QOTD -- Making Republicans Pay A Price

 

"... The angry townhalls are back. This time, voters are furious about the chaotic, clumsy, and counter-productive cuts from Elon Musk’s DOGE Commission.

"Voters find themselves disillusioned as townhalls in Georgia and across the country reveal the so-called populist they elected to cut prices is instead cutting their services, their government aid, and laying off their friends and neighbors. Some Republican members of Congress are complaining publicly; and many more are privately expressing their concerns to the White House.

"It’s early, but this is clear evidence of a grassroots backlash to Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s assault on our government. Democrats must define Trump’s presidency, push back on the cuts, and regain political momentum. [snip]

"Putting the world’s richest man, who also happens to be a giant attention magnet, in charge of making unpopular cuts was a big mistake. Trump is leading with his chin. And Democrats are about to land an uppercut." -- former Obama adviser Dan Pfeiffer, in "The Message Box" on Substack, telling us "How to Make the GOP Pay a Price for DOGE."  We've intentionally left out the "how to" part, so you need to check out Pfeiffer's four messaging strategies for Democrats to land that uppercut to the Malignant Fascist's jaw.  To the extent we can each amplify those strategies in the days ahead, Pfeiffer urges us to do so through our social media or personal interactions, grassroots style.

What is also desperately needed are competent, compelling messengers.  (This is where we say we envy parliamentary-style government, where you have "shadow" cabinet members and a "shadow" prime minister who speak in unified opposition. Sigh.)  We like what Reps. Jamie Raskin, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Jasmine Crockett are doing, as well as Sen. Chris Murphy and Elizabeth Warren, and Govs. JB Pritzker, Tim Walz, and Janet Mills, to name a few.  It would help if the DNC would take a few moments away from issuing multi-page memos that no one reads to coordinate something like a forceful resistance with consistent messengers and persistent messaging.

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)

QOTD: Dems Must Stress Freedom, Choice On Ballot

 

Bradley Beychok, in today's Salon.com, urging that the polls this far out be ignored, and for Dems to focus on exposing the extreme anti-abortion agenda of the MAGA cult. 

"In red states and blue states, women voters have a unified message for Trump and his band of merry extremists: We’re not having it. Seven states have voted to protect abortion access since the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade.. Voters, especially women voters, are fed up and don’t want to support Republicans. The results at the ballot box prove that. 

Trump may be able to shoot someone on 5th Avenue and walk, but as the face of the anti-choice movement, he doesn't stand a chance of stopping this force. He nominated the justices who tore down Roe. He promised to punish people who had abortions. He’s been an anti-abortion extremist from the start.

Protecting democracy and reproductive freedom are the key issues fueling the electoral juggernaut that is women."

 

BONUS:  See another prescription here.

Fighting For Your Freedoms And Democracy

Excerpt from the Washington Post's Greg Sargent interview with Congressman-elect Pat Ryan (D-NY), whose win in a swing, bellweather district showcases the winning Democratic messaging going into November:

... Ryan ran ads highlighting his military service and linking it to the fight to defend our freedoms, stating unambiguously that those freedoms include “a woman’s right to choose” and that he’ll defend it in Congress.

“We centered the concept of freedom,” Ryan told me in an interview. “When rights and freedoms are being taken away from people,” he said, they “stand up and fight.” Ryan said that for voters, the decision “ripping away reproductive rights from tens of millions of people” was “visceral.”  [snip]

I asked Ryan if the Democratic Party should full-throatedly argue that electing Democrats is essential to getting abortion rights codified in federal law. He said it should, while suggesting Democrats should link this to “the fight for freedom on multiple fronts,” under an umbrella argument that Republicans will make us “less safe” and “less free.”

Ryan suggested Democrats should also try to reclaim the idea of patriotism. “Patriotism to me means, when your fellow Americans’ rights are being taken away, you stand up and fight, not just for yourself, but for them as well.”  (our emphasis)

Here it is, in one form or another:  Democrats Are Fighting for Your Freedoms and Democracy.

