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Democrats and the Permanent Crisis Wall Street Journal (subscription) What are Democrats going to do if Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell ever learns how to assemble 51 votes? Without significant legislative accomplishments to show for their congressional majorities and with a beleaguered president hovering near ... and more »

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Democrats and the Permanent Crisis - Wall Street Journal (subscription)

ATLANTA -- The keynote address of the opening plenary at Netroots Nation contained both an invocation of the Black Panther Party and a full-throated endorsement of intersectionality. Though she implored progressives to "stick together" during those remarks, Rep. Barbara Lee may have unintentionally exhibited why that mission is impossible.

Seven months into Donald Trump's presidency, progressive activists gathered in Atlanta for the annual gathering, coming from across the country to hear from speakers such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Al Gore, and attend panels with titles ranging from "Dismantling the Corporate Influence Machine in the States," to "The State of Trans Affairs in 2017," and "Forging a State-Led Path to Climate Justice in the Era of Trump."

Toward the end of the first panel I attended, one audience member censured another for failing to recognize his privilege during a question-and-answer session. The crowd cheered in approval. "Your privilege is showing," the man said in a reprimand from the microphone, scolding his peer with disgust.

At Netroots, privilege checks and all-gender restrooms and preferred pronouns and denouncements of colonialism and calls for intersectionality are all a part of business as usual, not the least bit out of place at this summer retreat activists have created for themselves in a red-state Hyatt.

This is Atlanta, so it's no surprise that praise for failed congressional candidate Jon Ossoff occurred more than once during the panels I attended. But Ossoff is, in many ways, an emblem of the central dilemma these activists face. Centrists and pragmatists believe he was a bad candidate, too liberal for a conservative district, while progressives celebrated him for that very adherence to their worldview.

Jason Kander, who lost his red-state race to Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., last November offered a solution to that problem: Go bolder.

"Voters will forgive you for believing something that they don't believe so long as they know that you truly believe it," he told conference goers, urging them to be unapologetic advocates for their ideas. In fact, calls for "bolder" advocacy were ubiquitous on Thursday, from the lips of a local mayor on a panel all the way to the keynote speech Congresswoman Lee gave that evening.

But both Kander and Ossoff lost -- Ossoff in spite of an enormous financial advantage and a hyper-excited Democratic base.

That's not to say this formula won't work anywhere. But here at Netroots, there is no interest in moderating the message at all. Lee may be correct in saying a victory over the Trump agenda will require that Democrats "stick together." But if the party remains reflexively responsive to this base, torn between broadening its appeal in places like the Rust Belt and maintaining the support of grassroots activists who do privilege checks and debate intersectionality, it's hard to imagine how that will happen.

Emily Jashinsky is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.

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As Democrats look to rebuild, progressives want to go bolder - Washington Examiner

ATLANTA (AP) Dissatisfied with Democratic fortunes in the era of President Donald Trump, a group of prominent Democrats is forming an organization outside the formal party structure with the goal of winning again in Republican-dominated middle America.

Calling itself New Democracy, the group includes sitting and former governors, former Cabinet members, mayors and lawmakers from Congress to statehouses. Among the affiliated politicians: Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, considered a possible future presidential candidate; former Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, also a former Iowa governor; and Mayor Mitch Landrieu of New Orleans, current head of the nonpartisan U.S. Conference of Mayors.

We have to expand this party, and make it a bigger tent, said Will Marshall, the Democratic policy veteran who is running the group.

Another one of the organizers, former Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear, told The Associated Press in a recent interview that Democrats cannot be a successful national policy by winning races only on our two coasts. The party, Beshear said, has to get back to the basics and appeal to folks all over our country.

The group plans to form affiliated political action committees to endorse and raise money for candidates. It has met twice in recent months and plans another gathering this fall in Iowa.

Marshall, who helped run a similar effort for moderate Democrats like Bill Clinton in the 1980s, said New Democracy isnt trying to run a shadow party or foment sectarian battles between moderates and liberals. But he said the official party leadership reflects the places Democrats have already won, adding that you have got to have credible messengers.

Democrats highest ranking elected leaders are House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York.

Its not unintentional that the new effort echoes the Democratic Leadership Council, the group that then-Arkansas Gov. Clinton used to popularize his third way political philosophy. Calling himself a New Democrat, Clinton tilted the Democratic Party away from its more liberal coastal anchors and helped his party reclaim the White House in 1992 after several landslide defeats.

In 2017, Democrats face an even starker power deficit, despite Hillary Clinton, Bills wife, having won the presidential popular vote last November. Trump sits in the White House, while Republicans control both the House and Senate and two-thirds of U.S. statehouses. In 25 states, Republicans control the entire legislature and the governors. Democrats have that dominance in just six states, none between the West Coast and the Northeast.

