There’s Only One Way to Save the Democratic Party. This is It.
#LetUsLead or #WatchUsLeave
The Republican Party is the party of the modern KKK, the neo-Confederacy, the white nativists, the white nationalists, the eugenicists, and the orthodox racists, ablists, homophobes, classists, misogynists, and xenophobes. They have declared us the enemy. They call us thugs and rapists and murderers and terrorists and illegals. They come after our families with ICE agents and police officers. They criminalize us, mock us, try to ban us, and target women and children. They are dismantling our histories, our schools, our housing, our access to food and water — and every single right, opportunity, and breath we have left, they are actively and successfully choking away.
There is no place for people of color, immigrants, people with disabilities, poor folks, women, the LGBTQ community, and non-Christians in the GOP. None.
But is there a place for us in the Democratic party?
While the “minority vote” is demanded be Democrats on the sole logic that they aren’t as bad as the GOP, their refusal to stand up for the rights of “minority” communities in the face of a white nationalist onslaught leaves little but resentment for any left leaning voter that isn’t white or middle-class. This resentment is deepened by the Democrats’ continued insistence that low voter turnout amongst minority voters is the reason the Democrats have lost control of power to the GOP.
Why should minorities vote for white upper and middle-class representatives that blame us for their failures, refuse to protect our rights, and do nothing to advance our causes when, in fact, THEY are the minority — not us?
As SIIP previously reported:
“Approximately 66 million people voted Democrat in the 2016 presidential election. Of these 43%, or around 28 million, were voters of color. 57%, or just over 37.5 million identify as white. So, it would seem as though minorities are outnumbered by approximately 9.5 million people. But these numbers only tell a small part of the story….
The Interstate Crosscheck System, which is responsible for purging eligible minority voters from voter registration lists in key states, removed over 1 million voters from the system just prior to election day….Voter ID restrictions have spread to 33 states and rendered 21 million voters unable to vote because of lack of ID and the GOP’s un-countered gutting of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Minority voters are more than twice as likely to lack photo ID than white voters. So, that adds roughly 14 million black and brown voters to the tally….Over 6 million people were prevented from voting in 2016 because of felony disenfranchisement. And estimated 2 million black and 3 million latinx voters lost their rights to vote.
That rounds out our total of suppressed minority voters to 20 million.
If minority voters that have been purged, suppressed, and otherwise disenfranchised were added back to the voter registration rolls, white people would no longer make up majority of the Democratic party.
Re-enfranchising suppressed Democratic voters of color would leave us with approximately 45.5 million white democratic voters and 48 million voters of color.
But people of color are not the only minorities that the Democratic party have sold out in order to pander to the white middle-class. Voters with disabilities and white working-class voters have also been completely shut out of the Democratic agenda, except in rhetoric and false compromises.
If we remove the 1/5 of Democratic voters with disabilities from the white pool… [and] if we remove the approximately 40% of white working-class voters and 14% of poor white voters from the middle-class voting pool…That leaves the party of the white middle-class at around 21.5 million normative white middle-class Democratic voters and 72 million voters of color, voters with disabilities, poor white voters, and white working-class voters.
The white middle-class left is dramatically outnumbered.”
Even so, only 13% of Senate Democrats identify as a minority.
Communities targeted by white power and the GOP can no longer afford to hand our lives, our power, and our votes over to a network of white gatekeepers that ignore the degradation of our rights and violent advances of white power. We can no longer afford to accept rhetoric as a substitution for action. We can no longer afford to support representatives that are more willing to collaborate with white nationalist traitors in the name of bipartisanship than they are to defend the rights of minority communities in the name of Democracy.
As SIIP has previously outlined:
People of color, poor people, the working-class, and people living with disabilities are the ones who pay the price for the Democrats’ failures against GOP advancement, but rather than allow us to stand as equals in the party — the Democrats strategically allow our disenfranchisement at the expense of both the party and the nation….
The Democratic party would more than outnumber the GOP and its white supremacist driven, Russian puppetted network of racists, traitors, and eugenicists. It would be a party that demolished the barriers of inaccessibility, enforced, and expanded minority rights, passed a living wage, provided safe and secure housing, legislated national transgender rights, actively protected indigenous sovereignty, and ensured universal healthcare. If minority voters were re-enfranchised, the Democratic Party would be the party of the People.
First, though, the people must unite and take control of their party.
The following is a call for the “minority majority” to do just that. And to do it by 2020.
If the Democratic party continues to exclude us from the political agenda and insists on refusing to allow us to take leadership positions in state, local and federal offices — there is no reason we should vote for them. None. If the Democratic party wants to survive, then it needs to immediately stop the replication of white power in its own ranks, allow the true majority to take power, and unite behind our agendas.
In other words, the Democratic party needs to let us lead or watch us leave.
No longer is rhetorical representation enough. No longer will a token number of minority representatives that are only willing to promote a white middle-class agenda be considered progress or diversity. No longer will inaction be allowed in the face of the GOP’s attack on our rights, our lives, and our livelihoods.
The people must be allowed to represent themselves. They agendas our leaders carry must represent those generated from community experts, and consistent action must be a required feature of our candidates resumes. Rhetoric alone no longer qualifies.
SIIP demands that the white middle and upper classes release their strangle-hold around the neck of the Democratic party and hand over control to the minority majority. Not only do we demand it, but we are taking action to ensure that by 2020, the Democratic party either presents itself in full color — or it loses the votes of all minority majority constituents.
