WRONG, WRONG, WRONG!

Abstract: This episode critiques the Democratic Party’s focus on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives, arguing that it's an ineffective strategy given current political challenges. DEI should be viewed as a human rights issue rather than a political one, and Democrats are ceding ground to MAGA Republicans by allowing themselves to be labeled as the party of "woke" politics. Instead, a bold progressive agenda is a better strategy, proposing policies such as a wealth tax, guaranteed minimum income, expanded social programs, and campaign finance reform. Democrats should actively promote these ideas, drawing inspiration from European social democracies, rather than passively allowing conservative forces to dismantle government programs and services. What is needed is a unified, vocal opposition to the current political direction, emphasizing the need for Democrats to present a strong, progressive alternative.

The MAGAniacs have taken to labeling us as the party of “woke” (which nobody can define, ‘cept it certainly no longer refers to being awake) or “identity politics” supposedly determined to put men into women’s sports, and, horrors, deliberately spur population replacement of whites with darker folk, and all the other thinly veiled bigot dog whistles MAGers currently favor. Of course we stand for a lot more than DEI and our messaging clearly demonstrates that. Oh, wait a minute . . . does it?

This is what appeared in my e-mail box last month:

The Democratic Party of Hawaii pitching for $1000 to support DEI when liberal America is in panic mode and liberal democracy is teetering on the brink is, in my snarky humble opinion, just stupid. Talk about rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic . . .

First, please don’t get me wrong: I was for D and E and also I openly and publicly long long before it became a tainted buzz-phrase, probably long before the people currently running the party ever got into politics. Of course liberals strongly endorse these essential rights, support for the weaker and victimized. Let’s make one thing crystal clear about diversity, equity and inclusion: these are not a political issue but a matter of essential human rights. Hiring on “merit” rather than race is assuredly not the idea springing from the twisted mind of Elon Musk who in fact is known to have paid millions to Black employees of Tesla amidst charges of a hostile work environment and employment discrimination; it has been championed by fair-minded people of both parties (yes, perhaps more Democrats) for generations, arguing employment must be colorblind and equalizing opportunity for all is the way to achieve the goal.

Please don’t dredge up history of the civil rights movement and try to persuade me that ending school segregation and establishing racial equality was an essential Democratic political issue when in fact it was nothing of the kind. In 1964 31% of the Democrats in the Senate (21 Democratic senators) voted against the Civil Rights Act, while 82% of the Republicans (27 senators) voted in favor of the bill. Rather than representing a partisan victory for Democrats, it instead signified a tectonic shift in political balance in the party, moving us from a party principally of the South to a party of the North. The calculation worked -- for a generation or so, at least. Otherwise, clinging to social and moral issues is not a firm foundation in politics: never has been, never will be. But it was never a bright line separating Republicans and Democrats -- until we tried recently to make it so and the MAGA closet bigots joyfully took it up as a political dividing line. The same for gender-blind pay for equal talent; not a political but a human rights issue. It has been a long time since you heard any Republican arguing that a woman's place was in the home, or they were the weaker therefore less work-competent sex, or needed to be protected by the menfolk so could be paid less (except perhaps for the Hegseth prattle that women in the armed services like Tammy Duckworth, a decorated former helicopter pilot, must be shielded from combat). Yet we have ceded this ground to MAGA, enabling them not only to trivialize us but simultaneously to resume and excuse the warped chauvinism of a century ago.

Expending what few resources we have on such limited and ineffective targets is positively dangerous to American society. Allowing the MAGAgogues to label us as the party of woke and identity politics allows them openly to oppose these ideas, viz Donald Trump gleefully removing pronouns from government stationary, abolishing all DEI initiatives in the federal government, ending health care programs for transgender citizens just because they are transgender while the MAGGotts applaud. See how corporate America is falling in line and abruptly abandoning all inclusion policies.

Worse to me is seeing some Democrats arguing we need to move away from such wrongly-labeled liberal politics towards a mythological center: WRONG! We need to stake out solid liberal social democratic principals which MAGAnuts firmly oppose but which will make America a better nation. Here are a few examples which appeal strongly to me:

A wealth tax levied against passive wealth, referring only to investments in equities, bonds, saving accounts and exempting qualified retirement accounts like IRAs and IRS-approved pensions; you spend 5% of your idle wealth each year or pay a 5% wealth tax

Guaranteed minimum income, monthly benefits to top up actual earnings to enable a reasonable existence

Strictly capping ridiculous tax exemptions and deductions for the super-wealthy like the carried interest or qualifying income pass through loopholes

Guaranteeing free public education all the way through professional level

Free health care for all, no exceptions

Greatly expanded SNAP (food stamps) to eliminate hunger and malnutrition, especially in children; presently the average benefit for senior households is just over $5/day! SNAP should be increased by at least 30% and probably a lot more

Expanded Social Security to guarantee a living income in retirement; benefits need to be increased by at least 30%

Campaign finance laws that don’t allow Elon Musk to buy every election in sight and a ticket into the Oval Office

Actually, hiring MORE federal employees rather than fewer as a path to making government more responsive more quickly to the needs of individuals; in Europe most people see government as helping rather than hindering individuality, often because local government services can be delivered without great complexity or delay

And yes, enforcement of laws already prohibiting discrimination based on race, gender, sexual identity, age or any other essentially human characteristic.

Every one of these concepts is already in place in more than one of the progressive social democracies of Europe and should be able to be implemented without gross distortion in this, the world’s richest nation. Yet to date only one or two Democratic senators have publicly endorsed as much as one of these concepts; Trump-terror is not a disease entirely of weak-kneed Republicans.

I believe the time has arrived to proclaim a progressive agenda. We need to make this an army, not a one or two person crusade led by 83-year-old Bernie Sanders. Instead Democrats seem to be standing by passively as the evil twins devastate the American system of government. In the guise of eliminating waste and inefficiency, we have ceded control of vital government programs to a man who has crashed over a dozen rocket ships into oblivion and had his boasted automobiles subjected to at least seventeen separate safety recalls because -- as he puts it -- “success comes from what we learn” from failure! To this calculating destroyer who obviously doesn’t fathom the difference between private business and the role of government, we’ve given virtual control of the air traffic safety system . . . and our health research programs . . . and our food and drugs safety authorities . . . and our nuclear weapons systems . . . and our economy in general! He called entitlements -- that is, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid -- “a mechanism by which the Democrats attract and retain illegal immigrants by essentially paying them to come here and then turning them into voters”. Of course, the reality is that only U.S. citizens can collect these entitlements, although it is estimated that undocumented aliens for the most part do get jobs and pay literally billions of dollars annually into these programs with no hope of receiving any of their benefits. Is Musk incredibly stupid or just a bad liar? Perhaps both. But his plan is plain for all to see: not to trim and save but literally to lay waste to these essential lifelines, working MAGA folk be damned in the process.

Yes we liberals are already suffering from Trump/Musk fatigue, disgust and related digestive upsets, and poor old Chuck Schumer doesn’t seem up to the job we need. We’re only two months into the world of destruction and chaos, but we must not give up the playing field by remaining passive and silent. Please chime in. Please pass this along and invite others to join the battle. Through all this our opposition messages until now have been fragmented, our voices muffled. If we’re to be defeated, shouldn’t we at least go down swinging?

Arne Werchick, after fifty years as a litigation attorney with emphasis on medical-legal issues, pro tem judge, law writer and lecturer, former Presiding Arbitrator of the State Bar of California, and past president of the California Trial Lawyers Association, moved to Hawaii and lives with his wife Ruth and their rescue dog Topaz. He can be contacted at liberalmind@werchick.com.