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An Open Letter to the Democratic Party [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2025-01-06

Dear Democratic Party,

I am applying for the position of head Democratic strategist. I understand that you have not posted such an opening yet but, the way I figure it, since you just lost a presidential election to the most deeply flawed candidate in American history, I can only assume you will fire your entire staff, and stop listening to whatever advisors and consultants you’ve previously used. If you don’t, you are beyond hope. In this case, please forward my letter to the appropriate office or person so that I can lead the strategic efforts needed to form a new political party.

Dear Democrats, let me begin with the obvious. Your goal is to win elections. You’re not very good at it. On a national level, you typically lose about as many as you win. This is largely because you’ve fallen into the Republican trap of “playing to your base.” This means you make little or no effort to campaign to those who typically vote Republican. I submit to you that this approach is not necessary. You can be successful by communicating with these voters the same way Republicans do. It’s not pretty, but it will work to your advantage. Understanding why and how, though, requires understanding the values of the American public and, in particular, the values of red states and certain demographic groups. It also involves understanding the psychology of political conservatives.

American values are put in perspective by the World Values Survey. This survey examines differences between cultures by measuring their attitudes on two dimensions, traditional values versus secular-rational value and survival values versus self-expression values. To quote the survey; “Despite many nuanced differences--human belief systems boil down to these two major dimensions of cross-cultural variation.”(see https://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/WVSNewsShow.jsp?ID=467) Most relevant to the present discussion are traditional values vs secular-rational values. These are defined below.

Traditional values emphasize the importance of religion, parent-child ties, deference to authority and traditional family values. People who embrace these values also reject divorce, abortion, euthanasia and suicide. These societies have high levels of national pride and a nationalistic outlook. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Values_Survey#cite_note-wvs-old-2)

Secular-rational values are the opposite of traditional values. Societies with these values place less emphasis on religion, traditional family values and authority. Divorce, abortion, euthanasia and suicide are seen as relatively acceptable. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Values_Survey#cite_note-wvs-old-2)

The World Values Survey portrays these values as a map, and here it is:

The authors of the survey note that “As populations become more prosperous, educated, live longer and give birth to fewer children, their descendants become more secular and self-expressive in their moral values, thus moving from the lower left to the upper right on the cultural map. https://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/WVSNewsShow.jsp?ID=467.

The authors also note, however, that “the United States is not a prototype of cultural modernization for other societies to follow, as some modernization writers assumed. In fact, the United States is a deviant case, having a much more traditional value system than any other postindustrial society except Ireland. On the traditional/secular dimension, the United States ranks far below other rich societies, with levels of religiosity and national pride comparable with those found in some developing societies.” https://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/WVSContents.jsp?CMSID=Findings

I suspect that Democrats and the left would like the US to be more like Sweden. I also suspect that Democrats and the left think it is more like Sweden. It’s not. When we look only at traditional vs rational-secular values, the US is more like Kazakhstan, Chile, and Singapore.

Obviously, the map refers to the United States as a whole. It does not describe different parts of the country. There are, after all, red and blue states. The former are more like those countries at the lower left hand side of the cultural map, and the latter are more like those at the upper right side. I live in a red area of the country. The Democrats were running ads promoting abortion rights where I live. The map tells us that these ads were never going to persuade voters here. As I will note below, these ads may even had had an effect that was opposite to the one intended.

The map also tells us something about the cultural values of different demographic groups within the U.S. Much has recently been made of how the Hispanic vote shifted towards the Republicans in the most recent presidential election. The cultural map tells you that this was predictable This is something that has been obvious for quite some time. Even Ronald Reagan once noted that Hispanics were inherently conservative. The promotion of abortion rights and other secular-rational positions told them you did not have their values, and was destined to fail.

No doubt, some will now run to exit polls and say that this is not what they’re showing. The polls are showing that issues other than abortion were important to voters. This illustrates another flaw in Democrats’ approach to campaigning. Polls and focus groups are blunt instruments. They are the kinds of things superficial people use for superficial purposes. Human decision-making, be it a decision about who to vote for, or which car or candy bar to buy, is very complex. Exit polls do not capture this complexity. Their current construction asks about issues and, therefore, assumes that people make rational decisions based on these issues. There is almost nothing in any body of psychological literature that supports this notion. People’s decision-making is messy, and often based on emotion. This is particularly true for those who habitually engage in low effort thinking (which is further discussed below). As a result, polls do not, and cannot tell you that your stance on a position that is relatively unimportant to some voters can bias those same voters against you in a manner that causes them to find fault with your stances on issues that are important to them. They will, therefore, vote against you. To put this in other terms, people vote for people who have values like theirs. In telling voters with traditional values that you support abortion rights (or other secular-rational values), you are telling them that your values are different from theirs, and they will not vote for you (similarly, when the Trump campaign highlighted Harris’ pre-candidacy comments on trans rights, even though she didn’t mention them, he was showing these voters that he shared their values and Harris did not). The result is that efforts to work for certain issues can backfire so, when you think you are working for some cause or policy, you are actually working against it. This is true even if your positions are moral, right, and good.