It's been bubbling up all Spring and Summer, with the egregious Dobbs decision by the ultra-MAGA Republican Supreme Court crystallizing the extremism of their party and what's at stake for other freedoms in the future.  As Ryan smartly implies, "freedom" is a concept that also keys into the fight to defend our democracy, the rule of law, and free and fair elections;  for common sense gun laws that keep us safer;  for environmental laws that protect our country and planet;  for a "stronger, fairer" economy that includes fair wages and affordable health care, etc.

In the days leading up to the Labor Day starting point for all- out campaigning, the Democratic Party seems to have found its legs and a winning overriding message.  Keep pounding it and prove the Trumpists and Beltway pundits forever looking in the rear view mirror wrong in November.

(Image:  Bingo!)

Do We Have A Message For You (?)

Dan Ancona looks at the recent special election in NC-9 and extrapolates it to a larger issue with Democratic messaging (we've cherry- picked from his thread;  please check out all his tweets on the subject):

In the summer of 2016 a friend of mine who works for a big advertising firm (and is a 9/11 survivor, so maybe this is a good day for this) asked me why the Dems ads suck so much. I said, good question.

I had no idea what kind of Mr Toad's Wild Ride I was signing up for. 1/11

— Dan Ancona, Extraordinary Western Liberal (@DanAncona) September 11, 2019

What I found pretty quickly was that the problem was *not* that Dems weren't using enough AI or psychographics or advanced stuff. Those tactics help on the margins and campaigns should absolutely be looking into them, but their absence wasn't the big problem. 2/11

— Dan Ancona, Extraordinary Western Liberal (@DanAncona) September 11, 2019

The much bigger problem was this strong, overwhelming tendency to avoid making an effective argument. Basic blocking and tackling stuff, in terms of marketing: defining and positioning your product/worldview and explaining the benefits in a clear, emotionally compelling way. 3/11

— Dan Ancona, Extraordinary Western Liberal (@DanAncona) September 11, 2019

Fast-forward to #NC09. @McCreadyForNC seems like a genuinely nice, intelligent guy and someone who would be an excellent Rep. Part of R message against him was "My opponent's allies are clowns." His response? "I'll work with the people calling my allies clowns."

See the problem? pic.twitter.com/aQ07J53ihB

— Dan Ancona, Extraordinary Western Liberal (@DanAncona) September 11, 2019

Persuading the middle vs mobilizing the base is a false dichotomy. Good messages do both. (Truly great messages demoralize the opponent's base, too.) The beginning of this @chrislhayes podcast makes this argument as well as I've seen it made - https://t.co/EeJzRWzoYg 10/11

— Dan Ancona, Extraordinary Western Liberal (@DanAncona) September 11, 2019

2020 is going to be a dirty, gut- punch election.  Democrats better have their messaging together, and it better be clear and powerful and aggressively repeated. 

BONUS:  E.J. Dionne, Jr., correctly defines Trump's gut- punch messaging, as it was used in NC-9, and a response --

... Trump gave a preview of 2020 with incendiary fearmongering, accusing McCready of favoring the release of “thousands of dangerous criminal aliens into your communities” who were guilty of “sexual assault, robbery, drug crimes, kidnapping and homicide.” And the Democrats, in Trump’s rendition, became “the socialist Democrat Party.”

Trump knows he can’t win by offering a sunny rendition of his time in office. He has to turn his opponents into ghouls. The polls make clear he will lose if 2020 is a referendum on him. He can win only if he makes it a referendum on the Democrats. Their job is to make that as difficult as possible.

Are they/ we up to it?

Democrats' Mid-Term Strategy: It's All About Republican Corruption

With less than 5 months (!) to go to the 2018 mid- term elections, the Democratic Party thinks it has a unifying, overarching message that will resonate with voters.  "A Better Deal for Our Democracy," unveiled yesterday, focuses on Republican corruption in three areas: voting rights and access, campaign finance, and pay- to- play politics.  While issues such as health care, women's reproductive rights, income inequality, and off- shoring American jobs will play significant roles in individual district and Senate races, Republican corruption and the party's unwillingness to hold kleptocrat and crime family boss Donald "Rump" Trump accountable in any way, shape or form, polls very well across the political spectrum (as the linked article shows).

