Midterm Migraines for the Democrats

CriticalThought said:

Tough. There is not a uniting policy position in the left wing like the Nationalist sentiment that Trump exploited in the GOP base. A good 8 years of Obama has created complacency in that coalition. You would need to find something that inspires passion in both the Bernie Sanders Democrat and the pro Globalism Democrat. Some Sanders voters even jumped tickets and voted for Trump. The few areas they have solid agreement also threaten to drive right wingers to the ballots.

I think what few have caught on to with these special elections is a winning strategy on policy. The national Democrats are, for the most part, staying the hell out of it. They are letting candidates run at the local level on local issues. The GOP are the ones trying to drag them into the national arena. I think the national Democrats may do best staying behind the scenes.

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I'm about certain that 8 years of Obama were actually instrumental in helping create the divides in that coalition when the hope and change Obama promised were oversold and underdelivered. It's not so much a matter of complacency as that the FDR/Bernie faction finally came to the realization that third way/pro-corporate Democrats simply will not throw them any kind of bone, or meaningful compromise on policy, especially during those two years when Dems controlled every chamber of government, and they shamefully couldn't manage to pass any kind of truly ambitious reform or policy; this sort of betrayal is exactly why Bernie ran in the primaries and had such explosive and abrupt support despite being until 2016 a literal no one outside of a tiny number of political enthusiasts.

That having been said, while I think common ground is likely impossible to find on keystone progressive ideas with respect to healthcare (Singlepayer vs tweaks to Obamacare for instance though establishment/third way types like Kamala Harris and Cory Booker are increasingly embracing the former) or education (free state college), on other issues that a majority or supermajority of the general population support, there is plenty of common ground to be found among all Democrats: common sense gun control, medicare/medicaid and social security protection and expansion, environmental protections, net neutrality, more support for education, increased spending on science/research, financial sector regulations, campaign/electoral finance reform, repeal of the Trump tax cuts, higher taxes on the wealthy, and reduction in military spending to pay for public services, and so on.

I agree that you have to tailor and play to your specific riding as a representative of local interests, but the party also needs a clear and explicit overall direction with local level politics being their own variation on the theme, because being seen as nothing but anti-Trump is absolutely not doing us any favours. This is especially true when there's so much that can be championed in the way of policy that's safe and popular with just about everyone, and can only enhance the Democratic brand; it's simply leaving money on the table.