Riemer: A new direction for Democrats – Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Daniel Riemer Published 1:54 p.m. CT Feb. 3, 2017 | Updated 6:13 p.m. CT Feb. 3, 2017
President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Social Security bill in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 14, 1935.(Photo: Associated Press)
A fortune cookie my mom recently opened contained this advice: If we do not change our direction, we are likely to end up where we are headed.
The message, as Thomas Jefferson would say, is self-evident. Some may think it trite. But nothing better expresses the predicament and the challenge that Democrats across Wisconsin and our nation now face.
If we do not change the ideas and strategy that weve been using since 2008, we Democrats are going to end up where were heading: on the downward path of losing influence and losing elections.
Democrats urgently need to change direction. The starting point, to use the title of a famous movie, is to go back to the future, back to our roots in the New Deal.
By returning to the principles of the New Deal, principles we have mistakenly ignored, we can recapture and revise a core set of ideas about governments role about what government should do, and not do that will appeal overwhelmingly to Wisconsins voters and the American electorate.
RELATED CHAT:What's the matter with the Democrats?
RELATED OPINION:As the Trump era dawns, a look at whats ahead
Based on the enormous appeal of what Democrats will then stand for, we can recruit candidates in every election, win more legislative seats and governorships, and eventually recapture Congress and the presidency.
President Franklin Roosevelt and the New Dealers including our own Progressive Republican Sen. Robert M. La Follette Jr. believed that government should provide what I call a Foundation for Freedom.
It is governments role, they believed, to guarantee economic security and confidence, promote equal opportunity in health and education, and make sure that the market is free.
Based on these principles, Roosevelt and his New Deal allies largely eliminated the welfare system created by his Republican predecessor, Herbert Hoover. In place of welfare, FDR and his allies put in place the opportunity for the unemployed to work in wage-paying jobs, for programs such as the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Works Progress Administration, until they could be absorbed into what FDR called a rising tide of private employment.
FDR promoted economic security in other ways. He championed and signed laws that allowed collective bargaining, set a minimum wage and created Social Security. He favored national health insurance.
Roosevelt and the New Dealers also worked to restore Americas collapsed economy. They enacted legislation to protect the environment, workers, consumers and investors.
FDR and the New Deal were not perfect. They made mistakes, and they could not predict the future. They could never have imagined that trade with China, Mexico and Europe combined with amazing advances in technology would wipe out millions of manufacturing jobs, as well as both destroy and create millions of other jobs.
Democrats today should again embrace the core values and aims that FDR and the New Deal pursued, adapting those values and aims to todays conditions and the futures challenges. We should again envision government as a Foundation for Freedom. That foundation should rest on three pillars. First, protect us from true dangers, whether foreign or domestic; second, connect individuals to work, decent incomes, health care and education; and third, respect the free market by making sure the market is freed from cheaters who dump on the environment, workers, consumers and investors. Thats what classical economic thinkers, such as Adam Smith, really meant by free markets.
Democrats also should make clear that, except for performing these essential functions of government and protecting our rights, we want government to do nothing. Since Thomas Jefferson, Democrats have been the party of limited government. Since FDR and the New Deal, Democrats have been the party of economic and political freedom. We need to make it clear through word and deed that we, todays Democrats, are again the party of freedom.
To this end, I propose that Democrats in Wisconsin and the U.S. should promote these five specific policies as we build a New Foundation of Freedom:
First, guarantee economic security, by growing short-term jobs for adults who cannot easily find full-time work, raising the minimum wage, strengthening the effective Earned Income Tax Credit, restoring and strengthening collective bargaining, and for those who truly cannot work because of a severe disability or seniors retired on Social Security providing payments that lift them out of poverty.
Second, provide equal opportunity in health and education, by making sure that all citizens have excellent and affordable health insurance, requiring equal funding for K-12 students at good public schools, and in time allowing qualified high school graduates to attend, tuition-free, a public university, such as Wisconsins technical colleges and world-class public universities.
Third, restore balance to the tax system with cuts to property, sales and income taxes for working families and the middle class, while requiring the super-wealthy and those who live on loopholes to pay their fair share.
