Ch 4.10 | Where do we go from here?
What should be next in the aftermath of the greatest political comeback victory in history
At 11:30pm on November 5th, I texted my family the following message:
Nite my beloved family. Looks to me like we will soon have Trump back in the White House. It looks like he may win both the electoral college and the popular vote. It’s a truly sad day if he wins. A sad day for women’s rights. A sad day for the moral conscience of the country. But if the current projections come true and does win, we need to pray that he follows through on his promise to support Jews in the US and support israel. That he finds a way to address the antisemitism on campus. And I will go to sleep tonight praying that he does not fulfill everyone’s greatest fears about him. I love you all.
When I awoke, the reality of a Trump victory had set in.
I knew some of you reading this were (and are) jubilant, and others remain wallowing in the depths of despair. For those of you in pain, I empathize and I pray that President Trump doesn’t fulfill our worst fears for our Country.
How did this happen?
To the Democratic Party, all I can say is you reaped what you sowed! You should have listened to Dean Phillips! I did everything I could to make anyone and everyone listen to him and heed his warnings. He was prescient! He read the politics perfectly. He called out the DNC for backing Biden and he called them out again for anointing Harris. Sadly, Harris was a weak candidate from the start.
As an independent, I’ve never subscribed to the belief that either political party deserved my fealty. I’ve been writing about democracy reform for 2 years now and in the aftermath of the election the one quote that rang true is this quote by Will Rogers that I referenced in Chapter 4.3 | Today’s Democratic Party:
I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat.
The democrats made mistake after mistake after mistake for the past 4 years. Biden failed to fulfill his promise to be a uniter. He and his administration failed to address the biggest concerns that led to the rise of Trump. The Democrats failed miserably on so many fronts.
In an article entitled How Trump Won, the Free Press articulates some of the factors that led to Trump’s decisive victory.
For starters, their president, Joe Biden, had misinterpreted a narrow victory in 2020 as a mandate to make sweeping policy changes to everything from the border—some 10 million people crossed over illegally during Biden’s administration—to the national debt, which is more than $35 trillion. All the while, his Democratic Party advanced outlandish and radical social policies, such as support for biological men to compete in women’s sports, taxing unrealized capital gains, and colluding with social media companies to ban alleged health misinformation. He also insisted for most of his presidency that the very real inflation consumers experienced was fleeting and not serious.
They were mad, too, because a corporate media that carried water for the Democrats became the party’s press secretaries in the home stretch of the election. CBS edited the vice president’s word salad when it aired an interview with her on 60 Minutes. The major networks also accused Trump of calling for the execution by firing squad of Liz Cheney in the last days of the campaign, which was a gross distortion of what he said.
And while the Democrats hammered away at Trump’s penchant for lying, voters could see that the Democrats lied too. Not least about Biden’s health.
The only silver lining that I can find is that democracy prevailed! I say that in full recognition of a point that Sam Harris stressed in “The Reckoning":
Half of our society just elected a man to the presidency who they know would not have accepted the results of the election, had he lost. Vice President Harris conceded the next day, as everyone knew she would. There is probably no one who supported Trump, who thinks that he would have done what they fully expected Harris to do—which is to protect the most important norm of our democracy, the very thing that makes it possible, the peaceful transfer of power. And the astonishing thing is that Trump supporters are totally okay with this asymmetry. They expected Harris to concede and would have demanded that she do it. And they know Trump wouldn't have conceded if he lost—understanding all the risk this would have posed to our social fabric—and they are fine with that.
If you’re unfamiliar with Harris, he is an American philosopher and neuroscientist who has debated with many prominent figures on the topics of God or religion. His moral compass points true north and he’s a voice of reason in a world that sometimes seems to have lost it’s desire for critical thought. The full podcast is worth listening to. He provides important insights in the aftermath of the 2024 election.
While many are still struggling with the results of the election, I have been continuing to reflect on how we got here.
In search of insights, I found this op ed in The NY Times by the ever brilliant Bret Stephens entitled “A Party of Prigs and Pontificators Suffers a Humiliating Defeat”. In it, Bret observes:
How, indeed, did Democrats lose so badly, considering how they saw Donald Trump — a twice-impeached former president, a felon, a fascist, a bigot, a buffoon, a demented old man, an object of nonstop late-night mockery and incessant moral condemnation? The theory that many Democrats will be tempted to adopt is that a nation prone to racism, sexism, xenophobia and rank stupidity fell prey to the type of demagoguery that once beguiled Germany into electing Adolf Hitler.
