Creating a New Paradigm for the Democratic Party

Change is hard, but irrelevance is worse

As I wrote in my discussion of what happened, we Democrats need to come up with a new paradigm. Otherwise, we’ll be left working to tweak the details of the Republicans new system they’re busily working to make the baseline political philosophy of the country.

We can, and should, stay true to our ideology of helping everyone and treating everyone equally. Being open and supportive to all. But what that means - we need to radically change.

The following are my thoughts, at the moment of what we need to do. And for each, then some specifics. And this will be fought by many because most of the activists in the party are very comfortable with our present philosophy. Fundamental change is hard.

And most (all?) of this spans the gamut from City Council to the Federal Government. A paradigm is not just a specific office like the presidency, it is what we do throughout the government.

Administer Effectively

Democrats used to be the party that ran effective governments. No more. Now we’re often stuck evaluating and reviewing and never accomplishing anything. This needs to change so that are measure is “what are our specific goals” and “how do we accomplish them faster”. Some specifics:

• Restrictions on homebuilding have reduced the number of units, increased the cost of existing and new housing, and forced substantial numbers of people to move elsewhere so they can afford a home.

• Eliminate NEPA and other regulations that have made building everything a years long expensive challenge. If climate change is an existential crisis (it is), then it is stupid to require 7 years of review to build new transmission lines.

  • Imagine if they had broken ground on 90% of the CHIPS and IRA funding 2 years ago. And Biden/Harris could point at all that had been built, and the jobs created, during the election.

• Homelessness has taken over many of our public spaces. People avoid parks, public transit, etc. because of the spread of homeless in those areas. The government needs to reclaim those places for everyone.

  • Reducing restrictions on homebuilding (item 1 above) helps address this.

• Petty crime, especially shoplifting, degrades our common spaces. Shopping in a store with the shelves locked is uncomfortable. We need laws and enforcement that radically reduces this.

• Provide additional and training and certification for the police. We can improve the level of policing, make the police themselves feel more valued and appreciated, and reduce instances of bad policing. It requires resources & money.

Stop Lecturing

You suck - listen as I tell you how to be a good person, like me. Does that work? No. We’re all imperfect but we also all like to think we’re basically good people and rightfully so. We need to stop being a scold.

• Drop DEI. At best it accomplishes nothing and often it exacerbates the problem. It turns people away - big time. We need to loudly drop this - as unnecessary. Say that we see people treat each other with respect & dignity. And that we can’t eliminate assholes via legislation.

• Leave trans issues to the communities and organizations it impacts. Let each sport decide what a trans athlete competes as. Let each community decide how to handle public bathroom access. Top down is a horrible way to figure out what works best for this. And it pisses people off.

  • Instantly having equal rights for everyone would be great. But gay rights required steps including DOMA, then DADT, then civil unions, then marriage. Society needs time to adjust.

• Regain control of our college campuses. Speech & marches - yes. Encampments and obstruction - no. And absolutely no making people fearful. Teach the students to persuade by argument, not by threats.

Protect our Country

• If we don’t enforce our borders we’re not a country, we’re a location. This country is very welcoming to immigrants - when we are selecting who enters. And we’ll have major arguments over who to accept - and that’s being a democracy. But letting people in illegally and taking years, while they reside here, to decide if they can stay - no.

• Admit, and learn from, our mistakes. The Afghanistan withdrawal was handled well in many ways in the moment on the ground. But there were also major mistakes, including being totally unprepared for the immediate collapse of the Afghanistan Army. There should have been hearings, similar to the January 6 hearings, into this. People will understand mistakes - if they see those responsible admitting them and learning from them to avoid the same in the future.

All of the above - that’s very different from the Democratic Party today. But at the same time, I think it is all true to the fundamental ethos of the Party. A large part of it is throwing off the myriad sclerotic structures & systems we’ve built over the last 80 years. It’s natural, over time systems become overly complex & rigid. And the answer to that is usually not to tweak, but to replace.

This country is in the process of replacing the FDR/Reagan paradigm of the last 80 years. We don’t get to decide if it is replaced. We can attempt to replace it with a new paradigm of our design instead of the one being fashioned by the Republicans.