The Politics of Compassion, Part III Continued

Campaign Financing

The current methods of financing have been described as a money race and a longing for public financing has been shown.  Unfortunately, public financing may be simply impossible in the current atmosphere.  Attention to our methods of financing has been rewarding in the past but spending more than your opponent doesn’t get you a win.  Campaigns target the candidate’s most charismatic side, if the candidate can excite a crowd.  If not, there is little that can be done.  Propaganda supporting the campaign platform is given mass distribution, and variations of the message should be numerous; seeing the same message over and over again is likely to make the observer tune out.

Given that the legal rules that apply to campaign financing are the same for both parties, there is no ethical bar to Democrats creating PACs and other financing “tricks” (cheats.)  There are probably a significant number of extremely wealthy people who are interested in contributing to Democratic causes, possibly just as many as those who contribute to the other side.  Using their money is not illegal, nor under the current circumstances is it unethical.

Selection of Candidates

A nationwide search for a politician with charisma needs to be undertaken.  Without that, there is little help for the campaign.  In the 2016 presidential election, the Republican had all the charisma, even though he was a disgusting person; that charisma made the difference among rural white, uneducated voters whose votes have a disproportionate effect on the Electoral College.  There is a sad need for a John F. Kennedy-like figure who can make people feel loved and cared for.

A Note on the Democratic Platform, “Reparations”, and Compassion

While the word “reparations” is fraught with unpleasant meanings to those who feel that they would suffer from reparations, a better word would be “affirmative action.”  Since so many minority children have been deprived of adequate nutrition and adequate guidance as well as early education, applying affirmative action early in life would have the most effect.  Training of children to make them more competitive with their peers by compensatory schooling is the best way to create an affirmative solution to the problems of poverty and race.  Programs that give children money for doing well in school would go a long way towards improving the economy around the school as well as training children to believe that they can get ahead by applying themselves.  It will take time to raise up a class of better-prepared students to go to medical and graduate school, but that is the best way to solve the problem of under-representation of minority blacks and Hispanics in the professions.

Nonetheless, the Democratic Party needs to become the party of compassion for everyone and help to all those who need it.  Only then will it deserve to win the elections.  Propaganda has painted the Democrats as elitist and uncaring about poor white people, as well as being hypocritical towards minorities; they are derided as playing “issue politics.”  This negative propaganda needs to be contradicted by showing compassion for all the people displaced by the destruction of manufacturing industries and coal mines, with intensive programs to rehabilitate and support people unemployed by factory closures.  These are the people who have been hurt by the changes in society over the last forty or fifty years.  They need reparations too.