A Rough Road for the Democrats
2016 was a memorable year not just for the Republicans, but also for the Democrats. The Democratic Party and its leadership underestimated the power and sway that Trump held over his supporters. The party paid dearly for their oversight as only 55 percent of eligible Democratic voters turned up, their most meager showing since 1996. However, it was not just the votes themselves that clinched a Republican win. Hillary Clinton did not prove to be a very convincing candidate to the traditional Democrat base, and as a result, around 35 percent of Democrats stayed home and didn’t vote.
The Democratic Party can’t let this happen in 2020. For one, they need a more approachable candidate. They need someone that doesn’t seem like a liar, or seems to be in the pocket of Wall Street and big businesses. In addition, this candidate must be attuned to the party’s base voters, as Trump was for Republicans in 2016. Undoubtedly, Trump’s antics since his election victory will have turned some of his voters against him. However, that will be useless in the next presidential election if a massive number of Democrats again refuse to vote. Thus, the Democratic candidate in 2020 has to already be popular while also keeping to the Democratic party’s agenda.
One such candidate would be Kamala Harris. Harris is the junior U.S. Senator for California, who recently gained news coverage through her pointed and forceful questioning of Brett Kavanaugh, and later for walking out of the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Brett Kavanaugh and his sexual assault allegations. More importantly, despite only being a two-year senator, she has become extremely popular among Democrats, advocating for single-payer health care and tax cuts for the middle class. It doesn’t hurt that she’s from California, a Democratic stronghold, where Clinton gained 3.2 million votes in 2016. Imagine how many votes a favorable Senator could get from the Bay Area.
The other senator that I would suggest for the Democrats is Amy Klobuchar, the senior Democratic Senator from Minnesota. Klobuchar is up for reelection this year, and remains incredibly popular in her home state, with a double digit advantage over her opposition in every major poll that’s been taken. Like Harris, she also gained critical news coverage during the Kavanaugh hearings: Klobuchar’s questioning of Kavanaugh opened up the question of the extent of Kavanaugh’s drinking, an important factor needed to determine the validity of his account of the party where he supposedly sexually assaulted Dr. Blasey Ford.
This is the kind of thing Democrats should be looking for in 2020: Congressmen and women who the public perceive as inherently Democratic. In 2020, there has to be a major influx of Democratic voters to turn the White House blue, and that can only happen if the candidate they’re voting for is popular. After all, in 2016, Trump won not only because Republicans voted, but also because Democrats didn’t.
The candidate that Dems pick in 2020 also has to be bipartisan. Congress, in the past, has been historically divided amongst party lines. In the dangerous times we live in today, senators can’t afford to bicker amongst themselves and not get anything done, or worse, get the wrong things done.
Again, using Kavanaugh as an example, Mitch McConnell set the deadline for the FBI investigation into Kavanaugh in a week after it began. When the FBI—inevitably—didn’t find enough evidence to support Dr. Blasey Ford’s claims, McConnell pushed Kavanaugh’s confirmation vote through, all in order to cement his and the rest of the Republicans’ legacy on the Supreme Court.
Now, as multiple minority groups like the LGBT+ community and Hispanics have started to finally gain a real voice in the U.S., they will have to deal with a conservative majority on the Supreme Court, and will continue to have to deal with it for decades to come. The Democrats have a tough job ahead of them in 2020 for fixing the mess that Trump and Trumpism have caused in the U.S. Let’s hope they know what they’re doing.