Amidst the fire and fury that is the Trump presidency, two important memos were released this week. No, not the Nunes memo, nor the Schiff rebuttal. I’m talking about Priorities USA and a new poll today from PPP. Both of these should encourage and scare Democrats, but the upshot is the same: they can win in November, but only if they push the right message, something they aren’t doing right now.
The Priorities USA press release delves into proper numbers about what’s good and bad with Democratic messaging, but the most important sentence is this, emboldened and centered: “Democrats continue to have winning messages on health care and the economy, but right now voters are not hearing them. That must change.”
It really is as simple as that. Look, I am the first person to say that the Russia investigation needs to be thorough and deliberate, and props to Senator Burr for doing that job as well as we could expect from a Republican in a tough spot. But the results of that, whatever they are, will not necessarily render positive results for Democrats. Nobody is going to win an election because of that investigation — there must be a positive message, not “look at what the other guy did.” A lot of people will not accept the results anyways, either because it absolves Trump or impinges him.
The memo from Priorities USA notes that Democrats held their best advantage at the end of 2017, right on the heels of the unsuccessful ACA repeal and tax reform. What’s different between then and now? At that point, Democrats were hammering home their core messages: health care and economics. They made the case that repealing the ACA would hurt people and tax reform would help those who were already well-off.
The same messaging is lacking right now. With the focus on the Nunes memo, immigration and government shutdowns, or porn star payoffs, Democrats have taken their eye off the ball. When they throw bombs against the president, it plays into his strengths. Why would you go to war with someone who ascended to office by name-calling and punching below the belt?
A month after its passing, polling on tax reform has gone from negative to about even. Is it because people actually think they are going to benefit from it, or because they have only heard Republicans heaping praise and cherry-picking stories that reinforce their narrative? I think it’s the latter. There is a solid counter-narrative which Democrats have not leveraged properly.
Ultimately, this has to be a criticism of The Resistance. For over a year, we have heard lamentations about “normalizing Trump.” I hate to burst their bubble, but this is normal now. He is the president. Impeachment will not change the fact that millions of people voted for him. Maybe a few voters were bamboozled by fake news, but millions of people wanted him to win, they voted for him, and he won.
He may not act “presidential,” but who decides what that means? It is the dependent variable of the equation, determined by the president himself. Americans decided that Trump should be president, so here we are. It’s better to try and win moving forward than stew on a loss in the past. Otherwise, chalking his victory up to Russian interference alone will sacrifice what should be an inflection point and a learning experience moving forward.
Too often, Democrats get caught up in their intellectual orbits, relying on wonky explanations of how this or that policy is better. There is, and must be, a place in the party for the intellectuals to muse from Cambridge and New Haven, but they can’t get that message across as well as a good old boy from New Orleans: it’s the economy, stupid.
Kirk Kovach is a native North Carolinian interested in writing about politics, communication and culture.
Desperation is the American way. The Democratic Party reminds me of the ossified French upper classes doing all they could to maintain the status quo. Their wall was the Maginot Line. Some old man can’t make it through the Ardennes so is certain the Germans won’t.
The Democratic Party is still the party of the Clinton Unit, Unit 1 & II hate Sanders for articulating clearly responsible uses for the US Treasury now meant to be the reinsurer of Wall St. exclusively, a generator of debt to parasites illustrated by Minuchin & his wife grinning while playing with new dollars they know only they and their friends will stick in their pockets.
“If you can’t even imagine a utopia you ought not call yourself a human being.”
Hippies were all for smaller government as if the DEA & lifestyle policing of the FBI terrified of pinko thinking & the idea there has to be a better system.
Well there is as long as the people of the nation believe in it therefore becoming homogeneous enough. Assimilation is a dirty word. All of the United States must be simply too temperate for people to really have to depend on each other and think straight about what citizenship is for.
Diversity, Diversity! Yeah OK, but you’re supposed to believe in America, the one FDR gave us frankly.
It isn’t to be rich all of us want but it is the desire for civilization as universal meaning Black White or with Purple green hair and tattoos that show one can walk anywhere and work wherever one is used to the climate.
NC Politics is pivotal because there is no more perfect land accumulated as a State, or Nationstate. If you are poor in NC it is because William Petty wants you to be. The peasants won’t work if they are not desperate is what the pseudo aristocrats believe more than anything else.
William Petty made it all up watching French Peasants work and certain that if they were to become educated they’d just watch with him. He had no evidence of anything but his own lazy ass.
We of North Carolina can do all righteous things to create on this land bordered by Virginia, South Carolina a civilization that cannot & refuses to die if we just want to stop the borrowing, start up for ourselves the Jobs Guarantee, and Free Public Schools for every North Carolinian through & in every discipline from 3 till post graduate or certification tests.
Since the US Treasury is to be denied & held together simply to give money to the monopolies & Goldman Sachs, We can out flank the pirate parasites by Founding Our State Utility Bank as has North Dakota.
I keep saying certain they won’t listen that the UK can bounce forward if they become an Industrial Service Banking Center instead of Wall Street’s London Finance partner.