That Democrats do not understand how to campaign in areas, and to demographic groups that have traditional values is not only shown by the previous paragraph, it is also show by the results of all recent national elections. It is, therefore, important to know why Democrats don’t understand. It is because they do not understand how people with traditional values (aka conservatives) think. Consider, therefore, the following heuristic:

You are an early human. Your evolutionary imperative is to pass on your genes. You do this by surviving long enough to reproduce, and by trying to help your children do the same. One thing that helps you survive is your ability to recognize threats. This keeps you from getting eaten by a saber toothed tiger, or stomped on by a wooly mammoth. In fact, you need to be very sensitive to threats to survive. Bad things can happen if you don’t react quickly to them. So, if that bush over there suddenly moves, you don’t have time to think about it. Sitting around and debating whether it was the wind or something else that moved it may not turn out well for you. You gotta react, and you gotta react now! It’s even more dire if a whole bunch of bushes move all at once. This could signal a threat not only to you, but to your entire tribe or clan. It doesn’t help much if everyone runs off in different directions. You all need to act together. It’s a good thing you are led by a strong chief, and that everyone listens to him.

Of course, the threats you face are not limited to tigers and mammoths. You also gotta worry about getting food, and anything that threatens your food supply is a threat to you. That tribe across the river is just such a threat. They could hunt the animals you eat, or pick those nuts and berries that help you stay alive. It is best to fear them, and hate them for and the threat they pose. If you don’t, you might starve.

These early human concerns describe much (but not all) of what political psychology tells us about contemporary political conservatism. It tells us that conservatives:

Have greater threat sensitivity than leftists Have a greater tendency to follow authorities (authoritarianism) than those on the political left Use low effort thinking to a greater extent than leftists Have greater ingroup/outgroup sensitivities than the political left

That these are, in fact, traits that describe conservatives is backed by a considerable amount of research. You can find much of it with a Google Scholar search. However, you don’t really need to read it. You can see it by observing the ways conservatives talk about, and react to campaigns and issues. As shown by the recent presidential election, these voters are more receptive to dark messages of threat rather than a campaign of joy. Similarly, their threat sensitivity causes them to cling to guns, and their argument that gun ownership is a right guaranteed by the Constitution is an interpretation of this document that arises from their psychology.

Although conservatism worked well for early humans, it does not do well when societies become larger and more complex. Nowadays, conservative “instincts” serve so poorly that following them might actually kill people (see, for example, conservative policies on guns, healthcare, poverty, climate change, pollution, COVID vaccines, and more). Nevertheless, conservatism has, and will persist. The message here is that you will not change conservative psychology for a long, long time, if ever. It is therefore important to work with that psychology.

So, dear Democrats, the way you campaign in red areas is straightforward. You choose an outgroup to campaign against, and you then take advantage of conservative’s threat sensitivity by making them afraid of this group. This has worked for a long time, and it has worked in many different countries. For example, if you’re a Southern plantation owner trying to get poor whites to fight to keep you rich, you tell those conservatives that your enemy is after their way of life. If you’re Adolf Hitler, you tell conservatives it’s the Jews. If you’re Joseph McArthy, you tell them it’s the Communists, and if you’re Donald Trump, you tell them it’s the immigrants.

I submit that you choose the billionaire class as your outgroup. It should not be hard to convince conservatives that these folks are after their way of life because they pretty much are. Further, there is historical evidence that suggests campaigning against the morbidly rich can be a winning strategy in the US. Though now much obscured by failures to write a complete history, workers were enraged with them during the late 1800’s. Indeed, during the 1890’s, there were over 1,000 strikes and lockouts, many of which were violent. It worked for Franklin Roosevelt. Read his 1936 speech at Madison Square Garden for an example (see https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/address-madison-square-garden-new-york-city-1). He won a landslide victory after this speech. The reaction to the murder of United Healthcare’s CEO may be another example. It is unlikely the working class’s rage has evaporated much but, because of expertly done right wing propaganda, much of it is now directed at the government, the so-called Deep State, and Democrats. I submit to you that this anger can be redirected.

