Posted on by Nathan Riley

Democrats Must Fight Back Now

Don’t look back. Look ahead. Get ready for 2026. We can learn from the past if we are guided with a purpose: doing better next time.

Don’t spend time blaming the Vice-President’s campaign.

Donald Trump pounded the message: “Kamala is for ‘they/them.’ President Trump is for you.” It’s a brilliant tag line and a direct hit on Kamala Harris as being for those people who sign their messages They/them.

What can be done?

Senator Bernie Sanders insists voters are angry, but that anger is not Democratic or Republican. They know the economy is rigged; the rich get more while the rest of us just get by. They/them isn’t the problem. Democrats, he believes, must tap into this anger to prove they are for people who live paycheck to paycheck. Don’t let Republicans define the message. They/them isn’t the problem; high rents, evictions, and food costs are.

Why should food companies raise prices when their profits are soaring is a Bernie Sanders focus. Democrats should choose sides and make it clear that the food companies are a problem.

The Vermont socialist has an answer to Republican charges of elitism: “the Democrats lost this election because they ignored the justified anger of working class America.” In this election, the Party “became the defenders of a rigged economic and political system.”

Trump controlled the debate. He was able to convert the anxiety/hostility towards trans persons and immigrants into a general attack on Democrats. “Trump’s ‘genius’,” Sanders wrote “is his ability to divide the working class so that tens of millions of Americans will reject solidarity with their fellow workers and pave the way for huge tax breaks for the very rich and large corporations.”

Don’t let the Republicans define the issues. Focus on making the economy work for everyone.

Trump’s campaign got away with nonsense. He rebelled against the woke culture. “They/them” isn’t a serious problem. Healthcare that doesn’t “cover home health care, dental, hearing, and vision” is a national failure. Democrats should urge the public focus on these issues.

Sanders presses the Democrats to change the conversation. Why should the Citizens United decision allow billionaires to buy elections? He offers fourteen proposals that work, but only if the Party feeds voter anger.

He would campaign to raise the minimum wage and pass the Protecting the Right to Organize Act to make it easier for workers to unionize. These ideas don’t raise taxes or government spending. Other ideas, like expanding Medicaid and Medicare coverage, have big costs. But he argues they are so popular that the costs, offset by smaller payments to the pharmaceutical industry, would be acceptable to a majority.

His fourteen proposals are tactically sound. Some would provoke Republican tax arguments; others would make the economy fairer, that is where the Democrats will gai strength.

And he wants Democrats to start now. They should offer the public a choice between Democrat and Republican plans. The Democrats should offer a real choice that exposes the Republican’s vacuous ideas. For example, support making all public colleges tuition free. In this way, Democrats can build solidarity in many groups simultaneously. The focus becomes the idea and “they/them” stops being a roadblock and becomes a bump in the road.

In this election, the Republicans increased their vote. Trump received 75.6 million, [as of November 15 76.4] compared to 74.2 million in 2020. The Republican gains were moderate while Democratic losses were a landslide. Harris received 71.8 million, [as of Nov 15 73.7] compared to Biden’s 81.3 million votes in 2020. 9.5 million [7.6M as of Nov 15] fewer votes ought to spur the Democrats into publicizing an American future drastically different from Trump’s MAGA vision. Democrats shouldn’t wait even though they are in the minority; they should start offering a real choice.

Clearly, the Democratic left and center must cooperate in developing these new rationales. This is a task for the whole party. Centrist Democrats have to stop blaming the left for their problems. Why not use the left for inspiration?

Posted on by Nathan Riley

The Time is Now for Freedom Democrats to Organize

Anyone can start a Freedom Democrat club in their neighborhood—just throw a party.

Do that again week after week. The basic organizing principle is getting people who party to unite, pool their votes, and let the politicians see the support from those of us who think it is no crime to get high. The radicals among us can damn politicians for forcing us to buy drugs illegally. It is far better to get drugs as safe as those that treat allergies, headaches, and fevers. These drugs are made under strict government supervision, their doses are disclosed, and the pills are uniform. Drugs made in the illegal market in back rooms are unreliable and often dangerous. This is discrimination—a denial of medical care—against drug users.

More than 100,000 people die of drug overdoses every year, and most often at least some of their drugs are made illegally. It is doubtful that we can bring drug overdoses down to zero, but we can certainly make it unusual and rare.

 Politicians supporting drug prohibition simply told users of oxy, “Stop!” It is a policy that is wildly improbable. It is true that these drugs are addictive for some people, and that means, as any teenager and the public knows, that the users won’t stop, no matter what the government says.

It was a fatal mistake, and the officials who are supposed to curb crime were actually creating a market for illegal drugs. That is how bad policy spread fentanyl across the nation. By being strict, officials were bolstering the market for illegal drugs. In the name of fighting crime, they were encouraging it.

The thoughtless condemnation of drugs, like its related criminalizing of sex workers and the constant threat of curbing pornography, are unpopular, but those of us who fight prohibition must publicly call for a new policy.

These are Freedom Democrats.

This is not a new policy. The prohibition against abortion killed women and made medical care illegal. In state after state, with women leading the way, doctors were allowed to care for their patients.

