It’s D20 Week, the weird and sometimes wonderful digital Democratic Convention of 2020. And one of the features of this particular election cycle is, and will continue to be, “Reaching Across the Lines.” As in, reaching out to Republican and conservative voters.

This, of course, is annoying a lot of people. But the DNC didn’t just choose Colin Powell, John Kasich, Cindy McCain and the others out of the blue. This is laid on months of work by The Lincoln Project and their excellent ads; in my own media world, it comes after years – literally about 4 of them – of ex-Republicans such as Nicole Wallace, Jennifer Rubin and George Conway, and hanging-on-by-their-nails Repubs like Michael Steele rolling their eyes and levying sharp criticism at the GOP (give it up Michael. She’s not comin’ back).

People I know on the left are very suspicious of these efforts. I hear/read a lot of “fuck ’em, shoulda figured it out long ago” and “sure, they’re acting all high and mighty NOW, but just wait a few years, they’ll be ratfucking us” and even a bit of “don’t trust them! ratfucking in play right now!”

Sure, that’s possible. And yes, some of them are no doubt using the Democratic fervor to get Trump out of the way, to shape their own vision of a conservative party of the future. And yes, they will not agree with us, with Democrats, on policy issue after policy issue. That’s sort of the center of the difference between conservatives and liberals and progressives. (And yes, this was not always true.)

But I’m in favor of this diplomatic mission to the conservatives, because of how I see this particular election. We’re not just trying to get a Democratic administration in place, we’re trying to get a SENSIBLE administration in place, a team that actually understands their Constitutional obligations. And small-l liberal democracy. And adherence to oaths of office, that would be nice.

But yes, I wonder about the commitment of the never-Trumpers and other conservatives — will we be at the throats of our current allies with a year or three? Is is even possible to sustain this?

And I think it may be, if we can focus on the common ground. The common ground is not policy, though we may, we will find overlap; the ACA is actually a good example of overlap between liberal and conservative approach to policy, even if the GOP pins it entirely on the Dems.

The real common ground here is adherence to the basic structure of the Constitution, and it’s intent to place power in the hands of The People instead of oligarchs and scoundrels. The common ground is in the Declaration, which asserts our rights as People to be free of oppression, to explore our opportunities and talents, to live, to simply live, in cooperation with each other. And yes, The People used to be propertied white guys, but it doesn’t take a genius, stable or otherwise, to extrapolate from the foundational idea to the whole of humanity

So. What does that mean for this election? for this strange digital DNC event?

It means that as much as my fellow Democrats are in this to establish a Democratic administration, the broad swath of voters, including disaffected conservatives, are looking for any functioning team of adults to take over and straighten this place the fuck up. Like, yesterday. We can be that team of functioning adults, from the President to the Congress to our state governments on down to our individual acts as voters and citizens.

Those of us on the left have been fighting for this this since the 2016 campaign season. In many ways we’ve been been fighting for this for much longer. We’re going to have to keep at it a bit longer, and I welcome whatever compatriots I can find.