DECEMBER 22 — In November 2024, Donald Trump became President of the United States of America for the second time. Despite a chaotic race overall and being painted as “unserious”, Trump won 312 Electoral College votes to Kamala Harris’ 226. Republicans swept Congress, winning 53 Senate seats to the Dems’ 47, and 219-213 in the House.
Reading about the Dems’ defeat reminded me of a part in the Bible’s book of Revelations, where the apostle John wrote letters to seven churches about their individual strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement. Revelations 3:16 states:
“16So, because you are lukewarm – neither hot nor cold – I am about to spit you out of my mouth.”
DAP’s loss in Sabah reminds me of this verse.
PH 1.0 taught DAP that public spats among coalition partners decreases public trust.
In the unity government, DAP walks an unenviable tightrope between driving reform and preventing instability. Yet, restraint has reduced trust.
Some have called for DAP to return to our roots – but which roots?
Fact is, DAP’s social democratic agenda has been overtaken by neoliberalism. A prevailing belief in trickle-down economics (“richer corporations make richer workers!”) has seen some leaders balk at pursuing more aggressive wealth taxes or downplay labour bargaining power, leading to policies focused on redistribution without restructuring markets.
The closest we’ve gotten to challenging capitalist structures was during former human resources minister Steven Sim’s tenure. Sim oversaw the progressive wage policy, increased the minimum wage to RM1,700, improved social security coverage, created the gig workers bill, and amended Sabah and Sarawak’s Labour Ordinances to provide equal rights for workers nationwide.
Recently, I was asked to conduct a session for DAP women leaders, with a slightly fluffy title of “Living your values”. “Go girlboss, live your authentic self!”
After thinking, I created an acronym: VDAP, or how Values influence Direction, Action, and Public Perception. It’s marketing 101, but necessary to counter a popular line of thought in DAP: “Work hard and things will work out”.
DAP reps are known to be hard workers. But hard work isn’t enough: you can be beaten by the next hardest worker.
That’s why the full values-to-public-perception chain matters. Values can’t be held or eaten. But they make a difference when deciding between more highways vs public transport, privatisation vs universal healthcare, or institutional reforms vs enjoying lopsided advantages while in government.
Values prevent us from blindly reflecting “what voters want” without considering long-term impact. In the issue of (overdue) enforcement on overloaded lorries, some reps reflected industry pushback by requesting a soft landing or transition period. But who bears responsibility when avoidable tragedies occur and laws exist?
Direction without action is wishful thinking.
More dangerously, action without direction means losing the narrative. Like the Dems, the unity government often falls into the trap of reinforcing opposition narratives. Take UEC: instead of debating the merits of recognising UEC, the dominant narrative is on race and language.
How can DAP turn things around?
During calendar distribution rounds, I addressed our Sabah performance with residents. What we heard back: voters were disappointed, but they still counted on DAP to bring change.
In an interview one month before Election Day, Kamala Harris said she wouldn’t have done anything differently than Joe Biden during his term. Republicans used Harris’ words to negate her narrative of being a “change candidate”. The toning down of structured, progressive messaging reinforced the perception that Harris wasn’t the change agent America needed.
Interestingly, pre- and post-election polls showed voters broadly supported political and economic structural reform, including progressive policies. Post-elections, red-state Alaska and Missouri increased minimum wages; Alaska, Missouri and Nebraska expanded workers’ ability to earn paid sick leave. Support for labour unions and climate action also crossed party lines.
The wrong takeaway: “Let’s do bread-and-butter issues!” DAP has been there before, until we realised that for some, the question is: “Is the bread-and-butter halal?”
Today’s question: how can we provide “bread and belonging”? While class consciousness is low in Malaysia, more are realising that unaffordability is the outcome of inequality. To quote, no war but the class war.
Stability built on economic gains while ignoring sociocultural tensions is fragile. Too often in history, we’ve seen how convenient it is to demonise “the other” during economic collapse. Overreliance on culture flashpoints and continuous bickering while perpetuating structural inequalities leads to voter fatigue: different parties, same shit.
What next for DAP?
One thing for sure: we can’t afford to be lukewarm or lightweight. Nobody chooses diet Coke willingly; voters want the real thing.
DAP is skilled at doing things right. Let’s not lose sight of doing the right things.
* Lim Yi Wei is Kampung Tunku state assemblyman and DAP Wanita national assistant publicity secretary.
** This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.
