Advice to the Democratic Party
Tip O’Neill, Speaker of the House from back in the 1970s and 1980s, famously said that “all politics are local.” Today’s Democratic Party would do well to heed those words.
Tip O'Neill confiding in Ronald Reagan
Their
2016 Presidential candidate got more votes nationally than President-Elect
Trump, but this mattered little. This
“nationwide” performance didn’t equate to victories in the House races nor in
the Electoral College. Despite the national Presidential vote numbers, there’s
going to be a Republican in the White House and a Republican majority in the
House of Representatives for years to come, for better, or more likely, for
worse. (Actually, the Democrats got about 48% of the total Congressional
vote, but ended up, due to gerrymandering, with only about 44% of the House
seats.) It’s hard to call Trump and that
Congressional majority, “Republican,” though.
Trump is something else, and the Republicans in the House and Senate
ain’t your father’s Reagan Republicans nor your grandfather’s “Ike” Republicans
either. They didn’t have folks like
Steve Bannon in leadership roles. So
what are the Democrats supposed to do about it?
All politics are local. All
politics are local. All politics are
local. Get
it? One more time: All politics are local.
The Democratic Party must concentrate over the next dozen years
on increasing their representation in State Legislatures, ultimately gaining
control of those in States where there actually is, or is close to, a Democratic
majority. In too many States the ratio
of Republican to Democratic seats in the State legislature is far out of kilter
with the ratio of Republicans to Democrats in the State.
This
is important for Democratic supported legislation as well as for Congressional and
state legislative reapportionment, where gerrymandering does its undemocratic
job.
The same goes for governorships. There is no reason why States with Democratic
majorities continue to elect Republican Governors, and Senators for that matter,
other than the dominance of Republican state legislators, and their local influence
on voters, far out of proportion with their Party’s comparative numbers.
Once
this is accomplished, and there is greater party parity in State legislatures
more representative of the electorate, but not until then, new national
Democratic leaders will arise from the Democratic Party. Today, it is an amalgam of various “identity
groups” (Latinos, Blacks, women, gays, lesbians, consumer protection advocates,
gun control advocates, environmental protectionists, union members, academics, climate
change believers, urban dwellers, etc.) which together might be “stronger,” but
incapable of recognizing O’Neill’s logic that all politics is local, because
these concerns are not local issues. It starts with electing people to State Legislatures, not
with advocating one’s own agenda.
That’s where the energy and money should be spent. In State legislative races! Congress, the White House, the Senate and the
Supreme Court will eventually follow.
Florida State House in Tallahassee
As a start, Democratic strategists should target State legislative
districts throughout the country which Republicans have won by five or less
points and concentrate on turning them Democratic. This should be done on a national basis
over the next decade, year after year. That is the way to win.
I understand this. Now
let’s see if the “professionals” do. I doubt it.
Jack Lippman
Fake News
One of the newer expressions to have come into use lately is “fake
news.” Some of it is merely uncorroborated
information which has a vague connection to an actual event and some of it is
no more than fiction. Such fake news
often appears on the internet or to a lesser extent on television where
journalists are not so fastidious about “facts” as are traditional “print”
journalists. (In producing this blog, I
do make an effort to make sure the incidents I mention have some backing in
research, even if that may be no more than googling a few reliable sites to
attempt to back up the veracity of what I am including.)
Usually “fake news” is passed on to justify one’s point of view. But then it is repeated by someone else, and
passed on again. Fiction, repeated in
that manner, dons an undeserved garment of truth. Remember the news stories about how Planned
Parenthood cut up aborted fetuses to sell their parts? This bit of disproven “fake news” was taken
by millions to be the truth … and still is.
There have been many sources of “fake news” during the recent election,
much of it believed by millions, many of whom should have known better.
In his 1995 autobiography “A Good Life,” journalist and editor Ben
Bradlee explains
“what newspapers do: they learn, they
report, they verify, they write, and they publish.” Unless the news you are getting from newspapers,
magazines, from TV and via the internet has gone through all of these five steps, the possibility of it
being “fake news” exists. Be careful.
But here is an example of “fake news.”
I know it is “fake” because I made it
up five minutes ago. The event it starts with,
however, was real! Can you tell where
the fiction starts? Articles like this,
picked off of the internet by both domestic and overseas media and reprinted by
still other media, end up with truth and fiction combined into a new genre,
‘fake news.” Who know, someone may think
that all the following actually happened, or perhaps want you to think
that.
Miami
(Gobbledegook News Service): When news
of Fidel Castro’s death on November 25 reached the Cuban immigrant community in
Miami’s “Little Havana,” festive crowds gathered on Calle Ocho in front of the
Versailles Restaurant, site of many anti-Castro rallies. Though it was still before dawn, Cuban
immigrants and their American children and grandchildren poured onto the
streets, dancing and singing and banging on kitchen pans with broomsticks and
pot covers.
“The
dictator is dead,” was vigorously shouted out by many, but some, more
politically acute, paired Fidel Castro’s demise with the rise of Donald
Trump. Many in Little Havana had voted
for Trump as a protest against Barack Obama’s attempts to improve economic
relations between the United States and Cuba while the island nation still remained an undemocratic communist dictatorship. A barbershop
window, just off Calle Ocho (Eighth Street), was smashed because there was a large
poster picturing Obama behind the storefront's glass. Shaving cream taken from the shop was spread
on the walls, spelling out the President-elect’s name, T-R-U-M-P.
Two blocks west of the Versailles, a closed up
“Hillary Clinton Headquarters” also had its windows smashed, and left-over
campaign literature used to fuel a bonfire.
When arriving on the scene, Miami-Dade fire personnel and police let the
fire burn itself out rather than take issue with the festive residents of the
neighborhood. When a Telemundo reporter
attempted to interview a celebrator who was shouting, “Viva Trump, Muerte a
Obama, Viva Trump” through a bullhorn across from the Versailles, police
shepherded her away, ostensibly to avoid arousing the enmity of the crowd.
Demonstrations in front of the Versailles in Miami are common
Believable?
JL
Thanksgiving Thoughts
One of the nice things about
living in the Boynton Beach area is its proximity to Delray Beach, which
besides having a great galaxy of upscale shops, bars and restaurants on
Atlantic Avenue, is an “artsy” kind of place.
Each year there are about a half dozen outdoor arts and crafts street
fairs there, and for the past decade or two, we’ve been strolling through their
rows of curbside tents, even stopping occasionally to make a purchase. But this year, for the first time, it was
‘different” when we visited the Thanksgiving weekend street festival there.
Up to now, we have always managed
to spot a few other strollers we recognized as living in either of our
communities, which are basically populated by retirees. But this year, we saw nary a one. Not a single one. Was the walking too much for them? Was the sun too hot for them? Certainly, there were plenty of people there,
but on closer inspection, they were mostly younger than we were! Actually, they were just about the age we
were when we first took to strolling through the arts and crafts street fairs
in Delray Beach, a few short years ago.
And the next afternoon, we drove
halfway to have lunch with some relatives from Miami. We met in Deerfield Beach for lunch at the
Whale’s Rib, which is about as close to a California raw bar as you can get
here in Florida. (I love their Bloody
Mary with a giant shrimp perched on top.)
Then we walked up to the beach and the fishing pier, and do you know
what? We didn’t see anyone we knew there
either. And most of them were younger
than we were, so young. But it was all
warm and good, and come to think of it, it was in Delray at the street fair
too.
JL
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