'We will rise again'
By DANIEL LOWRY
Spokesperson of the Kentucky Democratic Party
When Donald Trump yelled at a rally that he would like to punch a protester in the face, he hit upon one of the key reasons why he would win, and why Democrats in Kentucky would lose control of the House of Representatives for the first time in almost a century. We Americans like to be tough. When you look at history, you realize that the people of the United States of America are the fiercest animals in this cage. Donald Trump didn’t mince words about ISIS, either: “I would bomb the hell out of them,” he said. YES. We like the sound of that.
After the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and killed more than 2,400 Americans, we awoke like a sleeping tiger. We bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing somewhere around 200,000 Japanese. We want our leaders and heroes to be tough. Clint Eastwood sums up our message to the world: Go ahead, make my day.
The bombing of Pearl Harbor taught us that there are enemies who will attack us. Before World War Two, the United States Army’s strength was about 180,000 — about 19th in the world. Portugal and Bulgaria had stronger armies. But it was a Democrat, Franklin Roosevelt, who brought our war machine up to more than 8 million soldiers by the end of the war. It was a Democrat, Harry Truman, who pulled the trigger on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Don’t tell me Democrats aren’t tough. We are Americans, after all.
The message of fear
Charlton Heston, the famous actor, stood in front of a National Rifle Association convention in 2000. He held up a 1800s replica rifle and said the famous phrase, “From my cold, dead hands!”
The message is one of fear. We want to be safe. I worked for 13 years in the TV news business in Kentucky. Every home invasion made the news. Every murder, every gas station robbery, and nearly every shooting. We even did stories if a bullet hit a building. I sent photographers to those stories because I knew those stories worked. You need to watch the news because you need to know if you need to be afraid. You need to be afraid so you can be safe.
This is where the Republicans across the country have beaten the holy heck out of Democrats. The message is simple: You have to be ready to protect yourself. Let me make this clear: There was not a single Democrat running for the House of Representatives this year who wanted to take away guns from law-abiding citizens. Even Hillary Clinton didn’t want to do that. Yes, she wanted to crack down on gun shows, but her concerns were about background checks that could stop mentally ill people and violent criminals from getting guns.
Normal presidential candidates don’t say they want to punch someone in the face. They don’t say they want to bomb the hell out of someone. Donald Trump wasn’t typical. Hillary Clinton was the diplomatic one. She was the establishment.
The war on coal
Hillary made a remark that sealed the deal here in the Commonwealth: “We’re going to put a lot of coal miners out of work.”
Why did she say that? Because she knows that the global demand for coal is going the way of the demand for the horse-drawn buggy. She knows we have other, cheaper sources of energy now, and coal jobs in Kentucky have been falling steadily for a long time.
The environmental protections that Democrats have fought for have been seen as part of the War on Coal, and Republicans have latched on to that phrase tight enough to squeeze that rock into a diamond. It has worked, too, despite the fact Democrats have fought for coal miners, for the Coal Miners’ Protection Act, and for their healthcare and their pensions. The Republicans have won because their messages work.
Changing the culture
Now, it’s not just the Trump card, but all the cards that the Republicans hold. It’s time for Trump, Mitch McConnell, Andy Barr, Rand Paul and Matt Bevin to step up and bring back those coal jobs they’ve promised. Republicans in Kentucky have the Governor’s office, the Senate and the House. They have all the control. Out-of-state millionaires like Art Laffer and the Koch brothers of Kansas gave fortunes to help Republican candidates win. Why? Republicans protect rich people.
Get ready here in Kentucky. We’ll see right-to-work. We’ll see unions suffer and safety regulations fall. We’ll see cuts to education and healthcare.
When I worked as the spokesperson for the Economic Development Cabinet, I talked to project managers about what companies want before they locate in Kentucky. It’s the skill and health of the workforce, the cost of doing business (utilities and taxes) and logistics that really matter. The companies who care about right-to-work are the ones who want to pay their employees the least amount of wages and who want to cut corners on safety.
According to the Economic Policy Institute, right-to-work states have about 16 percent lower wages across the board for full-time workers. Are you ready for a 16 percent pay cut?
We are soon going to find out that the messages that the Republicans have been telling us are empty promises. Republicans do not make average citizens safer or more economically secure.
Better public education and a skilled, healthy workforce will make us stronger. Those are the exact things Republicans like Gov. Matt Bevin want to diminish. He wants to cut education and eliminate expanded Medicaid, which has helped more than 400,000 working Kentuckians have access to healthcare and brought more than $3 billion to our economy, according to the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy.
Why cut expanded Medicaid? It’s a lot cheaper for insurance companies to insure wealthy people who have had healthcare their whole lives and a lot less profitable for them to cover poor folks with substantial pent-up health care needs. Republicans protect the rich.
Kentuckians went to the voting booths and pulled the straight Republican ticket. They voted for Trump because of the “tough-guy” message he delivered, not the real policies that will impact their lives.
The media outlets love brash personalities like Donald Trump, who say whatever they want, whenever they want. People who are hurting, who have lost their jobs, who have struggled to make ends meet, vote for a change.
Matt Bevin called for bloodshed if Hillary Clinton won, and he said the blood of his own children may be needed. Fear is the message. We Democrats have another message, and we need to start delivering it, not for the sake of political power, but for the sake of our future.
We fight for real issues that matter, not empty rhetoric that grabs the headlines. We are the party of civil rights, workers’ rights and women’s rights. We are the party of Medicare, social security and the G.I. Bill. We are the party that erased the federal deficit and gave the country its first balanced budget in a generation.
Those were all progressive issues, and we’re going to keep up that tradition of real, positive change. We’re going to get out the right message about who we are in Kentucky, and why Democrats are fighting for your fair share, not for the elite. Democrats in Kentucky may be bloodied, but we will rise again.