GUEST COLUMN: Where the Democratic Party should go from here

“What do you want for this country? Is it an authoritarian oligarchy or a populist democracy?” Guest column from Eric Genrich, mayor of the City of Green Bay. 

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This column is from The Recombobulation Area, a weekly opinion column and online publication founded by Dan Shafer, now part of the Civic Media network. Learn more about The Recombobulation Area and subscribe here.

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“It may well be impossible for people who have lived and prospered under a given social system to imagine the point of view of those who feel it offers them nothing, and who can contemplate its destruction without any particular dismay.” – Michel Houellebecq

This, sadly, has been the point of view of too many of our leaders in Washington, people who have benefited tremendously from the status quo and can generate precious little indignation about a political and economic regime that has functioned so poorly for the mass of Americans for so long. 

Recently, this disconnect has been on full display. But before exploring that, let’s look back at our recent political history. 

The Biden administration and a then-Democratic Congress enacted some truly transformational legislation in the form of the American Rescue Plan, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Inflation Reduction Act, and the CHIPS and Science Act, but these policies lacked a fluent advocate and champion in the White House and have been hobbled by a predictably slow rollout, in the case of the last three laws. We must do a hell of a lot better, and fast.

The backlash that’s delivered Trump twice into the presidency shouldn’t shock us, coming as it does after several decades of corporate-dominated neoliberal rule that accomplished little for working class Americans. 

It’s also true, however, that Trump’s faux populism has, at warp speed, paved the way for billionaire oligarchs and aspiring authoritarians to seize the opportunity presented by widespread cynicism to dismantle remaining checks on their power and push through a tax regime to further empower and enrich them. 

The Trump-induced cure will be far worse than the disease that preceded it, but that isn’t self-evident to many. Making the MAGA threat clear to American voters is the task we all share in.

This, sadly, has been the point of view of too many of our leaders in Washington, people who have benefited tremendously from the status quo and can generate precious little indignation about a political and economic regime that has functioned so poorly for the mass of Americans for so long. 

Recently, this disconnect has been on full display. But before exploring that, let’s look back at our recent political history. 

The Biden administration and a then-Democratic Congress enacted some truly transformational legislation in the form of the American Rescue Plan, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Inflation Reduction Act, and the CHIPS and Science Act, but these policies lacked a fluent advocate and champion in the White House and have been hobbled by a predictably slow rollout, in the case of the last three laws. We must do a hell of a lot better, and fast.

The backlash that’s delivered Trump twice into the presidency shouldn’t shock us, coming as it does after several decades of corporate-dominated neoliberal rule that accomplished little for working class Americans. 

It’s also true, however, that Trump’s faux populism has, at warp speed, paved the way for billionaire oligarchs and aspiring authoritarians to seize the opportunity presented by widespread cynicism to dismantle remaining checks on their power and push through a tax regime to further empower and enrich them. 

The Trump-induced cure will be far worse than the disease that preceded it, but that isn’t self-evident to many. Making the MAGA threat clear to American voters is the task we all share in.

So, what’s going on? First, it’s important to be clear that Elon Musk and the “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) are not at all focused on improving the efficiency of the federal government and are clearly dedicated to remaking the bureaucracy in Trump’s image and ridding critical agencies of professional, non-MAGA personnel. An administration dedicated to rooting out waste and fraud would empower inspectors general, not purge them, for example. 

This prizing of fealty uber alles isn’t something Elon arrived at on his own, though there are similarities to his reign at Twitter/X. Really, this is what Project 2025 looks like in action. It’s now clearly being implemented in an amateurishly haphazard way. But the chaos, cruelty, and resulting fear are also the point, as these vandals are very willing to trade competence for power, especially in these early days of Trump 2.0. 

The idea that any of these personnel actions are rooted in a desire for fiscal conservatism is ludicrous. Musk and his DOGE-aligned minions aren’t pinching pennies to reduce the deficit; they’re eliminating good, dedicated workers to aggrandize and centralize their own power, and the architects of the effort have been clear about these intentions. Trump also wants massive tax breaks for Musk, himself, and his fellow billionaires, but they’ll be slashing Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security for this purpose.

