Many Americans have been fighting Trump/ election fatigue for months now. It shows up in traffic on blogs, in ratings for news programs, in flagging political donations, or wherever some level of engagement is required. Disengagement now is a problem, but disengagement in the form of not paying attention during an election can lead to, well, what we've got now.
One of the issues many voters were oblivious to in the last election was what the Malignant Fascist and his ultra- reactionary Project 2025 crew wanted to do with Social Security. Yesterday, Paul Krugman wrote in his Substack article, "Social Security: A Time for Outrage," about the disconnect with voters on this important issue, making clear that simply getting voters to notice, especially working-class voters, was a basic priority that Democrats failed to achieve in 2024. Democrats have been given another chance, if they have learned that lesson, as Krugman concludes:
"... [W]hat’s clear is that working-class voters weren’t paying attention; they thought they were voting for lower grocery prices, not an assault on Social Security.
"And the fact that so many voters seemed oblivious to Clear signs about what Trump would do if he won ought to inform every discussion about how to oppose him. [snip]
"On one side there are relatively conservative Democrats and Democratic-leaning pundits telling us that the party must move to the center. But when it comes to Social Security, which is really important to most Americans, Democrats — who want to preserve the program — are very much in the center, while Republicans — who want to kill it — are extremists. Yet last November, the voters who have most to lose from this extremism didn’t notice.
"On the other side there are progressives who argue that Democrats are in trouble because they abandoned the working class. But even if you think that Democrats have been too friendly toward globalization, or deregulation, or low corporate taxes, the Democratic Party has been far more favorable to workers than the Republicans. The Biden administration was especially pro-worker. But working-class voters didn’t notice.
"What all this says is that the priority for Democrats isn’t to pursue whatever you think is a better policy mix. It is to get voters to notice.
"This almost certainly requires new leadership, if only to help persuade voters that the party isn’t run by tired careerists. The problem with someone like Chuck Schumer isn’t that he’s too centrist, it’s that he’s a 74-year-old (writes a stripling of 72) whose instinct is to try to deftly navigate his way through a political landscape that demands not careful calculation but vocal, visible outrage, both to motivate the Democratic base and to get other voters’ attention.
"And the attack on Social Security is something that should both inspire outrage and offer an opportunity to connect with working-class Americans."
As the MAGAt Republicans close in on their goal of gutting Social Security (a "Ponzi scheme," as President Musk has called it), the job for Democrats is, as Krugman stresses, to get voters to notice what's being done to the social safety net that they've invested in.
It's a lesson to apply to every MAGAt Republican effort to create a dystopian, fascist America: Keep the message simple, keep repeating that message, and get the best messengers to deliver the message with passion and conviction.
BONUS: Tengrain has more on what needs to be done.
(Photo: simple message delivered with passion by grassroots / Adam Gray, AP photo)
No comments:
Post a Comment