For all the negativity and serious challenges (and threats) ahead, a part of me is nostalgic for the America of the early 1960s when anything was still possible. At Crooks & Liars I reminisced once about a childhood trip west out Route 66:
Beside Route 66 and elsewhere, Eisenhower’s Interstate Highway System – the vast system of roads most of us take for granted – was taking shape from border to border and from coast to coast. It was a national project worthy of a great nation. The country was on the move.
Astronaut Alan Shepard was a national hero … America was going to the moon by the end of the decade. We needed scientists and engineers and new technologies. Between the G.I. Bill and government-backed student loans, America was making it more affordable than ever to get an education. It was good for you. It was good for your community. It was good for all of U.S.
President Joe Biden keeps invoking that spirit: “In America, anything is possible.” And over and over: “Look, we’re the United States of America. There’s nothing — not a single thing — we’re unable to do if we do it together.”
Last week again: “In America, we’ve always believed anything is possible. Anything is possible. We’ve got to reestablish that spirit. We’ve got to reestablish that sense of who we are. There’s no limit to what our people can do. There’s no limit to what our nation can do. If you think about this thing, it’s never been a good bet to bet against America.”
It sounds hackneyed and corny, like something old-fashioned your grandfather (or great-grandfather) might say. Biden admits people will get tired of hearing him say it. But I wonder if he isn’t onto something.
Democrats suck at message discipline. We all know it. They can never find a message that’s “sticky,” that supporters will repeat and carry into the community for them. Part of that is because lefties won’t repeat messages because it feels trite and unoriginal for people as smart as themselves. They won’t stay on message even if they have one. And when they try, they sound like they’re trying.
As forced and contentless as Biden’s “Build Back Better” framing is, his “anything is possible” boosterism sounds genuine and natural for him. If he repeats it enough, people might actually begin to believe it again. Some of us actually want to.
Dan Pfeiffer considers how Democrats might promote an economic message that’s actually sticky. Because despite historic progress on the economy, an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found “7 in 10 adults, including almost half of Democrats, believe the nation is headed in the wrong direction, as well as nearly 60 percent who view Biden’s stewardship of the economy negatively just nine months into his presidency.”
Don’t ignore people’s frustration or try to talk them out of it with macro-economic date, Pfeiffer warns.
At the bottom of Barack Obama’s polling in 2011,
The public fumed over the economy and directed this anger towards the president with little more than a year before reelection. While we hoped the economy would improve before the voters decided Obama’s fate, we knew we had few levers left to pull and even less control. As we charted out our political strategy, one specific metric in our internal polling focused on jobs. The public considered job creation the most important issue and believed Obama wasn’t sufficiently focused on the concern. With this strategy in mind, we decided to measure our success based on whether we could increase the number of people who believed Obama was focused on jobs. The goal was to get caught trying.
“One can actually get points for trying,” Pfeiffer suggests. “The voters want to know you are fighting for them.” Biden should make clear he is. Again and again.
But he cannot be the hero of the story without there being a villain.
Pfeiffer writes:
This isn’t a positive statement about our country, but the long arc of American politics is largely focused on anger management. In tough times, Americans go looking for someone to blame for economic distress. Republicans succeed when that blame is directed downwards towards poor people, immigrants, and the unemployed. Think of Ronald Reagan’s demagoguery of “welfare queens” and Donald Trump’s attacks on immigrants. Democrats succeed when the public rightfully understands corporate greed and irresponsibility are to blame.
Polls support that people already believe that and that Republicans more so than Democrats are the party of big business. Meantime, Republicans have “laid back, hoping no one remembered” that they advocate “corporate tax cuts paid for by cutting Medicare and Social Security.” With Democrats holding all the levers of power, Pfeiffer says, the media “is not incentivized to focus their limited attention on the Republicans.” Democrats have to remind people “that Republicans are an unacceptable alternative.” He suggests this:
Republicans are blocking bipartisan measures to lower your childcare, healthcare, and prescription drug costs because they refuse to ask a single corporation to pay a single penny more in taxes.
Fine, but where’s the contrast with Democrats? Touting economic figures alone won’t convince voters things are looking up. Democrats have to toot their own horns in ways that will feel unnatural until they don’t. They have to begin with their own accomplishments, pivot to how corporate-aligned Republicans mean to keep average people from getting the help they need, and then remind Americans that more is possible if they — what was it George W. Bush said? — stay the course.
Do it often enough and loud enough and maybe Americans will actually start believing it.