One basic axiom for a party in trouble with voters is to absorb and expand the reach to new voters. The Democratic Party is losing touch with voters, so here are some expansion ideas. My main suggestion is to steal some thunder from the Republicans and drifting voters by daring to embrace some populist ideas, rather than softening some core beliefs. Here are some examples:
Reform higher education
One way is to fund a new layer of colleges, as in California, that are aimed at where the jobs are. An example would be UC Davis, with its wine-making classes. Another would be to provide money for “canon schools,” which focus on the Western canon (Aristotle, Shakespeare, Dante, Cervantes), including critiques of these works. Already we have four-year ex-community colleges in Bellevue, Edmonds, so build a system that meets the market and grants full degrees and graduate programs.
Dilute urban voters
Cities like Seattle can harden into monocultures, so provide examples and incentives to widen the electorate. Locally, I can envision a Seattle/Bellevue/Tacoma/Everett Council, starting with the ports and economic development. Or steal a page from the littoral cities of Northern Europe and its Hanseatic League, by creating such an alliance of various shoreline cities in Puget Sound. That would align Seattle with such issues as the struggling airport in Bellingham, building out Fort Worden in Port Townsend, finishing PACE (a long-delayed performing arts venue) in Bellevue, taking over the ferry system, and saving Orcas and Puget Sound. Seattle would gain friends in these other places, and the urban agenda would be enhanced in these ballooning burbs.
Encourage mergers
Loaned executives from the merger-and-acquisitions firms, plus state grants to mitigate the costs, would create a new efficiency among the surfeit of entities addressing such problems as the homeless, housing, schools, hospitals, struggling arts organizations, and prolific state agencies and boards. Ideally this effort is driven by a new non-profit, not the state’s economic development agencies (themselves in need of merger-medicine). Here is another way for brainpower in Seattle to share the wealth and learn by widening the scope.
Create Competitive Grant Programs
Many cities and regions need new facilities, so create a generous competitive-grant program, funded by a high-income tax, that spreads the wealth and is bottom-up, populist-style, not Seattle-driven or special-interest-driven.Â
Such programs would widen the urban electorate, align Seattle with broader needs, and actually deliver “abundance” projects.
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“Locally, I can envision a Seattle/Bellevue/Tacoma/Everett Council, starting with the ports and economic development.”
A few tweaks to its state statutes and Sound Transit could fill that role.
Many of these are great ideas, worthwhile and worthy. But I wonder, is it too late for the Democrats, who have become a party of whiners and self-declared victims?.You got a complaint? Register as a Democrat. It’s the Poor Me party. There’s another consequence: it enables the party of bullies, the Republicans.
Victimhood is psychologically powerful, just not on voting day.
David, what facts and data do you have to suggest that executives in the public service field are less capable than executives in “merger-and-acquisitions” fields. I don’t see the connection. Finance guys are good at finance. That is what they know. How is that skill set translatable to the problems in government?
Frankly I think that this perception is bad for democracy. It is exactly the mindset that Musk and his DOGE team have brought to their poorly conceived efforts to cut government spending. It is a misplaced perception that only the private sector is competent. Let me tell you though that the private sector is rife with incompetency as well.
If anything, government has gone too far to relying upon outside expertise rather than developing in-house expertise. As an example, the grossly mismanaged California High Speed rail project.
Mr. Berner: I appreciate your wariness about outside experts. I was trying to find a way for using their expertise, without pay, in helping to structure mergers in the best way. Of course, the leaders of the affected parties would be deeply involved and would have the final say about any proposed mergers. Something of this kind already goes on with shared executives helping companies in trouble, including M&A aspects.
Dude! You had me until you said democrats can win by building out Fort Worden.
Prior to that you said dilute urban culture.
Do you see PT as an enemy base of right wing retirees who can be won over or left wing retirees fighting against the paper mill?
In either case, Fort Worden is what a mismanaged town deserves. Should we also pay for their seawall in a town built along a crumbling bluff?
I guess you touched a nerve.