Enough with the politics, bring back issues
The 2022 congressional elections could be summed up this way: “Look Ma, no issues.” Yes, Joe Biden made democracy versus autocracy the issue. Republicans tried to make inflation the issue, which is tough if you have no plan to lower it.
What I mean is that few candidates ran on issues, in the sense of specific proposals and proposed plans.
Dr. Mehmet Oz, for example, talked about his opponent John Fetterman’s stroke and his physical fitness for office. But he did not, as a Republican friend of mine noted, put forward his health care or health insurance plan, though he would have been well qualified to do so. My friend asked, “Did you hear Dr. Oz talk about any issue?”
I am not talking about a grand pronouncement or identification with a great cause, but proposed plans and programs. An example would be Bernie Sanders’ idea for reforming campaign finance. He advocates giving every voter a $100 tax credit and saying to each citizen: Give $100 to the candidate of your choice.
Once upon a time, candidates and parties ran on something. They had platforms. They offered proposals and programs. They were obliged to provide issue maps as a matter of standard political practice.
But our parties have turned into organizational shells and sociological and ideological tribes that bow to certain poses and postures. They do not build platforms. (Trump literally dispensed with the GOP platform in 2020.)
Candidates like Fetterman cite causes (gay rights, abortion rights, global warming). Candidates on the right, like J.D. Vance, posture as populists or decry wokism, but they provide no maps or paths for accomplishing practical things.
Here are some possible specific issues for each party.
For Democrats:
1) Abolish the Electoral College. Make the person who gets the most votes in the nation the winner. That’s how most elections are conducted. This would protect democracy and enhance faith in it.
2) Try the Sanders approach to democratizing campaign finance. If you want democracy over autocracy, you have to make it possible for ordinary people — not rich people or the tools of rich people — to be elected to state legislatures and the U.S. House. It is not possible now.
3) Yes, save the earth. But propose specific ways to do it. Here are some: ban CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations) and stop the dumping of millions of gallons of animal waste into the Great Lakes. Phase in a national ban on plastic bags and bottles, in three years. This will save the seas and, ultimately, our water supply. The nation is headed for an acute water crisis.
And build a national mass transit system. I am talking about good buses, bullet trains, maybe even hyperloop. This is a lot more realistic and a lot more populist than electric cars and electric fill-up stations. They are all well and good, but out of reach to many. An efficient, national train and bus system would reach the mass of us. For Republicans:
1) Establish a national service requirement for every American. It could be 12 months, 18 months, or 24. But every able citizen would serve the country in the armed services, a domestic service like AmeriCorps, a WPA type program, or Teach for America. You love what you serve.
2) Become the party of limits again. Be skeptics and don’t just say you are constitutionalists and for limited government. Defend the Constitution.
I am talking about limits on spending, on federal power (to snoop and police thought and behavior), on judicial power (like the power to reverse precedent and decide elections) and on presidential power. Insist that wars be declared by Congress and that new programs have funding sources. Limit mandates. End stupid tax breaks to corporations and the super-rich based on the “trickle down” theory. Oppose “solutions” to social problems.
3) Teach civics. Really double down on teaching high school and first-year college students how our system works, a full. year for both. Voters do not come to the polls equipped with this information. Teach how bills become law; what voting rights are all about; how to file a freedom of information request. Teach the theoretical foundations of republican democracy. Teach the Founders, Tocqueville, Lincoln.
Yes, teach about slavery in history classes, but also about the world wars, progressivism, the muckrakers, the New Deal, and the civil rights movement. Don’t just teach about slaveholders. Teach about A. Philip Randolf and the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. And teach the First Amendment — freedom of speech, assembly and thought.
Many more underdog candidates, in both parties, would have done better in 2022 if we’d had just a few of these kinds of specific proposals — specific issues and maps of larger issues. And more voters might have voted for someone and not just against.