What I love about Substack and the community we're building together is the confidence you, as readers of my ramblings, have given me to write with the freedom and passion I have for the issues that are close to my heart. I have overcome the self-moderation I initially employed, which overcompensated for my Democratic credentials. I’ve now broken free from the shackles of toeing the line I had been so used to on X, for fear of being excommunicated from the golden circle. I now feel that I have been gifted the opportunity to be myself and write freely about what has grabbed my attention. As I mentioned at the outset of this journey, I’m not a professional writer or a journalist; I'm just an ordinary guy with a lot to say, who is a passionate lover of the written word.
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This is the first of a three-part series on understanding the fight ahead that Democrats face. It's better to break it down, methinks, into short segments to examine the history, the problems and the solutions.
It never ceases to amaze me how, as a species, we can derive pleasure from inflicting cruelty on others. It’s not just that, it’s the level of indifference that far too many exhibit in response to that cruelty. I worry deeply about the toxicity of social media, which, it seems to me, has in some ways become an incubator for mind control.
Politics is now totally dominated not by truth, but by feelings masquerading as truth. The classic ‘alternative facts’ line marked the beginning of a decline of faith in those entrusted with our safety and well-being. I joined this fight after Trump was elected for his first term because I could see where politics was going and not just in America. The US has always been a good barometer for what will be reflected in the broader democratic world downstream. I saw Trump as a threat to stable governance then, but never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that we would be where we are in this moment. I’m also disappointed that I was not aware of the global threat he presented.
Now I have had time to reflect, Trump is just an outward symptom of a cancer that has been eating away at social values for a long time. We have been the frog in the slowly boiling water, oblivious to the changes going on around us for decades. We humans are blessed with the gift of empathy and compassion, which enable us to create communities that work towards the common good. Diversity and inclusion are a strength. The belief that ‘together we are stronger’ is not a flaw; it’s something to be celebrated, yet here we are.
History is littered with men, and let’s be clear, they are men, who in the pursuit of wealth and power, abandon humanity at the palace gates. They claim innocence at not being the one who pulled the trigger, while those who pull it at their instruction, hide behind the excuse that they were ‘just following orders. ’ Trump is living proof that power corrupts in what for me is the most transactional presidency in US history. There is no action he has taken since taking back the keys to the White House that doesn’t financially benefit him personally. He has created a vehicle that allows foreign actors, along with those seeking to buy access and influence, to purchase pardons and have lawsuits disappear, thereby allowing them to operate outside the law. This enables those with money to operate in a separate America from those they seek to exploit.
This is a president who has created his own political Disney World, which sells fantasies to half the population, employing a cast of villains and political imagineers to hide the truth. In contrast, backstage, where real life happens, hard-working Americans are being sold into economic and social slavery.
The truth is, America is NOT the greatest nation on earth, if it ever was. When you have to keep saying it, you know there’s a problem because great nations don’t need self-reinforcement. Words are cheap, which is good for Trump, given he has to use 5 times as many of them as any normal person and still makes no sense to me. For decades, the US has lived under the shadow of racism and the marginalisation of minority groups. Before Trump, significant strides had been made to acknowledge past wrongs and move towards the principles of a more inclusive society.
The tragic truth is, however, white Christian fundamentalism that had inhabited its past, never went away; it simply sought refuge in the Republican Party, which locked it in the attic with misogyny, overt racism and homophobia, waiting for an opportunity to let it come out to play. Trump was the ‘daddy’ who unlocked the attic door and set it free as part of his strategy to segregate America again in his 2016 campaign. The Heritage Foundation recognised that the future battle for the soul of America would be fought on the battlefield of culture, and for that task, Trump was heaven-sent. The political partitioning of America was the new game in town, and tribalism was the shiny new political weapon.
What has surprised me about Democratic strategists is their unbelievable naivety in the face of a full-on culture war, which Trump launched on multiple fronts. Before we discuss this in detail, I want to remind everyone that in 2008, Barack Obama revolutionised political campaigning. He was the first presidential candidate to tap into the incredible power and potential of the internet and its ability to mobilise ‘people funding’. He demonstrated that you could win an election by making voters stakeholders in your vision for the future. It won the election for the Democrats, and that should have fired the starting pistol on a golden age of people-funded politics in America. So what happened?
