The Party That Forgot the People

We are a month away from the midterm elections, and the American people are poised to hold the party in power accountable.

Republicans raised taxes on the American people. They called those taxes tariffs, but tariffs are taxes. Then they supported going to war in Iran, which created an energy supply problem. And whenever you have an energy supply problem, prices are going to go up, because as the price of energy goes up, the price of making things goes up and the price of delivering things goes up.

So now prices are higher. And while some individual prices can come down, the overall price level generally does not go back to where it was before. If your groceries went from $100 to $120, slowing inflation does not make them cost $100 again. The American people understand that because they live it. So they are going to hold Republicans accountable.

The Republican response may be that President Trump did those things, not Republican lawmakers. That is not the case.

When a military officer crosses the yellow line to participate in Officer Training School, he or she accepts an obligation that goes beyond their own behavior. They swear that they will “not lie, cheat or steal, nor tolerate among us anyone who does.” The second part matters just as much as the first. It is not enough to say, “I did not do it.”

There is a philosophical idea here that applies. A difference between doing something and allowing something to happen. Those are not exactly the same thing. But if you have the power to act, you understand what is happening, you have a responsibility to act, and you knowingly choose not to act, then that inaction is also a choice. That is what I mean by willful acquiescence.

Republicans in Congress may not have voted directly for every tariff or every military action, but they were not powerless. Congress has authority over commerce. It has authority over spending. It has enormous power over war and executive action. They could have acted. They chose not to. So they do not get to say, “That was the president. It wasn’t us.” They chose not to stop him, and now the American people may hold them accountable for that choice.

I say ‘may’ which also means ‘may not.’ Because the American voter has another problem. What’s the alternative?

The Democratic Party is not exactly popular either. So if Democrats win the midterm elections, they have to be very careful about what they think happened. The American people may vote against Republicans without deciding that they suddenly trust Democrats. Those are two very different things. A voter can say, “I do not trust the Democrats very much, but somebody has to put a check on the Republicans.”

That is not an endorsement. That is borrowed power. And if Democrats misunderstand that, they will waste the opportunity.

Because the Democrats have a much bigger problem than Donald Trump. They do not have a plan.

They can tell us which programs Republicans cut. They can tell us which programs they want to restore. They can tell us what they want to put back the way it was before Trump. But the American people already lived through the way it was before Trump. And then they elected Trump again.

So simply going backwards is not a plan. If Democrats win in 2026, restore a few programs, congratulate themselves, and believe America has come back to them, they may lose again in 2028 to another candidate who should never have been competitive in the first place.

So the Democrats have to answer a more basic question: Why do we exist?

Simon Sinek uses the idea of Why, How, and What. That methodology is useful here. What is the Democratic Party’s Why?

For most of modern American history, the Republican Party was fairly easy to understand. It was pro-business. It believed in lower taxes, free markets, deregulation, and a strong military. There is nothing inherently wrong with that. Business matters. Markets matter. Economic growth matters.

But somebody has to balance the interests of business against the interests of the individual.

That was supposed to be the Democratic Party. The Democrats were supposed to be the party that said, “Yes, business is important, but the people who work for that business are important too.”

Over time, though, something changed. The Democratic Party stopped looking like the pro-people party and started looking like the pro-government party. That is a major problem, because government is not the point. The people are the point. Government is only a tool.

And somewhere along the way, Democrats started to reverse the relationship. The central American philosophy is that the people are independent and the government serves them. But too often, the Democratic approach makes the government the king and makes the people the subjects. You have to qualify. You have to apply. You have to wait. You have to ask permission. You have to hope the program still exists next year.

That is backwards. The government is not the sovereign. The people are.

That needs to become the Democratic Party’s Why again: serve the people.

Then you get to the How. How do you serve the people? By creating a system that makes them more capable of living their own lives. The goal should be autonomy, not dependence. Not dependence on a corporation, and not dependence on the government.

The How is balancing the interests and power of business with the interests and power of the individual person. Government is the tool Democrats can use to keep that balance—changing the rules, regulating where necessary, and redesigning incentives so businesses can succeed while the people who work for them also succeed.

