For generations, Americans have neglected to recognize the importance of government at the state and local level. Suddenly, state legislatures all over the country have become extremely important. Their role in elections and important legislation is no longer minimal. Therefore , it is time for progressives to refocus. It does little good to win at the federal level if state legislatures are able to gut historic civil rights legislation and roll back the clock on a woman’s right to choose. This means taking a new approach to addressing people’s needs. It is an approach well overdue in the first place.
People want, need and deserve a government that works to solve the problems they face in their everyday lives. Large pieces of legislation are good, but people need to feel that politicians are sincerely worried about more than just beating their opponent, that they care about making people’s lives better. Politics must be more than party. Otherwise. any political group, no how ideologically in the right, cannot remain relevant and cannot remain in power. Small things matter–whether or not the streets get fixed, whether or not the bus runs on time. Things like this matter a lot. Progressives have an opportunity as well as a crisis. They can make themselves into the political force that cares about everyday concrete things, and show that extremists within the Republican party are so focused on culture wars they don’t care about things that really matter in everyday life.
It will become a question of whether or not progressives can make themselves relevant in the face of a population where many are consumed with just getting by and putting food on the table. This search for relevance hasn’t happened enough. Part of the blame lies with the Republican party, who have shut down any attempt to make real positive changes in the lives of people through fear mongering.
In some ways progressives have only themselves to blame. Much of what it has come to mean to be a progressives to be against a MAGA Republican. This is not enough. And, when we approach conflict from such a negative perspective we actually play into the hands of extremists. We become the party of ideology and they become the party of answers. It doesn’t have to be this way.
In its own way the new focus on state legislatures is a mixed blessing in that it will force progressives, particularly progressives in the Democratic Party, to stay grounded. This may finally be the moment that progressives have to stand up and become the party of answers and possibilities, and not simply the party that is anti-Trump. State legislators have the power to bring progressives back to where our roots began and to force us to move forward with real plans that meet real world problems. Taking back democracy will happen one small election at a time, just as it was lost one small election at a time.
Progressive Without Apology 