[2024-12-10] Organizing Notes 47: Why Did The Democrats Lose? The Battle Is On For The Soul of Democracy, Actions, Events and Good News!

ORGANIZING NOTES

December 10, 2024

        When We Organize We Win

  Why Did the Democrats Lose in 2024?     

There are vigorous debates within the national and state Democratic parties about why Harris/Walz lost to Trump/Vance. While many actions (Biden’s decision to run for a second term, his delayed withdrawal, leaving Harris little time to mount a campaign) and attitudes( misogyny, young male homophobia, racism) have been brought into the debate, the biggest struggle is between those (Congressman Seth Molten, and advisor James Carville) who believe a leftward shift drove people away from the ticket and Bernie Sanders and friends who believe that decades of neglect of the working class’s economic interests drove people away from the ticket.

We wondered if there were clues in the results of voting in Massachusetts. First, we asked if there was any indication that a drop in the number of people who voted for Biden in 2020 but failed to vote for Harris in 2024 was reflected in the gain of votes for Trump in 2024 over his vote in 2020.  If all the people who voted for Biden in 2020 but failed to vote for Harris in 2024 voted for Trump. That would indicate that they liked Trump. But if none of the people who voted for Biden in 2020 but not Harris in 2024 didn’t vote for Trump that would indicate that people didn’t like the Dems, but also didn’t like Trump.

       Here are the national and Massachusetts results.

         Presidential Votes in Millions

The main conclusion is that many people who voted for Biden in 2020 didn’t vote for Harris in 2020.  No more than half of them voted for Trump instead.   It was the loss of support for the Dems, not the new voters for Trump, that determined the outcome.   Exit polls support this idea.  According to the Washington Post, 35% of voters said the economy was the biggest reason for their choice. Of these, 90% voted for Trump.

Additional information from local votes in Massachusetts indicates this explanation is correct. In six cities (Everett, Revere, Chelsea, Somerville, Medford, Malden) with large numbers of working class people, there were large losses of Democratic voters between 2020 and 2024, but Trump only increased his vote by an amount equivalent to 15% of the losses. In five districts (Brookline, Newton, Lexington, Lincoln, Concord) with large numbers of professionals, managers, and academics, only the equivalent of 5% of the Democratic losses showed up in the Trump column. In other words, the suburbanites stuck with the Dems more than working class people did.

Interestingly, the results of the votes on three ballot questions indicate that the working class voters were more liberal/progressive than the suburbanites.

                            Legislative            Drop              Gig worker
                                  audit                  MCAS                 unions

Suburbs                  Yes 71%             No 55%              Yes 66%          
Working Class       Yes 73%             Yes 60%              Yes 59%

In case you are wondering, in five districts (Winchendon, Ludlow, Middlton, Charlton, Middleborough) that voted for Trump in 2020 and 2024, the gain in votes for Trump in 2024 exceeded the loss of Dem voters.  These voters supported the audit and ending the MCAS requirement but opposed unionization.

In sum. The changes in voting are consistent with a loss of angry working class voters as the explanation for the loss. The information does not indicate there was a swing to the right by these voters.

For those of us who are active in the Democratic Party we need to speak out and support an increase in progressive leadership in the Party, not a swing to the right.

The battle for the soul of the Democratiic party is on. And we have a small window in which to influence the direction of that debate nationally and in Massachusetts. 

Why it’s important

We can’t improve on the words that Bernie Sanders delivered in his  “Tough Times” message last week (text here,) so we’ll quote from it:

“The Democrats ran a campaign protecting the status quo and tinkering around the edges.

Trump and the Republicans campaigned on change and on smashing the existing order. 

Not surprisingly, the Republicans won. Unfortunately, the “change” that Republicans will bring about will make a bad situation worse, and a society of gross inequality even more unequal, more unjust and more bigoted.

Will the Democratic leadership learn the lessons of their defeat and create a party that stands with the working class and is prepared to take on the enormously powerful special interests that dominate our economy, our media and our political life? “

You can help determine the answer to that question. 

National

The voices saying the party is “too ‘woke’”, and calling for the party to abandon its “devotion to leftwing policies” are wrong.  We need your help to tell the national party leadership that Bernie has it right. 

