Democrats all over America are trying to fix their party. Last weekend, in 30 hours in the heart of rural Kentucky and its largest city, crowds of 200 Democrats came together, and they had many ideas, from fighting to talking to listening.
On Saturday in downtown Louisville, amid buildings where he once ruled, former mayor Harvey Sloane, 89, headlined a rally for Medicaid and Medicare. On Sunday in Fredericktown, Democrats from Washington, Marion, Nelson and other counties heard local party leaders and 2026 candidates in the three congressional districts — 1st, 2nd and 4th — that adjoin four miles southwest.
The fate of the Democratic Party in Kentucky lies in places like Fredericktown, which was Fredericksburg until World War I, but the old nickname lives on; hence the three-county “Rally at The Burg,” now in its fourth year under leadership of Bardstown’s Kenny Fogle.
“If we revive the Democratic Party, it won’t be from the national level. It won’t be from the state level. It’ll be county by county by county,” Fogle said to applause. Other lines that got a hand:
“You were born for a time like this,” said state Rep. Pam Stevenson of Louisville, running for U.S. senator. “Find one thing you can do, and do it.”
“Donald Trump’s use of the National Guard and federal troops is not in keeping with our long history nor with the traditions of our Constitution,” said George Wright, head of the Kentucky Democratic Party Veterans Council.
“What we’re up against is not just one politician. It’s the rise of Christian nationalism and white supremacy,” said Monica Dean, a 4th District candidate. “Christian nationalism is not Christianity. Christianity teaches love, compassion and justice. Christian nationalism preaches power, fear and exclusion, and it’s being used as a weapon to divide our communities and take away our freedoms.”
Former 3rd District Rep. Mike Ward of Louisville, the Burg keynoter, also won applause in Kentucky’s Roman Catholic heartland with a Christian theme. Quoting a hymn that says “We are called to love… one another,” Ward was among those at both events who urged Democrats to witness to friends and neighbors about Medicaid restrictions and other issues.
Kentucky still has many religious people willing to vote Democratic, as shown by Gov. Andy Beshear’s routine references to his faith, but religious-related issues are the main reason he’s the only independently elected Democrat in statewide office. The party’s 40-year decline can be dated to 1980, when Republicans put opposition to abortion rights in their platform.
Then came other social issues, some noted by Avral Thompson, president of Teamsters Local 89, which helped pay for the Burg rally: “People like to pick out one subject that they don’t like and forget about everything else important to them and vote just on that, whether it’s gay rights, where it’s guns, whether it’s God – you know, the three Gs always hang up everybody, right?”
That was the plainest public talk on a picture-perfect Sunday afternoon. The crowd seemed to get less energy from the rhetoric than from the event’s camaraderie. Democrats are now in a political minority in their rural counties, and that has made many of them reluctant to speak up locally.
“It feels good to be with people of like minds,” said Jim Coffey, who came from Liberty in heavily Republican Casey County.
James Spragens of Lebanon in Marion County, once one of the state’s most Democratic, told me, “People just gotta feel better. They need to lift their spirits. It’s pretty depressing every day.”
His neighbor, Steve Brady, cited the new “Alligator Alcatraz” prison in the Everglades: “That’s inhuman. That’s not American.”
In Louisville, heath care was the focus. Third District Rep. Morgan McGarvey told the Jefferson Square crowd, “This is not some political rally. This is life or death… Medicaid isn’t a budget line, it’s a lifeline.” He said Democrats must go beyond online comments and “Get out there and talk to people.”
But Carpenters Union leader Steve Barger cautioned in an interview, “I think we ought to do a little more listening and a lot less pontificating.” And former state House Speaker Pro Tem Larry Clark told me the party must stress pocketbook issues and find good candidates. “They can’t run on a national ticket,” he said. “It’s gotta be a local race, tied to the local issues, and it’s got to be somebody that they can connect with.”
Louisville lawyer Steve Miller gave me a broader view: “There needs to be a plan that is compelling and understandable to the vast majority of American voters about how American government, business and the social contract can be rewritten to make this nation competitive and compassionate for the future.” Miller, raised in Owenton and Bardstown, said rural voters are key: “Democrats have to move past the mere words and get into the real work of connecting with people outside of metropolitan areas.”
Former mayor Greg Fischer, who ran for senator in the 2008 Democratic primary, implicitly offered ways to bridge the rural-urban divide: “We need to be reminded of what we’re supposed to be as a country and get people who are unabashed to stand up and say that; not just what we’re against, but what we’re for,” he told me. “We’re supposed to be a country that gives everyone an opportunity. We’re supposed to be a country that embraces our potential, which only comes through diverse thought and hustle and entrepreneurship… At the end of the day it’s got to come down to compassion and care for each other, regardless of what you look like, regardless of where you come from.”