Democrats are going to lose big on 8 November. In Congress, they are going to lose both the House and the Senate. In the states, they are going to lose many important races for governor, attorney general, and secretary of state to Republican radicals who will fix elections, attack LGBTQ citizens, and adopt Christian nation policies which include the usual antisemitism—all the policies and practices of fascist regimes.
Democrats have earned their losses. They have joined Republicans in waging culture wars about abortion and other sex- and gender-related issues and ignored bread-and-butter issues on the economy, inflation, crime, and immigration. Pro-choice, pro-same-sex-marriage, pro-contraception, and pro inter-racial-marriage positions are moral ones. So, too, are the economy, inflation, public safety, and controlled borders. The first three of these four issues directly affect everyone.
Once a Yaller Dog Democrat—a Democrat who would sooner vote for a yellow dog than a Republican—and now an Independent, I know that Republicans come by their gains dishonestly in many ways: fixing elections (talk about stolen elections, do they?), lying to voters, and misrepresenting their and their opponents qualifications and record. Republicans are just more dishonest more often and skillfully than Democrats. They proclaim cutting taxes and regulations to distract from pushing cuts to Social Security and Medicare. Thanks to ineffectual Democrats, Republicans do come by their gains.
The fatal flaw for Democrats is their strategy of making separate political appeals to separate constituencies or identity groups in misunderstood emulation of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s strategy. Roosevelt forged a coalition of disparate groups, not by making separate appeals to each of them—today’s example, targeting suburban woman on abortion—, but by uniting groups by identifying a common enemy, say, the Wall-Street-rich Republicans, attacking them, and drafting legislation addressing the needs of Americans regardless of race, religion, gender, national origin, etc. Today’s Democrats try to create a winning coalition by parceling out promises to special-interest groups. One result: no compelling narrative and unifying agenda with broad appeal to a majority of Americans. Another: difficulty passing popular legislation despite strong public support because of a reluctance to engage in power politics to get things done.
In New Mexico, this special-interest-group strategy can win elections at great cost and no benefit to public education, the state’s long-term and most egregious failure. The paramount special-interest group is, of course, teachers. In a Democrat-leaning but socially conservative state, Democrats cannot win without the support of teachers, who are not about to support Democrats if they do not support them. So, although Democrats talk about the problems in public education—their nature, size, and urgency—, no Democrat mentions teachers except to praise them and raise their salaries.
Even Think New Mexico’s “A Roadmap for Rethinking Public Education in New Mexico” only occasionally mentions “teacher quality.” It offers two sections about teacher training, not teacher quality, a phrase never defined. The reason for reluctance to define and discuss teacher quality: no Democratic legislator will risk chances of re-election by voting for real reforms to effect teacher quality.
A case in point is William Soules, a teacher himself, who has chaired the Senate Education Committee for 9 years. Many bills enacted into law have come from his committee, but none addresses teacher quality. The big-ticket items are very costly in terms of hiring more teachers and paying them more money. Early Childhood Education is one such program which has yet to demonstrate long-term benefits—a big gamble. Large, across-the-board increases get nothing in return—not better teaching—for more money. The deal is a different one: teachers get jobs (and enlarge the constituency and political power of teachers) and salary increases from Soules, who thus buys and gets their votes with taxpayer funds, and public education improves not one whit. He has worked this gambit to teachers’ and his benefits yet has failed to achieve one iota of improvement in student academic performance during his incumbency. No one can believe that this deal and similar deals show government working to solve problems, only that it perpetuates legislators in office at taxpayer expense.
This instance of a problem unsolved and exploited for political self-interest at the state level is repeated throughout the country. By misdirecting or mismanaging money thrown at problems, Democrats fail to solve them. If they could make government work in a cost-effective manner, Democrats could, either or both, improve services or reduce taxes. So education is one problem; the U.S. spends almost twice as much per capita as other countries do but ranks in the lower half of those with advanced economies. Health care is another; the U.S. spends enormous amounts of money on it but has one of the worst health-care delivery systems of countries with advanced economies. Economic policy failures: persistent and progressively worse income inequality and tax inequity. Disparities between the haves and the have-nots are as great as and may be greater than they have been. Yet few Democrats address the problems in education, health care, and economic disparities and inequities with solutions which work and do so cost-effectively.
At best, Republicans seek to pay for lower taxes on the rich by reduced spending on social welfare programs most needed by everyone else. That approach buys autocracy or oligarchy. At least Democrats try, however feebly and ineffectually, to benefit all Americans by defending the country, keeping it united and stable, ensuring the rule of law fairly for all citizens, and protecting their freedoms—my modernized re-phrasings of the Preamble to the Constitution. I see the Republicans making no such efforts. For this reason and despite expecting a loss in these causes in 2022, I shall cast a straight ticket for Democrats and hope for results and wins another day by a sadder but wiser party.
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