A winning policy platform that a majority of Americans can support

[indusurb]

"The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the Nation;
The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;
The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;
The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
The right of every family to a decent home;
The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
The right to a good education."
https://billofrightsinstitute.org/activities/franklin-roosevelt-second-bill-of-rights-1944/

Also known as FDR's Second Bill of Rights, this comes from his 1944 inauguration speech. In it we see policies that all Democrats, moderate and progressive, can get behind, along with many Republicans, especially farmers. After 80 plus years of ignoring this, don't you think we should run with it?

[QueerDuck]

1. FDR's Second Bill of Rights wasn't ignored! It has been the Democrats' road map for 80 years.

The obstacle hasn't been a lack of Democratic will, but the reality of congressional math and fierce conservative opposition.

Look at the actual record of what Democrats fought for and passed:

The Right to Medical Care: Democrats passed Medicare and Medicaid in 1965, and the ACA in 2010. Every single effort was met with total Republican resistance.

The Right to Education: Democrats passed the Higher Education Act, created Pell Grants, and are currently fighting for student debt relief and universal pre-K.

The Right to Social Security: Democrats created it, expanded it, and have successfully blocked every Republican attempt to privatize or cut it.

The Right to a Useful Job & Fair Wages: Democrats consistently champion minimum wage increases, card-check for unions, and historic manufacturing and jobs legislation like the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act, the CHIPS Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act.

I'm sorry... but I have to call out how wrong it is to frame this as 'Democrats ignoring it'. We're NOT... we're working toward it... continually. Pretending otherwise lets the political opposition completely off the hook.

Democrats haven't achieved the full vision because we rarely hold the filibuster-proof majorities needed to overcome right-wing obstruction.

If we want to "run with it" now, the solution is electing more and better Democrats, not blaming the only party that has ever tried to build it.

[indusurb]

2. And yet when progressives try to move things even further in the right direction, they are blasted for

All manner of excuses. Being unrealistic, being socialists, being, well, whatever. Meanwhile the Democratic party has moved ever rightward and evermore corporate friendly. They write off entire states, mostly rural, when they could win them if they would just champion family farmers and rural issues. Medicare, Medicaid and the ACA don't address the right to healthcare for all, only universal single payer does that.

The Democratic party only addresses some of these issues in fits and starts, but has never fully invested itself in championing these issues, generally accompanied by some excuse. Yet when you ask the public, we'll, they believe in these issues, but the Democratic party is so very tied to corporate money that they won't do much more than lip service. That's why wages haven't kept up with cost of living for over fifty years, that's why the price of higher education has risen to the point of economically crippling entire generations. That's why the poor are getting poorer, the middle class is disappearing, and the rich are getting richer.

Eighty two years since FDR spoke these words, yet only a modicum of progress has been made, even though in that time we had the power to achieve these rights. He understood all too well that in order to have a thriving society you have to mix a bit of socialism, and a strong social safety net into the capitalist mix. Yet time and again the Democrats react to that prospect like a vampire does to sunlight.

I'm not placing all the blame for where we find ourselves on the Democrats. What I am saying is that we've tried it the moderate, corporate friendly, inch by inch way for eighty plus years, yet here we are, far down the road to fascism, perhaps irrevocably so. Don't you think it's time to change course? I do.

[kentuck]

3. It is difficult to defeat personal attacks with a superior platform.

When someone calls you a "godless communist" that wants your kids to join the trans community, it is difficult to sell any idea. That is just the way it is.

It is unfortunate, but you have to fight fire with fire. You just need a larger flame.

[QueerDuck]

4. With respect, this isn't a list of 'excuses'... it is basic political math.

Passions don't pass bills... VOTES do.

You claim that over 82 years Democrats 'had the power to achieve these rights.' --- I don't think that's entirely accurate. Let's look at the actual numbers, because the idea that Democrats have held decades of unchecked power is a myth:

The Myth of the Majority: Since FDR, Democrats have held a veto-proof, filibuster-proof 60+ seat majority in the Senate for a combined total of less than two years.

The 2009 Reality: The last time Democrats had 60 seats was in 2009. Due to Al Franken’s contested election and Ted Kennedy’s illness, that majority actually existed for only 72 working days. Even then, that 60th vote belonged to Joe Lieberman (heaven help us) who was an independent... not a progressive.

The Dixiecrat Era: In the mid-20th century, our so-called Democratic "majorities" also included racist and segregationist Dixiecrats who voted with Republicans to kill civil rights, labor, and healthcare bills.

Here's a simple mathematical fact: You cannot pass Universal Single Payer or sweeping socialist safety nets when your actual working majority is zero.

Allow me to also point out that accusing the party of reacting to socialism "like a vampire to sunlight" completely ignores the current reality. The Biden-Harris administration passed the Inflation Reduction Act (the largest green energy investment in world history) and used the CHIPS Act to force corporations to provide childcare and hire union labor. That is the exact opposite of the insulting characterization of "corporate friendly, inch-by-inch" incrementalism.

Blaming Democrats for "not trying hard enough" while ignoring the fact that voters haven't given them the 60 progressive Senators required to pass these bills isn't a critique of the party... it’s a rejection of how our constitutional republic works.

If you want to change course, you don't do it by tearing down and denigrating the only coalition capable of stopping the fascism you rightly fear. Who's that you ask? --- THE DEMOCRATS!!