And now what?

Yes, the Republicans won, but, let’s face it, my Democratic party has blown it big time. It is time for a hard look in the mirror. What happened was a long time in the making. Ignoring or making fun of the uneducated, struggling multitudes had its price and we, the coastal Democrats, paid for it. Wanting to put a positive spin to it, I like to think that this brutal wake-up call will allow the Democrats to clean house, face issues they have neglected for too long and build a party the nation badly needs.

At the moment we find comfort in tuning to the late-night comedians. They never had it so good. More seriously, we also take heart in watching the so-called Resistance crowds marching in opposition to the cruel, nasty, bigoted initiatives coming or threatening to come from the new administration. Let’s not fool ourselves though, demonstrating against those executive orders will not last forever and it is far from enough. Being “against” a person, a law, a party  is easy but far less important than building a new edifice that all Americans and not only a fraction of the nation can believe in.

What happened last November started a long time ago at the base and will only be reversed at the base. I do believe that many of those who voted for Trump will one day – sooner than later  hopefully – realize that they’ve been “trumped”. Waiting for their disappointment to turn the tide is not an acceptable strategy however. Making low and middle-class Republican voters see that they’ve been voting against their own interests for many years and building a project supported by realistic and specific proposals is what needs to be done.

It will then fall on our representatives and senators to convince their constituents that these proposals take their fears and concerns into account. There will always be extremists and bigots. They are noisy, but they are not the majority, far from it.

Let us also acknowledge that the task at hand is as enormous as it is urgent and cannot be carried out by the present leadership of the party. One of the first measures should be to thank them for their service – no names needed here, we all know who they are – and ask a new generation to come forward and present their ideas. This cannot wait.