All Politics is Local - Editorial, The Week in Review

Analysis, Commentary, Opinion

07.28.2018

All Politics is Local

The next general election is about one hundred days away.

Already the cracks are appearing between so-called traditional democrats and the so-called progressive wing.

Remember, all politics is local. What sells in the Bronx, may not sell in Branson. What passive for common sense in Minnesota, is different than Idaho, Colorado, Arizona.

All politics is local, Tip O’Niel said, former speaker of the house, local races will be won or lost on the ground.

Political activists and part time enthusiasts must be mindful of the stakes. It is vital that we take control of congress this year.

We must, we absolutely must put the brakes on the Trump agenda, investigate him, and take control of government through the power of the purse.

We must, we absolutely must hold on to this power through 2020, and expand it, because that is when redistricting occurs.

And we must win the white house at the same time.

In the modern era, in the twenty-four hour news cycle, we have a tendency to nationalize everything, we have to resist this temptation.

The liberal idealism of the progressive wing cannot become the standard by which we measure good politics. Neither can resistance to it become. We cannot afford to be isolated from one another, alienated from one another.

The future of the Democratic party is Urban, Intellectual, and Muti-racial, we cannot lose sight of that, but we need more than that, right now we need a super majority, in congress and in state houses across the country. We need to win those seats and we need to hold them, for more than a cycle or two.

We need to cooperate with one another to do that, because this bird ain’t gonna’ fly with broken wings.

I am not suggesting that we return to the mistakes of the past, where we pander to white working class men; un-educated, anti-intellectual, rural poor. That demographic is lost to the Democratic Party, and we do not want them back.

We want a super-majority in congress, to get that we must be respectful of one another, and be ready to compromise.

We have to be willing to argue for our ideals, without insisting on them. In the democratic caucus we have to practice the art of persuasion, not coercion, and we cannot be derisive of those who do not mark each and every box on the ideological checklist as we do.