Diatribes of Jay: Three Things the Dems <i>Must</i> Do to Win

For other suggestions on how Dems can improve their multi-candidate debates, click here and here. For an assessment of how bad the first two debates really were, click here for the first debate and here for the second. For brief descriptions of and links to recent posts, click here. For an inverse-chronological list with links to all posts after January 23, 2017, click here. For a subject-matter index to posts before that date, click here.

1. The Dems must make their debates “shows” of their own.
2. The Dems must use their debates to showcase their initiatives that will improve the lives of our middle class.
3. The Dems must pose the questions important to the middle class, in order of their importance to the middle class, in a way that puts their best foot forward as a party.

In their two first debates last week, the Dems got off to a very rocky start. They let so-called “mainstream” media anchors showcase their most exotic and least popular initiatives. The moderators painted them as a clueless, out-of-touch party that wants to give health insurance to undocumented immigrants and free sex-change operations to transgender people while taking private health insurance away from well over half of today’s insureds.

If the rest of the debates do as “well” for the Dems, Donald Trump will almost certainly have his second term. Here’s how to avoid that catastrophe:

1. The Dems must make their debates “shows” of their own. The Democratic Party’s debates must showcase their mainstream and most popular policies, i.e., those that will help them get elected and make the middle class better off. (Hint: the same policies should promote those two goals.)

The so-called “mainstream” media’s dirty little secret is that even the best of commercial TV “news” is neither balanced nor fair. Their goals are sensationalism and ratings, all day, every day. So the commercial anchors who moderate debates view their job as a game of “gotcha.” They “showcase” the most exotic and least popular Democratic initiatives, like giving transgender people free sex-change operations or undocumented immigrants free health insurance.

For some unfathomable reason, so-called “mainstream” media also love to tar Dems as “left wing,” or “far left.” They don’t do anything similar with the GOP, although it has been moving “far rightward” at high velocity for two generations, ever since Reagan.

What could be more “hard right” than: (1) denying people the right to vote, or making their votes less valuable through gerrymandering, (2) making the rich and powerful richer and more powerful; (3) supporting the police reflexively, even when they murder citizens on our streets, (4) excluding Congress from its constitutional war-making power, (5) using executive orders to shift money to things (like the Wall) that Congress has refused to fund, (6) telling bald lies about everything from the size of Trump’s inaugural crowd to the effect of his tariffs and the state of the economy, and (7) tarring the news media themselves as “enemies of the people”? How often do the “mainstream” media describe the president who, or the party that, does all these things as “far right”?

If the so-called “mainstream” media’s public impression of the Dems prevails, Trump will have his second term. Our Republic will descend into empire, an empire of lies. So the so-called “mainstream” media are not Democrats’ friends. Nor are they friends of any small-d democrat.

Therefore the first and most important thing the Dems must do to win is get mainstream media personalities out of its debates. It must jettison the absurd practice of inviting media celebrities to moderate them.

The Dems’ should go “cold turkey,” starting with the very next debate, whatever the current plans for it may be. If the Party has to pay penalties or litigate to get out of existing contracts, so be it. For if the rest of the “debates” are like the first two, whoever the Dems nominate will almost certainly lose.

Debates are not “news” events or chances for media personalities to give group interviews. They are the Dems’ first, best and perhaps only chance to showcase their goals, plans and policies in their own way.

Donald J. Trump is our most consummate, if not our first, “showman” president. Almost everything he does is a continuation of the “reality” show he once ran. This includes his on-again, off-again tariffs, his so-far fruitless meetings with Kim, and the constant campaign rallies he has kept up during his presidency. They’re all mostly for show. If the Dems’ don’t present shows of their own—which need not, like Trump’s, be full of lies—they will lose the presidency, again. They’ll be bringing knives to a gunfight.

2. The Dems must use their debates to showcase their initiatives that will improve the lives of our middle class. Once the Dems take control over their own “show,” the sky’s the limit to what they can do. They can plan the debate questions to put their best foot forward, i.e., to explain to the public how the Dems’ policies are better than alternatives for the vast majority of Americans.

The Dems’ must also abandon the absurd practice of keeping the questions secret and springing them on candidates like snap quizzes. By publicizing the questions in advance, they can foster public interest in the debates and give candidates time to prepare their messages thoughtfully.

The “tradition” of making debates like snap quizzes is counterproductive, if not idiotic. No president, in actually governing, ever (1) has mere seconds to formulate a vital policy or (2) has to express it coherently in sixty seconds, without preparation. The essence of governing well is not instant speed “on your feet,” but thoughtfulness and good judgment.

