My Advice To Democrats

6/29/18

My advice to Democrats:

https://www.washingtonpost.com

This article is ok insofar as it tells Ds to stop going ballistic, to stop trying to outTrump Trump and to stop, if at all possible, its swing to the further left, in a word or a few, to stop making it plausible to characterize Waters as the face of their party. 

Where it drowns is in the innocuousness of the bland, bite sized inconsequential tactics it advises—like protesting who gets on to cable news shows.

The strategy has to be in substance. It has to lie in principled, moderate D politicians taking principled positions rooted in traditional D philosophy, itself, broadly, a marriage between government involvement—a kind of modulated or soft statism—especially in the provision of a reasonable safety net on one hand and a commitment to American creedal values. 

That then involves criticizing Trump’s policies from those positions, arguing for their bad consequences and, too, giving credit to them where credit is due. Some Clinton B style triangulating wouldn’t be so terrible. That’s on the domestic side. 

On the foreign policy side, which requires more pragmatism, the Ds need to throw off the amateurism of Obamaism. They need to call things as they are. And they need to be seen as living up to their words and to their line drawing, setting up a broad policy framework that balances in each situation sui generis interest based real politick and a commitment to American values and ideals. 

This is all of course too general but people who know what they are doing can fill in specifics. 

My basic point though is that principled substance both in criticism and in putting forward an agenda by candidates capable of both is the only way to beat Trump.