Premise
These prescriptions carry with
them a dramatically different way of looking at the United States and its
people.
·
The times, the succession of plagues we’ve been
experiencing (the latest being Covid-19), means we won’t, we can’t, go back to
the way things were.
·
The old “normal” is history, and a new normal is
aborning. Fresh eyes are critical to helping clarify what that new normal is
going to look like and then leading us into it.
·
Like it or not, the old days are gone for good,
and it is impossible, even suicidal, to stay in the middle of a road that is
veering sharply into the future.
The Democratic Party has within
it and available to it the people, ideas, and resources needed to help the
nation on its journey along that road never before traveled. Will it heed the
call?
Above all, the intention here is to ensure a landslide,
up-and-down-ballot victory in November 2020 for the Democrats, for
democracy, and, more importantly, for the American people as a whole as we go
forward into the 21st century.
Prescriptions
Note that nothing is new here.
I’m not claiming authorship of any of it. Though I give only a few references, others
in the U.S. and around the world have been and are writing about one or another
of them, promoting their adoption, and even beginning to put them into practice.
1.
First
and foremost, be more than merely anti-Trump – much more.
·
No Democrat should run with that as the only or
even main reason to ask for voters’ support.
2. In order to win swing states and swing
voters, the Democratic Party and its up-and-down ballot candidates must present
a platform and campaign that inspires all
people from across the political spectrum,
not just a traditional base or party “tribe”.
Let’s move the country not left or right or back anywhere but rather forward. Or let’s even heed Michelle
Obama’s call to go high.
·
We must aim to win much more than a bare
majority, minimally necessary to get legislation passed and nominees confirmed.
Rather, we must go for an overwhelming mandate and broad buy-in to an
inclusive, visionary program. That way, whatever we accomplish once in office
will be truly sustainable – immune from backlash because there will be no
backlash.
·
To do this will require listening respectfully
and with empathy to all sides.
·
Let’s present a vision of not only what could be but of what is already taking
shape across the country and around the world. Elements of such a vision will
become apparent in what follows.
·
Let’s show how that vision could make our lives
better, and demonstrate clearly how it can be (and indeed is being) made
manifest pragmatically.
·
We can do this through our campaign messaging in
the social and traditional media, campaign appearances, national advertising,
etc.
3. The Democratic Party must return to its
traditional dedication to protecting the rights and promoting the welfare of
people, all people, including to
stand for the worker.
Sadly and critically, workers, particularly those in dying
industries, were left behind as party emphasis drifted more toward politically
correct identity politics. While there has been and remains justification for
the latter, inattention to the former cost the loss of the industrial swing
states in 2016.
·
Place high priority on investments in infrastructure
development, labor force training, and private sector incentives targeted on
transitioning the economy and its workers from dying, 19th century,
fossil-fuel-based industries to the more sustainable 21st century,
Third Industrial Revolution economy that is already coming on line. See, for
example, Jeremy Rifkin’s 2011 book The Third Industrial Revolution as
well as many other academic and media sources out there.
4. The Democrats must redirect their reliance
on government, mainly Federal, programs and burdensome bureaucratic regulations
to accomplish their noble ends.
This history has justifiably earned them a reputation as
purveyors of the “nanny state.” It’s not so much that we’re over-regulated, however, but rather mis-regulated. Thus:
·
Rethink and redesign programs and regulations to
be…
o
…more carrot and less stick, more about incentivizing
socially responsible behavior on the part of individuals and businesses than
about punishing improper behavior
o
…more nuanced in recognition of local
particularities, even devolving implementation responsibilities to local
authorities
o
…more about establishing goals than prescribing in
detail how to get there.
·
Go glocal!
That is, at this time of epochal ecological and social change, encourage and
support the development of resilient, adaptive, local communities that are
networked globally with other resilient, adaptive, local communities. Thus
we’ll have both micro resilience at the local level and macro resilience
globally, with communities helping one another when capacities are stretched.
For example…
o
…distributed, decentralized electric power
generation
o
…distributed, decentralized engines of economic
activity (manufacturing, agriculture, food processing)
o
…distributed, decentralized political and
governmental authority, responsibility, and accountability; that is, nurturing bottom-bottom
and bottom-up flows of political power and public decision making.
5. Our culture needs an attitude adjustment lest
we blithely consume our way to oblivion.
This is a two-fer, about how we relate to Earth and how we
relate to ourselves and one another.
a.
Our social, economic, and political institutions
are all man-made. Nothing “natural” about them. Yes, I realize women have had a
hand in it, too, but I am loathe to pin that rap on them. The systems and
processes embedded in those institutions reek of masculine energy and ways of
seeing the world. We need to introduce more feminine archetypal ways of being
into the urgent task of redesigning how we engage with one another and with
Earth in a life-affirming way.
A lot is already going on toward this end. For example:
i.
British economist Kate Raworth, in her 2017 book
Doughnut Economics, makes the case that we don’t have to have
never-ending, unsustainable growth to achieve economic well-being. Instead, we
can design our institutions to maintain a sustainable, dynamic balance within a
zone bounded on one side by ecological principles and Earth’s life support
capacity and on the other side by the socioeconomic goal of ensuring that everyone
has, at a minimum, their basic needs met of adequate food, shelter, healthcare,
and meaningful livelihood.
ii.
