Occam's Razor

Are you a Bernie bro? Or just a Bernie supporter? Do you go gaga when Liz Warren comes up with new policy solutions? Does Kirsten Gillibrand’s blonde hair make you swoon? Can you identify with Kamala Harris’ multihued skin and mixture of black and Hispanic heritage? Do you feel a magnetically drawn to Beto O’Rourke but don’t really understand why? Does Pete Buttigieg’s candidacy flag your interest despite your inability to pronounce his last name properly?

There is no lack of Democratic presidential candidates out there, even though the first votes for the nomination are more than ten months away. It’s natural for us Democrats to project our hopes onto a candidate. I just want to posit that exactly who Democrats nominate won’t matter too much. Any of them will be more than acceptable, so let’s stop obsessing over their personalities and positions. Instead, if you care, place your energy behind movements, and not a particular candidate.

In electing Trump, Americans bought into the fallacious idea that one person can fix what’s wrong in America. Trump was going to be our strongman. Using bullying he perfected over seventy years; he was going to set America back on the right course. Of course, just the opposite happened. But even if you bought into his nihilistic vision of Make America White Again, he’s failing miserably at it even using his own benchmarks. Trump can’t save America. None of the Democratic presidential contenders can either. No one person can. We save American by caring enough about it to give it the time, attention and resources it requires.

We save America by taking back our government. So let’s talk about how to do that, noting that in 2018 we made great progress by gaining control of the House in a huge wave election. It’s not like we don’t have a whole lot of things that need immediate fixes. Otherwise, come January 20, 2021, most likely there will be only another long, dispiriting slog ahead of us trying to make change. No bully president or bully pulpit can make change. Only we can.

Nationally though there is plenty of work ahead of us. Here are some things we can do:

• The Electoral College has got to go. The only official way to get rid of it is through constitutional amendment. The unofficial way is for enough states to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. We need states representing 270 electoral votes to join in. States that join it will pledge their electoral votes to the candidate that wins the national popular vote. We have 181 electoral votes representing 11 states plus D.C. right now. This legislation is pending in fifteen states, consisting of 158 electoral votes. Considering the Electoral College brought us George W. Bush and the Iraq War, not to mention Donald Trump, it’s an effort worth your time and support. We need 89 more electoral votes. Check the map and see if your state is considering it and if so get involved. Just take a few minutes to write your state senators and legislators and urge them to vote for the bill. And if you can, join with neighbors to do it as a focused group.
• Similarly, we need districts that aren’t gerrymandered to give disproportionate power to incumbents. I give money to the National Democratic Redistricting Committee. In theory even a Republican who believes in this should support this effort. The committee is not trying to stack the odds to favor Democrats. They want districts that are drawn in a nonpartisan manner. Given them some money and time.
• Elect Democrats to the Senate. Democrats need just 4 net seats to turn the Senate blue in 2020. It is doable since Republicans have to defend twice as many seats as Democrats in 2020. The Arizona seat is open and Arizona is trending blue. Easiest seats to flip are Maine (Collins), North Carolina (Tillis) and Iowa (Ernst). Holding onto Alabama (Jones) will be tough. It can be done, particularly in a wave election, but it requires good candidates, support from people like you and high voter turnout.
• End the filibuster. The filibuster rules in the Senate are largely dead anyhow, but what remains keep most legislation from even being considered if it doesn’t get a sixty vote threshold. The exception is narrow legislation that meet budget reconciliation rules and many court vacancies. To wield a majority to affect real change, what’s left of it has to go. Vote for senators who pledge to end it. Otherwise initiatives like addressing climate change and voting rights are likely to die there regardless of who is president and how big our majorities are in the House.
• Vote for change. Unless incumbents have a strong record for voting for the change you want to see, vote them out and vote for someone who will. This is true for state and city offices as well as for national offices. The one exception: do not vote for a third-party candidate for president. All you do is shoot yourself in the foot, as these voters proved again in 2016.