I had to think long and hard about this question, because it made no sense to me why Democrats did not build on such a winning formula. What I believe to be the answer breaks my heart. America had just elected its first black president. Instead of choosing to build on public engagement, the Democratic Party did what every American political party has done for decades: it said to its real stakeholders, ‘We’ve had your vote, now go home and be quiet until we need your cash and your vote again’. Instead, they moved from serving ‘Those what put them there’ to the safe harbour of their corporate donors. This, my friends, in my humble opinion, is where they opened the door to where we find ourselves today.
What is a representative democracy? Might the secret be in the word ‘representation’? It really should be a no-brainer, and yet I return to one of my go-to video clips from six years ago to explain that it appears to have little to do with representation in America.
Clearly, it’s not a representation of the people. And therein lay the problem. When Americans vote, they are participating in an illusory game. Politicians under instruction from special interests have created the most expensive four-yearly political sham in history. The electoral model is simply incapable of delivering a genuinely representative government of the people, by the people, for the people.
From the Electoral College to the Senate filibuster, the system has devolved into a legislative process in which little to nothing can be achieved by those elected to serve the American people. Decisive electoral victories are non-existent because politicians have gerrymandered and engaged in voter suppression to the point where the only thing that can be guaranteed is that the margin of victory is no longer representative of the will of the people. Why do you think the Heritage Foundation hatched a plan to turn a marginal Republican victory into an authoritarian government? Because it’s the only way they could advance their agenda. The system is so broken that representative democracy may soon be consigned to the history books if the current administration gets its way.
This moment has been coming for decades, and the problem that Democrats face is that they are totally unprepared for the fight ahead. The reason they are unprepared is that far too many in their ranks are part of the problem, rather than the solution. I now receive emails from the DNC because I’m interested in what they have to say at this time. Here’s the offering from their last email:
‘…here at the DNC, we are committed to building the long-term infrastructure we’ll need to elect Democrats at every level of government — leaders who will check Trump’s power in their cities, districts, and states.
Millions of Americans across the country voted against Donald Trump and his disastrous agenda, and the DNC is committed to fighting back. Your support today means that we can continue organizing to stand up for Americans and stop Donald Trump’s agenda in its tracks.
It’s the old ‘Chip in’ proposition. Might I be so bold as to suggest that the opening paragraph should have read,
‘We want to take this opportunity to apologise to you as a Democrat supporter for having failed you in November. After much soul-searching, we believe we have learned from the mistakes made during the campaign and want to reassure you that we are laser-focused on regaining your trust. We believe that together we can rescue this great nation from the shackles of tyranny. We hope that despite failings of the past, you are with us.’
Call me old-fashioned, but if you don’t already have the long-term infrastructure you’ll need to elect Democrats at every level of government, what have you been doing with your time since November? It makes me so angry and gives me little faith that the DNC have any comprehension of what they are up against.
I said it during the last campaign, more of the same old same old does not cut it. Alas, I feel that’s precisely where we are heading because nobody is willing to listen to the truth, preferring instead to feed supporter’s hard earned cash to the same old Democrat Election Complex of tired ideas and no vision. It is the definition of insanity to continue doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different outcome. I’m truly sorry to be so brutal. It makes my blood boil. In the last campaign, Democrats spent over a billion dollars to lose the House, the Senate, the White House and the popular vote. At what point does someone say, ‘I think it’s time to try something different’
What sickens me about this whole debacle is that the current Democratic campaign model will be irrelevant. Assuming Trump allows elections to be held, which is not a given, Democrats will not win the election, although they WILL no doubt do a lap of honour; Trump will lose it. Voters will reject Trump rather than embrace the vision of Democrats, which to me appears to be Republican Lite. That is not a victory it’s a grudging acceptance that anything is better than a madman. What an endorsement (NOT).
Tomorrow, we’ll examine the challenges facing Democrats and how to make this fight an apolitical campaign.
Who are the Democrats from whence a vision could come? I have white hair and only vote for Democrats, but all that I do is vote. In Los Angeles, nobody asks me to think or what I think. What would any vision come from? I bet it comes from presidents like FDR.
But times to influence aren’t just every two years. If we wait even till the next Congressional election, we may be dead by then, and I hope there's interest in what to do now. Here’s the stab I made this week – Michael Moore hasn’t responded to my email and I’m on the hunt to get this to him.
Recruiting Michael Moore
The job is to change humanity's mind
https://suzannetaylor.substack.com/p/recruiting-michael-moore
here’s how we resist: