The Democratic Labor Days Ahead

Will growing institutional strength carry Democrats and Kamala Harris to victory over Trump and MAGA extremists? Signposts are there.

Today is the traditional start of the final sprint of the election season, two months of all out political warfare to decide - in this case - not merely the next Presidential administration, but the future of American democracy. The structure of the race is generally set this week, and the movement happens inside the lines already drawn by the parties, the media, and the shifting electorate. Those lines do not guarantee a result, nor guard against the classic “October surprise” that can sway late deciders. But like a large-scale garden, the paths and beds are indeed laid out upon the ground and the growth (or failure) of the political planting happens within those lines.

So what do those lines look like, two months out? And more directly, how do I know?

Let’s go back a ways. The first time I met Donald Trump, the introduction came either from Stanley Friedman or Mario Biaggi. One was the chairman of the Bronx Democratic Party (and Roy Cohn’s law partner in the firm representing Trump) and the other was the powerhouse Democratic Congressman. If one was the boss of the party, the other was the power in the party. In any case, while I don’t remember which of them made the intro on the dais at the annual Bronx Democratic County Dinner at the old Sheraton Centre Hotel on Seventh Avenue, I do remember Trump’s handshake - the classic cold dead fish.

The year was either 1985 or 1986 - which mattered because of trials and Federal investigations and prison terms for the Bronx honchos. But it all fades into the shadows of four long decades, and I can’t find my old Riverdale Press clip. I do remember that I was standing next to political reporter Frank Lynn of The New York Times and that’s how a kid reporter like myself got included in the intro. Lynn was a real reporter of the old school and the NYT could use his like right about now, lost as it tragically is in balance and the Eighth Avenue business side’s desire to return to the beaucoup earnings of the Trump presidency. The so-called “news” media’s failure to defend American democracy, and particularly the hideous perfidy of The Times, is the subject for a further rant.

But I was thinking about the old Bronx bosses recently, watching the Democratic National Convention and considering the concept of institutional strength and organizational cohesion in the context of the rather shocking national election turnabout engineered by Kamala Harris.

Simply put, the Democrats have it - and the Republicans do not.

By the mid-1980s, the institutional strength of the Democratic party was largely sapped. Ronald Reagan’s infamous “southern strategy” had successfully tapped the building rage of white high school graduates across the rural south and the rusting industrial midwest. Reagan rode to a second term in 1984 with a 584-13 Electoral College wipeout of Minnesota liberal Walter Mondale. That losing election map included New York, which voted for Reagan 54-46. Mondale won two-thirds of the vote in the Bronx, and carried New York City pretty handily - but he got slaughtered in the suburbs and upstate. 

In truth, the old New York City Democratic machines were breaking down - riven by generational, factional and ethnic divides and generally sclerotic in the organization and the use of political power. In the Bronx, the situation was particularly desperate. Vast poverty, endemic crime, the abandonment of huge swaths of the South Bronx to fire and rubble, and the outright failure of government to protect and serve its citizens made the borough synonymous with urban failure. 

As a young reporter, the Bronx political scene during the Reagan years was simply the best possible laboratory for understanding how political organizations work - and in this case, fall apart. Corruption and the ensuing trials (and convictions) was the result of this collapse, but a lack of cohesion and common goals was the cause. Against the backdrop of New York’s struggle with near bankruptcy in the 70s, and the deal-making of the Koch Administration era to cash in on the money flooding the city in the 80s, too many people were simply left out. It was all very factional, openly corrupt, and driven by personal agenda. And it was old, creaky, well past its prime. Indeed, within a few years the entire political system would get an overall in the abandonment of the Board of Estimate during charter reform. But the Democratic Party itself would have to suffer through two terms of Rudolph Giuliani and a dozen years of Republican rule in Albany before a new version began to emerge.

Those brazenly corrupt Democratic machines of the 1980s remind me strongly of today’s Republican Party on an organizational level; Trump’s MAGA minions are limping along into the third Presidential cycle with a 78-year-old standard-bearer who cannot form a cohesive sentence while rambling on about Hannibal Lecter, electrocuting sharks and the effects of wind farms on the quality of bacon. Trump’s lack of energy and failing mind reminded me of Democratic boss Meade Esposito at his Federal corruption trial in Brooklyn. As the NYT wrote then: “the once-gregarious Mr. Esposito often sat in a darkened office and stared into space, sometimes fell asleep during important conversations and while having lunch, and could not remember recent events.”

