Ted Van Dyk, who has been active in Democratic National policy and politics for 40 years, wrote an excellent editorial for the Wall Street Journal.

 

In brief, Van Dyk worries that despite President Trump’s unpopularity, the Democratic Candidate for President could lose in a landslide in 2020.

 

These are Van Dyk’s recommendations:

 

1. Do not pursue impeachment. He feels that the voters are exhausted and disgusted by the impeachment threats especially since Obama-era intelligence and law-enforcement officials colluded to undertake illegal actions against the 2016 Trump Campaign. 

2. Abandon the Green New Deal. Van Dyk feels that many of the Green proposals are economically and technologically impossible.

3. Reduce dramatically calls for making Medicare available for all. The costs come with a price tag that will bust the federal budget

4. Because there is a crisis on the Southern border, Democrats should move beyond denouncing Trump. Democrats should support some action on border security, and work toward improving the status of illegal aliens so that they can have an eventual path to citizenship

5. Instead of Democrats making ugly accusations on victimhood, “white privilege” and “toxic masculinity” and demanding reparations for slavery, they should concentrate on the plight of black Americans in inner cities, plagued by high crime, violence, incarceration, school dropouts, and unemployment rates. They should propose measures to restore family structure and provide fair and effective policing.

6. Instead of just focusing on taxing the rich, which will raise little revenue, Democrats should focus on making tax policy fair.

7. Stop promising free stuff such as guaranteed income for people who do not work, free college, and taxpayer assumption of student debt. These are unaffordable

8. Defense of Roe vs. Wade should recognize that this is an issue on which people of good-will honestly disagree based on religious, ethical and other values.

Van Dyk concludes by writing that if Democrats want to win in 2020 they need to put aside Trump rage and work to restore bipartisan problem-solving in the capital.