What Would JFK Do?

Brent Budowsky has some advice for the Democrats in his column at the Hill.

While Democrats face uphill challenges in the midterm elections, and Republicans face risks greater than discussed by mainstream media, here is a strategy for Democrats to win the midterms that might well be suggested by President Kennedy if he were with us today.

Liberal and moderate Democrats, who are 98 percent to 99 percent united on the issues addressed here, might consider that JFK’s political greatness was that he was both a starry-eyed idealist and a cold-blooded realist.

With Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) the obstacle to these noble purposes, a temptation for many Democrats might be to suggest Academy Award slapper Will Smith meet with Manchin and work his charms. JFK would tell us there is a better way.

Here it is.

The 98 percent to 99 percent of Democrats in Congress who back critical provisions originally proposed in the pending and delayed reconciliation bill should launch a powerful and aggressive JFK-style public campaign to voters across West Virginia in support of the major ideas waiting to be passed.

The most important goal for Democrats today is to enact proposals that help voters in real ways, which every voter clearly understands, and which inspire approval and support from those voters — who would appreciate and support the Democratic president and Congress who fought for them.

As of today, Democrats will enact a bill to dramatically lower the price of prescription drugs, which will be widely popular with large numbers of voters. They will enact a significant increase in support for alternative energy that protects the earth and makes the world less dependent on Russia. They will enact a significant tax increase for those who can well afford it, some of which will reduce the deficit, which all 50 Senate Democrats support, leaving money to finance efforts to directly help middle-income and poor Americans who are hard-hit by inflation.

Through the JFK-like public campaign beginning with West Virginia voters, Democrats can advance proposals to lower the cost of child care, improve education, improve life for women and workers, help rural America or other goals. JFK, the realist, would warn us: We cannot achieve everything now. We must choose which plans to champion today, and get the rest tomorrow. JFK, the idealist, would inspire us: We can achieve significant new, widely understood and highly popular plans in the coming ten weeks.

This JFK-like plan would involve massive and saturation ads on West Virginia television, radio, newspapers and social media. These ads would clearly describe how the selected plans would make life better for West Virginia voters, and would only mention Manchin at the end, suggesting voters urge both West Virginia senators to back them.

This would help Manchin fulfill his commitment to help West Virginians whose lives are lifted by these plans. It would send a powerful message throughout America that it is Democrats who battle for a land of realized hopes, better lives, and shared dreams for all Americans.

If I were in a position to advise the Democrats, I would tell them not to waste their money. Mr. Budowsky seems to be under the impression that the problem the Democrats are having with the voters is that those stupid rubes in flyover country don’t see how wonderful the Democrats are and how their policies are going to help everyone. The rubes don’t know what the Democrats really stand for. The real problem is that the rubes know all too well what the Democrats stand for, and they don’t like what they see.

For millions of Americans, the Democrats stand for defunding the police and letting criminals go free. The Democrats stand for “mostly peaceful protests” that turn our cities into warzones. The Democrats stand for lockdowns and restrictive COVID mandates. The Democrats stand for teachers who teach their students racist, anti-American ideology when they are not grooming them into aberrant sexuality. The Democrats stand for limiting our domestic energy, making America dependent on terrorist-supporting autocrats. The Democrats stand for open borders, cancel culture, high prices, and humiliation abroad. Worst of all the Democrats stand for an arrogant, out-of-touch elite that regards the ordinary Americans that made their country great as Deplorables and Bitter Clingers.

The problem with Mr. Budowsky’s nostrum is that today’s Democratic Party is not the Democratic Party of Kennedy’s day. John F. Kennedy, for all his personal flaws, was a patriotic American. Kennedy’s colleagues in the Democratic Party were patriotic Americans. Kennedy believed in and upheld American values and institutions. Kennedy challenged his fellow Americans to live up to American ideals, the noblest in the world. JFK would have no place in today’s Democratic Party. Neither would FDR or JBJ for that matter.

The Democratic Party is no longer the party of Jefferson and Jackson. The extremists have taken over and the Democratic Party is now the party of Marx and Lenin when it isn’t the party of perverts and groomers. If Brent Budowsky wants to save his party from the looming catastrophe this November, he would be advised to organize the sane and moderate Democrats, if any still exist, to take back control of the party and propose policies that Americans really want.

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