· Make black lives matter even more by leading whites and others on key issues. The 1960s civil rights movement not only improved black lives but those of other Americans by pressing key common issues. Today, housing, health care, schools and similar issues are begging for stronger leadership and blacks could help themselves and others by heading the collective voice of change. For one role model, check the work of Rev. William Barber II and the second Poor People’s campaign
· Watch your language. Calling for “defunding police” may sound good to liberals but Trump is already featuring an ad that suggests Joe Biden doesn’t even want the 911 number promptly answered. This is a classic problem for liberals: they come up with expressions that sound good to them but don’t check to see how the broad public will react.
· Come up with programs that ordinary folk can understand: One of the problems with Obamacare was that it was intensely complicated.. At the time it was being debated I proposed adding a provision to lower the age of Medicare to 55, something easy to understand and which would benefit everyone sooner or later. But Obamacare was written by lawyers and economists who didn’t know how to talk United States and thus helped to lower support for it.
· Recover the working class – With the decline in unions and the growing wealth and education of the liberal class, the gap between lower income workers and college grads has increased. And in part because of the lack of working class organizing by liberals, Trump was able to turn many of them his way.
· Make third party action a local activity: Of the nearly 200 elected Green Party officials only a handful are at the state level and none at the federal. The party has hurt itself by running presidential candidates who build no support for the party and alienate many voters. Change comes from the bottom up which is why Green Party candidates do much better at the local level.
· Politics is not a religion: Change comes between elections, the latter merely reflecting some of the progress (or lack thereof) that has occurred. The purity of your position – i.e. your faith – is largely irrelevant. What matters is whether the election will make change harder or easier. Think of it as a battlefield and not an altar.
· Bring identities together. Few things would scare the establishment more than if blacks, latinos, women, labor and youth came together to press a common agenda. This wouldn’t replace identity politics but great;y enhance it. What do the good folk agree on. . .and then go for it.
· Statues are just symbols - Sure, get rid of bad symbols like Confederate statues and the Redskins name, bur remember that you are only dealing with symbols of the past and current real substance still awaits you.