With these changes in approach, each candidate can plan, in advance, when and how to compete by differentiating herself or himself, or whether to cooperate with the Party by contrasting the Dems’ collective message with Trump’s. Each candidate can make the delicate balance between competition and cooperation as he or she chooses. In that way each candidate can reveal her or his ability to govern, and, in the balance between competition and cooperation, something of his or her soul.

3. Dems must pose the questions most important to the middle class, in order of their importance to the middle class, in a way that puts their best foot forward as a party. They must formulate the questions to invite respondents to compete (by differentiating themselves) or to cooperate (with the rest of their party) at will.

Doing this is hardly rocket science. It doesn’t require a highly paid media personality as author. All it requires is a little bit of thought.

Here, for example, are the first four questions I would pose to every candidate in the next Democratic debate:

A. Infrastructure. Our professional, nonpartisan American Society of Civil Engineers gives our nation’s infrastructure a near-failing grade: D+. It says we must invest $2 trillion dollars to bring it up to an acceptable level of modernity and safety.

From the outset of his campaign, President Trump promised to do something about this appalling condition and to create good, skilled jobs in so doing. But he never has. Instead, he’s increased our nation’s debt by $1.5 trillion to fund massive tax cuts, most of which go to corporations and the rich, not the middle class.

As president, how much would you invest in rebuilding our nation’s infrastructure, when would you make the investment, and what kind of jobs would you expect to create here at home? If the Democrats still don’t control Congress, what would you do, by executive order or otherwise, to put your infrastructure program into effect, and where would you get the money?

B. Health insurance. We Americans have the most complex, and perhaps the worst, system of health insurance of any developed nation. After others tried to improve it for a century, President Obama and Speaker Pelosi pushed through the Affordable Care Act, also known as “Obamacare.” It brought over twenty million Americans good health insurance for the first time. It also outlawed exclusions for pre-existing conditions, therefore making health insurance real insurance. (Can you imagine any “insurance” that fails to cover things most likely to occur, such as things that already have happened?)

It’s no secret that the GOP has tried to kill Obamacare from the get-go. It has tried to repeal it, without any detailed plan to replace or improve it, over fifty times.

If elected president, how would you provide health insurance to the tens of millions of Americans who still don’t have it? Would you strengthen and expand Obamacare, Medicare, or Medicaid? Or would you do something else? And what role, if any, would private insurance have in your plan?

C. Climate Change. Fighting carbon pollution and global warming is another aspect of infrastructure rebuilding and job-creation. We have to replace our fossil-fueled electric-power plants with plants that use renewable sources of energy and safe nuclear power plants of new design. We also need to replace cars and small trucks that run on fossil fuels with ones that run on electricity and don’t have exhaust pipes.

President Trump and the GOP don’t see this part of infrastructure rebuilding as an opportunity to create jobs because they think climate change is a “hoax.” As president, what specific steps would you take to create good jobs by expanding and improving the part of our infrastructure that produces no planet-heating carbon dioxide or methane?

D. War and peace. President George W. Bush declared the only war we Americans have ever fought against a noun: the “war on terror.” It’s a war with no particular enemy and no end. So the wars we have been fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan are now the two longest in our history. And still they continue.

President Trump is now contemplating a third new war, this time with Iran. He’s pushed that war by pulling out of the nuclear agreement and by creating an uber-tough regimes of sanctions against an already struggling Iranian economy. He wants our nation to go it alone, without the support or concurrence of our allies.

President Trump is also failing to deal with two very real new threats. He’s made no real progress in reducing North Korea’s ability to hit the US Mainland with nuclear weapons. He’s also ignored and minimized Russia’s interference with our democratic elections through cyber-warfare and “fake news.”

As president, what would you do to end our endless “war against terror,” to reduce the new threats from North Korea and Russia, to counter China’s aggression in the South China Sea, and to recognize the power of Congress to participate in war making? How would you prioritize these efforts, and what success would you realistically expect them to have?
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In his twenty-seven months in office, Donald J. Trump has successfully converted governing our nation into a version of his reality old show. Those who subscribe to that show, known as his “base,” live in an alternative reality different from the one inhabited by the rest of us.

To restore the “reality” that the rest of us recognize, the Democrats must have a “show” of their own. They must base that show on the truth, real news, and expert analysis, as pols once did before Trump introduced his unique, all-encompassing form of propaganda.

The best means the Dems have to introduce such a show is their debates. That’s when the most people who are not Dems will be watching. If the Dems squander the chance to have that impact—or if they let clueless, sensation-seeking “mainstream”-media moderators take it away from them—they will lose the campaign and the next presidential election. And they will deserve to lose, for having failed to recognize and effectively resist the unique threat that Trump’s demagoguery and authoritarianism pose to our nation and to the world.

