2 days ago
- Politics
- San Francisco Chronicle
Letters: What can Democrats do to win presidential elections again?
Regarding 'What Newsom understands about power that other California Democrats don't' (Open Forum, June 3):
Stay true to values
Justin Ray's op-ed reveals an ignorance of history, politics and language. He blames the Democrats for asserting 'moral clarity' and implies that they are a left party.
The Democratic Party is really a centrist, capitalist party pretending to be a 'big tent.' Its failure is that, representing capitalist interests, it cannot achieve moral clarity.
Sen. Bernie Sanders and President Donald Trump are more popular individually than the Democratic leadership because they run on moral clarity. I despise the ruthless immorality of the fascist tendencies of Trump, but his culture war doesn't lack moral clarity.
Yes, Gov. Gavin Newsom's fascism light is based upon pragmatism, but contrary to the punditry we are sold, most Americans are starving for an honest culture war with moral clarity on the side of human decency, justice, equality and history.
People are sick of being fooled, including those fooled into voting for Trump and the once-upon-a-time Medicare for all champion and former vice president.
Marc Sapir, Berkeley
Don't be only liberal
The commentary about Gov. Gavin Newsom reminds me of when I was a campus coordinator at San Jose State College in 1972 for George McGovern's presidential campaign.
We all loved Sen. McGovern and believed that he would be a great president but forgot one thing: He wasn't going to win a national election.
McGovern wanted to end the Vietnam War at a time when most Americans disagreed and wanted to fight communism in another country. He wanted to ensure that there was a guaranteed minimum income, which, yikes, was socialism and made it seem like that is all liberals want.
Democrats must avoid being perceived as only liberal. They can do this by supporting policies such as temporarily halting Medi-Cal expansion for undocumented immigrants. That's the only way they can get some Republicans and independents to vote Democratic.
Gralen Britto, Corte Madera
Peace is the way
Justin Ray misses the mark when he says that the Democrats should turn right to win the next election.
Kamala Harris didn't lose the presidential election to Donald Trump because she was too far left; she lost because of her and former President Joe Biden's extreme pro-war policies, including Israel's siege of Gaza, according to polling by the Institute for Middle East Understanding Policy Project and YouGov.
In six battleground states, 20% of previous Democratic voters polled cited Biden's policies on Gaza as the primary reason for not voting for their party, and 36% of 2020 Biden voters would have voted for Harris if she had pledged to withhold further weapons from Israel.
Meanwhile, Trump campaigned on ending the war in Ukraine, and in his first term, he reached out to North Korea and did not start any wars.
From former President Barack Obama's pivot to Asia, which shifted 60% of our naval forces to the region, to Democrats' endlessly pushing the red lines of Russia and China, and fear of nuclear war, a critical base of Democratic voters was lost.
The Democratic Party must return to its pro-peace base to survive.
Michael Wong, vice president, Veterans For Peace San Francisco chapter
Work for the working class
Justin Ray's op-ed seems to be endorsing the same old move-to-the-middle strategy that has brought ruin on the Democratic Party.
Kamala Harris ran as a moderate — campaigning with Republican Liz Cheney, cozying up to tech billionaires, ignoring the LGBTQ community and doing nothing to separate herself from former President Joe Biden's unquestioning support for the Palestinian slaughter in Gaza.
Being Republican Light is what got us into this mess. What we really need is for Democrats to return to their Franklin D. Roosevelt roots as champions of the working class.
Robert Leeds, Oakland
