Early in the Civil War, General George McClellan’s Union Army was poised for a decisive victory over Confederate forces. But, inexplicably, McClellan wouldn’t attack! For days, President Lincoln ordered and even begged the general to move. But nothing – so the Confederates slipped away. In firing McClellan, Lincoln wrote: “If you don’t want to use the army, I should like to borrow it for a while.”
That’s what today’s grassroots Democratic Party activists are saying to their aloof campaign generals, who stay ensconced in Washington, refusing to deploy their ground troops in the field of battle.
The great strength of the Democratic Party is its army of volunteer door-knockers across the country who have the local knowledge, connections, and lingo to relate to local voters. Yet, in the past 30 years, fat-cat donors and high-dollar consultants have taken over the “People’s Party” and abandoned high-touch organizing for high-tech “digital outreach.”
Thus, the Democrats’ passionate army of local campaigners is unused, only called on by emails to send more donations to fund Beltway consultants and negative political ads. As a friend of mine recently said in exasperation: “I wish the Democratic Party would stop asking for money and start asking me for ACTION.”
Well, change is coming, for the grassroots Democratic army has been taking charge in many areas and mobilizing itself! And in a huge advance, the Party’s new National Chair and its new chair of State Democratic Committees were both elected this month on a bold program to move the Party’s focus back to year-round, grassroots activism. After all, voters aren’t mere consumers of politics, they should be valued as the whole purpose of politics and its primary producers.
To get involved with this grassroots rebellion, and to hold the leadership accountable to their word, sign up with your local or state Democratic Party committees— a list of state parties’ websites can be found here.
About damned time! I hope my local party leaders get the message. They shunned my offer to volunteer my time during the campaign, but didn't hesitate to ask for my money afterwards.
Outrageous! Not leadership at all.
Right on! To form an opposition, action is needed now. Real leaders will emerge as
citizens support the Courts where brave Judges engage to reject illegal attempts to
impose a "unitary executive".
I stopped donating to the DNC about ten years ago because I felt they were only listening to and bowing to corporate interests. When they elected Ken Martin to head the DNC I got hopeful and when he chose David Hogg as his VP, I donated again .
We need to listen to all voices and get our party energized again
Jim, I remember hearing you in the ‘80s, and wondered if you were still out there. Yay!!! You’re on Substack!
The best thing the Dems can do in DC is get rid of (retire) the old dead wood. We need fresh blood at the top, like AOC and Jasmine Crockett. That will really get the grassroots voters even more energized.
Absolutely! Jasmine and AOC both are sharp and they confound MAGA.
Community organizers, unite!
We are overjoyed to get this kind of news. Exactly what we have been telling our representatives: stop "humbly asking" for money without telling us what you are using it for! After a few emails, we are seeing some small changes. Jamie Raskin is now actually talking a game plan, instead of endlessly wailing about how bad "the other guys" are. Way to go, Jane and Ken!
HOORAYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!
Grass roots Democrats starting at the Precinct and County levels need to be allowed input into the Party's platform, goals, and messages and to ensure that economic, environmental, living wage, voting and health and job justice progressive Democrats and not identity and not corporatist Dems are running in the Democratic primaries and that grass roots Democrats are the ones electing the delegates and officers at every level of the Democratic organization. But no one seems to be able show grass roots Democrats, especially in Texas, how or to organize that effort. Failing to do so will result in little or no progress for most Americans.
About time. I knocked on doors, but it was poorly organized by outsiders and some of us ended up with the same lists, which really angered people who were bothered repeatedly.
Truth and PROOF is in the Punch....and we are watching. If Ken and Jane are for real...pushing for support of judges, the legal system, directing dems to put money into the groups with smart prepared aggressive lawyers whose action against the myriad of illegal stuff by the Administration (it once was tRump and the behind the scenes 2025 orchestra, but now its the confirmed Secretaries) slows the harm and gives us democratic folk in the hinterlands some hope. Ken and Jane need to get to organizing (door knocking, billboard posting, and aggressive posts-articles against daily rightwing Lie Fest Media) to win the open seats that will be decided in a few to serveral weeks as they also prepare for 2026. Ken and Jane also need to make sure we "rural folk" are calling and writing our subservant Maga (once they were republicans, but not anymore) representatives and senators and telling them we FULLY oppose the criminal nominees for federal offices. Even if these golf shoe-licking lackies vote against our wishes, we have put them on notice. And we should remind these reps and senators every time ... their farmers, their industry workers, their construction folk, etc are harmed by higher American prices caused by tariffs, caused by American Corporation greed, and 1st grader economic policies shoved on us grassroots dems while the congress folk did nothing. Lastly Ken, Jane, and all of us should be contacting Dems in the House and ask them to start building their impeachment case, so if and when there is the opportunity to put our dissatisfaction into action, they are ready (J Raskin, J Crockett, T Lieu,
H Jeffries, A Green, and dozens more). As M M Rowan replied.."RIGHT ON"...let's go...we've got some people and a country to save!
"Wisdom is knowing what to do next; virtue is doing it."
David Star Jordan, American naturalist
It's about time for the Democratic Party is not just Republican-lite. Jim, please come back to Ag commissioner for the whole country.
We need to generate the ideas/issues that our representatives need to pursue not the ideas generated by lobbyists for corporations which are generated by the top down to us.
Exactly!!!
Long overdue ... I can't help but remember Harry Truman and the 1948 election ... when are we going to hear about the 'do nothing Republican Congress'. After the ...
1944 election ... Democrats 242-191 56-39
1946 election ... Republicans 246-188 51-45
1948 election ... Democrats 283-171 54-42
With a strong grass roots effort, we can change it again!!
Since joining the contrarian I am unable to listen to your wonderful commentary. I am a subscriber from Substack. Please HELP me!!! Look forward to reading along with your narration.
Thank you.
Anna
"Like" with some caveats--
In 2016, Sen. Chuck Schumer said "For every blue collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia, and you can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois and Wisconsin." Yeah, that was a winning strategy.
Point is if you mobilize more people but use the same mistaken strategy, it won't work. Nor can you win by talking only among yourselves. Upper middle class professionals, the type whom the Ds most obviously represent, should learn to talk with us blue collar workers, the majority, and not just talk down to us. Coalition building is difficult and it takes time to earn trust. Or for the D party, to earn it back. That's how to win.
In Les Leopold's 2024 book //Wall Street's War on Workers (How Mass Layoffs and Greed Are Destroying the Working Class and What to Do about It)// he has robust statistics showing that since 1992, as a county's mass layoff rate goes up, its Democratic vote has gone down. Notice that's local info. Here's the kicker--at the same time, these same voters have grown more liberal on social issues. The easy dismissal of us as ignorant bigots undeserving of economic relief is both deeply unfair and in reality untrue.
Don't believe me? Read the book; years of solid research and accurate stats. Or go to the Labor Institute's website or Les Leopold's blog.
I don’t get a receipt when my subscription is renewed. How much am Zi being charged and when. Come on I thought you were different from all the rest