“We the people are pissed,” says the bumper sticker I’ve seen multiple times on Main Street in Green Bay — which might as well be Main Street USA. 

“Now, anyone who speaks with confidence about the precise mix of policy prescriptions that will lead us into the promised land are deluding themselves and others, but a few maxims should be obvious enough. Here are mine: support people, not systems; be indignant of injustice; act boldly.”

The sentiment is overwhelming, a feeling which has simmered for decades and was super-charged by the inflationary conditions that followed the pandemic. This pervasive discontent has, unfortunately, been channeled in a disastrous Trumpian direction that will not, in any tangible way, improve the lives of everyday Americans. The American people voted for Trump, by a slim margin, but they do not want to take food and medical care from poor people to pay for corporate tax cuts. They do not want the world’s richest person, drunk on power and high on ketamine, cooking up hare-brained ideas that threaten our Social Security payments, flight safety, or nuclear security. 

People do want our governments to work for us, however. And Democrats must show that they want the same.

When building a bigger coalition to offer solutions to the grievances of working people, we must never abandon our commitment to defending the common humanity of all our friends and neighbors, at every turn. Genuinely decent people are frustrated by illegal immigration and are bewildered by rapidly-shifting gender identity norms, but we cannot allow extremist politicians to weaponize these sentiments to dangerous ends. Nor should we respond with anything but absolute opposition to the latest iteration of trickle down tax policy that will lead to massive cuts in health care programs and Social Security, exploding deficits, or a bit of both. These are non-negotiables, but there’s a lot of recent thinking that is deserving of reevaluation.

Now, anyone who speaks with confidence about the precise mix of policy prescriptions that will lead us into the promised land are deluding themselves and others, but a few maxims should be obvious enough. Here are mine: support people, not systems; be indignant of injustice; act boldly.

Democrats have got to get comfortable with a left-populism that advances a platform that prioritizes the values and policies of  a multiracial working class, that channels the indignation that people are rightly feeling, that isn’t afraid to plow new policy ground. Real people deserve real help, and they’re entitled to an opposition party in the Democrats that forcefully offers plans to increase the wages and the power of working people, end corporate domination of American life, and make the government work for regular people. Knee-jerk defenses of the Washington consensus, in domestic or foreign policy realms, aren’t going to get it done. And micro-targeted, means-tested policy proposals aren’t the solution either.

Unfortunately, Senate Democrats missed their first real opportunity to deny the Trump/Musk White House the carte blanche they’ve been given during the early days of this administration. In failing to filibuster the spending plan — which enables the continuing, unabated dismantling of the federal workforce and the elimination of congressionally-authorized departments, agencies, and missions — Sen. Chuck Schumer and a handful of Senate Democrats failed to meet the demands of the mass of their voting base and fumbled a chance to demonstrate to swing voters their ability to take this oligraphic threat to our republic seriously. 

Already the party’s approval rating is at historic lows, largely because its own voters have lost faith in party leadership, and Schumer’s weak-willed surrender will only accelerate the cratering of party legitimacy. Heckuva job, Chuck.

Still, negative partisanship is a helluva drug and was on full display in last Tuesday’s Wisconsin Supreme Court race results. Dems are angry and engaged, and the Democratic coalition, as it is currently composed, is likelier than the Republican one to turnout in off-cycle, spring, and midterm elections. That’s all to the good, but it’s not sufficient.

Back to Schumer. What’s done is done, but elected Democrats at the state and federal levels must grapple with how badly Senate Democrats played their hand and reorient the party’s strategy to truly align it with the interests of the party base and working class voters. This is more easily said than done, of course — especially on cultural questions — but it is vital for party leaders to identify those policy issues and tactical responses that most closely correspond to what we know of base and swing voters’ interests. 

This also brings us back to the maxims I mentioned above: support people, not systems; be indignant of injustice; act boldly. So here goes.

