The political history of this country for the last 40 years is a history of what Republicans have done, and what Democrats have failed to do. That dynamic is why our nation is a runaway train heading for an historical precipice. And if the Democrats cannot fashion a way to govern this country, that first sentence might as well be the epitaph on our nation’s tombstone.
We’ll know soon if the midterms will deliver a blue House of Representatives, and maybe even a governorship or two, thus allowing the Democrats to partially apply the brakes on the Mad Conductor’s runaway train to ruin.
But what does that mean for 2020? And for the decade after it? If the goal is the utter defeat of Trump and Trumpism, can the Dems govern with the slogan: “HELP US, WE’RE APPLYING THE BRAKES!”?
We cannot run on a platform of merely overturning every single action Trump took. We can’t win with a laundry list of To Don’ts. We need a platform (nay, a worldview!) that can overturn his ravages — apply the brakes to the train — while also changing its destination. Preventing a crash is no longer enough. Defeating Trump is no longer enough. We have to govern.
And that task — finding a way to govern a nation in which one of two political parties, and almost half the electorate have declared war on governing — cannot be accomplished by the Democratic party we now have.
The Republican plan since Ronald Reagan has been clear: degrade America’s ability to effectively govern itself by paralyzing our politics through hyper-partisanship; and then starve the government of sufficient funding for essential goods and services through reckless tax cuts. All in order to convince people the government does not work.
And yet, Trump has opened a path for what I would propose is a deceptively radical agenda to finally fight back against the GOP narrative that has dominated our politics. That agenda is: Good Government.
That might seem naive in the extreme. Even apolitical. And yet, we are so far from that modest goal, from that simple ability to order our affairs in an orderly fashion, that there is little we can accomplish — a living wage, a modern infrastructure, Medicare for All, surviving cimate change! — without first reestablishing that Good Government is the mechanism by which our salvation will come about. Or in its absence, our doom.
Otherwise, we are simply in emergency mode, trying to keep the train from flying off the tracks, with little or no thought for a final destination.
Is it still enough simply to not crash?
Our increasingly progressive agenda — due in no small part to Bernie Sanders’ campaign, and the rise of democratic socialist candidates — will not come to pass until America has restored “Government” to the side of the angels.
And that is no easy task as the GOP’s four decades of slandering and sabotaging Good Government has affected us all. The Right treats government like a viper in the nursery: Kill! Kill! Kill! The Left is not much better, treating it like some doddering old fool they once knew as their gym teacher: Bless its heart, poor thing!
It means running not just on the long-delayed issues of wages, guns, immigration. But first and foremost, on restoring the practice of Good Government. (Or even creating it in the first place!)
Americans generally agree there is a worm of corruption at the heart of government that preceded Trump and will succeed him. So it could be possible to create broad momentum around Good Government that would also lead to electoral success and initialize a progressive platform.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, not surprisingly, has already begun this battle with her Anti-Corruption and Public Integrity Act, which would essentially dismantle the revolving door between government service and lobbying that serves as a main entrance for corruption.
Transparency is another plank. From the secret congressional slush fund to pay off sexual harassment claims to the dark money that floods campaigns to the secrets of elephantine CEO bonuses, many Americans believe too much is hidden from the citizenry. A platform that calls for transparency at all levels is an essential part of Good Government. (And it is even part of an international movement that considers transparency to be the essential element to extend freedom and curtail poverty around the world.)
And most importantly, an end to gerrymandering. Gerrymandering is choking our republic to death; it is the one prerequisite for derailing the give-and-take needed for any democracy to survive over time. The Dems could sell this by bragging at the hurt it could put on “their” safe seats, and their willingness to accept the sacrifice for the sake of the nation.
Good Government is not as alluring as street protests, not as exciting as chasing Ted Cruz out of a restaurant, and not as militant as mixing it up with the neo-Nazis. The resistance has always been better at street politics than the dull, wonkish work of governing. But if we aspire to do more than simply halt the runaway train, then we’ve got to do more than change conductors. We’ve got to lay track that will take us to a new destination.
Joe Gannon, author and teacher, lives in Northampton. He can be reached at opinion@gazettenet.com.