How Has the DPP Fallen Short: A Staffer’s Inside View

This is a translation from the original 為了守護民主，要有接受錯誤的勇氣──來自年輕民進黨黨工的告白 by Chen Chien-min (陳健民), a masters student in public affairs and civic education at the National Changhua University of Education. Originally published by Voicettank. Translation by K. K..

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When I sat on the floor of Taipei’s Freedom Square with a group of friends in late 2012 during the Wild Strawberry Movement shouting slogans advocating Taiwan’s democratic freedom, the thought of joining the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) had never crossed my mind. Not in a million years could I have imagined that I would become a staunch advocate of the DPP and its core values, only in the not too distant future.

After numerous attempts at political activism, I decided to stop waiting for a political miracle to happen and to take matters into my own hands instead. I officially joined the DPP in 2016 and became a party staffer. Since joining the party, I have seen how much loyalty the party commands, such that expelled DPP members even kept re-applying to the party every year until they were readmitted.

What are current issues facing the DPP since the November midterm election?

Political distrust

Since the midterms, people have blamed the disastrous results on a divide within the DPP. However, I feel the situation is more severe than that: we are not talking about trivial divisions within the party, but what we are witnessing is a complete party breakdown. It’s not a mere ‘breakdown in communication’ or ‘a lack of trust amongst the DPP’s conservative and progressive factions, but a division amongst local politics and the central government. Local administrations often fail to understand what the central government is up to. Many policies put forward are often unintelligible at the local level, to the point where even local MP’s fail to understand them. This is not an issue that can be solved by distributing colourful campaign pamphlets or cute YouTube videos. As a result, local MP’s are often left in the dark and unable to explain central policies and their purpose. If local authorities cannot relate to central government policies, inevitably, they will feel ignored and alienated.

But this is not even the crux of the matter. Since the midterms, the government has been launching various initiatives to connect with the people in more local areas. I am not saying these measures are ineffective, but they do fail to directly address the most pressing issue: How can one explain the existence of so many rumors and misinformation, to the point where any attempt at clarification is met with disbelief? Over the last few decades, Taiwanese people have not been able to fully develop a sense of trust in their government or its policies. Both sides have yet to become acquainted with each other. Trust has not been established yet, which inevitably creates controversy with anything the government does. This in turn has lead to a government that flip-flops on its own policies and a lasting negative impression on the Taiwanese electorate. With so many rumours and doubts permeating society, it is not surprising that many people are left with no choice but to distrust the government.

Rumours are not the the main problem, but the lack of trust in the political system is. Fostering transparency and trust is therefore of the utmost importance.

Self-complacent

Before the midterms, I tried to tell the party leaders that we were doing town hall meetings all wrong. Not that town halls are inherently bad, but we weren’t organizing them correctly: every government official was asked on stage and a lot of time was spent on greetings and introductions of guests. The content was very repetitive and merely referred to previously announced government decrees. The majority of participants present were mobilised voters, and apart from providing a large crowd for the cameras, the actual outcomes of the town halls were relatively meaningless.

Since when does the DPP need to rely on the size of the crowd attending our events to showcase our determination? Why are campaign events organized by the DPP that attracted lots of supporters willing to attend these events voluntarily, a thing of the past?

And then there are the rallies. Rallies are great for morale in an election, as long as the rallies have energy. Holding bad rallies satisfy nothing except for us to say how many people attended, while tiring out our supporters. If we, as politicians, fail to admit we are not attractive to voters, we will never know what we need to improve on. We have to accept and learn from our failures.

Why are people no longer attending our political rallies? Why do we have to mobilize people? While we all understand the importance of mass mobilization, would it not be best to inspire them to join us on their own?

After the midterms, I drafted a plan suggesting a change of format to our town halls: every speaker should be allocated no more than five to ten minutes and the content of the speech should either be in the form of a political promotion or a brief account of one’s own political achievements. All remaining time is be reserved for a recorded Q&A session. Politicians should answer all questions asked by the attendees to the best of their ability. If they are unable to provide an immediate answer, the speaker shall go back to the same question at a later stage. If the speaker is still unable to provide an answer during the event itself, they are required to inform the attendees that the party will follow up on the matter and provide an answer at a later date. This will ensure that people trust our politicians irrespective of whether or not the issues discussed are solvable or not. People have to feel that we are all in this together and and that their voices are heard.

As for our rallies, instead of resorting to fancy lights and sound effects, we need to get back to basics. Even if we gave speeches on a simple wooden soap box, but actually engaged with what the public had to say, we would attract people more.

