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Dear Friends, 

On this solemn day NDN applauds President Biden’s powerful, compelling speech from this morning, and the ongoing, vital work of the January 6^th Commission. NDN has argued for some time that the task of defending our democracy had to move from the periphery of center-left politics to its very core.  As the heirs to FDR and his Four Freedoms, the responsibility for defending democracy, America’s great contribution to the world, is something that lives powerfully in the muscle memory of our politics.  It is time for it to become central to who we are, again, for defending democracy here and around the world may very well be the most important work of today’s center-left’s in the coming years.    

In that spirit, we send along a memo (below, here) NDN originally released in the spring of 2021. It talks about why the center-left must make defending democracy core to it mission once again, in essence turning it into something the political class here in DC would consider “a kitchen table” issue.  After today’s speech by President Biden, it is clear that this is where the American center-left is now heading this year, thankfully. 

Onward, Simon

Learning To Talk about Democracy, Patriotism and the GOP’s Radicalization

By Simon Rosenberg

As I learned during my stint with the DCCC from 2016 to 2018, Democratic pollsters have felt very strongly that Democrats needed to steer away from conversations about Trump’s manifest illiberalism, and keep 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 for Democrats to elevate the threat the GOP poses to our democracy into one of those kitchen table issues.  It is not just the right and necessary 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 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 COVID to climate to guns to health care many of the GOP’s ideas are just as radical and out of the mainstream as 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 is possible that creating more pain around their radicalization 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 where are just more Republicans and Republican leaners they have to talk to. 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.  

More - Greg Sargent cites this memo in a new Washington Post column.

 

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