The following actions must be taken by the Democratic party before the 2020 election if they want our vote:
1. All Democrats must form a united front against the GOP
The GOP has openly declared war on minority communities. And they are winning. Bipartisanship with white supremacists and traitors hurts minority communities and is in no way acceptable under the Trump Administration and the Republican Party. Any Democrat seeking to reach across the aisle with members of the GOP or refusing to legislatively counter their attacks on our communities cannot be seen as qualified to carry out their responsibilities.
If candidates that have refused to unite against the GOP are presented in the 2020 election cycle, they will not receive support or votes form the minority majority. Only candidates that actively block the efforts of the GOP will be considered.
2. Legal Action must be taken immediately to Restore our Voting Rights
It is unacceptable to the point of criminal that over 40 million minority voters have been deprived of their constitutional right to vote and the white middle-class led Democratic party has done absolutely nothing about it. A Civil War and a number of voting rights movements were waged to ensure that the minority right to vote is upheld in both law and practice. Millions of lives have been lost in the battles to secure the legislation necessary to protect the right to vote but these laws only work when they are enforced.
The GOP has been actively dismantling minority voting rights while the Democratic party has done absolutely nothing to stop them. The Interstate Crosscheck System, voter ID laws, felony disenfranchisement and ADA violations are all unconstitutional and are directly responsible for the disenfranchisement of over 40 million Democratic voters — and all have gone completely uncountered by the Democratic Party.
The minority majority will no longer vote for candidates that refuse to protect and enforce our most basic rights — including the right to vote.
Should these efforts not be underway by the 2018 election, #LetUsLead will support community members wishing to remove their vote from the Democratic Party. Should these voters not be re-enfranchised by 2020, #WatchUsLeave will call for the removal of votes from all Democratic candidates that refused to prioritize and contribute to our re-enfranchisement.
3. Optic representation must be achieved in 2020
13% minority representation in the Senate can only be understood as a grotesque display of white power within the Democratic party itself. Excuses can no longer be tolerated. At minimum, populational representation at all levels of government — especially in the House and Senate — must be a goal of the 2020 elections. This representation must include leadership from people of color, people with disabilities, people from the LGBTQ community, non-Christians, people from underclass and working-class backgrounds, and intersected communities. Minority majority leadership must be visible and it must be celebrated.
There needs to be no question that the leadership of the people actually represents the people itself.
To this end, we demand that the Democratic party prioritize, fund and support candidates from minority communities. We demand that leaders from minority majority communities be placed and prioritized on the 2020 tickets at the local, state, and federal level. Candidates that do not represent our communities will not receive our votes. It is far past time to #LetUsLead.
4. The agendas of the minority majority must be central to the Democratic platform
Too often optic representation is used to promote the agendas of the white middle-class. This tactic is recognizable, dangerous to our communities, and will no longer be tolerated.
It is no longer enough to present candidates that look like us — they must also work tirelessly to prioritize and advance our agendas. While advancing these causes through the GOP Congress is not possible under current circumstances, there is much that can be done by Democrats at the state and the local levels. And there is much that will need to be done if the Democratic party expects our vote in 2020.
Action can and must be taken at all levels of government to protect minorities targeted by the GOP and to enforce the rights of people of color, immigrants, the indigenous, people living with disabilities, the poor, the working-class, the LGBTQ community, non-Christians, women, and intersected communities (i.e., poor people of color living with disabilities). These actions must be generated from the communities themselves — not the white middle and upper classes.
For example, one of the most consistent demands of the working-class is a livable wage; however, the white middle-class bloc of the Democratic party has consistently denied this call in order to cater to the middle-class business owner. Even when the Democrats had control of the White House and Congress under Barack Obama, they refused to raise the federal minimum wage to a living wage. Worse, the current Democratic agenda inexplicably demands that the working-class wait until 2024 for a raise.
As a result, the working-class is forced into ever increasing poverty — which most deeply effects working-class people of color, people with disabilities, women, and children — while the white middle and upper-classes continue to benefit off of the exploitation of the working-class.
We cannot and will not wait until 2024 for the party to stop participating in our exploitation. We very literally can’t afford to.
Democrats at the state and local levels must unite behind the working-class and take every effort to use their authority to pass living wages at the state and local levels. These efforts must begin immediately. The minority majority — not just the white working-class — will not vote for any 2020 Democratic candidate that does not rhetorically and legislatively engage in this process.
Similar actions must be taken immediately by Democratic legislators and candidates to stop police brutality, enforce tribal sovereignty, end the criminalization of poverty, protect undocumented immigrants and their families, enforce LGBTQ rights and end the exclusion of people living with disabilities.
In the coming weeks, SIIP will be publishing a detailed list of legislative and organizational demands that must be met or underway before 2020. These changes to the Democratic structure and agenda will be presented, as this article is presented, as a guide to unify the party as a true party of the people. The days of division under a white middle agenda must end.
Time is up for the white middle-class bloc of the Democratic party to prove it’s worth as gatekeepers to Democracy. The time has come for the people to represent ourselves. The white middle-class can no longer run the Democratic party on the backs of the minority majority. And it can no longer continue to choose losing to the GOP over uniting behind its true base.
As SIIP has reported, if the minority majority was re-enfranchised and unobstructed from leadership, the “Democratic party would more than outnumber the GOP and its white supremacist driven, Russian puppetted network of racists, traitors, and eugenicists. It would be a party that demolished the barriers of inaccessibility, enforced, and expanded minority rights, passed a living wage, provided safe and secure housing, legislated national transgender rights, actively protected indigenous sovereignty, and ensured universal healthcare. If minority voters were re-enfranchised, the Democratic Party would be the party of the People.”
And by 2020, it can be. If the Democratic party is to survive — it must be.