Even watching Taiwanese soap operas such as ‘Taiwan Tsunami’ would be more useful than our current rallies or attempt at promoting yet another government decree. This approach might not change things overnight, but the people we do manage to attract this way will be the most enthusiastic and loyal supporters. Everyone has a lot to say, but being a good listener is what matters and what wins people over.

Sadly, my superiors didn’t take the report seriously, and no actions have been taken to change our strategy.

Indifference

Since President Tsai’s recent focus on standing up to pressure from China, her approval ratings have risen to a certain extent. However, this tactic is by no means a sustainable strategy for attracting voters.

The DPP’s fundamental positions include denuclearisation and renewable energy, as well as our pro-Taiwan independence stance, and we must continue to remain loyal to these core principles. But these DPP selling points are losing their appeal and people have become somewhat indifferent. We can no longer rely on fear (of threats from China or nuclear disasters) and tragedy (from the KMT authoritarian crackdowns) to attract voters. After decades of political meandering, many people are in a state of paralysis. We should not forget that these fears have always existed in the back of their minds. To them, nothing significant has changed, which is why people have become complacent about politics.

Therefore, these two core issues need to be presented in new ways, especially in this day and age where people are constantly flooded with information, shrinking the lifespan of public interest in news stories at an unprecedented pace. One of the founding principles of the DPP lies in its unrelenting hope for a better tomorrow. We are continuously striving for a democratic future, freedom, and to be a country free from totalitarianism, which is why the DPP helped bring down martial law in the 1980s. For these reasons we must continue to honor our party motto: future and hope. Only then will we succeed at mobilizing voters.

Using fear as a means of mobilization is not difficult. I will not deny that this island is currently engulfed in threat and fear, but we have not been able find a viable alternative for attracting voters. What other options are there? Due to the DPP’s inability to find an alternative, potential voters are no longer seeing the hope that we initially sought to convey. Instead, they are doubting our capability for creating a better future. This future might not be within our reach yet, but we must give people an idea of the kind of future we are striving for. Our future vision must resonate with the concerns of Taiwanese society and seek to address the existing poverty and generational gap.

Those Taiwanese who experienced oppression in the past never thought it was possible to live in a democratic society. It was a concept that seemed completely out of their reach, but we managed to achieve that in only a few decades. We must do the same again in the face of long-standing fear; we need to move beyond their expectations and strive for a future free from fear, regardless of how unreachable this may seem.

Be honest

Neither has there been anyone in our own like-minded bubble nor in the DPP that has confessed or apologized for any of their shortcomings. Whenever something goes wrong, it is always someone else that got it wrong. Sure, they probably contributed to our failures. But what about us? Are we just blaming other people so we can avoid taking a hard look at ourselves? We should not be scared of our mistakes, we should be scared of our inability to be honest about our mistakes.

Finding a common ground among the party’s younger and the more senior members has been rather challenging as well. Senior party members boast a wealth of experience, but their views and expertise are often dated and inadequate in these unprecedented times of rapid change. I am not saying that their experience is invaluable, in fact, it is probably the main reason why we have been able to attract the majority of our voters, but we can no longer solely rely on their experience going forward.

The point is the same: to gain the voters’ trust. But we need to be even quicker at transmitting information and update the method and even the content, of how this is done. Currently, we do not have the ability nor the necessary resources to do so. Moreover, our party now seems to place more value on party seniority and clout, creating a toxic party culture where whitewashing and lies are all too common.

Our generation needs to have the courage to take on responsibility and accept our mistakes and failures. There aren’t that many people who do, perhaps because respecting authority is still so ingrained in many people’s minds from our upbringing during martial law. It is down to some brave forerunners to show us courage and faith again.

As a front-line party staffer, I have no intention of pointing my finger at anyone else because we all share responsible for this current conundrum, including myself. The DPP has never been a political party to shy away from a challenge, but if we keep clinging onto our old traditional values and are not willing to catch up with contemporary times, this will be the end of our time in history.

Taiwan has managed to transform into a democracy just within a few decades, a process which has taken a many other countries hundreds of years. This is something we should be proud of. If we take a look at older democracies and how their political parties are constantly reinventing themselves in the face of new challenges, then it should not come as a surprise that even the democratic miracle that is Taiwan needs to follow suit. There are still many lessons for Taiwan to learn and many areas where we can improve. If we fail to keep up and change with the times, if we keep asserting our old ways, we will not be able to sustain our democratic system and we will be like a boat trying to sail against the tide: it will not be able to move forwards, only backwards.

(Feature photo from Presidential Office of Taiwan, CC BY 2.0)