SUGGESTIONS DEMOCRATS NEED TO WIN THE MID-TERMS
A U.S. RESIST NEWS EDITORIAL
February 01, 2022
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At the moment things look a bit dire for the chances of Democrats maintaining control of the House and Senate in the 2020 mid-term elections. Their attempt to pass voting rights legislation has been blocked (thanks to people in their own party), the massive Build Back Better Bill also has stalled in the Senate, inflation is on the rise, COVID is still very much with us, and President Biden’s favorability rating is at an all-time low.
So, is there any hope? Can the Democrats turn things around between now and November? We at U.S. RESIST NEWS believe it’s possible, but Democrats must take some important actions at the Federal, state and local levels to give themselves a chance. Here’s what we suggest they do:
# 1 Place the blame on the Republican Obstructionism: Democrats need to emphasize that the inability of government to better meet the needs of its citizens is mainly the result Republican inaction and oppositional tactics. The Dems can point out how Republican opposition to voting rights, climate change, education and health programs has been largely responsible for the inability of Congress to pass much needed legislation in these areas.
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# 2 Keep asking the question: What do Republicans stand for? As for as we can tell Republicans stand for little more than seizing power and clinging to it. In this current Congress (and during much of the Trump administration) Republicans have put forward no major policy proposals and spend most of their time voting down Biden’s legislative agenda. The Democrats should turn Republican obstructionism against Republicans, and ask at every campaign rally: “What do Republicans stand for? What do they stand for?”
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# 3 Publicize the January 6th Committee’s investigation: The House Committee to investigate the January 6th insurrection seems to be making headway. Despite the refusal of leading Trump associates to testify, the Committee has interviewed hundreds of witnesses and compiled extensive documentation related to January 6th. They seem poised to tell a fairly detailed story of efforts led by President Trump to overturn the 2020 presidential election and democracy itself. This story needs to be widely told so that the American people have the facts of what really happened on Jan 6th. The House Committee plans to hold televised hearings on January 6th, which will be a great way to expose the atrocity the deliberate efforts before, during, and after that day to overturn the election results
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# 4 Make abortion rights a key campaign issue
The Supreme Court has been sending signals that it may soon overturn the doctrine of a woman’s right to choose to have an abortion. That doctrine was estaboished in the Roe v Wade decision in 1973. The Court’s recent decision to let stand an anti-abortion law in Texas, and its promise to render decisions on the legality of anti-abortion legislation in Mississippi, indicate that near-term court rulings may soon make Roe v Wade obsolete. It will be an extremely unpopular decision in the eyes of the vast numbers of American women who support abortion rights. Democrats should go all out to voice their opposition to any effort to overturn or limit Roe v Wade. Doing so would help the Dems garner the support of millions of American women.
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#5 Introduce More Targeted Legislation
The pieces of legislation the Democrats can get pass through Congress the better their ability to score points with voters. During this past year, Democrats failed to get large pieces of their legislative agenda passed. Part of the problem was the size and scope of their proposals. Both the Build Back Better Bill and the Voting Rights Bills had many different and varied components within them. The size of the bills made them difficult to explain to the general public and made it easy for Senators opposed to certain parts of the legislation to say “no” to the entire package. For example, take the climate change and universal pre-school components of the Build Back Better bill out of that bill and propose them as stand-alone legislation. The two voting rights bills could be d-coupled and broken out into small legislative proposals. By breaking these large pieces of legislation up into smaller pieces, Democrats will also force Republicans to go public with their opposition to popular pieces of legislation.
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# 6 Support voter turnout and election monitoring efforts: It goes without saying that the Democrats will need to do more than their usual get-ot-the-vote efforts if they have any hope of winning the mid-terms. Especially in Red States that have enacted hostile voter registration and election laws the Democrats will need to implement intense voter turnout campaigns, post legal challenges to restrictive voter laws in states that have them, and perhaps consider placing voting monitors at polling places to ensure that no one is pressured and every citizen who shows up gets the opportunity to vote.
These suggestions constitute a challenging but doable set of actions for Democrats to take in their approach to the mid-terms. Party leaders at the national, state and local levels, and of course the Democratic National Committee need to get behind such a strategy if the Democrats want to expand their leadership positions in the House and Senate.
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