Sounds familiar.

The narrative of the aged and failing Trump is hardening faster than the old man’s arteries, especially against the contrast of the vivacious and intelligent Vice President and her energetic outdoorsman running mate. Remember, it’s Labor Day - the narratives are becoming concrete.

And structurally, the Democratic Party is in a much better place than the Republicans. While we are traditionally the party of factions and primaries (this will always be true), President Biden’s heroic and historic decision to step aside for Vice President Harris has concentrated a vast political will among Democrats across this country that none of us has seen before. We hold the commanding lead in party enthusiasm. Outside of the MAGA true believers (who simply cannot be saved politically, though some may eventually be reprogrammed away from the cult), the MAGA pretenders are clearly slogging their way forward - worried for themselves and their political futures while privately despising and disgusting human being who heads up their ticket, yet again. Our side is united: liberals, progressives, centrists - labor and business, and all the myriad social causes in our coalition. Democrats know this comity may be temporary, but it’s very real.

There are two reasons. One is Kamala Harris, a truly generational political talent who has - in little more than a month and a half - pulled off one of the greatest feats of organizational leadership in the history of the Democratic Party. She did the work, locked up the nomination, staged a great convention, picked a strong VP partner, and hit the road running hard. She will dominate Trump in their single debate, if he shows up. She is holding off a “prestige” media corps that is desperate for the easy scoops of the Trump years and sensitive to the business side’s desire for those profit levels. She’s running a fearless campaign, rather than an overtly careful one. And she’s sustained and built a fabulous team. This is what leadership is really all about.

The other reason is the national disgrace named Trump. We have reached peak negative partisanship in this country, and while some may decry that “national divide” I most certainly do not. Standing with Trump is standing against democracy and indeed, community and mutual respect for other people. We need more negative partisanship, and less “both sides” wishy-washy wimpery. Choose your side. Democrats are. We are fired up, and our goal isn’t merely to edge out Trump for the Presidency - but to crush the MAGA movement forever. 

Individual polls often lie. But the trendlines rarely do. Always watch the movement. Kamala Harris has moved the polls about 10 points or more since Joe Biden stepped aside. They’re still moving. Six weeks ago, we were the ones slogging to an anticipated defeat. Now, we’re the ones working to ensure the largest victory possible against Trump’s rancid flavor of American fascism, mass deportation and concentration camps, and the despicable Project 2025. 

Two months to go. The lines of the race get set on this Labor Day, but there’s so much work still to be done inside those lines - nationally, and in the expanding swing state map.

Vice President Harris gave a straightforward and powerful acceptance speech in Chicago, and I was taken with these lines:

And with this election, and — and with this election, our nation — our nation, with this election, has a precious, fleeting opportunity to move past the bitterness, cynicism and divisive battles of the past, a chance to chart a new way forward. Not as members of any one party or faction, but as Americans.

And let me say, I know there are people of various political views watching tonight. And I want you to know, I promise to be a president for all Americans. You can always trust me to put country above party and self. To hold sacred America’s fundamental principles, from the rule of law, to free and fair elections, to the peaceful transfer of power.

I will be a president who unites us around our highest aspirations. A president who leads and listens; who is realistic, practical and has common sense; and always fights for the American people. From the courthouse to the White House, that has been my life’s work.

It wasn’t the soaring oratory of Barack Obama (or Mario Cuomo and Ted Kennedy), but it did remind me of the tone and style so effective in defeating 12 years of conservative Reaganism in the United States, a broadly practical and inclusive view of liberalism. In 1992, Bill Clinton gave a similar speech at Madison Square Garden. To me, Harris rose to a similar - but far more dire - moment in the history of Democratic politics. That ‘92 race signaled the rise of hyper-partisan and brutalist personal politics, and the MAGA era has taken that infection in American politics to the point of mortality.

But I think that fever will finally break. Labor Day is the start. Let’s go.