What’s that old presentation advice? Tell them you are going to tell them, tell them, and tell them you told them? It’s the last bit that trips up Democrats. It was never a problem for Donald Trump. His entire presidency he took credit for things that occurred during Barack Obama’s tenure or even long before.
Plenty of advice has come Joe Biden’s way urging him to “go big” when he assumes the presidency. Biden himself has given signs he wants to do just that when he takes office.
James Downie of the Washington Post urged the once more-cautious Biden to go big in October, reminding Biden that the Obama administration missed its chance to do more to pull the country out of the Bush recession. The COVID-19 recession is not a time to repeat that mistake as Republicans rediscover their faith in balanced budgets. “Others might worry about the bill,” Downie wrote, “but if Biden doesn’t go big, the country will pay the price.”
So will Democrats in 2022.
Gregory Daco of Oxford Economics recommended Biden and proposed Treasury secretary Janet Yellin go big on social services and infrastructure. Given the background of Biden’s team, he may be able to go big if he has control of the Senate or, if not, if he can get help from moderate Republicans in the Senate. (Good luck with that.)
“Biden and Harris must move quickly to go big and to be bold — including using the levers of executive power when Congress will not act,” Rahna Epting, Executive Director of MoveOn advised in The Hill. “People from all walks of life are in pain. Government action is needed, and it is needed now. Business as usual or a return to a pre-Trump ‘normal’ simply will not do.”
Bryce Covert advised last week in the New York Times that if Biden is savvy, he will go big and then brag about it.
Florida may have awarded its electoral votes to Donald Trump, but by 20 points Floridians voted to raise the state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour. “A higher wage, in other words, actually got more votes than either presidential candidate,” she wrote. Two-thirds of Americans support it.
In blue, purple, and red states, voters passed Democratic priorities. Medicaid expansion passed in Idaho, Missouri, Nebraska and Utah. By 80 percent, voters support paid family leave.
The problem is the public does not connect Democratic policy proposals it supports with Democrats, Covert writes. “Which party consistently champions a higher minimum wage? Mr. Biden’s. Which works against it and even has some members who have called for the current minimum to be abolished altogether? The other guys.”
Biden has to tell Americans he is going big, go big, and tell them he went big.
Covert explains:
Mr. Biden can get a jump start without Congress by requiring higher wages and paid family leave at federal contractors, increasing living standards for hundreds of thousands of Americans. But the rest of it will require cooperation from Congress. Should Democrats prevail in Georgia and control the Senate, these should be among the first items on their list, and even if they don’t, they shouldn’t just be dropped in a spasm of premature pessimism.
The president-elect can’t just act, however. He has to tell the public that this is what the Democratic Party stands for. Mr. Biden’s former boss recently made a point he should heed. “In my first couple of years in office, I think I had an unwarranted faith that if we did the right thing and implemented good policies, then people would know,” Barack Obama told NPR’s Michel Martin. “We didn’t sell it hard enough.”
Mr. Biden needs to go bold, especially on Americans’ very real material needs, and he needs to brag about it when he does.
The outgoing president bragged about things he did not even do and MAGA supporters lapped it up. Biden should not emulate Trump’s bald-faced lying, but he should be similarly bold about reminding voters what he’s done for them. He has to tell them he’s going to do it. He has to do it. Then he has to tell them he did it. Loudly.
And when President Joe Biden fails to deliver, he has to tell voters just as loudly who is responsible for stopping him from helping them.