“I Am the Face of the New Democratic Party”
“I am the Democratic Party,” Joe Biden said in one of last year’s presidential debates.
“I am the face of the new Democratic Party.” Eric Adams claimed last month after winning the New York City mayoral primary.
“The Squad is not only the future of the Democratic Party. They are the future,” writes Barbara Ransby, professor of history at the University of Illinois, Chicago.
The media (and many of us Democrats) don’t seem content with navigating the diversity within the Party. As the New York Times put it, the “critical questions about which voters make up the Party’s base in the Biden era, and who best speaks for them,” have to be debated.
The results of every primary and every election are grist for arguments over who is winning, who is losing. The assumption seems to be that the question has to be asked and there can be only one answer.
Diversity is the Party’s strength, however. There are many different faces, many different communities and many different perspectives. They are all reflected in the people we elect.
Ransby recognizes the connection between an elected and their voters. “If they are doing their jobs, they will be accountable to people who sent them there. … They want leaders who are immersed in communities who remember where they came from when they attain positions of power. Or better yet, politicians who never leave in all the ways that matter.”
Ransby, however, doesn’t see how different our communities are. Referring to the Squad, she writes, “They are wisely acting as if they represent the demographic and political majority that their generation will become.”
But districts are different. If electeds are “immersed” in their own communities and “accountable” to their own voters, their faces also will be different. Their actions will be different.
The function of the Party – the art of politics -- is not to make everyone look alike, or think alike, but to seek out the accommodations that bring diverse parts together, making the whole stronger than any of its parts.
There is increasing appreciation on the part of campaign strategists and party leaders for the diversity that exists within communities and the power that comes from making local connections
Politics over the past several decades has become increasingly centralized. Candidates are recruited by interests outside the district, strategy is planned by outside consultants, the resources needed to win come from outside the district.
From a distance, the differences within and among communities are not perceived. We are all lumped into categories. All rural folk are alike. Blacks all have the same interests. Hispanics are all similar. As are all Asians. Cookie cutter campaigns for legislative and congressional seats are planned by strategists in Madison and Washington.
That hasn’t worked very well, but change may be coming. A review of 2020 congressional races in close districts by three influential groups aligned with Democrats concluded, not surprisingly, that candidates who matched their districts, emphasized the local, and had a message that reflected the diversity of interests within their districts, were more likely to win.
“Candidates who won districts that President Biden did not, relied on local knowledge, a personal bio that resonated with voters … and disciplined campaigns that stayed on message.”
Democrats unexpectedly lost in several majority Hispanic districts. The review attributed the drop off in Democrat support to a national perspective that saw all Hispanics as being alike.
“National strategy failed to take into account regional and local differences, socioeconomic status, urbanicity … didn't always reflect the differing values and priorities of urban Hispanic voters vs. rural Hispanic voters … did not account for differing perceptions among gender, age groups, educational attainment, geography, or country of origin.”
There was also a drop off of Black votes in 2020. The report said there was a “dearth of message research on Black voters in particular” and little effort to persuade. Rather, the campaigns put their resources in the last couple of days before the election into “getting out the Black vote”.
Both Black and Hispanic voters were treated as “targets”, rather than as “audiences for persuasion”.
Thinking about voters as individuals rather than targets changes campaign strategy. It shifts the emphasis from selling a product to building relationships. The places where those relationships have been nurtured showed results in 2020.
“Consistent relationship- building through year -round organizing made a difference … Victories in Georgia, Nevada, Arizona, and other states this cycle were built on years of organizing and community servicing led by some of our best political and labor organizers. This orientation is especially critical in communities of color that we know value relationships but whom we often treat in a transactional way, showing up every 2-4 years instead of being continually present and engaged.”
The report focused on voters of color but relationship is just as important in rural communities. At the Wisconsin Democratic Rural Caucus retreat last month, Sen. Janet Bewley who’s district is in the far northwestern part of the state described her voters this way.
Many come from fourth and fifth generation families. They are centered on community. Their loyalty is to school and church. The social infrastructure is contained and they are comfortable with that. Everybody knows everybody and they are leery if a stranger knocks on the door. You have to “connect” before any real conversation can take place.
Her remarks reminded me of when I was a precinct committeeperson in Sangamon County, Illinois. It was not until the third or fourth time I knocked on the same door and was a familiar face that people wanted to talk.
Part of the “job” was welcoming people when they moved into the precinct, helping them get registered to vote, letting them know the location of the polls, seeing they got an absentee ballot if they needed one, helping if they had problems with the city or county, keeping them informed. After the connecting, persuasion was easier.
When we don’t connect with people as individuals, but assign them to categories, we exacerbate the differences and make them the “other”. “Moderates” and “progressives” exist in different camps. Conflict comes easily. Absent the labels, individuals come in all gradations of values and perspectives. Conversation is more natural. Accommodation comes more easily.
A single face cannot capture the diversity, or the strength that comes from the diversity, of voters in all of our very different communities. To reflect that diversity, to represent that diversity, the face of the party cannot be singular, but a “many splendored” mosaic. We are all the future, if we can stay together and make that happen.
Douglas Kane is the author of "Our Politics: Reflections on Political Life" published in 2019 by Southern Illinois University Press
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