Family: The Forgotten Foundation of the Democratic Promise
By Marcus Zwaine
Editor’s Note
In this latest installment of the Marcus Zwain Editorial Series, former state Democratic vice chair Marcus Zwain reflects on the widening gap between party ideals and community realities. With the candor of an insider and the urgency of a reformer, he challenges his own party to confront hard truths about poverty, education, and safety—and to reclaim the family as the foundation of real Democratic renewal.
As a lifelong Democrat, and one who once proudly served eight years as a vice chair of our state party, I find myself looking at today’s Democratic landscape and asking: What happened to us?
How did the party that once stood for fairness, work, and opportunity lose the courage to confront the real, visible pain inside the very communities we claim to serve?
Look closely at the areas we govern, the cities, parishes, and wards that elect Democrats again and again. There you will often find the highest poverty rates, the lowest graduation rates, the highest unemployment, the greatest concentration of incarceration, and the most fractured families.
These are not Republican talking points. These are statistics that stare us in the face every single day.
And yet, too often, we turn away.
We blame someone else.
We point fingers at another zip code, another system, another ideology, anything but ourselves.
We defend the same failing structures because we built them, even when they no longer serve the people they were meant to protect.
It’s time we said enough.
If Democrats truly want to rebuild the communities we represent, we must start by rebuilding what holds them together: family.
No amount of government aid, subsidy, or bureaucratic program can replace a stable home. I’m not talking about moral judgment; I’m talking about practical survival. It is brutally hard for a single mother or father, working two jobs, to raise multiple children and still provide the structure every child needs to thrive.
When there is no consistent family presence, no shared table, no homework help, no quiet stability, everything else starts to collapse. Schools can’t fix that alone. Police can’t fix that. Government surely can’t fix that.
But families, strong, supported, united families, can.
So let’s be bold enough, as Democrats, to build policy that puts family back at the center of our platform.
Support wages that allow a parent to work one job and still pay the bills.
Incentivize home ownership in the very neighborhoods where renters have no stake.
Pass tax credits for two parent households raising children under one roof.
Create after school programs that bring parents into the school, not just drop-off lanes that push them away.
And while we’re at it, let’s have the courage to keep pushing for better schools, not just bigger bureaucracies.
Non Profit Charter schools, when run with accountability and community oversight, have outperformed their traditional peers by leaps and bounds. Let’s have more of them, not fewer. Let local boards decide who runs them, who teaches, and who stays when they succeed.
Every thriving neighborhood.
Every safe street.
Every child with a fair shot.
All of it begins at home.
The strength of America, and the strength of our Democratic ideals, has always rested on the same foundation: families that stay together, love together, and work together.
If we as Democrats want to lead again with authenticity, we must be willing to face an uncomfortable truth: our policies must do more than fund programs. They must rebuild people, starting with the family.
Because family is the first institution of democracy.
And without it, no party, no program, and no promise will stand for long.
