Democrats are out of touch and disconnected from working class voters of all races, genders, and backgrounds. That isn’t exactly breaking news. It is obvious. For many of us in the industrial Midwest, this has been like watching a decades-long train wreck in slow motion. Many of us have been screaming this from the rooftops, and no one, and I mean no one, in Washington wanted to listen. Now here we are with a brand new Trump presidency and an even further damaged Democratic brand. My suggestion as a first step on the road to recovery: Move the Democratic National Committee headquarters out of Washington, D.C. to Youngstown, Ohio.
Democrats need to get the hell out of the D.C. bubble. It’s killed our party. Force the overpaid consultants and contractors who give really bad advice to get immersed into the culture of an old mill town trying to make its way in the new economy. Make them and the staffers who work for the DNC drink coffee, eat lunch and dinner, drink beer, bowl, play bocce, go to concerts and watch sports with normal everyday working people. And they should spend their time mostly listening—not talking or tweeting.
The Democrats have, whether we like it or not, become an arrogant, preachy, coastal, inside-the-beltway, Twitter Party. We’ve become an organization of loosely tied, self interested groups who make a lot of money pitching outrage so they can raise more money for their own self preservation. Then, if any fellow Democrat has an honest, fact based disagreement, they scream and yell and call you corrupt.
It’s pretty pathetic. Our party has no clear unifying vision for America. The Party has taken extreme positions that are not connected to reality generally and do not resonate with the sensibilities of working class voters. We’ve lost touch with the hopes and dreams of everyday Americans. And we won’t reconnect with those hopes and dreams by having all of our operatives living and working just blocks from the stupid echo chamber that has become Washington, D.C.