But the answer is not simply to move more money through the government. It is to design the system so more of the benefit reaches people through their own work, their own wages, their own ownership, and their own choices.

And that means Democrats have to think very differently about government programs. If somebody has to come to the government, prove that they qualify, fill out paperwork, wait to be approved, receive some benefit, and then worry that the next Congress is going to take that benefit away, that person may be receiving help. But they are also dependent on the continued permission of the government. Sometimes that is necessary. But it should not be the first answer to every problem.

Take wages. If somebody works full time and still does not make enough money to buy food, the first question should not be, “How much government assistance should we give that person?” The first question should be, “Why does a person working full time not make enough money to buy food?”

Because if an employer doesn’t pay enough to support the worker, and the government takes money from somebody else and gives it to the worker to make up the difference, what has really happened? The money may be the same. But the philosophical point is different. The worker is receiving part of what he or she needs to live from the government instead of through work. And the government has become the intermediary between the worker and economic independence.

There is a better way. Instead of simply making the minimum wage higher everywhere—which ignores enormous differences between places like New York and South Dakota—we should think about how government can help businesses raise wages. Many businesses, especially businesses in rural America, don’t have unlimited revenue. Simply ordering them to pay substantially more may not work.

But government can change incentives. It can change tax policy. It can design the rules so businesses have a financial reason, and the financial ability, to put more money into their employees’ paychecks. The point is not the exact mechanism. The point is where the money ends up coming from.

Whenever possible, the worker would rather receive that money from his or her employer than receive it from the government. The money may ultimately cost society the same amount. But the relationship is completely different. One creates a worker earning a higher wage. The other creates a citizen waiting for a government benefit. That difference matters.

SNAP is a good example. There are people who need help buying food. I am not criticizing those people. Many of them work. That is exactly the point. If somebody is working and still needs government assistance just to eat, then before we build another program, we should ask whether the rules of the economy can be changed so businesses are able and incentivized to pay higher wages. Government should try to make the better outcome the default.

The same thing applies to housing. If people cannot afford housing, we can give them money to help pay rent. Sometimes we need to. But that cannot be the entire answer. Why is housing so expensive? Why is it so hard to build more of it? Why do we have rules that make construction harder? Why do we make it so difficult for the next generation to buy a house? If government can change the rules so more housing gets built and more people can afford it on their own, that is better than making people permanently dependent on a housing program.

Healthcare is the same. If somebody has a $10,000 healthcare bill, we can build another government program to help pay the $10,000 bill. But at some point we have to ask why the bill is $10,000. The goal should not simply be helping people survive absurd prices. The goal should be making the prices less absurd.

That is what I mean by being pro-people instead of pro-government.

But there is an important exception. There are needs that we cannot solve by changing incentives. Some people have disabilities that prevent them from working. Some people have medical conditions that will never go away. Some children are born into circumstances they did not create. Some families get hit by disasters. There are people who genuinely cannot provide for themselves.

In those cases, government should help them directly, reliably, and without making them feel ashamed about it. There is no better economic incentive that is going to make a person with a severe disability suddenly able to work. That is a need society has to meet.

This is similar to what we talked about yesterday. Jesus fed people who were hungry. He addressed the need in front of him. There is a moral obligation to help someone who needs help. But that does not mean the goal is permanent dependence when independence is possible. Feed the person who is hungry. Support the person who cannot support himself or herself. But where people can become independent, design the system to make independence easier.

That should be the Democratic Party’s How.

And then we get to the What. The What is the actual legislation, the actual rules, and the actual results. Every proposal should have to answer one question: when this is over, does the citizen have more control over his or her own life?

Can they afford a house? Can they support a family? Can they move to another job? Can they start a business? Can they get healthcare without being ruined? Can they live in their community without having to continually ask Washington for permission or assistance?

That question is especially important in rural America, because Democrats have lost rural America. And they aren’t going to get it back with better messaging.

They aren’t going to get it back by sending somebody to a county fair. They are not going to get it back because a national candidate puts on boots and takes a picture next to a tractor. And it is not enough to say there are Democrats in Congress who happen to come from rural states or rural districts.

That is not the representation I mean.

