Transforming the party: Democrats have failed us — it's time to rebuild from the ground up

Would it not be simpler for the government to dissolve the people and elect another? — Bertolt Brecht It took just over three weeks for top aides on the Kamala Harris campaign to appear on "Pod Save America" and, as a HuffPost writer put it, suggest they'd been doomed all along by a fossilized sense “that there just wasn’t much else Harris could have done to beat Donald Trump,” even after a record fundraising surge. Party reform — and space for deliberation A model for those efforts was recently laid out by the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which issued a memo with a roadmap for rebuilding and reorienting the party, proposing "four core principles" for the next Democratic National Committee chair: Reform, restructure and rebrand the party from the ground up and commit to a 50-state strategy that builds power through state parties; Embrace grassroots donors and reject special interest and dark money, reinstating the DNC's 2008 ban on corporate PAC donations, and pushing to prohibit super PAC spending in state primaries; Rebuild the party's multiracial, working-class base by uplifting poor, low-, and middle-income voices and concerns; Highlight recent electoral successes while working to build broad coalitions to win elections. First comes the citizens' agenda model for media campaign coverage, which is entirely centered on voters and issues — just like the process involving focus groups, public interest polling and citizens’ assemblies. Assuming that the GOP ground game didn’t exist because it didn’t resemble the Democrats’ efforts is a mistake, and one that needs to be learned from in short order.” Making meaning — and the politics of care But it’s not just the get-out-the-vote power that Democrats should be worried about, as explained by sociologist Jessica Calarco, author of "Holding It Together: How Women Became America’s Safety Net".