This document discusses the need for the Democratic party to clarify what it stands for beyond just opposing Donald Trump. It argues that merely talking about hope is not enough and that the party needs to engage in discussions around policies that will actually improve people's lives, such as reducing inequality, reining in Wall Street, and ending wars. It suggests the party could take cues from politicians like Bernie Sanders who want to revive New Deal policies and are popular due to speaking to ordinary people's legitimate economic grievances.

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This is a brief message I wrote in February 2020 to a “New” Democrat, that is, a pro-Clinton
and pro-Obama Democrat, who I know personally. In light of Joe Biden’s Super Tuesday
victory, due in no small part to Barack Obama’s intervention, I thought I should post it to my
SlideShare account to spark a discussion as to what the Democratic Party truly stands for.
Hope for this country.... at least politically. To follow up on your note to me nearly two months
ago, I want to add this: Before we can speak of hope and the "best days" of any nation-state,
including the United States of America, we need to start with a discussion grounded in the
historical and current conditions that inform our politics and shape our society and culture.
From discussion, not to mention debate, we can move into some kind of collective political
action. That's the root, the very core, of sociopolitical movement organizing. We've seen that in
the 19th century abolitionist movement, the trade-union/organized-labor movement, the civil
rights movement, the feminist movement(s), the movement against the Vietnam War, the
movement against Ronald Reagan's (para)military interventions in Central America (specifically
Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala), the movement against the Iraq War, Occupy Wall Street,
etc.
Otherwise, just talking about "hope", and holding out hope that our best days as a "progressive
democracy" (I put this term in quote marks not to be sarcastic but because historically and
currently the U.S. has been an oligarchy--it's only officially "liberal democratic" and
"republican") have yet to come, amounts to a dead letter. Worse--it's self-delusion. Fantasy.
And, by the way, Barack Obama ran on "hope" and "change" in 2008.... only to be, at best, a
center-right/right-wing president who passed tepid "market-friendly" economic reforms like the
Affordable Care Act. The ACA started out as a Heritage Foundation policy proposal.
Where am I going with this? Well, the 2020 presidential election will happen soon enough. I
know the Democrats want to topple Donald Trump (I'd like to see that, too, as do you), but
there's the question of what the Democratic party today stands for... not to mention there's no
guarantee Trump will leave the White House any time soon. As far as I can tell, merely a select
few Democrats like Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Ro Khanna, Ilhan
Omar, etc. are reviving the New Deal "tradition" (or faction) within the party.
As you can tell, my own political perspectives (or, if you will, the views I've come to adopt) are
well to the left of the New Deal Democrats', but I also think that Sanders's popularity since 2016
is a major sign of progress in this country. It's an opportunity to reduce wealth and income
inequalities in this country, to put a check on Wall Street's power, to stop the wars (and, thus,
militarism and imperialism), etc. I can go on but you get the idea.
But again, all that is due to a great deal of discussion at the "grassroots", something which the
elites (or the ruling class) in the media and the Beltway managed to miss (or ignore). Ordinary
people are disillusioned and angry.... and rightly so. They also want their voices heard.
That, in no small part, explains why Hillary Clinton lost the way she did to Trump. It accounts
for why Trump could use populist rhetoric to drum up support from voters who, again, became

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convinced to vote against their own economic (and political) interests--in other words, their class
interests. It's also why Sanders, AOC, et al., are so popular.
In my humble opinion, the general public deserves a hearing. The public should be able to
directly challenge the elites. Abolishing the Electoral College, instituting direct democracy,
allowing for proportional representation, and giving third parties a chance can all go a long way
in this regard. All of that plus a raft of social-democratic reforms and policies.
So much for now. I hope this supplements my previous reply.
All my best.
Stephen Cheng