Rural America needs power inside the leadership of the Democratic Party. People from rural America need to be helping set the agenda, deciding what the party stands for, and determining what policies are worth pursuing. They need people in leadership who can say, “No. That may sound like a good idea here, but that will hurt people where I live.”

That also means the Democrats need to develop national candidates who actually come from rural America. Not candidates who visit it. Candidates formed by it.

Because the Democratic Party will not regain rural America when it learns how to speak to rural Americans. It will regain rural America when rural Americans once again have enough power inside the leadership of the party to speak for themselves.

And that brings us back to this election.

If Democrats win in November, they should not celebrate as though the American people have forgiven them. They should understand that the clock has started.

They have two years. Two years to build an actual plan. Two years to decide what they believe. Two years to develop legislation and ideas that rural America can look at and say, “That makes my life better. That makes me more independent. That gives me more control over my own future.”

Not another collection of government programs. Not another attempt to recreate the country as it existed before Trump. And not another campaign based primarily on telling us how terrible Republicans are.

A real governing philosophy.

The Why is the people. The How is balancing the interests and power of business with the interests and power of the individual, using government as the tool to maintain that balance. The What is legislation that leaves people more capable of governing their own lives.

Protect the people who truly cannot stand alone. Help people who have an immediate need. But where independence is possible, build a system that makes it easier for people to stand on their own.

If Democrats can do that, they can regain the trust of the American people. And if they can regain that trust, then they may once again have a chance to make a lasting contribution to American politics.

But first they have to answer the simplest question.

Are they the party of the government?

Or are they the party of the people?

Sources

Tariffs as taxes on imported goods, their effects on consumer prices and purchasing power, and estimates of how much of the tariff burden is ultimately borne through higher prices: Congressional Budget Office, “The Effects of Tariffs on Inflation, Economic Output, and the Federal Budget”

Evidence from household transaction data showing that tariffs are passed through into retail prices paid by American consumers: Federal Reserve Board, “The Unequal Effects of Tariffs on Consumer Prices”

Congress’s constitutional authority over tariffs and foreign commerce, and the statutory authorities Congress has delegated to presidents to impose tariffs: Congressional Research Service, “Congressional and Presidential Authority to Impose Import Tariffs”

Congressional authority over war, including Congress’s powers to declare war, appropriate funds, and regulate the armed forces: Congress.gov, Constitution Annotated, “War Powers”

The War Powers Resolution and Congress’s statutory role in decisions involving the introduction of U.S. armed forces into hostilities: Congressional Research Service, “The War Powers Resolution: Concepts and Practice”

The Declaration of Independence’s principle that governments are instituted to secure individual rights and derive “their just powers from the consent of the governed”: National Archives, “Declaration of Independence: A Transcription”

The long-term political realignment of rural America toward the Republican Party and the widening Republican advantage among rural voters: Pew Research Center, “Changing Partisan Coalitions in a Politically Divided Nation”

Americans’ unfavorable views of both major political parties, including the substantial share of Americans who view both Republicans and Democrats unfavorably: Pew Research Center, “Americans’ Views of the Republican and Democratic Parties”

Working Americans receiving public benefits, including SNAP and Medicaid, and the prevalence of full-time employment among wage earners receiving those benefits: U.S. Government Accountability Office, “Public Assistance: Millions of Full-Time Workers Rely on Federal Health Care and Food Assistance Programs”

Housing supply restrictions, land-use regulation, and the relationship between constraints on new construction and higher housing costs: National Bureau of Economic Research, “The Impact of Zoning on Housing Affordability”

The unusually high cost of health care in the United States compared with other wealthy countries, including higher prices and administrative costs as important contributors to U.S. health spending: The Commonwealth Fund, “Mirror, Mirror 2024: A Portrait of the Failing U.S. Health System”

The federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), including eligibility, benefits, and its purpose of providing food assistance to low-income households: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Service, “Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)”

Jesus feeding the hungry and responding directly to immediate physical need in the feeding of the five thousand: Matthew 14:13–21, New International Version, via Bible Gateway

The biblical principle of caring for people in need, including the hungry, thirsty, sick, and vulnerable: Matthew 25:34–40, New International Version, via Bible Gateway

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