Once we have for North Carolinians a universal per capita spending for students & scholars, Job Guarantee policy, bureaucrats enforcing forms aimed to become technocrats who can best write them, something other than a National Guard where all the Bond Money goes leaving our defense up to the Federals that own our coast, do whatever it takes to take back at least our ports Morehead & Wilmington and beat Norfolk & Charleston at the ports game a thing necessary for Tax Money on Transients, those ships & their few sailors sending robot trucks and Trains everything that hits the East Coast first before finding itself in Barstow, we will be able to pay for a civilization to be envied in Russia, China, and Rotterdam, & Copenhagen.
I ought make myself available to give speeches more often, don’t you think?
Scott Day/Transcendia.org
WE must promote a livable wage. We must narrow the gap between to richest and the poorest. We must level .work place for both women and men. Equal work gets equal pay. We must solve the problem of health care for everyone. We must protect our water and our air quality. We must support renewable energy. We must advocate for non partisan voting districts so that the voter voices can be heard. We must not allow privatization of our judicial system, our public schools and public services. We must advocate for a fair tax plan that will help 90% of Americans thrive. We must remember that except for the American Indians we are all immigrants. This was a country of opportunity, freedom of and from religion. This was a country where people could move upward to a better life through hard work and equal opportunity. We are a country that cares for its poor, its aging and its handicapped.
Back to basics. Tax those that work to provide “programs” for those who refuse to work (buy votes). Support illegal immigrants and make them voters (buying votes). Support every fringe group that arises and attack anyone who disagrees. Never compromise on anything. Every so-called compromise is just one more step to their end-game. Further limit the right to bear arms as we all know the peasants can’t be armed. Control every aspect of everyone’s life. Do as the democrats say not as they do. Never let the truth stand in the way of a vote. Call everyone who disagrees with your platform a racist, bigot, or some other derogatory term. Label anything statement (like this post) you don’t agree with as hate. Basically put some pejorative label on anything you don’t like. Shout down anyone who dares to disagree with you. Preach tolerance, unless it does not follow democrat dogma, then label it with a pejorative term. Support criminals and hamstring law enforcement. Throw juvenile temper tantrums anytime you don’t get your way. That about sums up the basics of the NC Democratic Party.
Having a bad hair day, Bill?
No, actually something you would not understand, the truth.
Bell, are you speaking of Trump’s truth? Are you saying that you believe Trump’s tweets, or anything that comes out of his mouth? If that is the case, I don’t think there are any grounds for a discussion.
I assume you can’t tolerate someone breaking up your liberal love fest on this left wing propaganda site. Very tolerant of you.
Bill, I thought your piece was very Republican in that it accuses Democrats of all that the Republican are doing.
I agree with you, Kirk.
There was a time when any these revelations, on any given day, since Trump came down the escalator to announce his candidacy, would have been fatal bombshells and the end of any hope of reaching the nation’s highest office.
His disdain for our dead and living heroes, his sexual predilections, his White Supremacist ideology, his illegal business dealings, his pandering to the Russians, his connections to organized crime, his running his hotel business from the White House, and so on ad infinitum, ad nauseam – any one of them should have been enough to sink his candidacy. Politicians have been shipwrecked by infractions or misdemeanors so inconsequential by comparison, one wonders how this White House has survived a week, much less a year.
But if the Democrats run only on how bad Trump is, it will not be enough. Everyone in the world knows that he needs to lie to stay alive like sharks need constant movement. Conning people is his oxygen. Bragging is a pathological need. Trump is a bad man. So what? Everyone knows it. He’s a crook. Everyone knows that. He’s a traitor. Everyone knows that.
What are Democrats going to do for people? That is the question.
Democrats must make the case that they will make life better for people. They must lay out a plan to improve wages. Yes, a minimum wage is popular, but it is not a panacea. A comprehensive plan for all middle-class workers to make gains in the new economy should be discussed every day everywhere.
Democrats have a case to make. The economics of piling all the new money coming into the economy on top of the fortunes of a few thousand families who already have all the money is no answer to the general well-being of the American people. It is the economy, Stupid. It is always the economy.
I am not sure I agree with this. Messaging hell! The message that most Americans understand in their gut is that we have the most corrupt and tainted administration in American history. It and all its enablers have to go, from the courthouse to the White House. By November, if the truth behind my suspicion is not out in public and Amerocans fail to throw these bums out, well, the country can kiss itself goodbye. The msssage is simply: Vote the bums out.
By November, the bombshells are going to have burst. Mr. Trump and his enablers will not be able to make it all go away if we are to remain a democracy.
Most people writing about this message business overlook the impact that is about to hit from that probe. There will be Americans, Trump’s so-called base, who never will believe the criminality of this bunch. But most Americans will know and will want a big change. Democrats, rather than worrying about a catchy message, need to be able to hit the ground running in January 2019. They still may hot control the Senate. They may control the House. Mr. Trump may or may not still be president. But if he is in office, his tenure will be fast ending before the 2020 election or in January 2021.
I simply believe this will be such a chaotic year that the impact simply cannot be overstated and will drown out any slick messaging.