Flesh on the Bones

A new subscriber recently wrote to ask what I really want from the Democratic Party. Fair question, for sure, and I’m glad to try again.

What I originally wrote was hardly enough. I said that I was waiting for “a vision that was grand and transporting. A message about restoring dignity to labor, embracing difference, and finding national purpose. It also has to be tough and grounded.”

You may remember that this was part of a takedown. Kamala Harris has been missing in action during the worst crisis of leadership since the Civil War. She came up for air about a month ago, dressed to the nines at the Met Museum Gala. That’s not going to win votes in rural Oklahoma, even if the Trumps are more ostentatious by a mile. Republicans are supposed to be in tuxedos and ball gowns. Democrats are supposed to stay low to the ground.

But what I’m eager to hear are winning words, the kind that will sweep this administration from power. If I were running, this is what I’d say:

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“However it happened, we got it wrong. We turned the country over to reckless billionaires who will never know what it means to be hungry and frightened. I’ve got plenty of advantages, but I don’t own a golf course. I’ve still got to watch what I make and what I spend.

And I want a country that is less insecure, less hungry and frightened and sick and strung out. The people now in power are going to strip us of necessities and leave us without hospitals in rural America. They’re going to take away medicines that actually save lives. Say goodbye to Narcan and how it rescued your nephew . They’re going to spike the cost of insulin again. That means another round of choices between food and medication. between rent and dental care. We’re the richest country in the history of world. Are we going to force people to chew with rotten teeth?

I want a different kind of America, where normal people can save for a house, not the mansions of the Trumps or the Zuckerbergs, but simple houses that bring comfort and security. You can’t do that making little toys and gadgets, so let’s put away this nonsense about sky-high tariffs. We need people who can work with wood and metal, who can run irrigation, and install sinks and cabinets. Let’s finally do what we’ve promised a thousand times: subsidized schools for the trades and technology where you go to paying work after a year in a classroom.

And let’s build a culture around achievement like that, where we treat skilled workers and tradespeople with dignity and admiration, pay them fairly, and build public amenities that give life and interest to evenings and weekends. A life without leisure, without time for recreation is a grim experience of endless labor.

We have to treat each other with kindness and generosity. Those are the words that I’d put on a flag, along with mercy and fairness and mutual respect. If we spent less time hating people who look different, slapping them down and keeping them out, we’d start becoming America again.

So keep your tax cuts for the wealthy and the powerful. Keep your bitcoin for the family of the President. Keep your hands off my body and my mind. I want to live as a free American!”

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There’s much more, of course, but I would start with that. Uncomplicated language. Respect for the poor. An eagerness to address the elemental challenges without the distractions of spreadsheets and endless policy analysis.

And above all, a willingness to say all of this repeatedly so that the message sinks in. Republicans seize on a handful of catchphrases—Socialists! Fake news! Woke professors! Internationalists!—and ride those phrases to electoral victory. We could learn from that, and win some elections, too.