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) is engaged in a contest to elect a new party Chair. Corporate elite forces are working to bring Rahm Emmanuel back. Others are supporting grassroots leaders from state party organizations who appear willing to move in a progressive direction. In the coming weeks we will leanr more about the candidates and where they stand on the questions Bernie has raised. For now contact the Massachusetts representatives to the Democratic National Committee and let them know that a continued retreat from the vision of FDR in favor of the failed vision of the DLC and neo-liberalism is not a winning plan.

Massachusetts

At the state level we can influence the direction of the Massachusetts party. In January, party Chair Steve Kerrigan  will launch a “listening tour” across the state, soliciting feedback from Democrats and Democratic voters about the direction of the party.

Sign up here to attend the event in your congressional district. Every participant will have 2 minutes to share their thoughts about the Massachusetts party and the steps it should take to more effectively compete. Send Chair Kerrigan the message that we need a party visibly committed to supporting its platform and the values it embodies.

Onward!

Cranberry growers in southeastern Massachusetts are battling neighbors and town officials over…sand. The conflict is playing out in town meetings and in court across the nation’s oldest cranberry growing region. Massachusetts farmers are allowed to excavate sand on their properties with a town permit, as long as it is incidental or necessary for agriculture, but critics complain that sand mining has become a business that is disturbing the bucolic nature of the region. “When I look out on my patio, I want to see the trees and the cranberry bogs. I don’t want to see big piles of sand and trucks coming in and out,” said Stephen Keaton, who lives next to a sand-mining project in the town of Carver. “I can hear beeping from trucks and whirring noises, and it’s bothersome.” Keaton was speaking at an Oct. 1 public hearing in Carver in opposition to a proposed sand removal project where residents said they worry about the environmental impacts of the sand excavation, as well as the constant truck traffic on local roads.

Conservation advocates maintain that these and other excavation projects go too far. Conservation activist Meg Sheehan (ORMA/Trees As a Common Good Group)  has been ʇighting Makepeace and other cranberry growers who excavate sand. 11/27/24, 9:43 PM The Sand Wars Dividing Cranberry Growers and Their Neighbors – WSJ 

“The scope and scale of the mining eclipses the real use of the land for agriculture,” said Meg Sheehan, an attorney and coordinator of the Community Land and Water Coalition. In August, the group delivered a petition with more than 1,400 signatures to the Massachusetts governor’s office calling for a ban of sand mining to protect the PlymouthCarver Aquifer, a 200-square-mile source of drinking water for 200,000 residents in Plymouth, Carver, Kingston and five other towns. State environmental officials said they haven’t found any violations of environmental laws by sand-mining operations. You can read the full Washington Post Article

here

Submitted By Meg Sheehan

Work Begins on Environmental Bond Bill

One of the important steps the Mass Legislature did take in the 2023-24 session was passage of the Environmental Bond Bill, allowing the state to raise billions of dollars in funding for environmental programs and efforts in the Commonwealth for the next five years.

We expect this important piece of state legislation to be one of the first bills to be taken up by the MA State Legislature, and the Healey Administration’s Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EEA) is already at work drafting the legislation required to authorize the spending. 

Click here to help make sure that the Environmental Bond Bill includes much-needed funding to protect and expand urban tree canopies and to establish public forests as forever-wild reserves, with no logging allowed. Solutions to the Climate Crisis that ONLY target the importance of ending the use of fossil fuels, while ignoring the critical role that the natural world plays in protecting us, only address half the problem. (Read more here.) Natural solutions will be the key to allowing the earth to return to more livable climate patterns and temperature levels once the use of fossil fuels is ended.

Plymouth (MA) Airport Expansion: Ask the State to Reject the Environmental Study

Plymouth is a municipal airport located off South Meadow Road in Plymouth and Carver. It is surrounded by dense residential neighborhoods and borders Myles Standish State Forest. The Plymouth Airport Commissioners want to expand the runway by 351 feet to accommodate more private jets and commercial aircraft.

Neighborhoods around the Airport are already under siege from uncontrolled airport operations.  People suffer from ear-shattering noise almost 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The noise interrupts sleep. People cannot enjoy their backyards. Our children cannot play outside without being threatened by frightening aircraft noise from jets, helicopters, and training flights that circle overhead.

