“Repetition is really important. And so is repetition,” a friend with more authority on the subject said last spring.
And so while we talked about this here on Saturday, E.J. Dionne repeats my advice again in the Washington Post:
Celebrate victory. Explain what you’ve achieved. Defend it from attack. Change the public conversation in your favor. Build on success to make more progress.
And for God’s sake, don’t moan about what might have been.
President Biden and Democrats in Congress are on the cusp of ending their long journey through legislative hell by enacting a remarkable list of practical, progressive programs.
This will confront them with a choice. They can follow the well-tested rules for champions of social change. Or they can repeat past mistakes by letting their opponents define what they have done and complain about the things left undone.
Nothing is signed yet. And what may or may not happen in tomorrow’s election in Virginia will affect how easy it is to sell the message Dionne recommends, but….
Democrats must grab control of the national conversation away from “manufactured issues that promote moral panic among conservatives,” and from caravans and paranoid narratives designed by the right to “sharpen divisions around race, immigration and culture,” and onto how competent government can inprove people’s lives.
There’s already enough grievance politics on the right. The left needn’t add its own grievances about what gets left out of the two large bills before Congress because of you-know-who.
Trump turned “infrastructure week” into a four-year joke. Biden and the Democrats will (fingers crossed) deliver with bipartisan support, including broadband expansion to parts of the country that saw little tangible return on their heavy emotional investment in Trumpism.
The Build Back Better bill includes a record investment to fight climate change, new programs for affordable housing and increased assistance to make postsecondary education more affordable. But it may have its most important social impact by turning talk about “family values” from a slogan used to tear us apart into support for families and kids. This could bring us together.
For families earning up to $150,000 annually, it extends the child tax credit of $300 a month for each child for parents of kids under 6, and $250 a month for each child aged 6 to 17. It’s a policy many conservatives have endorsed.
The bill caps child-care spending for most families at 7 percent of their income, and in what is a really big deal, it creates a universal pre-K program for all 3- and 4-year-olds. At the other end of life, the bill expands home care services for the elderly and provides for a new hearing benefit under Medicare. It also brings health coverage to up to 4 million Americans, many of them locked out of the benefits of Obamacare in Republican states.
None of this is financed by debt, and the measure underscores that the concentration of gains in income and wealth at the top mean that all of the bill’s benefits can be paid for with higher taxes on corporations and the very well-off. This may be the most underappreciated part of the deal: After years of rising inequality, those doing the best are being asked to kick in a little for those who are struggling.
Progressives wanted more. I wanted more. Indications are that Democrats in the Senate are still trying to get their apostate colleagues to agree to more. But if we end up with “70-80% of the cake,” as Oliver Willis wrote in 2015, it’s not 100% failure because we didn’t get the rest. (And it may be only 50%.)
Press Republicans on why they oppose helping families with child care costs, Medicare expansion and more.
Sen. Christopher A. Coons (D-Del.) argues the program is designed to reduce anxieties about “the things that keep families up at night.” It’s a good formulation. Which side proposes to increase insomnia levels?
We know too well that the GOP’s counter-argument will be that Democrats mean to pick the pockets of Real Americans™ to provide more for, you know, those people. The unwashed Irresponsibles. The fact that Biden’s packages won’t do that is no obstacle to Republicans lying. Are we as smart as we think we are? If so, we can defeat their narrative. That is, if we can be as disciplined and relentless in our own messaging as is the right.
Because repetition is really important. And so is repetition.