Politico has gathered the thoughts of ten “Democratic thinkers” to reflect on their party’s “pathway out of the wilderness.” They are Andrew Yang (2020 presidential candidate and math guy), Matthew Duss (former Bernie Sanders adviser), Sandra Peri (former Obama speechwriter), Faiz Shakir (former Bernie Sanders adviser), Ross Barkan (New York Times), Donna Brazile (former DNC chair), Chuck Rocha (former Bernie Sanders adviser), Will Stancil (Minneapolis-based civil rights attorney), Matt Bennett (Third Way), and Jeff Johnson (Vote to Live).
Here is a taste:
Yang:
…they should adopt one central mission: improving Americans’ standard of living. They should abandon policing cultural behaviors, especially since many of their stances aren’t even popular with Democrats in real life. They should also create solutions for men and boys — who are struggling — instead of engaging in identity politics that excludes at least half of the country.
Duss:
The first thing Democrats should do is find the consultant whose idea it was to campaign with Liz Cheney in Michigan, and put that person on an iceberg where they can’t do any more harm. This should then lead to a deeper rethink of a consistently failed strategy of reaching out to an imagined constituency of moderate Republicans at the expense of Democrats’ own base.
Peri:
Whatever the reasons — and we will hear all of them over the coming months — Democrats got our asses handed to us. It’s time to start from scratch. Maybe we begin by admitting that our party has been entirely directed by Donald Trump since he came down that golden escalator. The stale ideas the party has run on have been a laundry list reaction to his agenda. The ideologies, including identity, that Democrats have publicly, clumsily tested and adjudicated have been a response to his ideology, including racism. The electoral coalition Democrats assembled was an unwieldy assortment of groups barely held together by their shared opposition to Trump. Even the way we listen and respond to voters is refracted through Trump.
Shakir:
The Democratic Party must have as its first and foremost goal rebuilding its connection to America’s working class. People of all backgrounds who hold a job, make under $100,000 and don’t have a college degree are increasingly leaving the party. To get them back, which I think is possible, requires a few important reforms: 1) Recruit working-class candidates who reflect the pain and the understanding of people who live paycheck-to-paycheck. 2) Offer bolder economic ideas that can be implemented quickly, and which are prepared to take on corporate power with the aim of delivering people greater economic freedom in their daily lives. 3) As the party that believes in government, we have to be willing to more publicly decry corruption within government, inefficient bureaucracy and a desire to wield power to get things done for people who don’t have lobbyists representing them. Populism — an organic desire to connect with emotions and conditions of grassroots working-class people — must ignite the rebuild of the Democratic Party.
Read the entire piece here.