The Democratic Party is in disarray, trying to determine how best to defeat Trump and the MAGA movement in the next midterm and presidential elections.
Their disarray is, unfortunately, not new. After the 2004 election, Vice President Mondale said, "Unless we have a vision and the arguments to match, I don’t think we’re going to truly connect with the American people.“ They still have no vision, yet it is there for the asking.
The Pledge of Allegiance says, "with liberty and justice for all." It's about equality. The pledge and the concept of preserving American values should be the rallying cry of Democrats.
Yet when doing a Google search for “preserving American values," not a single Democratic Party organization showed up in the search results. However, many state and local Republican Party organizations did so because they incorporate that phrase into their policy documents.
Then a few weeks ago, looking for a new platform for my blog, I entered the title "Preserving American Values" and the tagline: "Our nation stands under attack ... from within not without.." One platform, using AI, designed a new blog for me, but it turned out to be a MAGA site! AI had assumed, because of the words I used, that I was a MAGA adherent. Talk about proof for the following argument.
I have, for the past 2 decades—since writing the book, We Still Hold These Truths—argued that the Democratic Party should embrace America’s founding document—the Declaration of Independence—as the basis for their policies, making it their Mission statement. They should rightfully wrap themselves in the flag.
But they have not followed my advice. Instead, it is the MAGA Republicans who have embraced, deceitfully, the phrase “Preserving American Values,” deceitful in that their take on the values is always self-serving, it's about their rights.
By Democrats not tying their policies to our founding documents, they have left themselves open to Republican criticism for being “elite”, un-American, and not supporting the working man.
Whereas in actuality, it is the Republicans who have always sided with the true elite—large corporations and banks—and against the working man. Trump talks rousingly in support of the working man, but he has, in fact, done little. Democrats must expose Trump and MAGA Republicans for what they are … hypocrites masquerading as the party of the people.
Why have Democrats not claimed the provenance of our founding documents for their policies? Everything the Party has worked for since the turn of the 20th century derives from the Declaration of Independence: the right of all people—including women, workers, the poor, and people of color—to equality, to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Yet they never talk about the Declaration.
Democrats must fight for the hearts and minds of the American people by adopting a vision that resonates with the people. A centrist liberal vision that speaks to all Americans, that does not pit one segment against another. And this includes corporations; they have a vital role to play, but they cannot be allowed to control government or act against the greater good.
Luckily, there is a vision at hand that is as American as apple pie—the words of the Declaration of Independence. You couldn't draft a more appropriate mission statement for the Democratic Party.
I therefore proposed in 2004, and have often since, that the Party adopt a Mission statement based on the words of the Declaration that brings all Democratic policies together in a coherent message:
“To build a country of greater opportunity where:
- each and every American has a real chance to experience the promises made in the Declaration of Independence: 'that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness' ;
- government meets its responsibility as outlined in the Declaration—‘to secure these rights’—; and
- all citizens have a shared responsibility to support the government’s efforts to secure these rights and promote the public good, each according to his ability.”
These words from the Declaration of Independence are the moral philosophy, the heart, the soul of American democracy. This was, or at least until recently, America’s common faith. Democrats must restore that faith.
True, there were aspects of the American experiment that went against these values—slavery and the continuing inequality of women—but the exigencies and mores of the time do not negate the aspirational nature of the words, and indeed they have proven to be the light that has guided us.
Besides the concept of equality, the role of government noted in the Declaration and implemented in the Constitution is critical. That role is "to secure these rights."
What does that mean? It means that the government must do what is necessary to ensure that all Americans have a truly equal opportunity to pursue the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Once the government ensures equal opportunity, it is the individual's responsibility to take advantage of it.
For example, welfare is not charity, but an example of the government providing support so children have an equal opportunity to have a good education. You can't do well in school if you're hungry, if your housing is not secure. But as just stated, it is a child's and his parents' responsibility to take that equal opportunity and make the most of it.
But beyond the problem of not having a vision, another major problem is that the Party sees itself one way—the party of the people, the average man—while a large number of those very people—the White middle class worker—see the Party differently. What happened?
The Party must understand its role in this. Yes, the Party worked hard during the 20th century to increase people's rights and their standard of living, first for the American worker and later for the poor and people of color.
But it must realize that in the last decades of the 20th century, it was so focused on righting the discrimination that people of color and the poor have suffered historically, that it forgot to keep watch over the American worker. The Party thus did not see the depths to which the formerly middle-class worker sank during the following decades. They must do a mea culpa and ensure those who left the Party that they are now, once again, wholeheartedly included in the Party's vision for all Americans.
And they must demonstrate to all Americans that their interests are not truly separate or opposed. That by enacting policies that ensure all citizens—White as well as people of color, not just the poor and disadvantaged but the middle-class worker as well— have a realistic opportunity to pursue their rights, all benefit. Everyone benefits, including the rich and corporations, from policies that move all people forward, as it creates a more prosperous country. Democrats must counter the prevalent us v them attitude.
It is past time for Democrats to regain the rhetorical upper hand and reclaim their position as the party of the people, the party of America’s historic values.. Democrats must go on the offensive.
Ronald L. Hirsch is a teacher, legal aid lawyer, survey researcher, nonprofit executive, consultant, composer, author, and volunteer. He is a graduate of Brown University and the University of Chicago Law School and the author of We Still Hold These Truths. Read more of his writing at www.PreservingAmericanValues.com
