If last year’s election showed us anything, it’s that anger and resentment are on the rise. I hear it from small business owners and working-class families, from millennials and retirees. There’s a sense that we’ve lost our way, and that the blame rests squarely on our nation’s leadership. Simply put, Americans are sick of being patronized and sick of the same old ideas that we, as Democrats, are going to keep offering them over and over and over again.
The frustration is palpable. People are fed up with the status quo. Citizens from all walks of life are sitting around their dinner tables, talking about how they’ve had it with all the usual proposals that, once more, we will be repackaging and spoon-feeding to them in a way that’s entirely transparent and frankly condescending.
That’s something every American can count on.
It’s no wonder voters are furious. Politics-as-usual has failed them, and they desperately want change that the Democratic Party has no plan to bring about in any meaningful way. But let me assure you, when our constituents tell us they’ve had enough broken promises, when they say our actions haven’t addressed their needs, we listen. We hear your concerns—hear them loud and clear—then immediately discard them and revert back to the exact same ineffectual strategies we’ve been rallying behind for years.
It doesn’t take a genius to see what the polls are telling us. Voters by the millions dislike our cozying up to Wall Street, our hopelessly out-of-touch elitism, our support for never-ending military entanglements, our blindness to the plight of rural communities decimated by globalization, and our failure to expand opportunities for American workers. So what are we going to do about it? Well, after taking all this into account, after taking a good hard look at ourselves and doing some serious soul-searching, I’m pleased to announce that during next year’s midterms, Democrats will continue to run on the same set of platitudes we’ve been trotting out since at least the 1990s.
We will also be slapping a brand-new tagline onto our campaign, something that puts a fresh new gloss on our tired old tactics.
In 2018, with the entire House and a third of the Senate up for grabs, Democrats will be holding town hall meetings, conducting polls, and analyzing voter databases to find out what issues are most important to Americans. We’ll then disregard everything we learn, dole out all the usual boilerplate stuff that people are clearly sick of, and try to pass it off as a bold new direction for the country.
We now stand at a crossroads. People are angry, disgusted, and hungry for change. The Democratic Party understands these challenges and sees an opportunity to present the American people with a series of rehashed ideas that do nothing to address their concerns. We’re taking stock of our views on trade, criminal justice, economic inequality, and more. Because the time has come to double down on whatever sounds good to those of us in Washington, even though voter research, election results, and the actual words coming from the mouths of our own base tell us it’s not what anyone else wants.
If you would like to join us in this fight, I encourage you to donate at www.democrats.org.
