Marc Zegans
Jul 21, 2017 · 2 min read

What We Need from the Democrats is a “Square Deal”

WAPO columnist Dana Milbank reports today that Congressional Leaders of the Democratic Party are about to announce Their agenda for the 2018 Election. They’re headlining this agenda, Milbank reports, as, “A Better Deal.” Milbank, describing, its populist tone, and centrist economic message, suggests that this might just be what’s needed.

It’s easy to see why: The message is focused, it’s economic, it suggests prospect, and it’s positive. It says, we’re about more than resistance, and we remember and revere our roots in FDR’s “New Deal,” and Truman’s, “Fair Deal.” It’s also profoundly off-base and guaranteed to fail: Here’s why. “Better” is a relative term. It raises questions and inspires doubt. “Better than what?” “What makes it better?” “How can we trust you to give us a better deal when you haven’t given us something better so far?” It fails in its desired populist appeal because effective populist messages create confidence by offering sureties, better’s relativism feels wimpy and unreliable, almost unAmerican. It’s that evasive, coastal elite vagary that breeds distrust and leaves liberals holding the bag when the little guy feels like he’s getting the short end of the stick.

The party leadership’s historic intuition about going back to the great deals by which the democratic party built and sustained its governing coalition is entirely on point, but “better” doesn’t cut the mustard. In fact it doesn’t provide sufficient mustard to cover a ballpark frank. So what kind of deal should the democratic party be offering? A “Square Deal.” If we want to win, we need to become the party of the Square Deal.

Unlike “better,” square is grounded, concrete, absolute; its good, right, basic, decent and American. It’s “fair and square,” connected directly to Truman’s fair deal. The historic tie to what made the Democratic party is stronger, truer and more accurate than the squishy “better,” and those connections define precisely the qualities that the Democratic party must embrace if it’s to gain the public’s trust and win its votes. A square deal is honest, proper, respectful, reasonable, ethical, stable, candid, even-handed, moral, just, non-partisan, right, due, grounded and American — everything that politics under present Republican leadership is not, though it should be. A square deal is what voters want, nothing less and nothing more, and only a square deal can break the impasse in Washington.

If the Democrats want to win and win big, they will offer not a “better deal,” but a square deal. That’s something we can all get behind.

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Marc Zegans

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I'm a poet and a creative development advisor working with artists of all stripes and with creatively driven enterprises and arts organizations