Can Dems learn new tricks?
Anyone who’s read my morning missives for any time has seen me both promote the Democratic Party and criticize its many shortcomings again and again recently. (I was a DNC convention delegate last summer.) Among its biggest problems is cultural. Not popular culture, party culture.
In “Inside the Democrats’ Reboot,” Charlotte Alter heard what I heard watching the DNC’s winter meeting. Nothing new:
Many of these conversations made my head hurt. Democrats kept presenting cliches as insights and old ideas as new ideas. Everybody said the same things; nobody seemed to be really saying anything at all. But in between feeble platitudes about “showing up and listening” and “fighting for the working class” and “meeting people where they are,” a few common threads emerged.
Democrats know they have a branding problem that transcends policy, messaging, or leadership questions.
Ladder climbers, not leaders
Rep. Pat Ryan, 43, of New York tells Time magazine, “All the people that are in formal leadership roles,” says Ryan, “are ladder climbers, not leaders.” Top leadership is not only old, but the culture that put them there is sclerotic, observes Alter. Many are the product of a process by which idealistic young activists, as I’ve written, “slowly become the kind of politicians people love to hate.”
Alter looks at how that may be changing. Or not. Talk is cheap, and for the time this is mostly talk. What Democrats need to do to regain their footing, some tell Time, is to move away from narrowcasting on policies that activate its base toward more universal themes.
Senator Ruben Gallego of Arizona puts his simply: “I’m here to bring you more security: economic security, and your personal family security.”
For Gallego that means talking about the cost of living and a harder stance on immigration than most of his caucus:
Like Gallego, many moderate Democrats have particular critiques of the party’s economic message. “I think Democrats have made this mistake of saying, ‘I’m here to help the little guy.’ Nobody wants to be called the little guy,” says Representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, 36, who has won twice in a red district in Washington State. “The fatal mistake in politics is condescension.” She’s not the only Democrat who thinks the party erred by targeting their messaging to the most marginalized, rather than the vast, struggling middle class. Nearly 70% of voters in battleground districts think Democrats are “too focused on being politically correct,” according to brutal internal polling shared with top party leaders in March, while a majority think Democrats are not looking out for working people and are “more focused on helping other people than people like me.”
Identity politics has driven the party, not so much to the left as out of the mainstream. The identity that matters is a majority of voters identifying with the Democratic brand. Polls show that people identify with the policies, but not the party.
“Democrats in general are always fearful of messing up,” he said. As I’ve emphasized here, timorousness doesn’t look to voters like leadership. Voters especially now want boldness.
The message from activists tired of waiting for the party to get their heads back in the game is: “Do better, or we’ll replace you with people who will.” But that shift has been a long time coming:
Many Democrats are not eager only for generational change. They want change at the top of the party as well. Some see Jeffries and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer as too deferential to established norms or too reluctant to use procedural powers to slow down Trump’s agenda. Both are underwater in public-opinion polls. Only 27% of Americans approve of congressional Democrats overall—the lowest number since CNN started asking in 2008. “I think the party is hyperfocused on message and forgetting about the messenger,” says Amanda Litman, the co-founder of Run for Something, which recruits new Democrats to run for office and supports them with training, mentorship, and campaign tools. “They’ve missed the way people consume information. You look for a person, not an institution.” A sclerotic party establishment has created a culture of waiting your turn. “All the people that are in formal leadership roles,” says Pat Ryan, “are ladder climbers, not leaders.”
A new kind of leadership
Alter observes that one surprising takeaway from her conversations is how “Sanders-style economic populism had gained traction with politicians not normally associated with the Sanders wing of the party.” That, after all, was Sanders’ goal all along. The popularity of his and AOC’s Fighting Oligarchy tour proves he’s moved the needle.
Rep. Greg Casar, 36, of Texas tells Time, “People are even more opposed to what Donald Trump is doing than eight years ago … But they want a new kind of leadership from the Democratic Party.” One that looks more like and sounds more like a broader swath of voters.
Some older Dems are slowly adapting to the new media environment. They are, Alter sees, learning to “worry less about who they’re offending and more about who they’re reaching.” But the internal culture is still over-cautious and resistant. And the leadership is still not up to the moment. They still want to apply lessons learned in the 20th-century to 21st-century political challenges.
Talk is cheap. Now deliver.
* * * * *
Have you fought dictatorship today?
No Kings Day, June 14th
The Resistance Lab
Choose Democracy
Indivisible: A Guide to Democracy on the Brink
You Have Power
Chop Wood, Carry Water
Thirty lonely but beautiful actions
Attending a Protest Surveillance Self-Defense