Making popular what needs to be said
A couple of comments heard on Saturday.
The first was from a friend who teaches a political science class for local seniors. There is fear in their eyes, he said.
The second was from a retired Democratic official who asked if I’d heard the comment that while Democrats were buying TV ads, Republicans were buying TV stations. I had.
With those quotes in mind, let’s look at Dan Pfeiffer’s post today. It should be lost on no one that Russian President Vladimir Putin, the former KGB officer in East Germany, is a big influence on Donald John Trump, convicted felon and corrupt businessman. The Trump administration’s crackdown started with allegedly violent undocumented immigrants. It expanded to visa-holders, work-visa-holders, and green card holders. He’s moved on to American citizens like night follows day.
Pfeiffer writes (there appears to be no paywall):
Last week in the Oval Office, surrounded by his cabinet and the media, President Donald Trump signed two executive orders that instructed his Department of Justice to investigate two individuals for the crime of criticizing the regime. Miles Taylor is a former Trump staffer who anonymously wrote an op-ed criticizing Trump before going public and becoming a vocal critic of Trump. Christopher Krebs was a cybersecurity official in the first Trump Administration who dared to push back on the big lie that the 2020 election was stolen.
There’s no inkling or evidence that either committed any crime. No allegation, no probable cause. All they did was publicly criticize the President of the United States. For 250 years, being free to criticize those in power was fundamental to our democracy. Not anymore. Not with Trump back in the White House.
Wonder why those seniors are worried? If this were happening in another country, we would see it for what it is, Pfeiffer laments, a “democracy falling into dictatorship.” But a lot of Americans are in see-no-evil mode when it comes to the land of the free.
Democrats, for their part, are hung up on the price of eggs and hold onto kitchen table issues like a security blanket while treating “voters who care about democracy” as “college-educated political junkies” already on our team.
There are powerful survey tools out there now that “tell us what voters already care about. Perhaps the question Democrats should ask is, what do we want them to care about?”
“Voters are not sufficiently alarmed by American democracy crumbling,” he adds. “Instead of accepting that premise, Democrats should try to change it.”
Or as Anat Shenker-Osorio complained years ago, “Democrats rely on polling to take the temperature; Republicans use polling to change it.” For us, good messaging is not about saying what is popular, it is about making popular what needs to be said.
The U.S. turning into East Germany just might fit that latter category. While admitting some biases and possible errors, Pfeiffer makes a stab at what’s next:
- No Fear: Senator Chris Murphy is one of few Democrats who have taken up this mantle. Despite a very successful record as a senator, Murphy was largely unknown only a few months ago. His national profile has grown significantly because he has become a Paul Revere of sorts — clearly and authentically explaining what Trump is doing and why it’s dangerous. He is sincere. Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have taken a different approach, talking about the dangers of Trump through a class prism. Once again, it’s authentic.
What do these messages have in common with each other — and with Obama in 2008? They are told without fear or political calculus. These are scary times; and Democrats seem more scared of their own shadow than whatever Trump is doing.
- Don’t Try to Fuse Two Messages Together: The worst decision in politics is no decision. Pick a lane. Some of the Democratic messaging has been too cute by half. When Trump pardoned the January 6th rioters, Democratic politicians flooded Twitter with things like “Pardoning rioters does nothing to lower the price of eggs.” You can see how they got to this point. The communications director says we have to talk about what’s in the news to get coverage and the pollster says high egg prices are a top concern. Voila, a terrible message. Pardoning violent criminals who beat police officers is bad enough. No need to inauthentically tie it to egg prices.
- Corruption Explains Everything: Democrats can’t abandon talking about the economy, but we can’t also stand by silently as Trump shreds the Constitution. The best way to do both is to explain why Trump is abridging people’s rights, weaponizing government, punishing speech, and pushing through his agenda without regard for the courts or Congress, all in service of the ultra-wealthy and politically connected. It’s a government of, by, and for the billionaires. Nothing and no one else matters. They are the ones who will get the tax cuts, the handouts, and the preferential treatment. It’s pay to play, and only the wealthiest of Americans can afford it.
Everyone else must fend for themselves. Trump will destroy every entity and institution that stands in the way of his power. The more power he has, the better things will be for Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and the rest of the oligarchs ruling America.- Running on a Reform Agenda: This is easier said than done, but Democrats need to do more than identify the problem. We need solutions. We need a reform agenda to address money in politics and corporate influence in government. We also need to ensure that someone like Trump can never again muster such an assault on our system. In the coming weeks and months, I will be writing more about what our reform agenda could look like, but there is no question in my mind that we need one. Having a plan to fix a broken system is the best way to avoid becoming the defenders of the broken system.
So now what? So now change it.
The trick is, as my friend observed, while Democrats were buying TV ads, Republicans were buying TV stations. Having a good message is one thing. Getting voters to hear it in this media environment is another. The left still has a “tree falls in the forest” problem.
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