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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.
The move be an economic stimulus for downtown Youngstown and bring some decent jobs to the area. And our party needs some of the working class grit to rub off on us. In places like the Mahoning Valley where I grew up, there is a "tell it like it is" culture. We call BS and don't apologize for it. That approach comes from decades of tough mill workers who just didn't have the time or temperament to be BS'd by somebody. So, our people learned to speak clearly, directly, and with a good deal of salty language just to bring the point home.
The Youngstown area became known as the cradle of coaches because it produced so many highly successful football coaches. It was this straight talk, gritty culture that gave so many of our coaches the interpersonal and leadership skills they needed to be successful in very high pressure and public environments. Coaches don't have time for happy talk or sensitive egos. They have to communicate clearly, be tough, and find a way to win.
Democrats can learn a lot from our culture back home.
For example, most national Democrats knew President Biden had zero business running for reelection. Zero. For both health and political reasons, he should not have run. But everyone shut up and went with the program.
I mentioned something publicly about this more than a year before the election on CNN. I got pilloried on social media. So did David Axelrod and James Carville, the two best strategists our party has had in 50 years. The national leaders cowered and even lied to the people by telling them the President was perfectly fine. So what the American people ended up seeing was that the Democrats had no guts, even when everything was on the line. Everything. They called Trump a threat to democracy and still didn't have the courage to put our Party in the best position to win. The American people were crying out for leadership, begging for something different and we absolutely chickened out because our key leaders didn't want to hurt President Biden's feelings, or those of his inner circle.
They picked power over principle.
Can you imagine a great coach not replacing an injured player in the Super Bowl game because he didn't want to hurt their feelings?
These aren't one off events. Add to it our nominee and her advisors couldn't think of one thing she would do differently than Biden for fear of hurting his feelings. While the Republicans have a culture of corruption, the Democrats have a culture of cowardice.
What the Democrats need to understand moving forward is, it isn't about the feelings of overly sensitive politicians. It's not about their pollster or consultant friends. It's about the future of the damn country. Great coaches, great leaders make tough decisions and have tough conversations with people they love and care about for the good of the team. And political leaders need to do the same for the good of the country.
JFK didn't necessarily want to take on all his southern Democratic friends in Congress when the Civil Rights issue started to erupt. But he did because he had guts. He took seriously his duty to the people of this country and his oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States. Then, bravely, he went on national TV and made the case to the American people. His courage eventually led to the legal integration of Black people into American society.
That is the Democratic Party I signed up for: the party of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. The party of Bobby and his courage to speak honestly about race, poverty, war and a broken economic system.
Their courage gave us hope. And being courageous does not mean you have to be brash or demeaning or grotesque. As the Kennedys proved, you can have internal moral strength and elegance, sophistication and class. In fact, the internal strength amplifies all of those other qualities.
But now, the timid Democrats through their inaction have convinced the American people that they cannot be trusted to lead or speak the truth.
Any state or national leader who did not speak up against President Biden running for reelection, especially after the debate, is disqualified in my mind from being our party's nominee in 2028. They are forever tainted. They knew better. Unlike President Kennedy, they put their own careers ahead of the country. As Dante wrote, "the hottest places in hell shall be reserved for those who in times of great moral crisis, preserved their neutrality." There will be many Democratic leaders whose political souls will be living in Dante's inferno.
Yet, I am forever hopeful. We have some great young leaders in our party who get it, especially our leaders in the House of Representatives and the Congressional Black Caucus. Our leaders in organized labor are smart, tenacious and totally get where the party needs to be when it comes to workers.
Youngstown will infuse in the Party the worldview, grit, and courage to make the culture changes we need to make. This transformation would be just in time; it looks like Trump is going to, unsurprisingly, overreach, coddle his rich friends with tax cuts, and sell off as much of the federal government as he can to the highest bidders in the billionaire class. If his cabinet nominees are any indication, then we are in for a helluva ride into a new Gilded Age.
As the old saying goes, "shepards shouldn't smell like the other shepards. Shepards should smell like the sheep." If we want Democrats in positions of power, we need to get out of the liberal, elite faculty lounges and cocktail circuits and into the communities that need us the most.
We need to understand those needs, craft innovative solutions to help them thrive, and have the stones to make the tough decisions on their behalf, even if some people will have hurt feelings.
We need to forge a New Democratic Party and the blueprint for that new culture is in our old factory towns. Democrats need to move there and learn how it's done.
This should not be done in the service of the Democratic Party, but because it is what is truly needed at this moment in time to help reform and restore hope in America.
Former U.S. Representative Tim Ryan served Northeast Ohio for 20 years in Congress. He is Senior Advisor at Progressive Policy Institutes Campaign For Working America and Co-Chair of Natural Allies for a Clean Energy Future.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