You should redirect it because, in the US, wealth gives people political power. Concentrating wealth among the few concentrates power among a few. Reducing the US’s wealth concentration returns political power to our country’s citizens.

The GINI coefficient provides a crude way of showing the extent to which we have concentrated political power in the hands of a few. This coefficient measures wealth disparities and ranges from 0 (perfect equality) to 100 (perfect inequality). Here’s where the US stands in relation to other countries:

Map From https://www.electronicsweekly.com/blogs/mannerisms/democracy-and-standards/inequality-5-2024-10/

Yup, we’re not as good as Russia. The power that a very few Americans now have goes beyond the power to buy legislators and Supreme Court Justices. The billionaire class also owns newspapers and television networks (or the distribution rights to them). They did not purchase them because of their love for journalism. They did not do it to make a profit. There are, after all, more profitable ventures the rich could undertake. They did it to control the news Americans see and, perhaps more importantly, the news Americans do not see. One result of this is that our elections are not as free and fair as we pretend. The moneyed class determines who is a viable candidate by determining the amount and kind publicity that person gets. This works against Democrats.

Having given a reason for WHY you should campaign against the tycoon “other,” it is important to discuss HOW you should do it. Fully describing this would take many pages. Suffice it to say that you should stay away from the whole “democracy” issue. The recent election provides ample evidence that it’s just not that important to most American voters You also should NOT, and I repeat, you should NOT campaign using any of the statistics I have just given. You should also not use any other statistic unless it is vital to your point. Anybody who thinks that American voters in general, and political conservatives in particular, decide who they will vote for by weighing the facts and figures before them has not visited planet earth in a long, long time, and should never be listened to. This includes Democratic consultants.

The idea behind the campaign against the oligarchs is to take advantage of conservative psychology by positioning the rich as the elitist “other” that dwells in the “swamp” the right wants to drain. Notice that I used the terms “swamp” and “elitist.” I did that because these are words the conservatives can relate to. Using their language is important. It makes them think your values are like theirs.

The campaign against the tycoon class must be comprehensive and involve “out of the box” thinking. There are so many ways to do this, that I cannot list them all here. I can, however, give a few examples. Accordingly, Democrats can note how elitist and different the rich are by pointing out that an ice cream sundae at Serendipity3 in New York costs over $1,000, and it costs that much because it has gold shavings on it. The slogan “They eat gold while you work for pennies” could be helpful.

The Jeffrey Epstein case (which should have also been a story about everyone who attended his “parties”) provides a good example of how to characterize the rich as both an elite “other,” and as posing an imminent threat. Members of the incoming Cabinet and Republican party can be similarly characterized. Their behavior can be described as typical of the elites who want to defile conservatives’ daughters and rape their sons, while leaving the impression that conservatives’ children could be abducted by the rich at any minute. Your ads show pictures guaranteed to frighten the right. These pictures should be in black and white, accompanied by dramatic music, and with an announcer whose voice intones the extreme and imminent danger at hand. Emphasizing the imminence of the danger is important. The Fox propaganda channel, with its frequent interruptions for “breaking news” demonstrates that conservatives strongly respond to such threats.

Democrats should also make campaign issues out of things conservatives care about. They can campaign against owners of certain underperforming National Football League teams (whose fans skew conservative) by explaining that this underperformance proves how little the rich care about them. It’s even better if you can do the same thing with NASCAR.

Above all, Democrats MUST use slogans to make their points. Slogans appeal to those who use low effort thinking (see, for example “Make America Great Again,” “Stop the Steal,” or “Drain the Swamp.” This goes all the way back to 1840 and “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too,” a slogan also aimed at conservatives). If the Harris campaign had a slogan, I never heard it. Yet, this isn’t even campaigning 101. It’s what you should know even before you take campaigning 101. Of course, no exit poll is designed to measure the impact of slogans, once again illustrating that exit polls are superficial things used by superficial people.

Dear Democrats, you will immediately be accused of being socialists or communists when you start this campaign. It will happen because of low effort thinking. This is how low effort thinking works: conservatives give a name of something they don’t like to a policy or position, and the argument is over for them. A policy or position is, for example, labelled as socialism, and conservatives know that’s bad. There is nothing more for them to discuss or think about. You must preempt these accusations.

