Eric Jackson to Expats for Sanders
September 1 at 5:04 AM ·
Eric Jackson
September 1 at 3:14 AM ·
EN-MSN-US-News
A fine example of the simplistic corporate thinking that Democrats need to understand for its errors and move way, way past.
Where to start? SURELY this tiny little map, a four-state strategy, based on winning back the White House. It essentially concedes the senate, and the state legislatures in a reapportionment year, to the Republicans. Befitting and emblematic of the world's richest man's newspaper. For that alone, serious Democrats should not just ignore, but denounce, this purportedly strategic thinking. It's Hillary's 14-state strategy, several strokes farther out off of the deep end.
Gonna talk about "Hispanics" and not separate out the particular travails of the Puerto Ricans and the influx of these to the States after Hurricane Maria? Gonna talk about "Hispanics" and not get into age issues, which seem to be particularly acute among America's oldest non-indigenous ethnic group, the Cuban-Americans? Gonna deal with Mexican-Americans and not address the degrees of assimilation among them? Going to write off the votes of the various Hispanic communities in states where they add up to low single-digit percentages of the electorate?
(And, quite frankly, are you going to listen to the operatives and boosters of Ricky Rosselló as your "responsible latino spokesmen" as they try to play Hillary-style identity politics again? This is a real and specific concern.)
2020 strategy is a turnout issue for Democrats. It's doing the work in ways and places to which we are not all that accustomed. Often it should mean old buzzards under the leadership of younger people who have things to teach us.
It means looking at situations with much less respect for old dibs on those turfs, whether they are insurance and pharma dibs on health care policy, Ivy League dibs on intellectual discourse, the compulsion to support whatever messed up thing that a messed up government of Israel might do, clinging to the notion that the richest and most autocratic Gulf oil sheikhs and Egyptian generals speak for the whole Muslim world, or the presumption that only the votes of Americans living in Europe and Canada matter among the millions of US citizens who can vote from abroad. There are more pressing issues than defending the turf set out in old deals -- which is not to say that everything and everyone Americans have defended should be abandoned as the alt-right urges. We need a new deal -- a Green New Deal, but way beyond that in a new set of arrangements suitable for what's good about Americans and the needs, values and interests of Americans in our times.
OH -- you'll get some safe young guy with a good resume who floated to the top by praising his elders and not questioning any conventional wisdoms? You'll bash those who are generating some enthusiasm among the young for being too old?
Yes there is a generational change going on, yes Democrats need to ride on that wave, NO it's not a time for facile identity politics or tokenism.
You're gonna build up the sordid hustlers of End Citizens United / Mothership Strategies and blacklist the talent gathered around Alexandria Ocasio's campaign? You tell us that one young operative equals another, just like the Hollywood moguls of the 60s and 70s generation tried to convince us that the Monkees equaled the Beatles and that The Mod Squad were real hippies? You insult the intelligence of Democrats of all ages and descriptions.
The Post may run unpaid op-eds from some folks who get it, but they put their money on "analysis" by those who don't.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/the-2020-electoral-map-could-be-the-smallest-in-years-heres-why/ar-AAGCBoX?ocid=sf
The 2020 electoral map could be the smallest in years. Here’s why.