It’s a theory that has a lot of explanatory power — though only of an unwitting sort. The broad inability of liberals to understand Trump’s political appeal except in terms flattering to their beliefs is itself part of the explanation for his historic, and entirely avoidable, comeback.
Bret concludes:
Today, the Democrats have become the party of priggishness, pontification and pomposity. It may make them feel righteous, but how’s that ever going to be a winning electoral look?
In my humble opinion, the Politics Industry’s greatest failure is its inability to produce quality candidates! True leaders that can unite us around common causes who are capable of legislating and solving problems. Instead of solutions, we get 24x7 fear mongering and grievance propaganda. The system is rigged so that an unresolved issue is far more valuable than a resolved issue.
Since the day Obama was elected, I have been howling at the wind trying to get people to wake up to the risks of political polarization! To the need to give a voice to the common sense majority. I know that the country feels divided and when we continue to see the population split so evenly across partisan lines it’s easy to draw that conclusion! But that’s not what I see! Those partisan lines are foisted upon us. Instead, I see a country longing for a change!
When I published Chapter 1.3 | The Majority of Americans are in the Middle, back in April 2023, I point out that than 43% of Americans were independent voters or what’s known as “non-party affiliated”. Today, that number has risen to nearly 50%. The majority of Americans are opting out of the Duopoly. Yet, what choice do we have but to vote for one of the two major party candidates? As a result, we have the illusion of choice because that’s what the system has wrought!
It’s clear to me that the reason we continue to get these results, is that the politics industry is rigged by the duopoly to retain power. To continue to allow the pendulum to swing back and forth. From red to blue and back again. The incentives are misaligned.
On November 6th, I read Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters from an American wherein she stated:
These results were a surprise to everyone.
That is conspicuously false. 72 million Americans certainly weren’t surprised! If you were paying attention, you should have seen this coming.
In spite of that fact, I am struggling to draw the conclusion that 72 million Americans affirmatively wanted to vote for Trump. I believe the vast majority would have preferred to vote for Nikki Haley or any other moderate candidate. But sadly, the way the system works, it’s the 15 million party loyalists that voted in the GOP Primaries that determined who would represent their party in the general election on November 5th.
On the other side, I draw the same conclusion from even more obvious and conclusive data. The reason that I am so confident in my believe that 64 million Americans didn’t want to vote for Harris, is because they absolutely had no choice! While 14 million primary voters selected Biden, not a single American voted for Harris in a primary! So what choice did an “anti-trump” voter have? Jill Stein?
Zooming out, what choice did any of us have when less than 10% of Americans decide who we get to vote for and independents are generally excluded from voting in Partisan Primaries.
My seemingly immutable logic draws me to one conclusion: I do not believe that the division is as binary as the results of this election suggest. Instead, the conclusion that I draw from the data… there are 100+ million Americans that were forced to choose between Trump and Harris because they didn’t have a “choice”.
The Future of the Democratic Party
I hope you’ll indulge me while I pontificate for a few minutes about my hopes for the Democratic Party. The Free Press published a podcast on Honestly entitled “Resistance or Opposition: Which Route Should the Democrats Take.” In it, Eli Lake tells the story of how a few centrist renegades saved the Democrats from oblivion 40 years ago. In 1984, after Ronald Reagan’s 525–13 Electoral College landslide over Walter Mondale, the Democrats were not just in disarray—they were on life support. And yet, eight years later, they found their savior: a young governor from Arkansas named Bill Clinton. And they remade their party.
I’ve often observed that the RNC was “murdered” by Trump. The level of complete annihilation is that of myth and legend and will be recorded in the annuls of history. I’m not suggesting we need another Demagogue on the other side to achieve the same end. I’m suggesting that the Democratic Party needs to wake up and reinvent itself and quickly!
If you study the history of elections in this country, you will quickly observe that the popular vote margins of victory are razor thin throughout history with few exceptions (FDR in ’36; LBJ in ’64). The electoral college tells a different story where there have been very decisive victories although they are few and far between (e.g., Reagan ’80 ’84; Nixon ’72).