The beauty of this strategy is that it can accommodate and fold in what is likely to be a summer of revelations and indictments coming from the Mueller investigation. The message can be boiled down to a single notion, Adam Serwer points out,

There are not many Trump scandals. There is one Trump scandal. Singular: the corruption of the American government by the president and his associates, who are using their official power for personal and financial gain rather than for the welfare of the American people, and their attempts to shield that corruption from political consequences, public scrutiny, or legal accountability. 

Speaking for ourselves, it wouldn't matter much what the Democrats' message is for the mid- terms (and we suspect that's true for most other politically- woke folks).  We're going to vote straight Democratic ticket from County Clerk to Congress to Governor.  To do otherwise is to vote against what's left of American democracy.

For those less politically in- touch but "reachable," a message stressing Rump's and his cronies' endemic and blatant corruption -- to the detriment of those who play by the rules -- can be easily absorbed, especially if it's paired (where most effective) with Democratic proposals on economic and social issues.  But the messaging has to be clear, simple and repeated.  Democrats need to get this right;  the stakes are too high for them to fail.

BONUS:

A perennial theme, really works well here -- exposes the "drain the swamp" hypocrisy and ties GOP Congress to Trump. https://t.co/jFXcPt4U1p

— Kevin M. Kruse (@KevinMKruse) May 22, 2018

Great News  https://t.co/pbjV8RTIxd

— Dan Pfeiffer (@danpfeiffer) May 21, 2018

(h/t Balloon Juice)

Quote Of The Day - Barriers

E.J. Dionne, Jr., has some good advice this morning:

The Democrats’ feuding factions could start by laying off the self-righteous preening about how they are, respectively, so principled and so practical. The truth is that the aspirational left can’t win without the pragmatic center, and the center can’t win without the left.  

Instead, they should be highlighting what the shutdown made clear. In mobilizing raw nativism, Trump and the Republican leadership underscored the extent to which they are hogtied by their party’s right-wing extremists. As a result, the GOP is incapable of temperate governance and compromise. The barrier to sensible legislation in Washington is not a left that lacks any institutional authority, but the hard-line right in the White House and in the House of Representatives.  (our emphasis)

That nails it pretty well. 

BONUS:  Infidel has a good read on the subject, too.

Quote And Questions Of The Day (UPDATED)

Quote:

At a caucus meeting in a room just off the Senate floor, a group of vulnerable Senate Democrats told their leader, Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.), that the cost of their effort to protect young undocumented immigrants known as “dreamers” from deportation was rapidly escalating. It could imperil what was otherwise a promising outlook in November’s midterm election — and with it, the Democrats’ hopes of ending their exile from power. 

With the shutdown heading into its third day, they were feeling the heat and finding it hard to control the messaging war.

Questions:  With the considerable resources of the Democratic Party (including a record $105 million raised by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 2017), those of associated interest groups, and our talent pool of progressive writers, filmmakers and other creative people, what does it take to "control the messaging war," and why haven't Democrats crafted a strong, smart, humane message that speaks to American values?

The prospect of a fight over Dreamers/ DACA that would involve funding the government at some point could not have caught Democrats this flat- footed, could it have?

We need to stick together and do better.

UPDATE:  Steve M. at No More Mister Nice Blog has a messaging suggestion that makes sense.

Morning Read - Keep The Pressure On Schumer

Jonathan Chait is keeping an eye on Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D- Wall Street), and isn't liking what he's seeing:

There are good, sound reasons why Democrats in Congress might want to cut some deals with Donald Trump. Maybe they can persuade him to stay in the Paris climate accords, or to preserve Obamacare with some tolerable revisions, in which case giving him bipartisan cover might be worthwhile. But Charles Schumer, the Senate Majority Leader, seems to have a completely misguided understanding of how the calculation works. Obviously Schumer is not providing candid accounts of his political strategy to the public. But a series of reports from Democrats who have spoken with him paints a consistent account of a leader who thinks his party’s best chance of survival lies in working with Trump.  (our emphasis)

Chait goes on to outline the basic elements of a "stop Trump" survival strategy for Democrats, one that Schumer, a retail pol who values dealmaking over standing up for principles, is already in danger of abandoning. It's worth a read.

