I’d like to share a hypothesis about the Democrats. It’s about money. It might not be true — it truly is a hypothesis — but I’d like to air it out and see what you think.

We have a lot of people in America who are suffering greatly. Dick Tofel put it like this:

“For more than forty years, we have become an ever-more winner-take-all society, one in which the gap between the winners and losers has widened, particularly with respect to income, wealth, education and the advantages that accrue to all three. The Republican Party promoted this; the Democratic Party largely tolerated it.”

That electorate needs help, which means they need change, and will vote for someone who seems like they might bring about change.

The Republican base of high net worth donors (the people who, frankly, really make a difference to election campaign finances) is all-in on funding that change. The Republican version of change is aligned with their values: lower taxes, fewer regulations, fuck it, let’s send children to work.

The Democratic base of high net worth donors is not. The Democratic version of change is easily painted as “socialism”, even if it’s not really anything of the sort: stronger welfare, policies like anti-trust reform, a higher minimum wage, progressive taxation, a wealth tax for people with net worths over $100M, perhaps stronger healthcare infrastructure. There are very few very rich people who will fund this sort of change, even if it’s going to be the most effective way of helping that base electorate.

Republican change, which has manifested as essentially authoritarian fascism, is more palatable to the rich people who fund elections than Democratic change, which manifests as social programs that hurt their bottom line. As a result, Democrats drift to the right in an attempt to lure that base of donors, while Republicans stay to the right. That’s how you get to Harris campaigning with a Cheney.

The mistake is to optimize for big-tent centrism rather than helping the people who are telling you they need help. The former maybe where the money is, but it’s not where the votes are. The votes are in convincing people you’ll help them.

You need votes to win elections. But also, you need money to win elections in America.

So my core hypothesis is that the Democrats have been culturally outmaneuvered. They can’t maintain the donor base and the voter base.

If this is true, I see a few ways forward:

• Stop optimizing for money and run principled grassroots campaigns centered on helping working class people in meaningful ways, without letting go of policies around inclusion.
• Become the anti-authoritarian, anti-war party.
• Abandon the idea of “working across the aisle” in favor of the idea of working very directly with local communities and giving them a platform. Become an operating system for local organizing.
• Drop the celebrity endorsements in favor of prominent endorsements from local groups who are doing the work.
• Start organizing yesterday.

Of course, all of this is predicated on the Democrats wanting any of this. Do they care more about helping people in need than maintaining their power base in influential circles? That question matters.