Telling A Better Story

 

Brian Beutler has some instructive thoughts about how Democrats must tell a better story contrasting the Malignant Loser's disastrous years in office with the historically successful rescue job by President Biden and Democrats.  Here are some excerpts:

... The story I would tell if I were Biden is pretty simple, and Biden occasionally gestures at it. When the White House press corps recently assembled to grill Biden about (what else) his age and memory, he reminded them. “I am well-meaning, and I’m an elderly man, and I know what the hell I’m doing,” he said. “I’ve been president. I put this country back on its feet.”

The story is that he inherited a country that Trump left in shambles, and did the painstaking work of rebuilding an economy that’s now stronger and more equitable than the one Trump wrecked. He could also pin inflation on Trump: it was, after all, an inevitable part of the difficult process of digging out from under the rubble Trump left behind. He could describe inflation as the endpoint of a cascade of events that began when Trump disbanded the government’s pandemic-response directorate and (thus) failed to contain the virus before it spread out of control.

That is a story people are more likely to absorb in full meaning than any recitation of raw fact...

We often fall into the habit of providing facts when the broader story can be more compelling.  If you hear the echo of the "facts" vs. "vibes" argument here, that's what this boils down to -- and the "vibes" seem to be holding the upper hand.  The thing is, Democrats have a story to tell that's both factual and compelling, if they can stick to it.  Beutler concludes with another stab at it, and the Republicans' relentless lying that needs to be countered now:

... The idea that inflation is the president’s fault, and he deserves blame for it when it happens, is just that—an idea. And it’s not an idea that occurs to millions of individuals independently on a population scale, because that’s not how ideas work, particularly complicated ones.

Voters think Trump was a good steward of the economy because he repeats endlessly that he built the greatest economy in history until the pandemic wrecked it. They almost never hear the truer counterstory: that Trump coasted on the economy he inherited from Barack Obama until he was confronted with his only real crisis and showed himself to be completely outmatched. They think Biden has been a bad steward of the economy because Republicans and the news media—to say nothing of social-media and the broader culture—harp on endlessly about inflation, and how the buck stops with the president, and how Americans are struggling, when, empirically, they are struggling less now than at any point in recorded history. 

Americans started searching the internet for “stagflation” these past few days not because of some major, detectable shift in economic fundamentals, but because Republicans are telling a new, false story about Biden’s economy.

For the most part, it’s the only story they’re hearing.

Democrats have six months to tell a different, better one. They have all the resources they need to get the good word out. We just have to hope that the stories Republicans have been telling with little pushback these past three-and-a-half years haven’t cemented impressions of the candidates irreversibly.

Democrats have more resources now than Republicans, though they're disadvantaged by the free propaganda provided to the Malignant Loser's party/ cult on Fox, Newsmax, etc.  Democrats have smart, experienced people running campaigns. They just need to get on message and be as relentless as the party/ cult of the Malignant Loser in telling the true story of the past 7- plus years.  Starting now.

(Image: via Spreadshirt.com)