Democrats need to wake up

A poll conducted from June 19 through the 22nd among Florida voters had Republican Governor Rick Scott leading Democratic Senator Bill Nelson by five percentage points, 46 to 41, in the race for the U.S. senate seat currently held by Nelson. With months left before this very important election, those numbers could change in the blink of an eye. But before that can happen, Senator Nelson must find a way to introduce himself to enough Florida voters to help flip those five points to his column.

It is no surprise, therefore, to see Senator Nelson appear every chance he gets at the camps known as migrant shelters in the southern end of Miami-Dade County where ICE houses some of the children taken from parents at the U.S. border. He was also in Parkland, Florida, in February, after the mass shooting that claimed 17 lives at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Nelson, you see, is trying to cram the homework he hasn’t done for almost two decades into the few months he has left until election day.

It turns out a lot of Florida voters don’t know Bill Nelson. A poll conducted at the end of last year showed that nearly half of Florida voters, 49 percent to be exact, “don’t know enough about the man who has been their U.S. senator for 17 years to form an opinion about the job he’s doing.” That’s according to a survey conducted by Michael Binder, faculty director of the Public Opinion Research Lab at the University of North Florida. 

Seventeen years! That’s how long Nelson has been a U.S. senator. Before that Nelson held positions as a member of the Florida House of Representatives and the U.S. House of Representatives. From 1995 to 2001 he was appointed by Governor Lawton Chiles as Florida Treasurer, Insurance Commissioner and Fire Marshall. And yet we have a man who has served and been elected in Florida since 1972, who half the voters in Florida don’t know. 

Bill Nelson seems to be a good man. But he’s been a lousy senator. And he’s been used to reelections without much problem. He’s never really had to prove much to his electors. Suddenly in 2018, he’s facing a formidable foe formed in the Age of Trump, and by that I mean a proven liar and cheater — and very wealthy — who will stop at nothing, including the use of his own wealth, to beat Nelson. 

Polls are now telling us that unless Nelson performs some sort of political wizardry in the next couple of months, Republicans will gain a Senate seat in Florida. And that blue wave we keep hearing about looks further from the truth. Of course, most pundits will tell you that it’s the House that will turn blue in November. Although, personally, I see that as a pipe dream if Democrats turn to the Donna Shalalas of the Party to make this happen.

People are fed up with politics as usual. And they are sick and tired on all sides — it’s not a Democratic or Republican thing. It is one of the many reasons a backward idiot like Trump was elected. He and Bernie Sanders were the only ones offering something different in 2016. Sanders, who would have soundly defeated Trump I am convinced, was pushed out by cheating and ‘don’t rock the boat’ Democrats.

Nelson has always been one of those ‘don’t rock the boat’ types. Timid and not willing to speak out against injustices — because since the Reagan era, Democrats have been afraid of their own shadow too often and have feared being labeled as a… oh, I don’t know, so many words have been used: liberal, commie, a lefty, and so on. 

Almost every elected Democrat’s priority agenda item is his or her own reelection. Constituents come third — after the special interests guaranteeing their reelection.

But times are changing and the Democratic Party has been slow to do so. The reasons are many. As I’ve written before, Democrats, like Republicans, answer to those special interests who control them by the purse strings. They’re not interested in rocking the boat — because they’re getting rich on the backs of the overwhelming majority growing poorer.

Republicans have changed. They’ve become the party of Trump and all that stands for. Nothing to be proud of if you truly believe in equality of opportunity. But racists and bigots have to gather around someone. And they’ve found him with Trump.

Now if the Democrats would only catch up…

Examples of how to go about it are out there. If they’d only look and listen.

On Wednesday morning, for example, I woke up to the news of the most unlikeliest of victories. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a 28-year-old Puerto Rican socialist bartender and woman, who had organized for Bernie Sanders in 2016, soundly defeated New York Representative Joe Crowley, a 10-term incumbent who chairs the House Democratic Caucus and controls the political machine in Queens. Apparently ‘Don’t rock the boat’ Democrats did not see her coming. Because they refuse to pay attention.

Bernie Sanders explained it best: “She took on the entire local Democratic establishment in her district and won.”

At this point it’s too late for Nelson, I believe. He’s too used to serving as a do-very-little member of the U.S. Senate. Scott, a bad man who’s proven his Trump-type credentials as governor of Florida, will beat him and give more firepower to a president and a Party in full control that is rapidly making America lose the little luster it has left.

There are more Alexandria Ocasio-Cortezes out there. In Miami alone I’ve met many of them. Democratic Party stalwarts must turn to them and give them the chance they deserve. It is time for Democrats in Florida, and the U.S. for that matter, to realize that they must become the Party of the many, not a Republican-lite Party of the few.

If we don’t wake up quickly Trump’s America will surely become great(er)… for the one percent.  

[Photo at top of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez campaigning in New York City earlier this spring.]