Knowing the Unknowns in 2022 and Beyond
Voters should vote on principles, not just today’s hot-button issues
Democrats, facing a likely shellacking in the November election, are starting to do what parties in political trouble often do. They attack their own.
The voice of the Democratic left, Sen. Bernie Sanders, told Politico, “You really can’t win an election with a bumper sticker that says: ‘Well, we can’t do much, but the other side is worse.’”
His solution is to put the blame on two Democratic Senate colleagues, Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.). “Say to the American people: ‘Look, we don’t have the votes to do it right now. We have two corporate Democrats who are not going to be with us. The leadership has got to go out and say we don’t have the votes to pass anything significant right now. Sorry. You got 48 votes. And we need more to pass it. That should be the message of this campaign, according to Sanders.
Maybe Sanders is right that Democrats should play to their extreme wing. On the other hand, outside of safe Democratic districts (for example, Minnesota’s 5th congressional district in Minneapolis and suburbs), progressives have not fared well. That includes Sanders’ own presidential campaigns.
Most Americans are looking for candidates who are respectful of different views, not the absolutism that so often defines progressives. Yes, LGBTQ rights should be protected, but isn’t there a common sense approach to recently transitioned women competing in athletic events for women? Reproductive health care should be guaranteed, but does that mean that Catholic hospitals have to perform abortions? Religion should not be imposed on people, including school children, but can’t we find some accommodation for public displays of faith?
Republicans, too, promote positions that are narrow and not broadly supported, including few if any restrictions on gun use and ownership, denial of science even when it puts the health of individuals and the planet in jeopardy and an anti-immigration policy that is at best short-sighted.
Many Republicans are struggling to determine if they can have Trumpism without Trump. A credible Minnesota survey found that only 32% of the state’s Republicans want Trump to run again in 2024, down from 48% a year earlier. But, 43% of the state’s Republicans want a 2024 candidate who is a “Trump-like straight talker.” Another 24% - almost double from a year ago - want a more moderate candidate. (The survey was conducted in February 2022 by Rapp Strategies and the Morris Leatherman Company.)
Today, at least 15 potential Republican candidates, including former Vice President Mike Pence, are making increasingly aggressive and direct cases to donors and others that Trump’s time has passed. “They’re all going to run against” Trump, Tony Fabrizio, Trump’s longtime pollster, told the Washington Post. “If you have the former vice president running, what does that say for the loyalty argument.”
All this soul searching by Democrats and Republicans is coming against the backdrop of turmoil for both parties. Democrats are burdened with soaring prices for gas and just about everything else and Republicans face the fallout from the hearings of the House Select Committee to Investigate the Jan. 6 Attack on the United States Capitol. And both parties try to leverage their respective bases around the hot-button issues of abortion and guns.
Republicans certainly have the upper hand in this environment. The evidence made public by the Jan. 6 Committee probably will give many GOP a voters a reason to seek a 2024 presidential candidate who embraces the style and character (!) of Trump without actually being Trump, but local, state and federal candidates probably won’t see much fallout in 2022. Democratic candidates, of course, take a hit every time voters fill their gas tanks or buy their groceries.
Voters, though, shortchange themselves when they cast their ballots solely on the hot-button issues of the day. Yes, we should know a candidate’s plans to reduce inflation, protect the safety of our children and to solve important challenges. But the reality is that we can’t predict many of the issues that will come to dominate the terms of those we elect in 2022. Who would have asked a congressional candidate in 2018, the last midterm elections, how he or she would manage a global pandemic. Yet, Covid-19 was far and away the most significant health, economic and social issue facing those elected in 2018. Similarly, would anyone have asked candidates in 2020 what their response would be to a riot at the U.S. Capitol? Not likely.
The reality is that in this rapidly changing and complicated world, what we need are leaders we can trust especially when we can’t predict the issues of tomorrow. We should look to candidates who share our values, have demonstrated the integrity to do what is best for the people they represent and the transparency to share with constituents their approach to every issue.
In short, we should vote on principles, not just specific issues.
A few years ago, I worked with a candidate for federal office on a set of principles appropriate to the needs of today. They include the following:
Government is a better guarantor of rights and opportunities than it is a direct provider of services. We can trust the private sector to do the things it does best, but government must take a strong role in assuring that individual rights never are lost to corporate power and profit.
Government should promote a level playing field that allows the incredible innovation and energy of Americans to succeed. A good example is the Americans with Disabilities Act. It took innovation and bipartisan consensus in 1990 to recognize and resolve the barriers imposed on some Americans because of their disabilities. The solution created wasn’t perfect, but it started to improve the world for millions of our fellow citizens. That’s the kind of leadership we need today.
Government also must be a trusted partner for people at times in their lives when they are vulnerable. Nothing is stronger than the American belief in the ability of everyone to achieve success through hard work. We can’t undermine that ethic. But we also can’t ignore that there are times in the lives of some people when they need a helping hand. We the people through our collective government should be there for people.
The more transparent government is, the better people are served. Too much of government’s work is done in the dark, making it easier for big money and special interests to influence outcomes. Campaign finance reform, removing redistricting decisions from the exclusive domain of legislators and implementing ranked choice voting will make government more open and more inclusive.
Sanders is right that a campaign based on arguing the other side is worse isn’t likely to win. But, then, neither is a campaign that says, “Most in my party are pretty good, but we have a couple of dead weights we need to counter.”
In 2002, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld made the case that there are “known knowns…known unknowns…and unknown unknowns.” Rumsfeld used the frame to lie to the American public about Iraq. American voters in 2022 should use the frame to demand of candidates that we know what we should know - their positions on key issues - and that we also know what is unknown - the principles they will bring to tomorrow’s issues.
Tom,
Great info; Long ago when I was in a course about negotiating the instructor advised" a lie is not a lie when the truth is not expected. And the truth is not the truth when a lie is expected". Good thing that was 1971 and that isn't our experiences today-Right.
I keep reinforcing with the College Seniors I teach to beware of" what you don't know you don't know". I encourage them to look for the facts and keep searching for the truth.
Tom, as Friedrich Nietzsche expressed it well: “Sometimes people don’t want to hear the truth because they don’t want their illusions destroyed.” Time for honesty, listening and compromise – there is more than one way to “right a ship.” The echo chambers of division are tearing our country apart.