Open Letter to Idaho Democrats

Dear Idaho Democrats,

There’s no sugarcoating it — Tuesday was a big loss for you. I’m not here to spike the football or rub it in; rather, I want to share some thoughts on where the Democratic Party goes from here. I’m under no illusion that we’ll find much common ground — you and I have very different worldviews and base principles — but maybe you’ll be open to a few good-faith suggestions.

I’d take any suggestion from you about what Republicans should do with a huge grain of salt, so I understand if you do the same. But we share this state and this nation, which means we have to learn to live together. I don’t want revolution or civil war; I’d rather we figure out our differences through words and persuasion.

For the past few years, your rhetoric has focused on the supposed extremism of Republicans. Yet the word loses all meaning when you use it to describe more than half the electorate. Donald Trump won the electoral vote and the popular vote because his platform resonated with a majority of people, many of whom have suffered financially and materially under President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.

Rather than engaging with the truth, you seemed compelled to make up outrageous claims about Trump and his supporters. He’s a Russian asset, he’s a fascist, he’s Hitler, he’s going to ban abortion, he’s going to exterminate gay people. None of that is true, and by continually repeating those lines, you came across as unserious to a majority of voters.

It’s the same thing here in Idaho. The more you call Republican officials and candidates extremists, the more you drive people away from your platform. Sen. Brian Lenney, a frequent target of your rhetoric, won three out of every four voters in District 13. Are you prepared to say that 12,000 Nampa residents are all dangerous right-wing extremists?

Less than a third of Idaho voters supported your candidate. Are you prepared to say that more than 600,000 of your neighbors are dangerous right-wing extremists?

Your side is always talking about saving “democracy,” but what does that mean when you undermine the democratic process? Vice President Harris didn’t win your presidential primary, yet your DNC delegates installed her anyway because polls showed that President Biden was likely to lose.

You’ve been using ringers and stalking horses here in Idaho, too. When Raul Labrador won his primary against the incumbent attorney general Lawrence Wasden, you fielded a new candidate in hopes of winning moderate Republican support. In District 11, you tried to swap candidates when challengers unexpectedly won races against Republican incumbents. Clearly, you were trying to game the system.

It really makes your claim of defending democracy — it’s right there in your name, after all — ring hollow. Democracy means letting the people decide. And the people have decided: they support Donald Trump, a Republican legislature, and preserving our current election systems rather than radically transforming them through Proposition 1. Just as Republicans in 2008 had to figure out why the nation seemed to shift so far left, now you must figure out why it’s shifting right. Making excuses, like saying Harris ran a perfect campaign but America “failed” her, only hurts you in the long run.

As a Republican officer and a conservative writer, I definitely feel satisfaction at the outcomes this year. But as a student of history, I know the pendulum will eventually swing back. The American system incentivizes two parties, and so there will always be a need for an opposition party to hold those in power accountable. American politics is a constant shifting of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis as we engage in the great debate of our time.

Donald Trump and the younger generations of Republicans supporting him have found success by embracing issues the Democratic Party left behind. Democrats once stood for the working man against big business, but now you’re aligned with massive multinational corporations, appeased by pride flags on social media. Democrats once questioned Big Pharma, caring about what we put in our bodies; now you say “trust the Science” and mock anyone who doesn’t uncritically accept novel vaccines, ultra-processed foods, and the latest pesticides on the market.

I remember when Democrats were the anti-war party, protesting President George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq and demanding we bring the troops home. During the Obama Administration, you shifted to supporting the endless War on Terror. Now, it seems you want American troops in Ukraine, Taiwan, Israel/Palestine, and beyond.

In most cases, these shifts seem like reactions to Trump and Republicans adopting new stances. We turned anti-war; you turned pro-war. We grew skeptical of Big Pharma and big business, so you joined their side. The Covid lockdowns were revealing in many respects. Democrats who were skeptical of the “Trump vaccine” before Election Day suddenly supported mandates afterward.

The Democratic Party’s turn toward corporatism and authoritarianism has driven out people like Tulsi Gabbard and Robert Kennedy Jr., not to mention businessmen like Elon Musk, who once considered themselves on the left. Meanwhile, you welcomed figures like Dick Cheney, once branded a warmonger and villain by your party. I think that was a good trade for my side; what do you think?

Sixty-four years ago, the great Idahoan Sen. Frank Church addressed the DNC and said that the economic prosperity of the Eisenhower Administration was a mirage:

Do we have a wholesome prosperity? I submit it is a pitch-man prosperity, the kind that results when government is run by hucksters not unaccustomed to selling inferior products by wrapping them in bright packages.

It is no accident that big business profits are higher than ever, nor that small business is failing at a record rate. The Republicans tell us that this is due to the immutable law of “the survival of the fittest.” The fittest, of course, are the biggest, as anyone knows who has ever been in an alley fight.

Church’s words could just as easily apply to the Democratic administration of President Joe Biden today. Covid was a boon for big businesses, corporate chains, and pharmaceutical companies but devastating for small businesses and working Americans. Yet rather than siding with the people, your party sided with the wealthy and the powerful.

Frank Church would hardly recognize today’s Democratic Party. You might argue that Eisenhower or even Reagan wouldn’t recognize today’s Republicans, and you’d be right. Parties evolve and change with the times; the question is, have they changed for the better? I’d suggest the Democratic Party is spiraling toward a form of extremism more dangerous to American liberty than even your worst fears about the right.

Consider freedom of speech, one of the bedrock natural rights revered by our Founding Fathers and protected by our Constitution. For years, it was the left that championed freedom of speech, whether against censors in Hollywood or in government. Today, Democratic figures from John Kerry to Hillary Clinton to your vice-presidential nominee Tim Walz have said that speech is not free and that the government can shut down anything it considers “hate speech” or “misinformation.” Does that sound like the American Republic or more like Soviet Russia?

At some point you have to ask what you’re actually fighting for. Is it the preservation of our natural rights as enshrined in our Constitution and other founding documents, or is it merely the naked adjudication of power to reward your friends and punish your enemies?

The day after the election, Matt Yglesias — cofounder of Vox.com and dyed-in-the-wool liberal — posted nine theses for the Democratic Party going forward. I don’t agree with all of them (if I did I wouldn’t be a Republican) but I found them sensible and rational. What do you think?

You are free to take my advice or leave it. You and I have vastly different worldviews, and in the cutthroat world of partisan politics I would rather my side win and yours lose. Nevertheless, I believe the Democratic Party — the party of Jefferson, Jackson, Cleveland, Truman, and Carter — once stood for things that I could respect and appreciate, and there was space in our discourse to work together for the people’s good. I hope it’s not too late to come back from the brink and put our country first once again.

Sincerely,
Brian Almon