But when it comes to drug use, the government limits medical care. This must stop. It is up to the doctor and his/her patient to determine the best way to proceed. If a doctor and a patient want to continue drug use, the patient should have access to drugs manufactured by pharmaceutical companies. The ill effects of these medications will be smaller, and no one will be forced to go to dealers. The big losers will be the drug syndicates.

Politicians, with great hesitation, are slowly realizing this truth. Tim Walz, the Governor of Minnesota who is Kamala Harris’s running mate, mocks Republican’s misplaced severity. Governor Walz says, “Across our nation, we have been witnessing a full-on assault against hard-fought, hard-won freedoms and rights: the freedom to vote; the freedom to be safe from gun violence; the freedom to breathe clean air and drink clean water ; the freedom to love who you love openly and with pride; and the freedom of a woman to make decisions about her own body and not have her government telling her what to do.”

Walz updates freedom with his charge that for Republicans freedom means the government has the freedom to enter the examination room, tell us what books to read, and stop teachers from candidly discussing American history.

The time is right for Freedom Democrats to organize, so throw a party every week. The people who love freedom will increase visibility and push Democrats to accept people as they are, not as some wish them to be.

Posted on by Nathan Riley

Will the Democratic Love-Fest Continue?

The worriers were wrong. The Democrats replaced Joe Biden without a fight, without disruption. Sixth grade civics won out: the President is sick, the Vice-President takes over.

Party unity was jolted, fed by enthusiasm. Kamala Harris for President was greeted by Democrats with an immense sigh of relief: she looked healthy and able to do the job. Almost immediately, stories leaked about what the Wall Street Journal called her ten-hour telephone “marathon” after Biden pulled out of the race. Over one hundred calls, so the story went, and it carried a double message. She was organized, had the phone numbers, and could reach hundreds of Democratic decision-makers. She asked for support, and as everybody has heard, they gave it to her. Her energy also made it clear that she could reach out and help party members with their problems. Her White House would be accessible.

The fast turnover made it clear that supporters of an open convention, where candidates would have an opportunity to be heard, were offering bad advice. The doctor would have been prescribing chaos. Instead, Joe Biden endorsed Kamala and, more to the point, turned over his campaign staff and hundred-million-dollar bank account to her. Hickety-split the turnover fell into place.

Kamala is talking the language of continuity. For the left, there is hope that their friends at the National Labor Relations Board and Federal Trade Commission will continue their policies for another four years.

Foreign policy will divide Democrats: Ukraine and Gaza. The United States has not chosen peace, but in these places it has chosen sides. In the Ukraine, it is the pro-Western government; in Gaza, it is Israel. The results are catastrophic. Gaza is being demolished, and Ukraine’s infrastructure is crumbling. It seems certain that U.S. foreign policy will receive sharp scrutiny. How Democrats cope with these decisions will be a major problem for the next President. Trump or Harris will confront this grave predicament.

The left appears committed to peaceful solutions. It can make friends or in an extreme case look unreliable. Turning American foreign policy in a new direction is no easy matter. It should provide many opportunities for gaining friends and entering into mutually beneficial arrangements. Plainly it will be a dominant issue in January 2025.

Posted on by Nathan Riley

Biden and the Left

Why are left Democrats supporting Joe Biden?

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and AOC, the member of Congress from the Bronx and Queens, don’t want him to leave. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez believes it is “crazy” to think the Democrats can drop Biden and preserve their momentum in November.

On Instagram Live, she supported the President and thought an open convention would lead to trouble. She believes party leaders show a “lack of thought” on how to confront legal challenges associated with replacing the nominee.

She called it “disturbing” that wealthy donors and social media “groupthink” are driving the debate. It could bring charges that would weaken the support that Biden has from union members and older Americans.

Obviously, Sanders and AOC don’t think Biden is perfect, but they also know that in many areas the Democrats are accepting left ideas. The President’s power to appoint is also the power to set policy. Government agencies under Biden have opened policy debates that would die with a Trump presidency, and whose fate would become uncertain with a new presidential candidate.

The National Labor Relations Board is willing to listen to workers’ complaints about unfair practices from bosses. This is big plus for unions. The Federal Trade Commission has started anti-trust actions that will need years to resolve. A new President might go in a different direction. Even if that direction is a positive one, the change in policy would harm the initiatives started by the Federal Trade Commission.

For the first time, federal agencies are discussing caps on rent for landlords receiving government tax breaks. The agencies are considering a limit on rent increases for those corporations receiving the tax benefits. It’s the first time the federal government has considered an activist policy to curb rent hikes. Traditionally, that has been a local matter. A federal restriction would benefit millions of families.

It’s not just abortion where the Biden administration has done a good job. Rents, restrictions on the power of Google, and assisting unions trying to organize workers have benefited from Biden’s influence.

It is no wonder that AOC thinks that the involvement of big donors spells trouble that might harm these Biden programs. It is unlikely that big donors want to make life easier for union organizing or to have rent increases restricted. By focusing on Biden’s infirmities, they could be laying the groundwork to rejuvenate conservative Democrats.

Sanders and AOC are being prudent and perhaps clairvoyant, but elections are almost always laced with judgment calls, and 2024 is no different. We don’t know what November will bring.