Dems’ ‘go vote’ message is a good point made at an awful time

Democratic Party leadership is facing a wave of anger over its impotent response to last month’s Supreme Court ruling overturning federal abortion rights. 

In recent weeks, we’ve seen what could maybe, hopefully, possibly be some federal-and-state coordination to shore up abortion access. But let’s be clear: it only came after the White House and Democratic leadership’s first response — telling people to get out and vote this November — was widely panned by progressives.

We shouldn’t bothsides this. The Democratic base is right to be angry — and “go vote” is not a plan. But it is important to highlight the power of voting in this moment of progressive despair, even though top Democrats shouldn’t be the ones doing it. 

Let me explain. 

Images of the of the Supreme Court being surrounded with fencing ahead of last month’s Roe ruling were powerful to me. They symbolized an oppressive yet untouchable institution. And I think it’s valuable for progressives to remember that even this court is subject to the will of the people. Measures like expanding the court and instituting term limits are not extremist. They’re legal remedies we, the people, could deploy if we garner enough support for them. And voting is a big part of that.

But this isn’t really the point top Democrats like President Joe Biden, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, or Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer are making right now. Each of them campaigned on the idea that Democrats winning the White House and both chambers of Congress would usher progressive agenda into law, and that hasn’t been the case. 

Now they’re doing it again by promising to restore federal abortion rights if they keep the House this November. 

That promise was foolish in 2020, and it’s foolish now. You don’t get a progressive agenda by putting Democrats in the majority (as Sens. Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin would attest). You get a progressive agenda by putting progressive-minded Democrats in the majority. Progressives in the party are much more forthright in saying this than Biden — a centrist — or their relatively conservative colleagues in Democratic leadership.

In fact, President Biden and Speaker Pelosi spurned the very voters they’re trying to energize now when they each backed anti-abortion nominees for the federal bench and the House, respectively. 

So, is voting critically important? Yes.

But now isn’t the time to make that argument — and top Democrats can’t make it earnestly anyway. Collectively, Democrats would be better off leaving the organizing to the voters who put them in office. And these people don’t need lectures from the officials they’ve already voted for. They need assurances Democrats will use the power they have — the power they’ve already been given — to protect civil rights right now.