Links to Popular Recent Posts

For an assessment of how the second debate propels the Dems toward losing, click here.
For suggestions on how to improve multi-candidate debates, click here.
For a more general discussion of how to improve debates, click here.
For a review of the first Democratic Debate, click here.
For a third, simpler look at why Trump won in 2016, click here.
For seven reasons not to make war on Iran, click here.
For discussion of Warren’s ability to defend science, and why it matters, click here.
For comment on the quality of Elizabeth Warren’s mind and its relevance to our current circumstances, click here.
For analysis of the disastrous effect of our leaders’ failure to take personal responsibility, click here.
For brief comment on China’s Tiananmen Square Massacre and its significance for our species, click here.
For reasons why the Democratic House should pass a big infrastructure bill ASAP, click here.
For an analysis why Nancy Pelosi is right on impeachment, click here.
For an explanation how demagoguing the issue of abortion has ruined our national politics and brought us our two worst presidents, and how we could recover, click here.
For analysis of the Huawei Tech Block and its necessity for maintaining our innovative infrastructure, click here.
For ten reasons, besides global warming, to dump oil as a fuel for ground transportation, click here.
For discussion why we must cooperate with China and how we can compete successfully with China, click here.
For reasons why Trump’s haphazard trade war will not win the competition with China, click here.
For a deeper discussion of how badly we Americans have failed to plan our future, click here.
For an essay on Elizabeth Warren’s qualifications for the presidency, click here.
For comment on how not doing our jobs has brought us Americans low, click here.
To see how modern politics has come to resemble the Game of Thrones, click here.
For a discussion of the waste of energy and fossil fuels caused by unneeded long-range batteries in electric cars, click here.
For a discussion why Democrats should embrace the long campaign season and make no premature moves, click here.
For a discussion how Trump and Brexit have put the tree world into free fall, click here.
For a review of how our own American acts help create our president’s claimed “invasion” of Central American migrants, click here.
For a review of basic facts that must inform any type of universal health insurance, click here.
For a discussion of how the West’s fall and China’s rise affect the chances of our species’ survival, click here.
For a discussion of what the Mueller Report is and how its release could affect American politics, click here.
For a note on the Mueller Report as the beginning of a process, click here.
For comment on the special candidacies of Beto O’Rourke and Pete Buttigieg, click here.
For reasons why the twin 737 Max 8 disasters should inspire skepticism and caution with regard to potentially lethal uses of software and AI, click here.
For my message to Southwest Airlines on grounding the 737 Maxes, click here.
For an example of even the New York Times spewing propaganda, click here.
For means by which high-school teachers could help save American democracy, click here.
For a modern team of rivals that might comprise a dream Cabinet in 2021, click here.
For an analysis of the global decline of rules-based civilization, click here. For a brief note on avoiding health lobbying Armageddon, click here.
For analysis of how to save real news and America’s ability to see straight, click here.
For an update on how Zuckerberg scams advertisers, click here.
For analysis of how Facebook scams voters and society, click here.
For the consequences of Trump’s manufactured border emergency, click here.
For a brief note on Colin Kaepernick’s good work and settlement with the NFL, click here.
For an outline of universal health insurance without coercion, disruption of satisfactory private insurance, or a trace of “socialism,” click here.
For analysis of the Virginia blackface debacle, click here. For an update on how Twitter subverts politics, click here.
For analysis of women’s chances to take the presidency in 2020, click here.
For brief comment on Trump’s State of the Union Speech and Stacey Abrams’ response for the Dems, click here.
For reasons why the Huawei affair requires diplomacy, not criminal prosecution, click here. For how Speaker Pelosi has become a new sheriff in town, click here.
For how Trump’s misrule could kill your kids, click here.
For comment on MLK Day 2019 and the structural legacies of slavery, click here.
For reasons why the partial government shutdown helps Dems the longer it lasts, click here.
For a discussion of how our national openness hurts us and what we really need from China, click here.
For a brief explanation of how badly both Trump and his opposition are failing at “the art of the deal,” click here.
For a deep dive into how Apple tries to thwart Google’s capture of the web-browser market, click here.
For a review of Speaker Pelosi’s superb qualifications to lead the Democratic Party, click here.
For reasons why natural-gas and electric cars are essential to national security, click here.
For additional reasons, click here.
For the source of Facebook’s discontents and how to save democracy from it, click here.
For Democrats’ core values, click here.
The Last Adult is Leaving the White House. Who will Shut Off the Lights?
For how our two parties lost their souls, click here.
For the dire portent of Putin’s high-fiving the Saudi Crown Prince, click here.
For updated advice on how to drive on the Sun’s power alone, or without fossil fuels, click here.
For a 2018 Thanksgiving Message, click here.

Diatribes of Jay

01 July 2019

Three Things the Dems Must Do to Win

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