A clip the other day from Deep State Radio encapsulated where the Biden human infrastructure bill is failing. Yes, the elements in it are wildly popular. But between talk of government shutdowns and the bipartisan infrastructure framework (BIF) and Build Back Better (BBB) and $3.5 trillion and other Washington-ese, the public does not know which is which or what is on the line for them.
David Rothkopf summed up the problem [timestamp 22:20}:
This has been so far communications debacle, and the reason I think it’s a communications debacle is I don’t think anybody knows what we are talking about. I mean, with the infrastructure bill, it’s roads and its ports. It’s things. We know what a bridge is, and we do. But this other … nobody knows what reconciliation is. Nobody knows what Build Back Better is. And when you say 3.5 trillion, the Republican say, oh, that’s spending and taxing and a safety net. And that’s what the bill is to them. It’s not Grandma having her teeth. It’s not enabling kids to have early childhood education. It’s not free junior college. The Democrats have failed. And I quote this over and over again, but my old friend Don Baer from the Clinton administration would always say, we’re real, real good at coming up with a thousand reasons to do anything, but never just one.
Reflecting on the lengthy Affordable Care Act fight, E.J. Dionne points out that if you leave milk out too long, it curdles. That’s the risk here when the messaging and debate centers around process rather than on outcomes.
The public doesn’t care about process. They just want to know what’s in it for them.
I’m going back to the brownie example yet again:
“Inspire through outcome, not process,” says progressive messaging guru Anat Shenker-Osorio, citing an example from a pollster.
“When we are walking through the grocery aisle and want to buy brownies,” she begins, “what is the image on the brownie box? The brownie! What’s not staring you in the face? The recipe! … We need to stop messaging our policy and talk about what our policy achieves.”
[…]
In the 1978 comedy Heaven Can Wait, quarterback Joe Pendleton (Warren Beatty) is “accidentally taken away from his body by an overanxious angel before he was meant to die.” He returns in the body of an eccentric millionaire. Pendleton explains to a boardroom full of executives why their tuna fishing operation should spend more to save “porpoises” (dolphins) and avoid lawsuits and controversy. One “suit” brings up the added expense.
“But we don’t care how much it costs,” Pendleton argues. “We just care how much it makes.”
The same for universal health care. We just care how much it saves and how many people’s lives. Talk about that. Talk about how much more money families will have in their pockets at the end of each month. Talk about not worrying the next health care crisis will bankrupt you.
Your kids will get well and stay well. You’ll be able to go to the doctor without risking your home. We’ll save 68,000 lives per year. One of them might be yours.
If only we were talking about universal health care now. Are we? Who knows? And that’s the problem.
Forget the bill’s costs and paid-fors. Drop the proposed cost over ten years. What does the bill do?
- Adds dental, vision and hearing to Medicare
- Lowers cost of prescription drugs
- Child care benefit for working families
- Universal Pre-K
- Federal paid and medical leave benefit
- Expands child tax credit
- Tuitionless community college
- Extends enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies
- Combats climate change
- Invests more in infrastructure and jobs
- And more
For gods’ sake, where are there even memes promoting those good things? I Googled “build back better meme” and got a flood of right-wing memes smearing the aliterative branding Biden thought so easy to remember. Easy to remember, yes, but, as an exasperated Rothkopf notes, telling the audience nothing about what his proposal does.
The White House needs preparations in place now to declare victory for whatever Democrats manage to pass and to trumpet it from here to 2022 and beyond. “If this is perceived as a flop,” says Rothkopf, and Democrats lose majorities in the House and Senate in 2022, “democracy is screwed.”
Biden’s failure to barnstorm for elements of his signature agenda leaves the media to drive the narratives that are most convenient and least illuminating, says Norm Ornstein of American Enterprise. What we get instead are stories of process, conflict, and dissention in the ranks.
Sen. Joe Manchin wants his infrastructure bill. Likely some compromise will be made on the size of the final Build Back Better legislation that will get his vote. But whatever Biden and over 250 congressional Democrats do, one curtsy and thumbs-down from Sen. Kyrsten Sinema could sink it all.