The Last Thing Democrats Need Is More Policy Plans |
The Last Thing Democrats Need Is More Policy Plans
By Sam Rosenfeld and Daniel Schlozman
Mr. Rosenfeld and Mr. Schlozman are the authors of “The Hollow Parties: The Many Pasts and Disordered Present of American Party Politics.”
Democrats “need a vision that’s not just anti-Trump,” Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said last year. As Democrats reflexively do, she then ticked off a list of policy markers, like “guaranteed health care for every American.”
Democrats insist that policy agendas are what determine a party’s political success and failure. Recently, Senators Cory Booker and Chris Van Hollen promoted splashy, dueling plans to reduce the federal income tax burden for the lower and middle classes. For its part, a prominent think tank offered a handy “161 practical ideas” for the next Democratic administration.
The problem is that policy-as-politics doesn’t work. Parties can, and historically have, forged stronger, more sustainable connections with voters through other means.
Pursuing those alternatives now would require Democrats to become a real political party again — and that’s no easy feat. The essence of mass politics is engaging with people in civil society — and not just an engaged layer of activists — in a sustained, repeated way that’s visible to fellow citizens with whom they are linked in work and community. For Democrats, it’s a lost art.
Expecting political rewards from policy has precluded good political thinking — setting priorities to sustain and expand who is in the party and looking ahead to see how today’s moves shape tomorrow’s battles. And it has led Democrats to neglect the kind of organizational renewal and civic revitalization necessary to repair their fraying ties to working Americans.
Policy does not produce its own political reward, even if Democrats continue to believe otherwise. Scholars of policy’s downstream effects (called “policy feedback”) show that policies can just as easily generate backlash as enthusiasm. When policies do generate public support, the commitment goes to the policy itself rather than the party that enacted it.
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