

3) It’s possible that creating more pain around this positioning may be required to get the GOP to start taking an off ramp from MAGA – which has to be one of our goals now.

There has to become a party wide effort to find the language and arguments required to make the dangers of the GOP’s current path understandable, salient. This will be particularly true for Democrats in swing states and districts whose language is often far less partisan than the party as a whole. It is time, my fellow members of the great American center-left, to take on this battle, and recognize that defeating autocracy, perhaps the most intrinsically America project, begins this time here at home – and failure is not an option.

Events – Our growing video library now has our recent discussions with thought leaders and innovators on a wide variety of topics –from the GOP’s war on voting with Ari Berman to a new approach to privacy here in the US with Rep. Suzan DelBene, Chair of the New Democrat Coalition to an extended discussion about gains Democrats have made in the Southwest w/Rep. Ruben Gallego. Do check them out– together it is a strong collection of helpful and timely material.

34m vs 2m – In a new analysis NDN writes about what should be among the most commonly known stats in US politics - 34 million and 2 million. 34 million is the number of jobs created in 16 years of Clinton and Obama. 2 million is the number of jobs created in 16 years of the 2 Bushes and Trump. These two numbers speak to the relative contributions of the two parties to the life of the nation during this time, and are also deeply relevant to the ongoing economic debate the American Jobs Plan has kicked off. This analysis draws from our With Democrats presentation, and is referenced in this excellent Mike Tomasky Daily Beast article about this work.

The Global Battle to Defeat COVID, Vaccinate the World– A few weeks ago NDN hosted a terrific discussion with Jessica Brandt of the Alliance for Securing Democracy about one of the most consequential battles of the early Biden era – the fight between the US/West and Russia and China to be the ones who bring an end to COVID and help the world build back better. This discussion is well worth watching as Jessica and her team has done terrific work in this space.

From NDN, see our big picture analysis which argues that the coming years will be similar to the years coming out of WWII, and an historic opportunity for the US to revitalize the global liberal project we launched successfully then; and our new call for the Biden Administration to launch a plan to defeat COVID in the Americas. We are encouraged by the steps the Administration has taken to help India counter its terrifying COVID surge. We hope an approach like this can be rolled our far more broadly across the world in coming weeks, recognizing that the Biden Administration’s unfortunate decision to potentially negotiate away IP protections for vaccine patent holders will do very little to address the global challenges of COVID in the next few months or even years.

Less Hysteria, More Solutions on the Border, Migration Please– In a recent oped NDN lays out four areas where Republican leaders, obviously so concerned about the migration challenges we face, can work with the Biden Administration:

1) support funding for additional housing for unaccompanied minors

2) fast track all Biden appointees working on border and migration issues

3) launch a comprehensive plan to defeat COVID in the Americas as a first step towards developing a broader regional plan to address ongoing economic and security challenges

4) pass a long overdue modernization of our immigration system, something which has been blocked by right wing extremists for 16 years now.

Recognizing Huge Dem Gains in the Southwest, Border Region– We’ve been a bit surprised that in the many articles about what happened with the Hispanic vote in 2020, more attention hasn’t been given to the acceleration of the movement of a big region of the country – the Southwest and border states – away from the GOP. Since immigration restrictionists prevailed in the internal battle in the GOP, Democrats have gained

31 Electoral College Votes (AZ, CO, NM, NV)

6 Senate Seats, 14 House Seats (no Dem Congressional majority w/o these gains)

4 Governorships

Since Trump was elected, Democrats have picked up Senate seats in AZ (2), CO and NV and flipped Arizona in the Presidential. The gains Dems have made in this region is perhaps the biggest geographic story in US politics in recent years, and far outweigh any minor improvements Trump may have had with Latino voters in 2020.

NDN in the News – In the Hill Simon weighed in that Democrats should not be scared of raising taxes on corporations and wealthy Americans as part of their economic plan this year. In a NY Times piece Simon argued that Joe Manchin would work more cooperatively with the Democrats as defeating COVID and restarting the economy got Biden’s numbers up even higher. In this Washington Post piece Simon talked about just how remarkably and potentially historically wrong the GOP has been on the big issues which matter most to voters this year. And be sure to review good coverage of NDN’s recent discussions with New Dem leaders Rep. Suzan DelBene (here) and Rep. Scott Peters (here).

Sincerely,

Simon Rosenberg

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