Hey Kossacks!

Ever think about how many Bernicrats could have won office with the money spent on Ossoff? I do, but that’s just a sidebar.

The real story here is very simple:

Money and branding aren’t the solution.

Ossoff didn’t run as a real economic leftie. Courting moderate to right voters didn’t change the numbers much.

This election was about the people who didn’t get out there to vote, not the ones who could have voted differently.

This platform:

...has an important property we Democrats really need to embrace. It is a vote FOR platform. It makes explicit, just, common good statements. We know that a majority of the nation is struggling economically, and we know neither party is really speaking directly to those struggles.

This platform will bring people out of the woodwork. This platform talks about the poors, the downtrodden, the people in real need. It talks to those people who could be voting, but aren’t. This platform will generate excitement, activism, the work needed to win. This platform has majority support, speaks right to the pain in this nation, and it’s extremely hard to say no to. Anyone who does is arguing against helping those of us out who need it the most.

Why aren’t they voting?

They don’t believe it will matter, that’s why. They don’t see a real choice, a difference in play.

Fear, blame and shame won’t win elections!

There is a lot of “those stupid people” type explanations for why we didn’t win elections. “If only they had voted...” Or, “low information voters”, you get the idea. What our party doesn’t get is the relationship between itself and the voters.

People are where they are. We can’t expect them to be motivated to vote, seek better information, or even believe there are better choices out there.

That is the Party job!

Politics is advocacy. It’s a sell job. It is on us to give people a clear reason to fight. Without it, many of them just won’t. Why bother? Life is short, and it won’t matter anyway. We all know it does, but none of that actually matters, does it? It doesn’t matter because that vote not cast, for any reason, is still an election lost, for any reason.

Now is the time to speak with people, not AT them. Now is the time to put things out there people really need, explicit good, things they can get behind.

Somehow, all of this has been inverted. Somehow, the burden of leadership has been placed onto the people and that’s wrong! Leaders need to actually lead, and to do that, they must be explicit about it, not just somehow a little better than the other guy in someway.

When the party pretends to be about the greater and common good, it can expect the people to pretend to really care. Hard fact, but one we must all recognize.

You just watch. In this diary, out it will come: But those other people. They need to, they should have, we need them, and so forth.

And to get that stuff to happen requires we actually ask them to do it, and provide meaningful, clear, explicit reasons why doing it makes better sense.

It all starts with an agenda of:

ECONOMIC JUSTICE

ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE

SOCIAL JUSTICE

We need the people who aren’t showing up to get involved. Fortunately, there is one guy out there working hard to make that happen.

He could really use some help you know. It’s a real tough gig trying to sell people on the greater good when the party of the people is speaking at the people, not to them, and for them.

We will start winning elections when we present real choice to the people, an alternative they can’t miss! Moving right on various issues is a tacit statement of failure, a tacit statement that the economic left vision possible in this great nation isn’t on the table, a tacit endorsement of the very people we oppose!

Why do that?

Honestly, why? If we are about the left, the people, labor, middle class, how come it’s so damn hard to just say that?

You know who wonders about it all?

Those people who could have won the election! The ones staying home, the ones saying things like:

Nothing ever changes.

They are all the same.

When do we matter?

Do those seem familiar? Well, they should. The message, when we move to the right, no matter how much we spend, no matter how sexy the campaign mechanics are, speaks right to the negatives and worse, speaks against the clear, indicated, necessary and just positives so many need to hear.

Telling people they aren’t needed isn’t helping. And that happened! Progressives, Bernicrats and many independent voters eager to get after a better future were told they were not needed, that they needed to change who they are and what they are about, ignore what they need. In many ways, that is still happening. This must end, or we are gonna keep losing.

Without a solid economic left platform, our party cannot count on getting the support it needs to win elections!

And that’s why this election, and all the other special elections are losses.

It’s on us, it’s on the party leadership to actually sell it to the voters. It is NOT on the voters to somehow make the better of the two choices. Whether those choices are better or not isn’t even a discussion!

The more important thing here is that too many don’t see that as true, they don’t believe, they aren’t motivated to get out there and fight for it, because they just don’t know what IT is, or don’t care about IT, whatever they heard IT was. We must face this as a party and as a movement. It’s on those of us who believe better can happen. It’s on us to put the things people need to see out there, to garner those votes, or we won’t get them no matter how bad it is otherwise.

It is time to be all about an explicit, common, public good. That’s what people need. And when they believe they see people willing and able to make it happen, they will fight for it, and we win.

Want to win again? I do. Way too many seats lost. Time to take it back.

Pick a winning fight, and we might just win! Why is this so hard?