From the viewpoint of DSOT, the election results suggest that voters feel the Democratic party has abandoned them, no longer serving the interests of the people, but a wealthy donor class. It now appears that the Obama Administration’s inability to deal with the fundamental crises of wealth inequality, and the climate crisis was the beginning of the end for this type of Third Way politics, and the Democrats as credible representatives of the working class.
The current Democratic party has no narrative around which to build a vision of a political future, and as Barrie so often says, “in politics, the best story wins.” Unfortunately, it seems even a bad story beats no story.
So where does this leave us? Well let’s zoom out one more time and note that the Democratic party losing was actually part of a global anti-incumbency trend, in which every ruling party across the globe lost vote share in elections this year. All except for Amlo’s party (known as the Bernie Sander’s of Mexico). And here is perhaps where we can get a toehold of the path forward. Amlo’s party’s durability suggests that delivering material popular policies for the people does still work. The winning agenda is one supported by a supermajority of people, not the elites. In other words, the issues DSOT has been highlighting for years now.
Unfortunately elections have consequences and so the next few years are going to be brutal, with the callous and incompetent evil of the Trump and Republican party at large on full display. The people taking power really are as selfish and cynical and hateful and incompetent and apathetic and cruel as we warned. This is going to be a looting and pillaging of the federal government for private gain, a stripping away a further rights, the tearing apart of immigrant families, and more global instability just to begin with. There is no way to sugar coat it, this is going to be a time of hurt, a time where life will likely get worse for many, many Americans. But we are not doomed, and there will be opportunities to resist and build a better future.
The key going forward during this time is to combat the hate and alienation by building community and solidarity. We have to start with the most basic of steps: creating human connections with those around you. This human connection is the fundamental building block of vibrant communities, empathetic politics, and powerful solidarity. It starts by reaching out to your neighbors, to your association members, to the people that you encounter throughout the day, to learn who they are, and to invite them to share in communal activities. We need to create a real sense of knowing those around us as full human beings so that when others try to spread hate and division your community will pull together instead of apart.
Using these building blocks we can begin to coalesce together into larger movements within our neighborhoods, our cities, our towns. We can join together on local issues to reestablish the possibility of government acting meaningfully to impact people's lives. We must take that human connection and then build towards concerted collective local action to fix those issues and to build representation and power. This may seem like a slow path these first steps build the foundation, and are one’s we can’t skip if our movements are to stand up against this techno-fascist machine. We look forward to describing in future emails DSOT’s plans to build that solidarity going forward. We hope that you'll join us on the journey, and you will agree that despair is not an option. Together with combined economic and political power we take on the elites and get a government that represents the people. So join us each Tuesday, our fight is just beginning.
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