Another time for choosing
Indulge me. I still struggle to get campaigns here to rethink their strategy and to cast a wider net for “low-propensity” voters Democrats here cannot win statewide races without. Without getting into the weeds, a short thread by Anat Shenker-Osorio gets at what I was already recommending. It’s related to how Jay Rosen a full year ago recommended the press approach this election: Not the odds, but the stakes.
For individual voters, the stakes are also high, but democracy may seem an abstraction. Shenker-Osorio’s observations are based on preliminary findings, but what seems to move voters is reframing how Democrats pitch their message: from vote for us to vote for you.
“We must shift folks from seeing election as contest between 2 (or more) people to seeing it as fork in road between 2 different futures.”
It is old hat to ask people if they are better off now than they were four years ago. But they might disagree that they are, no matter how much data you throw at them. It’s almost reflex on the left to try to browbeat people into submission with our supposed superior command of the facts. But it’s the facts of people’s own lives, not abstractions about the economy or democracy, that matter most to them.
This is a time for choosing. Yes, it’s a choice between democracy and neofascism. Aided by the Dobbs decision, President Biden argued that successfully in 2022. But what motivates people more, Shenker-Osorio suggests, is how those alternate futures could impact them.
Reporters cannot seem to resist framing elections as horse races. Who’s gaining ground?Who’s falling behind? What do oddsmakers say? And public opinion polls?
And campaigns? Campaigns dispatch their volunteers to people’s doorsteps like Jehovah’s Witnesses, tracts in hand, to evangelize for their candidates. Enthusiasm for particular candidates or parties is why volunteers volunteer. Sure, this year there is more deep canvassing going on earlier to build relationships with prospective voters. But ultimately, candidates want their volunteers to pitch them.
But registrants disenchanted with both parties, the growing ranks of unaffiliated registrants in particular, are less moved by the rah-rah for this team or that candidate. Shenker-Osorio’s preliminary findings back up what I’ve been suggesting: showing voters a “concrete list of the VOTER FACING impacts of Trump’s agenda is what most moves them. So, the things he plans that will hurt them, as opposed to undermining ‘democracy’ or institutions.” Your future is on the ballot.
Voting this fall has to be about the reluctant voter, not about this or that team or this or that candidate. Candidates are stand-ins for alternate futures. Voters get to choose which.
But try asking campaigns built around individual politicians and their egos to approach voters about voting for their own futures and not the candidates’. It’s their mugs on those glossy palm cards. That’s a tall ask. It requires rethinking and reformulating how they’ve traditionally campaigned. It’s tough teaching yellow dogs new tricks.
J.V. Last argued yesterday that the Air Force’s “platform dependence” leaves it not nimble enough to be fulfill its core mission in the age of cheap drones. Prioritizing the means (pricey manned aircraft) over the end (defending American troops and interests) is a mistake. There’s a lesson there for Democrats stuck in campaigning the only way they know how. This is a time for choosing for them as well.
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