Jeremy Rifkin, in his 2014 book The Zero Marginal Cost Society, describes the process, already
underway, that is leading to the eclipse of capitalism and the rise of
collaborative commons. It’s not the end of capitalism but rather putting it in
a non-dominant place along with other forms of economic activity, notably the
“collaborative commons.”
iii.
Rifkin, in his 2019 book The
Green New Deal, demonstrates
why our fossil-fuel-based economy and culture will collapse within the next 10
years and describes steps to take toward the consequent socioeconomic transformation,
called the Green New Deal (a term and program originally proposed in Europe 10
years before being introduced here).
·
A few prescriptive notes:
o
Let’s encourage local initiatives to demonstrate
the feasibility of a doughnut economics approach, such as explorations already
underway in Amsterdam,
Portland (Oregon), New Zealand, and increasingly others.
o
Replace, or at least supplement, measures such
as Gross Domestic Product with others that truly do measure social, economic,
and environmental welfare. Two examples are the Genuine Progress
Indicator and Gross
National Happiness.
o
Embrace and develop the Green New Deal as a
starting point for the bold socioeconomic transformations that are essential
for an economy that is both ecologically sustainable and socially
compassionate.
o
When the unexpected or threatening happens,
let’s replace what seems to be our culture’s go-to reactions of hate and fear
with actions of caring and compassion. For example:
§
Education reform – investing in and supporting
(i.e., putting our money where our mouth is regarding the importance of
education!) quality public education, including appreciation for the arts,
critical thinking, and encouragement of each student’s particular gifts and
passions.
§
Criminal justice reform – from a focus on
retributive punishment and “lock ‘em up” to restorative justice and community
healing.
§
Immigration reform – from a binary choice
between closed or open borders to compassionate borders.
§
Healthcare reform – affirm that everyone has a
right to quality, affordable healthcare, and institute and encourage a variety
of ways to accomplish that end so people have a choice.
§
Democracy reform – a ensuring everyone’s right
to vote and to have their vote counted (e.g., redistricting by nonpartisan
commissions rather than partisan Gerrymandering, removing voter suppression
measures, campaign financing reforms)
b.
And, of course, the question of how are we going
to pay for all this. The U.S. economy is so huge and creates so much wealth
that this question is more one of priorities than of affordability. It’s
definitely worth a national conversation along some of these lines:
·
So, what are our priorities as a society? Which
gets us back to values and acting out of caring and compassion rather than hate
and fear.
·
Ours is a society drowning in fear. And yet we
call ourselves “the home of the brave”? It seems the only way we can get things
done, even things that “appeal to the better angels of our nature,” is to take
a military approach and cast the effort as a war – War on Poverty, War on
Drugs, even war on a virus. With that mindset, it’s not surprising that the
United States spends more on its military than the next ten countries combined.
How much do we really need in this age of cyberwarfare and disinformation
campaigns? Are there ways to redirect some of that money to other priorities
without sacrificing national security? It may mean even redefining what it
takes to be secure.
·
More broadly and profoundly, what’s the meaning
and role of money, anyway, in a future increasingly characterized by the
collaborative commons, the gift economy, and the sharing economy? The Next
Systems Project has done a lot of work trying to answer such questions. See,
for example, their Elements of the
Democratic Economy.
6. It is time to pass the torch on to a next
generation, i.e., a Gen X, Gen
Y Millennial, or, as they even now are just coming online, Gen Z.
These prescriptions carry with them a dramatically different
way of looking at the United States and its people. Like I said at the outset,
“Fresh eyes are critical to helping clarify what that new normal is going to
look like and then leading us into it.”
Joe Biden, as likable and honest a person as he is, has not
demonstrated that he has those critically necessary fresh eyes. Yet Biden has
clinched a first-ballot nomination victory. His primary victories, however,
were largely influenced by rival candidates bowing out and throwing their
support to him in an effort to unite the party behind a candidate who seemed most likely to defeat the current
occupant of the White House. Biden was the “safe” choice, the
“back-to-the-nice-old-days” choice, the “middle-of-the-road/offend-the-fewest- across-the-political-spectrum”
choice. I’m deathly afraid that strategy is not going to cut it in November,
however.
Under the circumstances, therefore, we nevertheless really do
have to give Biden the support and encouragement he’ll need to follow Tom
Friedman’s advice about pre-picking a national unity cabinet of younger,
more forward-looking “pragmatic visionaries”, and then carrying them with him
right into the White House.
Echoing Where
We Started
Like it or not, the old days are gone for good, and it is impossible,
even suicidal, to stay in the middle of a road that is veering sharply into the
future. The Democratic Party has within it and available to it the people,
ideas, and resources needed to help the nation on its journey along that road
never before traveled. Will it heed the call?
~
Michael
Abkin currently serves as a founding trustee of the National
Peace Academy, having previously served on its board of directors. He is past
president and current advisory council member of the Global
Alliance for Ministries and Infrastructures for Peace, on the Leadership Council
of Elders Action Network, and volunteers with Nine
Gates Mystery School. Mike also served with the Peace Corps in Nigeria and earned his
doctorate in systems science at Michigan State University. He can be reached at
mike@thegreenpen.org.
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