Myles Standish State Forest is an important recreational and natural area with 500,000 annual visitors. Airport expansion will negatively impact the Forest, and no study has been done on the noise, wildlife, or recreational impacts. Endangered species habitat will be affected.

The proposed Airport expansion requires the state Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs to approve the Airport’s Final Environmental Impact Report (FEIR). The Report does not meet the standards of our Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act (MEPA). This law requires the Airport to minimize and mitigate Damage to the Environment.

We want the “No Build” alternative or at least more study and evaluation of the current harms before expansion. Harms include noise, air pollution from fumes, threats to our drinking water aquifer, and more.

Join us in sending a letter to Secretary Tepper

 Click Here to send our comment letter or write your own.

Ask Your Legislator To Support Medicare for All!

From the Berkshire mountains to the coastline of Gloucester, voters have once again said they believe in Medicare for All/Single Payer Health Care.  The non-binding public policy question showed up as #6 on ballots (#7 in Sheffield) and voters said YES with an average of 64%.  

WESTERN MASS 

   3rd Berkshire – Rep. Elect Leigh Davis 70.9%

   3rd Hampden – Rep. Nicholas Boldyga 51.8%

   4th Hampden – Rep. Kelly Pease 55.1%

CENTRAL MASS

  3rd Middlesex – Rep. Kate Hogan 60.7%

EASTERN MASS

  2nd Suffolk – Rep. Daniel Ryan 65.8%

  10th Middlesex – Rep. John Lawn 68.5%

  10th Suffolk – Rep. William MacGregor 64.8%

  14th Suffolk – Rep. Rob Consalvo 74.2%

   24th Middlesex – Rep. David Rogers 69.2%

NORTH SHORE

  5th Essex – Rep. Ann-Margaret Ferrante 61.0%

SOUTH SHORE

  7th Norfolk – Rep. Elect Richard Wells 62.4%

Medicare for All won even in the 3rd and 4th Hampden districts which were carried by Trump with an average of 53.5%!  Two leadership districts were targeted in this election, the 10th Middlesex district of John Lawn, Chairperson of the Joint Committee on Health Care Financing with a 68.5% win and the 3rd Middlesex district of Kate Hogan, Speaker Pro Tempore winning with 60.7%.

Since the founding of Mass-Care in 1995, we’ve run the ballot question 68 times with an average YES vote of 67.5%. It’s time for our legislators to listen to what the people want, MEDICARE for ALL!

Now is the time to reach out to your legislator for a meeting and ask them to support the Medicare for All bill that will be reintroduced in the beginning of 2025.  Not sure who your legislator is?  Go to Find My Legislator where you can call or email them.  For help with setting up a meeting with your legislator, email info@masscare.org  

Your Voice DOES Make A Difference!

As the Massachusetts Legislature lumbered to a close, struggling to get real about the climate crisis, it was climate activists willing to confront the legislators in the House, including the ORMA Climate Crisis Working Group, who made the difference and ensured that a meaningful climate bill was passed!

Throughout the 2-year long session, leadership of the key House committee consistently acted as a roadblock for any meaningful climate legislation, instead pushing legislation that would line the pockets of the for profit utilities, potentially doubling your utility bills. Formal sessions ended without agreement, and when the Governor tried to intervene on behalf of the flimsy House proposal activists raised their voices and said No! Joining the efforts of others, ORMA’s voice was loud and clear, generating over 700 letters to the Governor and the House demanding robust legislation that wasn’t just a cover for enriching corporate interests. In the end the House leadership relented and signed on to the Senate Legislation. 

Following the final vote, Senator Barrett made a point of telling activists that it was their persistence that brought negotiations to a successful conclusion. 

Separately, the ORMA Climate Crisis Working Group was told by a senior legislative staff person, that our letters (calling out the “deal” to give special benefit to the Utilities) were key to members of the House concluding that they had to change course!

      If you would like to work with ORMA Members on

• Climate Change
• Community-Based Alternative Emergency Response Teams
• Ranked-Choice Voting
• Housing For All       

ORMA depends on your support to continue Bernie’s Political Revolution to create a society, a politics, and an economy that works for everyone, not just billionaires, corporations and the political elite.

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for the next Organizing Notes to 

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