After the disaster that was the 2016 election, My wife Penny and I resolved to do what we could as life-long democrats to rebuild the Democratic party for 2018. All politics is local. For those of us in Tom McClintock’s district, removing and replacing him is our first priority. But everything we are doing here can be replicated in every other Republican District by constituents in that District. Most of us have like-minded friends and relatives in other Republican Districts. Using a “ripple” strategy we can nurture groups in each of these other districts by sharing our successes here.
In November, the first thing we did was write and print copies of the attached card that succinctly summarizes the starkly different positions of the only two relevant parties on the ballot—Democrats and Republicans. (You can download the card and get more printed at a local copy shop and distribute them)
The second thing we did was to reach out to everyone we know both in this District and across the country to begin fighting to resist the Republican roll-back of every progressive gain since FDR in 1932 It is not enough to just focus on our own district. We have to District by District remove and replace Republican incumbents with Democrats until we become the majority in 2018 in the House. We only need to “flip” two dozen districts from the “R” team to the “D” team to take back the majority in the House. There are at least half a dozen such districts in Blue State California we need to change.
We are in touch with like-minded groups in Wisconsin, Nevada and Oregon. We are sharing letters, protest ideas, tips on what we are doing and they are sharing back. If we ALL do this, we can make a difference not only here in McClintock’s District but also in other Republican Districts across the Nation,
We need to focus our effort at the grass roots level on recruiting and education. Whether the candidate with a “D” after their name is a socialist, independent, progressive or democrat they will vote as a block 99% of the time. Both parties vote as a block and the biggest block, the majority, is the only one that counts. Too many voters focus on “do I like my party’s candidate”? If you don’t like your party’s candidate enough to vote for them, you are effectively subtracting one vote from your party and enabling the other party’s candidate to serve on the opposing team—the one destroying everything you believe in. Ask yourself how relevant are Republican legislators in California? Because we lost and are now the minority in Washington, whether you are a Progressive democrat or a conservative democrat your vote is largely irrelevant in 2017.
In November 2016, democrats had the opportunity to vote for their nominee or lose the Supreme Court and much of the federal judiciary for the foreseeable future. That’s gone. We will have another chance in 2018. This time we will be unified. We have to put 2016 behind us and unite our left wing and further to the left Progressives. Otherwise we lose again. There will only be two viable parties on the ballot in 2018. We have to turn out all democrats in 2018 whether they consider themselves independents, vanilla Democrats or Progressives, Everything we do now for 2018 will be helpful in 2020 when the entire House, another third of the Senate and the Presidency will be on the ballot. Everything we do to energize the base will be helpful in resisting the damage that is occurring daily.