You preempt them by simultaneously campaigning for a return to capitalism, which has been stolen from the country by the deviant rich. I mean a lot by that, but here are a few examples. You call for a government that ensures competition. There is little of that in the US. Just about everything from diapers to meat is sold by only three of four companies. You call for reinstatement of the usury laws that the Reagan administration repealed so credit card interest rates can be lower, leaving consumers with more money to spend to stimulate the economy, and particularly small businesses. You get private equity firms out of about everything, including healthcare, where they move into a region, buy up healthcare delivery systems, and raise prices. You stand with labor unions, because workers have power in a capitalist system. You demand Medicare institute competitive bidding on drug prices, because simply allowing drug companies to name their price is not capitalism. You restore a capitalist stock market by ending stock buybacks. You support a constitutional amendment to outlaw lobbying, thus giving consumers an appropriate voice in making economic decisions. You support a constitutional campaign finance amendment that keeps the rich from buying elections so they can influence economic policy. In advocating these positions, you must consistently stay away from numbers, statistics and even the barest of policy details. You advocate your positions with slogans, and you highlight the imminent threat imposed by not immediately instituting them. Here, it is helpful to emphasize the threat by using conservatives’ heightened disgust sensitivity and sense of purity (“purity,” combined with no small dose of the authoritarianism discussed below, probably contributes to why the MAGA crowd is now touting raw milk, and increasingly turning against vaccines). You do this by showing pictures of the vile things that can happen if the Republican party is allowed to continue down its present elitist path. As before, the pictures are in black and white.

Finally, dear Democrats, you must rebrand yourself. Ideally, you would be able to get away with choosing a new name for your party but this would cause confusion. Therefore, red area candidates who adopt the style of campaigning described here should refer to themselves as “New Democrats,” “American Democrats,” “Patriot Democrat,” or something like that. The words “American” and “Patriot” are suggested because conservatives like them. You are NEVER to call yourself a liberal or a progressive. Those names are now too stigmatized, and provoke a knee-jerk negative response. And, with apologies to Bernie Sanders, you cannot call yourself a Democratic Socialist. Those who employ low effort thinking see the word “socialist,” know they don’t like it, and automatically vote against you.

Of course, many people automatically vote for Republicans, no matter what a particular candidate of this party says or does. You combat this by stigmatizing the entire Republican party. You can use examples like the Matt Gaetz investigation to illustrate how the Republican party embraces the deviance of the rich. You portray Republicans as enablers and coddlers of the outgroup tycoons. You always refer to Republicans as “elitist Republicans,” “Tycoon Republicans,” or some other term designed to show how different their party’s values are from those of the average American. You never refer to Republicans as simply “Republicans.” As Donald Trump has shown us, the name-calling is effective when campaigning to voters who engage in low effort thinking.

In the process, you must fight against the notion that experience in business qualifies one for elected office. This idea never existed before the Reagan administration, and it should not exist now. Corporate business leaders focus on delivering the poorest quality goods and services at the highest prices people will pay. This is not a good thing when your goods and services include Medicare and justice. Surely, dear Democrats, you can weave this into a narrative that resonates with conservative voters.

You will be met with a hostile corporate media when you do these things. After all, the rich own it. You combat it by being combative. Why not? They are not on your side. Now, it is not uncommon for them to question you about Republican talking points rather than seeking information about your positions. So, you point out that the news is owned by rich elites who control what you hear and do not hear. You point out that Fox news is owned by someone who’s not even an American, and ask why a foreigner gets to decide what makes the news here. You break the rule that the press asks the questions and you answer them. You ask them questions, too. You ask how it is that the press never covers lobbying, when everyone on the planet knows that our laws are written to please the moneyed interests. You ask how it is that almost nobody has ever heard of ALEC, which writes many of our state laws. Above all, stay on message.

Your message consists of only two issues; the rich “other” (which includes the entire elitist Republican party) and a return to capitalism. These issues are the most likely to unite a diverse electorate that includes those on both the left and the right of the political spectrum. When a reporter asks about something else, and particularly when they are trying to get you to address a Republican talking point, reply by saying that the reporter is a tool of the tycoons who are only trying to distract us from the real problems. When a reporter shouts a question from a crowd, reply by saying you only give live interviews so the billionaires can’t censor what you’re saying.

