Senator Sherrod Brown Knows How to Save the Soul of the Democratic Party

[babylonsister]

April 9, 2020 7:00AM ET
Senator Sherrod Brown Knows How to Save the Soul of the Democratic Party
The populist Ohio senator passed on running for president. But he has a few ideas on how to deal with the coronavirus, defeat Trump, and elect Joe Biden in November
By Andy Kroll


Sherrod Brown has always defied easy categorization. A Yale graduate from a well-off family, he became a state representative in Ohio at the age of 21 and spent his free time in local union halls, absorbing the stories of auto and steelworkers. In the 1990s and 2000s, when Bill Clinton and the New Democrats preached the gospel of globalization, Brown, then a congressman, warned about the ugly consequences of free-trade deals like NAFTA — jobs shipped overseas, factories abandoned, towns and cities hollowed out. During the Obama years, Brown, now in the U.S. Senate, pleaded with his party brethren not to abandon their working-class roots, only to watch Donald Trump win in 2016 with the help of the white working class on Brown’s home turf.

Brown, 67, is one of the last true progressive populists. He insists that Democrats should “campaign through the eyes of workers” and honor the dignity of work — a message he used to win a decisive re-election victory in Ohio two years after Trump won the state. The pleas for him to run for president flooded in. “It came on me so sudden,” he recalls. “I looked at who the cast of characters were, and I came from the right place with the right message and the right politics and the right history, perhaps.”

But his heart wasn’t in it.

snip//

And as the novel coronavirus pandemic swept the country, Brown blasted Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for the Senate’s sluggish response and foot-dragging in taking up the first of several major relief bills. A video of Brown tearing into McConnell received more than 1.5 million views and earned him comparisons to Jimmy Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. “Who can say anything but this is a national crisis?” Brown bellowed on the Senate floor. “We’re going to make our unwillingness to do anything contingent on some parliamentary trick? No.”

Brown has a message for his fellow Democrats, too. If they want to win back not only the working-class voters they lost in 2016 but also mobilize the multiracial coalition they need to beat Trump, they’ll need to rethink the American electorate altogether. It’s a message that Brown will soon be sharing on behalf of former Vice President Joe Biden; this week, Brown voted (early) for Biden in Ohio’s primary and plans to help Biden’s campaign later this year. “Voters don’t see politics as left or right,” he says. “This whole idea that independent voters are in the middle — that they’re less liberal than Democrats and less conservative than Republicans — is crap. People don’t see themselves as conservative/liberal; people see themselves. And people see politicians as ‘Whose side are you on?’?”

What happened in that moment on the Senate floor during the coronavirus debate?

[Democratic Sen. Dick] Durbin was impatiently, for all the right reasons, saying we needed to do this tonight. A Republican stood up and gave some parliamentary sleight-of-hand reason for the delay. And so I just took off on that. Why aren’t we doing this? Three, four, five days of delay when people are scared, when people are angry, when people are anxious about their future? They know they’re about to lose their job or they’ve already lost it. They don’t know if they’re going to be able to pay their rent. They don’t know what’s going to happen to their sister who’s not feeling well but has to choose between going to work or taking a day without pay, or even worse, can’t get a test for what she thinks might be the coronavirus.

more...

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/senator-sherrod-brown-trump-coronavirus-joe-biden-bernie-sanders-980439/?fbclid=IwAR1VtjjquI4LDnQEn2HLEwtXjsegwAMS7T2MVLWhFZ2lUfbOLWlCd2OnJ4k

[democrank]

1. Sherrod Brown is my type of leader

Campaigning “through the eyes of workers” is solid advice.

[elleng]

2. 'People don't see themselves as conservative/liberal; people see themselves.

And people see politicians as ‘Whose side are you on?’?”'

[BeckyDem]

3. Hope springs eternal. K&R

[beachbumbob]

4. Only the VOTERS can save the soul of the Democratic party

and if we don't give 150% effort, time and money, we deserve what comes our way

[lagomorph777]

5. "This...idea that independent[s]...are in the middle...[between Democrats and Republicans] is crap."

Many, if not most independents are left of the Democrats, or to the right of the Russiapublicans...or they simply don't have any interest in a packaged set of other peoples' beliefs. Many just need help, and they don't give a crap about ideology - ideology is a first-world luxury.

[calimary]

6. Bookmarking. Born to run the numbers.

Glad he's already on the Biden team.

[texasfiddler]

7. With Sherrod's help, Biden has a shot at Ohio