Letter: Kevin McElroy: Hanson proposes strategy that would spell disaster for Democrats

Providence Journal (RI)

The premise of Victor David Hanson's Aug. 1 Commentary piece ("Another 2004 for Democrats?") was that Democrats should replicate their strategy of 2004 by trying to win Republican voters with a "safe" party nominee like Joe Biden.

This was the losing strategy in 2000 and 2016. The 2004 losing strategy was so effective at minimizing Democratic turnout in 2004 that George W. Bush won not only the electoral college, but an actual majority of the popular vote as well, something that Republican presidents hadn't achieved since 1988. This tactic would be disastrous to replicate in 2020.

Hanson throws shade at "New Deal" Democratic candidates by claiming that policies such as Medicare-for-all are unpopular. In fact, Medicare-for-all is so popular that 85% of Democrats support it and even 52% of Republicans support the policy, according to an Aug. 23 Reuters survey.

Anti-corruption sentiment and economic policies poll extremely well for progressives. An AP-NORC poll published on July 12, 2017, found that 82% felt that wealthy individuals have too much power in Washington; 69% thought big business had too much; 65%, lobbyists; 59%, Wall Street.

The Pew Research Center on Oct. 5, 2017, found that 82% of respondents believe economic inequality is problematic. It is no surprise people feel this way when President Donald Trump's disliked tax law doubled down on Ronald Reagan's broken tax code, thus allowing many of the most profitable publicly-held corporations to exploit more loopholes to pay nothing in federal income taxes. This assertion is based off an April 11 analysis by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.

Kevin McElroy