Last week, West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice switched parties, leaving the Democrats to become a Republican,

Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez acknowledges the partys struggles between the coastlines. Hes made modest increases in the national partys support of state and local parties. But he also has found himself in public spats between liberals who want an absolutist position on issues like abortion rights and moderates who would back candidates who veer from party orthodoxy.

Marshall said economic policy arguments rise above these litmus tests.

An example, he said, is highlighting Trumps more isolationist trade policy and how it is steering foreign partners away from U.S. agriculture. This is coming home to roost in rural America, Marshall said, so we need to talk about that the right way and in the right places.

Follow Barrow on Twitter at https://www.twitter.com/BillBarrowAP.

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Democrats launch new group aimed at Republican strongholds - The Seattle Times

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is using Google Search ads to direct people who look up their lawmaker or seek information on town halls or health care to microsites that feature clocks showing how long it's been since their member of Congress held a town hall and calls to action. The ads started Tuesday and will run through the August congressional recess until September 5.

The ads target 25 GOP lawmakers, including House Speaker Paul Ryan.

It's an opening salvo in an effort to portray the GOP as hiding from voters -- a message that allows Democratic challengers to go after House members even in right-leaning districts without attacking them directly on politics.

Across the map, Democratic candidates are using tactics designed to play up GOP incumbents' absence.

In places like Fullerton, California, candidates are showing up at "empty chair" town halls hosted by Indivisible and other progressive organizations. At one last week, Republican Rep. Ed Royce did not attend, so Democratic Rep. Linda Sanchez came from her neighboring district to speak in his place while five Democrats running against Royce greeted hundreds of attendees.

"If House Republicans are heartless enough to take away health care from their constituents but too scared to face them at public town halls, they don't deserve to be in Congress," DCCC spokesman Tyler Law said. "Our latest digital ad campaign exposes Washington Republicans while they're home on recess and empowers people to hold their representatives accountable."

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First on CNN: Democrats target GOP House members who haven't held town halls - CNN

That is, Trumps core base of support those people who he says would stick by him even if he shot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue are people who have heard and appreciated all his nativist dog whistles: from his slur that Barack Obama was not born in America to his focus on voter suppression to his restricting transgender people in the military to his reversing affirmative action and imposing immigration restrictions. That white nationalist constituency is beyond the reach for good reason of any Democratic candidate.

But Trump did not win, and could not win again, with that group alone. His genius was expanding beyond that nativist core with just enough votes in the right places to get him over the top by pushing other buttons. These were things that many conservative and centrist voters believe in their guts, even if they dont articulate them.

Trump connects with these gut issues and takes them in a destructive direction. Its vital for Democrats to connect with them and take them in a constructive direction.

What issues? Heres my list:

We cant take in every immigrant who wants to come here; we need, metaphorically speaking, a high wall that assures Americans we can control our border with a big gate that lets as many people in legally as we can effectively absorb as citizens.

The Muslim world does have a problem with pluralism gender pluralism, religious pluralism and intellectual pluralism and suggesting that terrorism has nothing to do with that fact is nave; countering violent extremism means constructively engaging with Muslim leaders on this issue.

Americans want a president focused on growing the economic pie, not just redistributing it. We do have a trade problem with China, which has reformed and closed instead of reformed and opened. We have an even bigger problem with automation wiping out middle-skilled work and we need to generate more blue-collar jobs to anchor communities.

Political correctness on college campuses has run ridiculously riot. Americans want leaders to be comfortable expressing patriotism and love of country when globalization is erasing national identities. America is not perfect, but it is, more often than not, a force for good in the world.

Voters dont listen through their ears. They listen through their stomachs. And when you connect with voters in their guts, they feel respected, and when they feel respected, they will listen to anything including big issues that are true even if Democrats believe them. Such as the fact that a majority of Americans like Obamacare and want to see it built to last, and a majority of Americans do not like the way Trump is despoiling the environment and bringing back coal.

Indeed, the biggest wind power states in America Texas, Iowa, Kansas, South Dakota, Oklahoma and North Dakota are all red states. The Democrats literally have the wind at their backs on health care and clean energy.

But to be heard, they need candidates who can pass a gut check with the more moderate Trump/G.O.P. voters. Just 10 percent of Trump voters would suffice. Trumps core base is solid, but hes clearly losing the soft support around his core. Democrats can grow into the soft support as long as theyre smart and Trump continues to just swell.

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A version of this op-ed appears in print on August 9, 2017, on Page A19 of the New York edition with the headline: Democrats, Start Aiming For the Gut.

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Democrats, Start Aiming for the Gut - New York Times