Where Is the Message?

Published online July 6, 2017

I am searching for coherence in the “perspectives” of Democrats and of Republicans gathered by PAW (cover story, June 7) and, beyond that, a message.

Although by any measure (except of white male voters) Democrats are the majority party, they are obviously not the majority office-holders, and consequently their efforts are directed to their weaknesses: building strength at the state and county levels, connecting (or reconnecting) with rural America and urban labor.  And winning enough power in 2018 to give them a determining hand in the 2020 redistricting process where they were such losers in 2010.

Republicans, perennially better organized (and funded) than the multi-interest Democrats, voice far less interest in the nuts and bolts of governing but more worry about putting forward a unifying conservative message, of identifying and projecting what they stand for.  That the White House has given them no support on this matter is unspoken.

I am dismayed by the absence of statements on issues that concern so many of us who live outside the realm of professional politics, Democratic or Republican.  Virtually all of us are fearful of human-made climate change and of the internal developments that are driving immigration. And we are at least worried about economic inequality and tax reform, the delivery of health care, and the job market.  But if these matters are shaping our representatives’ “perspectives,” they are not telling us as much.