The press will become even more hostile to Democrats that are aggressive with them. Therefore, Democrats implement a robust plan to circumvent the press. It is unlikely that a plan that heavily relies on the internet will be successful in red states. Many people here are not internet savvy, and it will be difficult to dislodge those who are from the sites they trust. Democrats should nevertheless consider infiltrating whatever sites the QAnon crowd visits. Spend time gaining their trust, and then leave them breadcrumbs so they can figure out “on their own” that there is a morbidly rich group of elite tycoon degenerates who are conspiring against them. (WARNING: These are tricks performed by trained professionals. DO NOT try this at home. Doing so can result in serious bodily harm or even death). In dealing with QAnon, you will agree with them that there is a Deep State, and you will agree that the swamp needs to be drained. You are thus using a language they understand. Your disagreement with the is about who the Deep State is, and who constitutes the swamp. Should the QAnon crowd come to see who really comprises the Deep State and the swamp, their newfound conspiracy theory is likely to spread.

Democrats should primarily circumvent the press by developing and instituting a robust “ground game.” This cannot be done using top-down decision-making. It involves getting local Democratic operatives to go out and listen to the economic issues that voters in their area care about. I live in a deeply red area of the country heavily populated by dairy farmers. My local Democratic party could not tell me whether local farmers have the right to repair their John Deere tractors, or if only John Deere could repair them (which, by the way, is not capitalism). They could not tell me how much competition there was among purchasers of raw milk (there’s none, and this is not capitalism). Once you learn about the specific economic concerns of voters with traditional values, explain how their problems are the fault of the morbidly rich. It would also be a good idea to seek out those who do not vote, and find out if they have any concerns that, if addressed, will get them to vote. Show those who have given up on the system that you offer them a voice.

Democrats must work to develop trust among residents of red areas. Right now, they are trying to get votes by sending a stranger to knock on someone’s door, while preachers are telling their congregations to vote Republican. C’mon, man, who do you think voters will listen to, a stranger or their preacher? You develop trust by reinventing what a political party is. It should not be a thing that shows up every two years during an election. It should be a constant presence that works for the benefit of the community. If a farmer needs help planting or harvesting his crops, you are there to help. If someone’s barn or house burns down, you are there to help. If someone is hungry, you feed them. And, you make sure that everyone knows that it’s the Democrats who are doing this. If you want to appeal to a local militia, put uniforms on your people. Your reinvention of the political party is intended to start a movement. Movements are the most powerful political force one can muster.

Dear Democrats, since you need the help of your local operatives in red states, you must fund them. You should implement an appropriate program to raise money. With some clever lawyers and accountants, you can set up for profit companies that just happen to give all their profits to you. An idea I particularly like is to have conservatives fund you, though this requires that you make it difficult to trace the company back to you. Since a large subgroup of conservatives is easily bilked, set up a company that sells American tchotchke. They’ll buy it. This will help get you away from depending on rich donors.

The most significant obstacle Democrats will face in red areas is overcoming Republican’s authoritarianism. In psychology, this refers to those who readily follow leaders, rather than the leaders themselves. The authoritarianism of Republicans is evident. They will believe just about anything Donald Trump says, and will do almost anything he asks them to do. Since many Republicans voters have taken their authoritarianism to the level of cultism, it behooves you, dear Democrats, to consult with experts in cult member deprogramming. Cultism also forces you to stay on message about tycoons and capitalism, because if you criticize Trump, it will only prove to his cult members that he, and by extension they, are being unfairly victimized. Your best strategy to deal with Trump is to manipulate him, which is easily done (e.g., continue to refer to Elon Musk as “president Musk.” This will enrage Trump and cause him to oust Musk), but is beyond the present scope. You can still criticize his cabinet members, and you can still criticize the entire elitist, tycoon Republican party.

I fully understand that the national Democratic party is unlikely to embrace the ideas presented here. It will retain its establishment candidates and its corporatism. However, if individual local (and particularly congressional) candidates embrace these ideas, a movement can be started within the party. The alternative is to start a new party. Do not rule this out. Now is a good time for it. The Democratic party will, at best, make only modest gains in the next congressional election and, because of the way the new Congress, the Supreme Court, and various Republican state legislatures will re-write election laws, and by the time the press completes its capitulation to the Republicans, there is a good chance that it has already lost the next presidential election. To be sure, starting a third party is difficult, and will take a long time. However, one can learn from the Green Party, which offers a near-perfect example of how not to do things. Further, one can begin by setting initial, modest goals, with the full realization that a new third party will not be ready to run a presidential candidate for the next several elections. Fully describing a strategy for starting such a party is beyond the scope of the present piece. Describing which candidates to run for Senate, and particularly president, is also beyond the present scope. Suffice it to say that gains can eventually be made if a campaign strategy that considers conservative psychology is used in red states, and that much of this strategy will be useful even if some future election is cancelled.

Dear Democrats, thank you for considering my job application. I truly appreciate it.

[END]
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