Tag Archives: Planning

Uncategorized

GAME PLAN

Congratulations to any of you who root for the Seattle Seahawks. 

Being a former sportswriter, I know that a winning Super Bowl team is the one that executes its game plan better. On Sunday, the Seahawks’ plan appeared to be focusing on the younger members of the New England Patriots’ offensive line and pressuring their quarterback. The Patriots came close to figuring it out in the fourth quarter, but came up short.

There’s a lesson here for the forces trying to undo the mess that is the United States of America.

We have midterm elections in nine months. In special and off-year elections leading up to November, Democrats are far outperforming the norms. They’ve captured legislative seats in what were thought to be safe Trump districts and taken over municipalities previously run by Republicans.

Democrats are winning because most Americans are sick of this Trump crap. They’ve seen the U.S. embarrassed on the world stage, the economy slide, and the disgrace of mass arrests and extrajudicial murder by the human waste known as ICE.

But success can only be fueled by anger for only so long – although I suspect people are so angry that this feeling will last longer than usual.

Democrats – and the non-Democrats who can’t stand what’s happening to our country – need to come up with a game plan. One that will spell out what they plan to do to not only end the nightmare of Trump II, but to make life genuinely better for the 342 million-plus Americans who aren’t billionaires.

This plan should not be developed by a liberal think tank, or by the groups perceived as being on the left.

It should be developed by the people who it affects. What the Democrats need to do is travel the country listening to the problems people have – and then sounding out solutions.

Take healthcare, which until the Trump threat to democracy was probably the biggest problem people in this country faced.

I’m on Medicare, so healthcare costs are merely outrageous. For many people who aren’t 65, they border on catastrophic. The cost of taking care of yourself and your loved ones should not be an impediment to your financial viability.

The country might finally be ready for universal healthcare. Maybe Medicare for All. Maybe even something as advanced as Britain’s NHS.

But Democrats need to get their push for this from the American people. The ones who are paying outrageous premiums, who are committing huge chunks of their financial wherewithal to pay for prescriptions Having town halls throughout the country – forget the blue state/red state thing – is an important way to get a public impetus for improving healthcare. 

Pointing out that Trump is constantly proclaiming that he’s “two weeks away” from a great plan to replace the Affordable Care Act, drawing up a plan – maybe naming it for a place where a town hall came to a solid conclusion – and then getting just about every Democrat running for the House, the Senate and the statehouses to stand behind that plan. 

That’s what needs to be done to ensure Democrats are not just using rage bait. That it’s finally time to stop screwing around with people’s lives and start making those lives better.

And not just with healthcare. Infrastructure. Immigration. Women’s rights. Climate change. Campaign finance reform. Ending corruption.

This isn’t that original. In our lifetime, the Republicans have run on the Contract for America and Project 2025 – and as miserable as they are, they’ve executed them well. 

The New Deal is an example on our side – we’re still reaping the benefits of FDR’s vision and the impetus for real change. It led to the Democratic Party controlling Congress pretty steadily from the 1930s to the 1980s.

It’s a game plan. Just like what the Seahawks executed in Super Bowl LX. Only this time, both Pioneer Square and Copley Square – and every place in between – will find reason to celebrate.

Standard
Uncategorized

IMPROV 101

My son took an improvisational comedy class this winter – and his class show was last Sunday.

It was a good hour of solid laughter as he and his fellow quick-thinkers responded to the moment with some hilarious ideas.

As his class instructor said at the conclusion, that was the only time that show will ever be seen quite that way. The next time, it will be somewhat different, funnier or maybe not.

Improvisation is a great form of comedy.

It’s a lousy strategy for fighting would-be dictators.

Right now, Democrats are wisely capitalizing on the nonchalance of Trump’s national security team, which accidentally gave a journalist access to deliberations on this month’s strike against Houthi rebels in Yemen.

No one claims to know how Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, was included in what should have been a top-secret chat on the messaging service Signal.

In the process, Trump and his Trumpettes have blamed Goldberg, called it an accident, told two versions of what they knew about the situation, blamed AOC, asked if it might have been a nefarious plot by Signal workers, said the dog did it, blamed Joe Biden and anything else you can think of. Not all of that is real, but given how these people are, you might be tempted to think it’s possible they used all those alibis.

Here’s the thing: I would be surprised if anyone loses their job because of this. Even Party Pete Hegseth, the Defense Secretary and White Lotus wannabe.

Accidentally broadcasting American military operations and putting the lives of brave men and women at risk is only a mild stretch from sexual predation, persecution, family destruction, illegal deportation, violations of free speech and 34 felony counts of fraud.

And if, by some stroke of unusual competence in Team Trump, somebody does get canned, what does that mean for the quality and integrity of the U.S. executive branch?

Bupkis.

It doesn’t matter if Pete Hegseth or Peat Moss holds the title of Defense Secretary, even if they have the same level of intelligence.

See, the thing is, Trump and the Republicans aren’t improvising. They’re working from a script. And they will stick to the script no matter who the actors are.

Their script is to weaken and decimate the federal government. And nothing – not even a scandal involving the basic idea that YOU DON’T TELL EVERYONE YOUR SECRET MILITARY PLANS – will cause them to ad lib.

They told you what they were going to do when they put out their Project 2025 playbook. And even when Trump went around denying he knew anything about a plan he almost certainly approved, did you ever believe the Republicans wouldn’t abide by it?

And that brings me to the Democrats.

We are good at getting mad. Reacting in the moment to some injustice or wrongdoing. Our lawmakers ask the piercing questions at committee hearings. We create clever memes and social media posts.

What Democrats don’t do is plan.

It’s almost as if they expect would-be voters to trust that they’ll find some way to attain the ideals they proclaim. But they don’t have a blueprint to get to that point.

And people like blueprints. They like specifics. They like benchmarks to gauge progress and ideas.

Democrats are afraid of ideas. They’re afraid people will shoot them down.

Try them. Instead of saying we think education needs to be reformed, ask people what they want for their kids and then work with them to attain those goals. Instead of saying we need to take care of our elderly, ask seniors and their caregivers what’s needed and figure out how we get to that point. 

If people are angry about their healthcare options, see what’s troubling your constituents and then work toward it. 

Trying to fight the drive toward Project 2025 won’t come ad hoc. It is, to be sure, extremely unpopular – it polled so badly that Trump and the others denied it existed even though it was in print and online for all to see. Once they won, they just went back to the plan as if it was a mandate.

The advantage Democrats will have if they develop an action agenda in consultation with the people showing up at town halls is that people will support it. Make it a genuine grassroots idea, and they’ll back you to the hilt.

It’s well and good to improvise a reaction to a security scandal or whatever Trump’s next A.S.S. (Act of Shame and Stupidity) is. But you can’t wing your way to win the hearts of your fellow Americans.

It takes a script. Write one.

Standard