Donald Trump had been in office less than a month when Ron Kind had his only Oval Office meeting with the former president.
Kind, a Democrat who has represented southwestern Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District since 1997, was invited with other senior members of the House Ways and Means Committee.
Kind recalled, “He had a few of us down to talk some economic issues, and I told him at the time: ‘Listen, there’s a sensible center to be had that will be willing to listen and work with you on issues where we can. But you got to make a little effort and reach out,’ and he never followed up, and that was it. That was the only bipartisan meeting we (committee Democrats) had in the White House in his entire administration.”
Kind said Trump had a “deer-in-the-headlights look” when he suggested potential compromise. I asked in our recent conversation what else he recalled about the meeting. Kind said it was awkwardly evident Trump did not want to shake hands. “He’s kind of a germaphobe, which kind of struck me, too.”
He added, “In retrospect, you know, the guy didn’t come from any legislative background, was never in public service. I think he was perhaps the most unqualified or unprepared person to be president that we’ve ever had in our country, and he just didn’t know how the system worked, didn’t know what role Congress can play and the importance of it.
“Instead, from day one, it was just attack, attack, attack.”
With all that’s happened since, Kind’s 2017 anecdote sounds quaint, perhaps naïve, but that was early on, before the unimaginable years to come.
Now Kind, the sort of popular, experienced and consistently electable moderate the Democratic Party should covet, is finishing his final months in Congress and mulling offers in teaching and politics. He announced his planned departure last August to give other Democrats time to react. His district has a four-way Democratic primary next month.
He talked in depth with me about how the toxic hyperpartisan culture has worn on him and how the exodus of moderate congressional friends influenced his decision. He also cited district meetings, which moderate constituents used to attend but now avoid due to unruly Trump backers interrupting and refusing to listen to facts.
Another factor, he said, is the attack ads paid for by undisclosed donors that now concentrate more and more on the fewer and fewer genuinely competitive districts like his.
Some far-left Democrats have criticized Kind as insufficiently liberal, often citing his 2002 vote to authorize military force against Iraq. Kind has said that vote was a “great regret” because he believed then-President George W. Bush would use force only as a last resort, but instead went directly to war.
But let’s get real, that was 20 years ago, and the party has been fortunate to have Kind, a La Crosse native made good, a high school sports star who graduated with honors from Harvard on a scholarship, earned a master’s degree from the London School of Economics and a law degree from the University of Minnesota.
He was able to win reelection even though his district backed Trump by 4 to 5 percentage points in 2016 and 2020. News of Kind’s decision not to run so bummed Joe Biden’s White House one day last August that it was mentioned anecdotally in “This Will Not Pass,” a recent book about the Trump-Biden era by two New York Times correspondents.
At 59, Kind has had it with the vitriol.
“I’ve always really appreciated that I represented the quintessential swing district,” he said. “It was about one-third, one-third, one-third in registration between R, D, independent, and because of that, you had people with an open mind who would focus on you as an individual and the work you’re doing and the issues you support, and I could get a lot of crossover votes throughout my career.
“It’s a lot harder to do that today. It just seems like the electorate is so polarized and they’ve chosen their tribes, and nary the two shall meet, no matter who you are or what type of work you do.”
Kind added: “I’ve always been proud of my record of bipartisanship. I’ve always been rated as one of the most bipartisan members willing to work across the aisle and get to know my Republican colleagues, develop that element of trust. That’s just a lot harder now. It became more of a hostile work environment in that regard, and it certainly was a factor in my decision to step down after 26 years.”
Kind spoke wistfully of regular past meetings with a group of Republican moderates who called themselves the “Tuesday group,” but he said most of those members are leaving or have left, replaced by devotees of what he calls the “cult of Trumpism.” He said things were devolving even before Trump, citing “birtherism” claims that former President Barack Obama was not a legitimate American citizen.
Kind said Democrats need to achieve clearer majorities to act effectively on climate change, protect women’s right to choose and look out for working families on economic issues, adding that, “This can only be resolved at the ballot box.”
What does he think of criticism of him from far left congressional colleagues?
“I cut them some slack, Paul, because they are representing their districts and their constituencies. This is what they hear from the people they represent, and of course they’re sitting in an 80-percent Democratic district, so they can do this and they won’t be punished politically.
“But for someone like me, in a swing district, I couldn’t survive politically by taking some of the positions they do, and there’s a recognition of that in the Democratic caucus,” Kind said.
He singled out Mark Pocan, a liberal Democrat whose 2nd Congressional District includes Madison, for understanding his situation. “He’s very pragmatic when it comes to someone like me in the district I represent, versus his Madison-based district,” Kind said.
He added, “We need more pragmatism in both parties these days rather than this lockstep attitude where if you deviate even slightly from party orthodoxy, you know, then you’re not worthy.”
Democrats, as part of the only major pro-democracy political party, would do well to listen to Kind.
Orthodoxy later, after we save democracy.