We admit we're not fans of Schumer's to begin with (to say the least). We were disheartened when Senate Democrats, perhaps swayed by Schumer's ability to dole out campaign funds in his role as DSCC chair, was elected Minority Leader rather than Sen. Dick Durbin, or any other plausible candidate for that matter.  To us, the turning point was Schumer's stabbing President Obama in the back on the Iran nuclear deal in 2015, a disqualifying act of cowardice and petty calculation for a party leader. Beyond that, Schumer's cozy ties to a particular home constituency -- Wall Street -- are sending the wrong signals at a time when the plutocrats are already in full sway in neo- fascist oligarch Donald "Rump" Trump's emerging administration. Ideally, a progressive fighter in that position would have been better suited for these times, but...

Chait concludes,

If Schumer wants to prevent bad outcomes, he might cut some deals with Trump. But those deals are going to put his members at risk. If he wants to protect his red-state seats, he needs to drive down Trump’s approval ratings, which means fighting Trump on everything. It’s unfortunate for the Democratic Party that its most powerful elected official does not seem to understand the basic political dynamic.  (our emphasis)

Given his track record, we don't think Schumer is going to be the rock that garbage scow Trump founders on. That's why we all need to keep relentless pressure on him to stand up for progressive principles in this dangerous environment.

"I'm A Democrat"

Steven Perlstein rightly faults Democrats for their incompetence at not proudly "branding" their party, instead defensively playing into Republican themes.  Economy gathering steam?  Huh, wha?! Unemployment cut almost in half?  Shhh!  More people with affordable health insurance?  Quick, hide!  A twice popularly elected President heading your party? Run for your lives!

Here's what Perlstein would suggest as a "branding" message for Democrats (albeit waaaay too late for the mid-term elections):

“I’m a Democrat. In economic terms, that means I believe we need an active, competent government to ensure that prosperity is broadly shared by protecting ordinary people from the occasional excesses of markets and the undue power of businesses. That’s why Democrats are for raising the minimum wage, closing down corporate tax scams, putting tighter regulation on Wall Street and providing adequate funding for a world-class public education system from pre-K through college. And it’s why we are proud to have passed legislation to ensure that all Americans finally have a basic health insurance plan regardless of income or health or which company they work for. With oil and gas prices falling, it means I’m even willing to raise energy taxes by a few pennies per gallon so we can reinvest in the infrastructure — highways, ports, airports, subway systems, the electric grid, the Internet — on which all of us and the economy depend. Republicans are uninterested in, or unwilling to do, any of these things or in making any of these investments. Are you with them, or are you with us Democrats?”

Doesn't that sound remarkably like Sen. Elizabeth Warren's message?  As we've said before, if more Democrats had even a fraction of Sen. Warren's clarity, conviction and guts, they wouldn't be shaking in their boots every time an election rolled around.

Are We Confident In Our Confidence?

Ronald Brownstein writes in "Why Democrats Are So Confident":

It was a revealing convergence Monday when the five-member conservative Supreme Court majority delivered the Hobby Lobby contraception decision even as President Obama announced that House Republicans had officially shelved immigration reform. 

Both disputes reaffirmed the GOP's identity as the champion of the forces most resistant to the profound demographic and cultural dynamics reshaping American life—and Democrats as the voice of those who most welcome these changes. 

And both clashes captured a parallel shift: While Republicans took the offense on most cultural arguments through the late 20th century, now Democrats from Obama on down are mostly pressing these issues, confident that they represent an expanding majority of public opinion.

Beyond the Hobby Lobby decision and Republicans' scuttling of immigration reform, Democrats must do a better job of engaging public opinion on other issues where the majority is in agreement with them, such as gun control, marriage equality, equal pay, and climate change.  The "rear guard" right-wing victories being won in the Supreme Court and in some benighted red states are just that - victories by a philosophy in denial and in retreat.  As we've said many, many times before, Democrats need to be confident and forceful in their appeal to voters, because not only is adopting a defensive crouch self-defeating, but more importantly because a growing majority of voters agree with them on the issues.

We're not as sure as Brownstein is that Democrats "are so confident."  We'd like to see them going on the offensive and staying there for a change;  that would show us "confidence."

"Democrats Need To Start Out-Luntzing Republicans"

In his "New Rules," Bill Maher suggests that Democrats emulate Republican "truth abuser" "wordsmith" Frank "Dunce" Luntz (via C&L):