It’s time to end this once and for all and embrace the common sense majority! I’m convinced if the Democratic Party embraced this approach, they would own the middle and they would secure 100 million votes and we could begin to solve the problems facing our country. To that end, here is my suggested party platform for the Democratic Party:
Don’ts:
Don’t rationalize this loss and make marginal/tactical changes to adjust around the margins while continuing on the same macro strategy. It’s a long-term losing strategy.
Don’t continue to push on “culture war” issues of the progressive left… it’s a losing strategy. I wrote extensively about it in Chapter 3.3 | The Culture Wars. The American Left has ridiculously decided that the so-called meritocracy is a bad thing. Even California just got serious on Crime after their failed experiment. If you want to hold kryptonite against the GOP… abandon all this “cultural Marxism” and return to true “liberalism”. See Dos below. If you haven’t read the Identity Trap do so immediately.
Don’t continue to embrace anti-democratic policies. Dean Phillips highlighted the hypocrisy of the Dems when he ran. I wrote about them on January 6, 2023 in a Facebook post after Biden’s hypocrisy filled speech at Valley Forge and in Chapter 4.8 | The Democrats and Biden are Exploiting our Rigged System.
THIS ONE IS PERSONAL: Don’t continue to embrace Obama’s failed middle east policies of appeasement. Stop basing policies on the fact that Israel is the source of regional instability by insisting that it’s mere existence is a problem for the Muslim world and therefore the only way to forge peace is to apply pressure on Israel to appease its enemies — all of whom seek its annihilation. All of whom have rejected peace 11 times since UN Resolution 181 in ‘47. It’s a failed policy that has fueled a level of antisemitism that rivals the 30s. We know where that ended.
Dos:
Do immediately abandon the progressive wing of the party. You may lose 10 million extreme voters but gain 30+ million from the right.
Do embrace the “commonsense middle” with policies that resonate like the ones Governor Andy Beshear wrote about in his New York Times Op Ed “I’m the governor of Kentucky. Here’s How the Democrats Can Win Again”. We the people are NOT as divided as the media and the parties portray us… check out this poll on the 100 policies supported by the majority of Americans! Embrace them all and you win! This is a critical point which I highlighted in Chapter 1.3 | The Majority of Americans are in the Middle.
Do become the innovators of democratic values. It’s “on brand”.. .it’s in their name after-all! Be the Party that advances democratic values by advancing reforms… it was Teddy Roosevelt that first publicly supported primaries… Ironically, it’s the #1 issue with voters… yet Trump won.. never underestimate the ability of the American people to vote against their best interests. Throughout this treatise, I’ve written extensively about this subject. Many chapters highlight the need to innovate and change the incentives in our Politics Industry. Chapter 4.7 highlights how we can “Unrig” the system.
Do correct one of the biggest mistakes of the Reagan Era by bringing the Fairness Doctrine back and apply it to all forms of media, including social media (and especially to the algorithms that are feeding ignorance and polarization). I wrote about this extensively in Chapter 2.6 | The Media.
Do incentivize Conscious Capitalism! Empower businesses with incentives so they lead in closing the wealth gap! See Chapter 3.10 | Capitalism and Monetary Policy.
Do center your policies on liberal “originalism”. Bari Weiss once defined what it means to be a liberal perfectly. Embrace it! Here’s how she defined “liberal”:
Not liberal in the narrow, partisan sense, but liberal in the most capacious and distinctly American sense of that word: the belief that everyone is equal because everyone is created in the image of God. The belief in the sacredness of the individual over the group or the tribe. The belief that the rule of law — and equality under that law — is the foundation of a free society. The belief that due process and the presumption of innocence are good and that mob violence is bad. The belief that pluralism is a source of our strength; that tolerance is a reason for pride; and that liberty of thought, faith, and speech are the bedrocks of democracy. The liberal worldview was one that recognized that there were things — indeed, the most important things — in life that were located outside of the realm of politics: friendships, art, music, family, love. This was a world in which Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg could be close friends. Because, as Scalia once said, some things are more important than votes. Crucially, this liberalism relied on the view that the Enlightenment tools of reason and the scientific method might have been designed by dead white guys, but they belonged to everyone, and they were the best tools for human progress that have ever been devised. Racism was evil because it contradicted the foundations of this worldview, since it judged people not based on the content of their character, but on the color of their skin. And while America’s founders were guilty of undeniable hypocrisy, their own moral failings did not invalidate their transformational project. The founding documents were not evil to the core but “magnificent,” as Martin Luther King Jr. put it, because they were “a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.” In other words: The founders themselves planted the seeds of slavery’s destruction. And our second founding fathers — abolitionists like Frederick Douglass — made it so. America would never be perfect, but we could always strive toward building a more perfect union.
