It's the philosophy, stupid!

How to neuter the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy (currently wearing a MAGA hat).

How to neuter the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy

It is the philosophy, not the method.

Consider this simple relationship:

Philosophy —> Strategy —> Tactics

Before the philosophers in the forum go all Socretean, let me define what I mean here when I say “philosophy.” I mean it in the vernacular sense, as a world view. Strategy and tactics are how you do things, with strategy being long term planning and tactics being the tools of the moment, the specific moves you make today or this week. Thinkin' leads to plan which sets the moves. That should be clear.

In the last election, it is said that the Democratic party lost people of color, especially younger men in African American and Hispanic/Latinx communities. It is said the Democrats lost more younger folks than they gained. This plus the usual old white guy bias towards Republicanism lost the election. It is said that the parts of the constituency that failed us did so because we had failed them. We were too transactional, too election-cycle focused, too tactical.

That is true. However, calls for the Democratic Party to abandoned the tactics of the past and do things differently may be misguided. For one thing, even though we lost we did not lose by that much, and we won the parts we won using the old tactics. Every single incumbency across the planet that was put the the test in 2024 lost, regardless of political orientation or the tactics they used to stay in power.

(I’ll quickly add, and I’ll get back to this later, that when I say “tactics” I don’t mean the way we use media to get out our message. That is pretty much borked and we have to change. By “tactics” I many mean most of the details of how we run elections.)

If you paint your house purple and a tornado takes it down, it may not have been the color of the paint that did your house in. Notice that the tornado also took down your neighbor’s house too, and that one was not painted purple. So maybe lay off on the belief that changing tactics somehow will lead to a win. Maybe, instead, build a stronger house.

We are living in 50-50 political world, so small tactical wins or losses, as well as minor random fluctuations that we can’t control, determine if we as a society embrace in the short term democracy, or if we abandon democracy as the electorate of 2024 apparently chose to do. This could go back and forth for a few election cycles, but that is very dangerous. If we embrace democracy one year by a few percentage points, we can still abandon it the next cycle. If, on the other hand, we abandon democracy a couple of times in a row, there may not be a subsequent election cycle, and that’s it. Done. Preserving democracy in an evenly divided society is not where we want to be.

We need to make this a 70-30 world, or even an 85-15 world, where democracy, fair debate, honest deal making and compromise, and an essential wide spread love of the country and distrust of wealth and power is normal, common, and the opposite is given a very very stern look on a good day. We know this is possible because we’ve been there. And we have to assume, for sanity’s sake, that we can get back there again. We haven’t fully fallen off this 50-50 tightrope and into the abyss. Probably.

How do we get where we need to be? I propose we consider a shift in how we link our world view (philosophy) to our actions. This is not really a shift, but rather, a set of parallel shifts. There are no new idea here. If there is anything new with what I’m saying it is positioning certain ideas at the philosophy end of the model I presented above, instead of the tactical end.

Tactically we could take on a specific issue that seems curent, like immigration and human rights, or voting rights and democracy, or family values and paid leave, or health insurance reform. If you are a savvy political thinker, and if you are reading this substack I assume you are, you’ll be shaking your head and saying, “No, no, it’s the economy stupid! When we veer off into these other issue areas, we may gain a little in the polls temporarily, but it always comes down to the pocketbook in the end, and the end is in early November every even year.”

And if you are thinking that, then you’d be right, most of the time. Dems do win on these other issues now and then, and when we chalk up the rare win in a red zone, that is often what happens, like the young Democratic candidate in the Carolinas who won in a red Congressional district over the issue of potholes. But normally, the perennially salient issue of prices, crime, and national security tend to shape electoral outcomes, even when all else is not equal.

So in the tactical area, stick with messaging over these key issues, and adjust properly.

But our philosophy should not come from these policy arenas; when it does, we are bankrupt. When our philosophy is based on zero-sum free market capitalism, we develop a scarcity mindset, which is always, always, always racist and classist. Our philosophy should recognize abundance, demand equity and balance in economic systems, and presume the importance of equal protection and opportunity. The job of Democratic politicians and operatives, and their allies in the progressive world, is to turn those philosophies into workable tactics. There is a way to frame all of these progressive issues in terms of economy, personal security, and care of our nation as a whole. Not only is that possible, but it is relatively easy.

The Green New Deal is a great example of this kind of philosophy. It is intersectional, equity-based, and environmentally progressive. A tactic that could come out of it, if we let it (and push it relentlessly instead of only now and then) is the green-blue alliance, where union workers build the new electric economy. A tactic that could come out of it is energy security, which everyone loves but many mistaking think can only be done with “drill baby drill.” Imagine the starting point of a round of trade negotiations where the US is the world’s leader in the production of new clean energy technology.

This is an example of a fundamental progressive philosophy driving strategy and tactics. The strategy should focus on developing a long term messaging environment (not a message, but the mechanism) and the tactic should include dynamically shaping the message that comes from the philosophy of humanism, class power, equity, empathy, and fairness, cooked up in that strategic approach, and smartly delivered to the eyes and ears of the voters through whatever mechanism to which they chose to attach their eyes and ears.

There is a lot of hope. Trump is being beaten again and again in the courts. The part of the electorate that put Trump in office is shown in current polls to be walking away from him. It is probably true that if we could somehow redo the election next week, Trump would lose.

That’s all nice, but not good enough.