The Rainbow Conspiracy Part 7: Democracy in Color and ‘Return of the Majority: A Road Map for Taking Back Our Country’

Democracy in Color Muslim activist Rida Hamida with “Brown is the New White”

This national initiative was unveiled in March 2017 by Democracy in Color—a multimedia platform on race and politics—founded by Steve Phillips, author of The New York Times bestselling book Brown Is the New White.It is designed to help progressives and Democrats win back the White House and down ballot offices by 2020 by calling on progressives nationwide to support voter mobilization groups in specific states and counties, especially those that mobilize voters of color.

The Democratic Party wasted millions of dollars during the 2016 election cycle on TV ads, most of which were targeted at white swing voters, instead of on field operations aimed at existing New American Majority voters who helped re-elect Obama in 2012. The “Future Five States” to focus on are: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Texas. These states are trending Democratic as the population of these five states is on the rise, especially the people of color populations.

Phillips’ argument is that the South is vulnerable and can be taken back for the Democrats by signing up hundreds of thousands of minority voters. No more massive add buys to swing a handful of white “swing” voters. No going back to the center. Spend those millions instead on paid local teams organizing in Black, Latino, native American, Muslim and “poor white communities.

More Obama voters defected to third- and fourth-party candidates than the number who supported the 2016 Republican presidential candidate. The way for Democrats to win them back is by being more progressive, not less. Sending support to Frontline groups and individuals on the Frontlines of the struggle can be done for a fraction of the cost of what is traditionally spent on political campaigns. Every two years, the Democratic Party committees and allied outside groups spend in excess of $500 million. Traditionally, most of that money goes to television ads targeted at white swing voters.

In order to win in 2020, and in the coming months and years, we need a disciplined, effective, large-scale electoral operation that is rooted in and led by community-based organizations and leaders in all of the critical areas in the ten states that we lost by single digits (and, to a somewhat lesser extent, the seven states we won by single digits or less).

The Phillips/Color of Change strategy worked to move once red Virginia into the purple column. It worked to defeat a very vulnerable Roy Moore in last December’s US Senate race in Alabama. And it worked in spades with Steve Phillips protege Stacey Abrams’s recent landslide (76% – 23%) victory in the May 2018 Georgia Democratic gubernatorial primary.

Right now, Steve Phillips/Color of Change and their network of “progressive” allies are deploying  millions of dollars and thousands of Get Out The Vote activists into the 5 key states: North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Texas and Arizona. While Republicans are focusing on the Midwest, the far left are making huge inroads into their soft underbelly in the South.

Democracy in Color and their allies are pouring huge amounts of money into allied organizations in targeted states.