Fourth, truly free the market, by prohibiting once and for all the kind of dumping on the environment, mistreatment of workers and defrauding of consumers and investors that lets cheating firms steal an advantage from reputable and law-abiding businesses. We should further level the playing field by eliminating the unfair subsidies and tax loopholes that distort the markets efficiency and freedom by unfairly picking winners (campaign contributors) and losers (the middle class).
Finally, end the welfare programs that require people to be poor to get help. Right-wing Republicans love welfare. It serves as a scapegoat that diverts attention away from their unpopular agenda of holding down wages, abandoning health care for tens of millions, hurting education, tolerating pollution and doling out tax cuts for the super-rich. Rather than defending a welfare system that fails to end poverty, Democrats should do what Roosevelt did in the 1930s and call for its end, replacing it with a path for all people to the middle class through work and wages. This will sharply distinguish us from welfare-loving Republicans who need welfare to last forever to distract from their harmful agenda.
If Democrats advance these (and other) worthy and overwhelmingly popular ideas that create a new Foundation for Freedom, we will not only be adapting the New Deal tradition to meet the needs of the 21st century. We will be proposing whats right for Wisconsin and America.
And we will start winning again. I believe that, with this vision of freedom, Democrats will win sooner than later.
The future does not come to us in the form of fortune cookies. We make the future. Democrats can win again and earn the right to enact laws that actually put in place a new Foundation for Freedom. The future starts now.
Daniel Riemer, a Democrat, is a member of the state Assembly from Milwaukee.
Read or Share this story: http://on.jsonl.in/2l0ZFA5
See more here:
Riemer: A new direction for Democrats - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
- Opinion | This Trial of the Century Is 100. Its Lessons Could Save the Democrats. - The New York Times - July 10th, 2025 [July 10th, 2025]
- Democrats Inspire Vicious, Escalating Attacks on ICE - The White House (.gov) - July 10th, 2025 [July 10th, 2025]
- John Kerry says 'Trump was right', Democrats allowed migrant 'siege' of border - BBC - July 10th, 2025 [July 10th, 2025]
- New Survey Results: RI Democrats and Republicans are living in different realities - Salve Regina University - July 10th, 2025 [July 10th, 2025]
- DNC chair on the path to winning back voters and lessons Democrats can learn from Mamdani - PBS - July 10th, 2025 [July 10th, 2025]
- Top House Democrats demand release of Epstein files that mention Trump - The Guardian - July 10th, 2025 [July 10th, 2025]
- Jeffriess speech is proof that Democrats are just performative and reactionary - The Hill - July 10th, 2025 [July 10th, 2025]
- Mamdani's far-left allies aim to primary Hakeem Jeffries and other NYC House Democrats - Fox News - July 10th, 2025 [July 10th, 2025]
- Michigan Democrats begin highlighting constituents impacted by Medicaid cuts in Trump tax bill - Michigan Advance - July 10th, 2025 [July 10th, 2025]
- Gavin Newsom swings through South Carolina, where Democrats will play pivotal 2028 nominating role - AP News - July 10th, 2025 [July 10th, 2025]
- Democrats Ignored What Their Voters Were Telling ThemAnd It Cost Them Everything - Vanity Fair - July 10th, 2025 [July 10th, 2025]
- Republicans and Democrats Finally Agree on Nuclear. Its the Industry Thats the Problem. - Politico - July 10th, 2025 [July 10th, 2025]
- Hawley rebukes Democrats' heated rhetoric after attacks on ICE, border patrol facilities: 'Knock it off' - Fox News - July 10th, 2025 [July 10th, 2025]
- Opinion | The Gender Gap That Ate the Democrats - The New York Times - July 8th, 2025 [July 8th, 2025]
- Letter: Why Democrats are losing ground with minority voters - Reading Eagle - July 8th, 2025 [July 8th, 2025]
- Ex-gov says Democrats need to rally behind a mayoral candidate, just not Mamdani - PIX11 - July 8th, 2025 [July 8th, 2025]
