Workshopping The "New Agenda for Women and Families" Concept
Take a look, let me know what you think
A few weeks ago I floated the idea that Democrats should consider developing something I’m calling a “A New Agenda for Women and Families.” The idea is to go on offense on a series of issues critical to women and healthy kids and families, and not let the anti-woke ridiculousness and ongoing MAGA extremism continue to drive this important debate.
Some thoughts about what could be in this new agenda:
Protecting women’s reproductive health, codifying Roe
Common sense gun laws - assault weapons ban, background checks, etc
Steps to restore integrity to our discourse - privacy laws, regulation of social media, more….
A national campaign to improve teen mental health
Expansion of Medicaid to all 50 states
Paid family leave
Something about protecting intellectual freedom in schools (no book banning, screwing with teacher tenure, etc)
More affordable child care (added from subscriber input)
Ways to expand housing across the US (added from subscriber input)
Hope you will review all this and offer some thoughts in the comments section below. We are workshopping here, kicking stuff around. We’ve already gotten some really smart feedback from folks over the last few weeks. Keep it coming.
The right wing lunacy on all these issues are giving Democrats a big opening to occupy space being abandoned by the right. As I wrote in my big DeSantis piece, the anti-work agenda is unpopular, and out the mainstream. Something like this agenda could become an important part of our “Get to 55” project. Here are a few reminders:
On what we want for our kids in school:
On how DeSantis’s agenda is playing in Florida:
On the meaning of woke:
I’ve long believed the right misinterpreted their overperformance in the NJ and VA Gubernatorial races in 2021. Their strong showing there was much more about the fears and frustrations with COVID and kids, then it was CRT/Wokism. And as COVID fades, as does the memory of the social unrest/”burning cities”/dislocation from COVID, the fuel for this brief anti-work boomlet is evaporating.
Part of the reason I think DeSantis is struggling right now is that he built his candidacy in the summer and fall of 2022 around a very right wing interpretation of a set of issues born during COVID, including “shutdown Democrats,” that now as COVID fades simply don’t have the power or resonance he was counting on. His early campaign narrative is an amateurish misfire, and he may not get a second shot; and certainly he has taken positions which are going to make it very very hard for him to win the general election in battleground states which have rejected MAGA 3 consecutive times.
Anyway, would love to hear from you. Next year our core offering to the American people could be:
A strong economy/big forward looking investments/tackling climate change
Protecting democracy, degrading Putin, reinvigorating the West
A new agenda for women and families
No question that will be a powerful offering. Sell what we’ve already done, start talking about what are going to do next.
Happy Wednesday all - S
I agree. I think there's an argument to be made that running the way Gretchen Whitmer did, where she wove abortion rights into an economic argument and centered her candidacy around it, is brilliant and hugely effective. (Read the incredible new article about it in the cut https://www.thecut.com/article/abortion-democratic-party-2024-elections.html). As the mom to a nonbinary kid I would have to add PLEASE include protecting trans kids. I believe it's also a wining issue. It's also just the right thing to do.
I love it! I would add affordable childcare, expand child tax credits and expand SNAP so no child goes hungry.