Thread by @BillKristol

1. Thought-provoking article by @liamkerr of @theWelcomePAC on "January 7th Democrats." I'll add a thought: In the U.S. party change tends to happen, as it should, from the bottom up. People make up their own minds and make their own political choices.
thebulwark.com/what-didnt-hap…

2. But a political party can choose to publicly recruit, even vocally evangelize for, new members to join. The Trump Republicans have done this with working-class and exurban whites, and it's surely had some effect to tell them, "Your concerns are ours, we want you aboard."

3. In this case, the appeals are both distasteful and disingenuous. But such appeals needn't be. And Democrats tend not to make them. The idea, I guess, has been that Democrats just need to say to the educated voters moving towards them, "Well, studies show you're moving to us."

4. But people like to feel wanted, not just analyzed.

5. In the 1970s, Republicans from Presidents Nixon and Ford, to Bill Brock as RNC head, to Rep. Jack Kemp and others, spent time trying to persuade and induce disillusioned Democrats to come on over, at the electoral level of course, but also--in different ways-- among elites.

6. There are today lots of Democrats--many, many younger House members, mayors like Eric Adams, governors like Jared Polis, and (come to think of it!) the president of the United States--who have a lot to say to those whom Pete Buttigieg called "future former Republicans."

7. Let me be clear: In my experience, today's Democrats have been friendly to future former Republicans, interested in their ideas, and actually welcoming. If you knock at the door, they greet you with hospitality. But good politics requires more than random acts of kindness.

8. Wouldn't it help politically if there were more of an organized, vocal, and coordinated effort to get out there and invite people in and recruit new allies, even new candidates? Democrats could look more to the model of the Salvation Army and less to that of Quaker meetings.

9. Well, enough. Actually, one last analogy: Democrats are the party of professors. Good teachers find it far more satisfying to convince students who are initially skeptical of a certain approach, than simply to lecture to students who are already little versions of themselves.

10. Democrats can surely do more to build a true majority party, for at least as long as the GOP is the way it is. They shouldn't do this mainly for partisan reasons, or in order to make future former Republicans feel better. They should do it for the sake of the country.

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