Anarchy rules in American cities. One heard they are “on fire” (Rep. Clay Higgins, R-LA) and “burned out” (Rep. Ralph Norman, R-SC) in Monday’s House hearing on the U.S. Postal Service. That false narrative continued into Monday evening’s opening of the Republican national convention. Differences in world view between Democrats and Republicans could hardly be more stark.
The Democrats’ national convention had too little detail on policy, someone wrote on social media the other day. Joe Biden’s web site has plenty. The Democrats’ 2020 platform has nearly 100 pages of it. The independent complained he didn’t see enough on TV.
Still, not even Republican pollster Frank Luntz can say what Republicans stand for: “For the first time in my life, I don’t know the answer.” The Republicans’ platform is whatever the acting president tweets today. And the opposite if he tweets that tomorrow.
Joe Biden’s convention spotlighted everyday Americans who knew him from the community or the commuter train, someone else observed (in one of those tweets that vanish when the app refreshes). Opening night at the Republican convention, the tweet said, spotlighted citizens who owed Trump for some official act and came to lavish praise on him for it.
“The white supremacy was barely disguised,” Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin writes of young Charlie Kirk’s speech last night. Representing Turning Point USA and Students for Trump, Kirk called Trump “the bodyguard of Western civilization.” Rubin responded:
Let me translate: Anyone who is not a White American is foreign, alien and “the other.”
So it goes. During a commercial Monday night, I changed channels from Star Trek: First Contact in which the Borg take over the Enterprise. Catching a few moments of the RNC convention, it was hard to tell the difference. The Borg traveled back in time to rewrite human history. Republicans spent the evening trying to rewrite history in real time.
Which is to say trying to have a policy debate across this gulf, while not exactly futile, is not necessarily productive. Democrats don’t need to win an ideological battle. They just need Trump leaners to vote their way or stay home in November.
To do that, Democrats have to listen to them (more difficult these days), not talk at them. And not in the cities which are blue strongholds but in rural America where Republicans eat Democrats’ lunch at the polls. It’s not necessarily political conversations needed, but simple everyday contact of the sort Biden had that built familiarity and trust. When conservatives I don’t know hear I am a Democrat, I break the ice by asking for credit for keeping my tail tucked in and my horns ground down.
Statewide campaigns make a mistake by placing so much emphasis on turnout in blue cities where voters are easier to reach. It may be efficient, but not necessarily effective. Too little attention to rural America sends a message: we don’t care about you.
Well, Democrats will care plenty when they carry statewide races but lose control of 2021 redistricting to state legislatures dominated by Republicans from rural districts.
A Facebook video from Down Home NC spotlights the issue. Luckily, they were working at developing rural relationships for several years before the pandemic hit:
Democrats don’t necessarily have to win those counties or districts outright to make a difference. Sometimes they just have to shave GOP victory margins.
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