- Beyond Democrats and Republicans, CT legislators split into special interests. See what they are. - Hartford Courant - July 8th, 2025 [July 8th, 2025]
- After Mamdanis Win, Some Democrats Are Determined to Stop Him - The New York Times - July 8th, 2025 [July 8th, 2025]
- Democrats retreat on climate: Its one of the more disappointing turnabouts - Politico - July 8th, 2025 [July 8th, 2025]
- Gavin Newsom swings through South Carolina, where Democrats will play pivotal 2028 nominating role - ABC News - Breaking News, Latest News and Videos - July 8th, 2025 [July 8th, 2025]
- Democrats call for probe into National Weather Service cuts after Texas floods - MSNBC News - July 8th, 2025 [July 8th, 2025]
- "There needs to be blood": Democrats' voters tell them to "get shot" in Trump resistance push - Axios - July 8th, 2025 [July 8th, 2025]
- Democrats demand CISA explain how its supporting election offices - StateScoop - July 8th, 2025 [July 8th, 2025]
- Media, Democrats try to blame Trump for Texas flood deaths - Washington Times - July 8th, 2025 [July 8th, 2025]
- Gavin Newsom swings through South Carolina, where Democrats will play pivotal 2028 nominating role - AJC.com - July 8th, 2025 [July 8th, 2025]
- Democrats try to spoil Trumps victory party by slamming his greatest domestic win - CNN - July 8th, 2025 [July 8th, 2025]
- Democrats 'seem to think that poor people are stupid,' Scott Bessent says - Politico - July 8th, 2025 [July 8th, 2025]
- Opinion | Six things Democrats need to do if they want to win elections again - The Washington Post - July 8th, 2025 [July 8th, 2025]
- Trump's $5 trillion debt ceiling strategy could force Democrats to the negotiating table - Fox Business - July 8th, 2025 [July 8th, 2025]
- How Democrats Will Make Trump Own His Disastrous Spending Bill - Crooked Media - July 8th, 2025 [July 8th, 2025]
- Opinion | D.C. Democrats tarnish themselves by resisting ranked-choice voting - The Washington Post - July 8th, 2025 [July 8th, 2025]
- Democrats might be overthinking strategy to recapture voters - The Hill - July 8th, 2025 [July 8th, 2025]
- Congressional District 7 race: Democrats Grijalva, Hernandez lead the pack in fundraising - KJZZ - July 8th, 2025 [July 8th, 2025]
- Democrats Must Find Their Nerve - And Fast - CityWatch LA - July 8th, 2025 [July 8th, 2025]
- What Democrats Think They Can Learn From Zohran Mamdani - NOTUS - July 8th, 2025 [July 8th, 2025]
- Virginia Democrats are eyeing 13 potential seats that could flip blue this year - WVTF - July 8th, 2025 [July 8th, 2025]
- Democrats call for probes of deadly Kerr County flooding to discover what went wrong - Dallas News - July 8th, 2025 [July 8th, 2025]
- Democrats trying to field candidate slate to win first statewide race in 32 years - Texarkana Gazette - July 8th, 2025 [July 8th, 2025]
- These Democrats have forgotten who they represent, GOP lawmaker says - Fox News - July 8th, 2025 [July 8th, 2025]
- Opinion | Democrats in Race to Separate Themselves from Biden - WSJ - July 8th, 2025 [July 8th, 2025]
- Democrats Are Calling For Probe Into National Weather Service After Deadly Floods In Texas - HuffPost - July 8th, 2025 [July 8th, 2025]
- Will Trump's megabill help Democrats win the House? - NPR - July 6th, 2025 [July 6th, 2025]
- A congressman on how Democrats can regain the initiative on the economy - The Economist - July 6th, 2025 [July 6th, 2025]
- Democrats see Trumps big bill as key to their comeback. It may not be so easy - AP News - July 6th, 2025 [July 6th, 2025]
- Democrats going after Trumps megabill tell their own stories of needing Medicaid and other aid programs - CNN - July 6th, 2025 [July 6th, 2025]
- Mass. Democrats say cuts from Trump's bill will be 'devastating,' brace for impact - WBUR - July 6th, 2025 [July 6th, 2025]
- Democrats respond to Trump signing megabill - CNN - July 6th, 2025 [July 6th, 2025]
- Pols & Politics: Whats next for Beacon Hill Democrats after finishing early-term priorities - Boston Herald - July 6th, 2025 [July 6th, 2025]
- Trump on Democrats who voted against GOP megabill: I hate them - The Hill - July 6th, 2025 [July 6th, 2025]
- Trumps Budget Bill Would Explode Funding for ICE. Top Democrats Arent Talking About It. - The Intercept - July 6th, 2025 [July 6th, 2025]