I believe if the Democrats embraced these common sense strategies, they would be able to gain an enduring majority that would help us to regain our footing as a nation.
National Public Service
Beyond the foregoing, I believe all of us would benefit from mandatory civil service should be introduced in our country.
Between 2003 and 2013, former U.S. Representative Charles Rangel (D-NY) made five unsuccessful attempts to pass the Universal National Service Act, which would have required all people in the United States between ages 18 and 42 to either serve in the military or perform civilian service specifically related to national defense. Many countries require national military service of some or all citizens, including Brazil, Greece, Iran, Israel, North Korea, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Requirements for each country vary; in Israel, for example, military service is mandatory for women, too
Foreign Policy magazine published an op ed entitled: To Save Democracy, America Needs a Mandatory Public Service Program where they make a compelling case that:
It’s become increasingly apparent that something visionary and ambitious will be required for Americans to heal their democracy and transcend their divides. A program of mandatory national service, if designed effectively, would bring together young Americans from across the country and all socioeconomic groups to work on public interest projects and accomplish common goals for the good of the country. The public services a program along these lines could provide are virtually limitless: They could include tutoring and mentoring; participating in after-school enrichment programs; improving environmental conservation; building public housing; organizing youth networks; providing real-time information during natural disasters; assisting small businesses through outreach to young consumers; and helping in the construction, rehabilitation, and maintenance of public parks and facilities.
U.S. public opinion on mandatory national service is split: 49% favored one year of required service for young Americans in a 2017 poll, while 45% were opposed. Among adults ages 18 to 29, who would be required to complete the service, 39% were for the proposal and 57% were against.
Here is an article that lists the Pros & Cons. In Chapter 2.2 | Founded on a Creed, I wrote that if we no longer share a common vision of the “idea” of America, then America ceases to exist! What else binds us? Now more than ever, we need to cross the tribal divide. We need citizens from all races, creeds, colors, religions to come together to cross social and demographic boundaries that divide us and unite in a common cause!
For each of us, we're going to have to decide what we want our country to be and each of us has a responsibility to try to contribute to shaping that future.
In that vein, I intend to be like the hummingbird in this parable....
"According to an old Native American legend, one day there was a big fire in the forest. All the animals fled in terror in all directions, because it was a very violent fire. Suddenly, the jaguar saw a hummingbird pass over his head, but in the opposite direction. The hummingbird flew towards the fire!
Whatever happened, he wouldn't stop. Moments later, the jaguar saw him pass again, this time in the same direction as the jaguar was walking. He could observe this coming and going, until he decided to ask the bird about it, because it seemed very bizarre behavior.
"What are you doing, hummingbird?" he asked.
"I am going to the lake," he answered, "I drink water with my beak and throw it on the fire to extinguish it." The jaguar laughed. 'Are you crazy? Do you really think that you can put out that big fire on your own with your very small beak?'
'No,' said the hummingbird, 'I know I can't. But the forest is my home. It feeds me, it shelters me and my family. I am very grateful for that. And I help the forest grow by pollinating its flowers. I am part of her and the forest is part of me. I know I can't put out the fire, but I must do my part.'
At that moment, the forest spirits, who listened to the hummingbird, were moved by the bird and its devotion to the forest, miraculously they sent a torrential downpour, which put an end to the great fire.
The Native American grandmothers would occasionally tell this story to their grandchildren, then conclude with, "Do you want to attract miracles into your life? Do your part."
“You have no responsibility to save the world or find the solutions to all problems—but to attend to your particular personal corner of the universe. As each person does that, the world saves itself.’"
- author unknown"
On a personal level, I will continue to focus my energies trying to convince you all to turn off the partisan media, get off social media, tone down the propaganda and the rhetoric and for us to all align on democracy reform so that we can find a way to once again moderate our politics and empower the common sense majority so we can unite as one nation to address the problems facing our country.