There’s no need to give any ground to those who want to kill the Department of Education, for example, but we also shouldn’t pretend that we aren’t in need of dramatic educational reform. I believe strongly that federal dollars must be spent on improving the education of our kids, guaranteeing a free and equal education to children with special needs, and protecting the civil rights of all students. But I won’t simply defend the educational bureaucracy in D.C., and I can’t think of too many normal people who would. Ask any teacher how helpful the federal government has been to improving the educational outcomes of our kids, and you’ll learn everything you need to know. Democrats should not reflexively defend existing bureaucratic institutions. Instead, they should be prepared to jump into the political fray on education policy to demand more direct support for kids, better pay for teachers, and less bureaucratic bullshit for everyone.

Back to Schumer. What’s done is done, but elected Democrats at the state and federal levels must grapple with how badly Senate Democrats played their hand and reorient the party’s strategy to truly align it with the interests of the party base and working class voters. This is more easily said than done, of course — especially on cultural questions — but it is vital for party leaders to identify those policy issues and tactical responses that most closely correspond to what we know of base and swing voters’ interests. 

This also brings us back to the maxims I mentioned above: support people, not systems; be indignant of injustice; act boldly. So here goes.

There’s no need to give any ground to those who want to kill the Department of Education, for example, but we also shouldn’t pretend that we aren’t in need of dramatic educational reform. I believe strongly that federal dollars must be spent on improving the education of our kids, guaranteeing a free and equal education to children with special needs, and protecting the civil rights of all students. But I won’t simply defend the educational bureaucracy in D.C., and I can’t think of too many normal people who would. Ask any teacher how helpful the federal government has been to improving the educational outcomes of our kids, and you’ll learn everything you need to know. Democrats should not reflexively defend existing bureaucratic institutions. Instead, they should be prepared to jump into the political fray on education policy to demand more direct support for kids, better pay for teachers, and less bureaucratic bullshit for everyone.

This is just one example, but this kind of thinking should extend to other areas of policy as well. We all want a more effective, people-focused government at the local, state, and federal levels. We don’t want, however:

• A Department of Transportation that imposes a regulatory regime so stultifying that it takes ten years to replace a bridge in downtown Green Bay
• A Commerce Department that expends only a fraction of the $42 billion dedicated to broadband expansion, four years after the law was passed
• A Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) that regulates the hell out of the roughly $1 million sent to our community each year, but whose red tape requires substantial staff time and overly prescribes how we spend the money.

These items will sound familiar to Abundance-pilled Ezra Klein fans, but the potential appeal is much broader. The federal government is good at collecting and distributing money to people and programs authorized by Congress. It’s not always particularly good at administering or implementing them. 

So, let’s stop defaulting to a defense of the bureaucratic status quo in Washington, pretending it’s okay as it is, and let’s get serious about the hard work of rethinking and reforming. We should be fearlessly open and honest in criticizing what doesn’t work in government, in business, and in life, prioritizing the needs of Americans and sidelining the wishes of special interests and one-issue groups when their goals don’t align with those of regular people.

To this point, let’s stop pretending that modern, tech-dominated life doesn’t oftentimes suck for us and our kids, and let’s place appropriate blame on the billionaires and corporations who have made our reality what it is. We are more distracted, less social, and more anxious than any generation of humans to precede us, and it’s not our fault. It’s the fault of tech oligarchs who have monetized attention and anxiety alike and have an amoral obsession with growing their bottom lines without any regard for the damage they’re doing to our mental health, social lives, and familial bonds.

Ban cell phones in schools; protect kids on social media; tax the damn tech CEOs and break up their corporations when they violate anti-trust laws.

I could go on, but I think this gives an understanding of the kinds of issues I believe we should address and the disposition we should take on when doing so.

With all that said, it comes down to the core question: What do you want for this country? Is it an authoritarian oligarchy or a populist democracy? 

That’s the choice before us, and it’s not yet clear which road we’ll take. This is contested ground and clearly voters went for Trump in 2024, but this is still very much a winnable fight for those of us who value democracy. 

Yet, if it’s to endure, if we are to salvage it, democracy must offer the mass of people something worth fighting for. Let’s give it to them.

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Eric Genrich was born and raised in Green Bay. Its 42nd mayor, he was elected to that office in 2019 and reelected in 2023. He previously served three terms in the State Assembly, from 2013-2019.