- Opinion | For Democrats, Mamdani Is a Wake-Up Calland a Bad Example - WSJ - July 6th, 2025 [July 6th, 2025]
- Democrats and Republicans were out on the Virginia campaign trail. Heres what they had to say. - The Virginian-Pilot - July 6th, 2025 [July 6th, 2025]
- Exclusive | Just half of Democrats consider themselves patriots, compared to 91% of Republicans, poll reveals - New York Post - July 6th, 2025 [July 6th, 2025]
- First Thing: Corrupt kleptocracy Democrats furious over passage of Trump bill - The Guardian - July 6th, 2025 [July 6th, 2025]
- In Trumps Bill, Democrats See a Path to Win Back Voters - The New York Times - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- Trump Kicks Off Celebration of America by Declaring His Hatred for Democrats - The Daily Beast - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- Democrats frustrated over lack of a heads-up from Hakeem Jeffries on delaying Trumps spending bill - Fox News - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- A dark day for our country: Democrats furious over Trump bills passage - The Guardian - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- Democrats See Trumps Big Bill as Key to Their Comeback. It May Not Be So Easy - U.S. News & World Report - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- Democrats to focus on unpopular GOP cuts in bid to take back the House - The Washington Post - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- Opinion | Zohran Mamdani Won by Listening. Democrats Should Try It. - The New York Times - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- House Democrats filibuster but only delay the final passage of Trumps big bill - Washington Times - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- Abundance at the fore of Democrats new ideas sweepstakes - The Washington Post - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- Democrats Denied This City Had a Gang Problem. The Truth Is Complicated. - The New York Times - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- Democrats Should Become the Pro-Porn Party - The Nation - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- 175+ Democrats supporting NAACP suit against dismantling Department of Education - ABC News - Breaking News, Latest News and Videos - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- Pro-Israel Jewish Democrats say Mamdanis stances are cause for concern and action - The Times of Israel - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- Psaki: Republicans will regret passing Trump's bill as Democrats look to reprise 2018's House flip - MSNBC News - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- Democrats Bet Jobs in Red States Would Save Clean Power Projects. They Lost. - The New York Times - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- Can the abundance movement save the Democrats? - The Washington Post - July 2nd, 2025 [July 2nd, 2025]
- FBI headquarters will remain in downtown DC, roiling Washington-area Democrats - Politico - July 2nd, 2025 [July 2nd, 2025]
- The Big Beautiful Bill Is Massively Unpopular and Democrats Plan to Keep It That Way - Time Magazine - July 2nd, 2025 [July 2nd, 2025]
- Stephen A. Smith: Democrats will have no chance if they become like Mamdani - The Hill - July 2nd, 2025 [July 2nd, 2025]
- Senate Judiciary Democrats launch probe into whether Trump officials violated court orders - The Hill - July 2nd, 2025 [July 2nd, 2025]
- Frustration grows over NY Democrats' 'lack of political courage' on immigration - Gothamist - July 2nd, 2025 [July 2nd, 2025]
- Schumer and other Senate Democrats condemn the phrase globalize the intifada - The Jerusalem Post - July 2nd, 2025 [July 2nd, 2025]
- Analysis | Why Democrats are excited about Texas for real this time - The Washington Post - July 2nd, 2025 [July 2nd, 2025]
- Arizona Democrats will bypass struggling state party in midterms, with key races on ballot - AP News - July 2nd, 2025 [July 2nd, 2025]
- Virginia Democrats hold town hall after Senate passage of 'Big, Beautiful Bill' - 13newsnow.com - July 2nd, 2025 [July 2nd, 2025]
- Democrats will force out-loud reading of 940-page megabill - Politico - June 29th, 2025 [June 29th, 2025]