Guest Post From Franke Wilmer (D-MT)

Earlier today we ran a post about the Montana congressional race. Perhaps looking for an excuse to not spend her entire day doing call time, the progressive candidate in the race, Franke Wilmer, was moved to write a guest post for us. Give it a read. And, if you'd like, give her campaign a contribution.

Why I Chose To Be a Democrat and Why I Still Am

-by State Rep. Franke Wilmer

My parents were Republicans-- and they were right about the importance of individual responsibility, hard work, and sacrifice. Having lived through the Great Depression as young adults those values enabled them to survive hard times. They were working class people, but they were also privileged because they were white. I don't recall hearing them talk about justice or injustice.

My mother was from Terry, MT-- where the federal government lured homesteaders to settle on the railroad line by telling them that if they planted enough crops the climate would change-- that planting more corn would make it rain more. The government called it "agricultural science."

Many in eastern Montana to this day don't trust the federal government and many don't trust “government backed” science either. This mistrust is based on the lived experience of their parents and grandparents. My grandparents gave up after 3 years of drought followed by a fire that destroyed their homestead. They took the railroad east, all the way to the eastern shore of Maryland, where they started over doing what they called "dirt farming." They brought their mistrust of government with them.

I became a Democrat during the civil rights movement because Democrats were right about civil rights. I have a passion for justice-- liberty and freedom are imperfect without justice and fairness. Fairness is a core value for Democrats. The fear among conservatives is that advancing justice diminishes freedom, and they have a point. We should always ask whether, when justice is being advanced, what's being diminished is freedom or privilege. Ending racial discrimination in employment opportunities, for example, could make those who previously enjoyed employment preferences based on race feel as though they lost something. But what they lost was a privilege, an unearned advantage that disadvantaged others. There’s a difference between liberty for all and privileges for some that diminishes others.

What is this "American Dream" we say is being destroyed and needs to be rebuilt? The American Dream is not about rich people getting richer. It's not even about poor people becoming millionaires. The American Dream is about everyone having a fair chance, through hard work and sacrifice, to make the most of their talents and abilities and to make a decent life for themselves and their families.

The key words are everyone and fair chance. Everyone has a fair chance… Not an opportunity determined by arbitrary circumstances or characteristics like race, gender, or economic class. Making the most of one's talents through hard work and sacrifice-- the only limits are the limits of one's own talents and willingness to work hard and make sacrifices.

I often hear my conservative friends (as well as several Republican presidential hopefuls) say, "Life's unfair. Get over it." True-- we should not let the unfairness of circumstances be an excuse for failure or for not working hard and being willing to make sacrifices in order to improve our circumstances. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't also try to do something about unfairness when it is caused by human behavior and public policies.

Who would say to Martin Luther King Jr. "Life's unfair. Get over it"? But where would civil rights be today if Dr. King had said, "Well, it is unfair that I am denied opportunities just because I am black and I cannot change that." His willingness to make sacrifices in the name of justice make him a patriot and an American hero. He believed deeply in the vision of what America could be and he died moving us toward it.

We all have our reasons for loving this country. Unlike other countries, this country was intentionally founded as a democracy, however limited it was at the time of its founding to a privileged class, race, and gender. What is so remarkable is that our founders created a system that would enable us to progress, to create a more perfect union, a more just society in the future. And that promise is also a challenge, even an expectation that we, collectively, can be better people than they were, collectively.

We ended slavery, enfranchised women, and have made progress toward ending many forms of discrimination. There are still many issues on the frontiers of justice today, but the one coming increasingly into focus and a flashpoint for mobilizing mass discontent is economic injustice.

Democrats today must fight the injustice of policies that are making the rich richer and diminishing opportunities for everyone to have a fair chance to develop their talents and make a decent life for themselves and their families. That’s what restoring the American Dream means and that’s why I am still a Democrat.