EITHER THE RICH ALLOW THE NON-RICH TO WIN A FEW OR WE HAVE A ONE-PARTY STATE

Writing for The American Prospect, pollster Stan Greenberg argues that Democrats need to say they're fighting for serious change if they want to have a prayer of winning future elections. He writes about a survey he recently conducted.

The final combined national survey conducted in late October took place at a dark moment for Democrats. They trailed Republicans and Trump by four points on the economy and only reached parity with them on handling crime and jobs and wages.

But voters who heard Democrats were not OK with the status quo had a more positive view of the party. In our survey, respondents read the transformative policies in the American Rescue Plan, the bipartisan infrastructure legislation, and Build Back Better. They heard Democrats concerned about public safety, crime, and funding and reforming the police, not defunding them. And they heard Democrats embracing a blue-collar message and taxing big corporations. This was the message:

The Democrat says, people are living paycheck to paycheck and struggling to pay their bills and taxes. They need a government that looks out for the middle class, working families, small businesses, and the vulnerable who work hard. They don’t need a government that jumps whenever the biggest corporations send money and lobbyists. My approach is blue collar. We should bend over backwards for those who work hard so we create jobs in America and grow the middle class again.

At the end of the survey, respondents raised their support for Democrats from a three-point to an eight-point edge in 2022 battleground states and districts.

Greenberg says that voters aren't okay with the status quo and believe that Democrats are comfortable with things as they are.

In our message tests, voters are surprised to hear that Democrats are dissatisfied with an economy where many of the voters themselves live paycheck to paycheck. They are surprised that Democrats prioritize big changes in the economy and who holds power. They are surprised Democrats worry about community safety and crime and want to fund and reform police.

If Democrats are to stop hemorrhaging their working-class support and achieve the kinds of gains that they did in 2018, they have to embrace a message of change. It’s not just their electoral fortunes that hang in the balance. American democracy itself does.

Democrats can embrace that message -- the problem is, they can't enact the really transformative policy ideas behind the message. When they're in power, there are always saboteurs in their own party limiting what's possible -- no public option in Obamacare (much less a truly universal insurance system), and now no Build Back Better. Even though there are some Democratic billionaires, the plutocracy doesn't want Democrats to do anything that will narrow the gap between the haves and the have-nots. That's one huge reason why it's so easy to mock liberalism in America. Of course liberalism seems to many people like a failed approach to governing. It fails because can never actually do what it promises to do.

But the alternative, as Greenberg says, is rule by Republicans, who hate democracy and could very well destroy it the next time they're in power. We could save democracy if billionaires would allow Democrats to really help the non-rich, though I'm not naive enough to believe that this could actually happen. If the non-rich could get a few wins, they wouldn't turn to the party that plans to eliminate democracy.

The rich -- even the "enlightened" rich -- expect that they'll be fine in an illiberal America, a Hungary with nuclear weapons. Life will go on. Business will go on. They're not worried.

Taking on the rich is the alternative -- but most of the party doesn't want to do that, and wouldn't have the funds to compete in elections if they did.

I don't know a way out of this. I can't imagine real change in America until post-democratic rule by the GOP creates a country that doesn't work well for plutocrats. It might happen eventually. But for now I they'll keep insisting that Democrats can tinker at the margins at most, because if they press for real change, they're expendable, as is democracy.