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It’s the Messaging Stupid, or Why the Dems are losing right now. [1]

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Date: 2025-02-18

I’ve been reading the Daily Kos for several years now. Since I live in a very red state, it serves as my reminder that there are like-minded people in my state and US. There are a lot of stories and comments about the failures of the Democrat’s leadership, and I can’t say that I disagree. To sum up the message, it is Trump and his cronies are bad, evil people, and here is a strongly worded letter saying as much. No theme, no message, no action. It didn’t work in the election, and it is not working now.

The Critical Mind’s post today, The WSJ gives Dems the key to winning: Trump voters who already regret their vote for MAGA, pointed out many of the same problems. In his article, he said, “Feel free to disagree. But if you do, I want to hear a better solution, not a defense of the status quo. Because that’s not working.” So, I started writing my first comment to provide a solution. It got too long and ended up as an article.

I always learned that to find a solution, you must first identify the issue. For me, the issue, in its simplest form, is that the Democratic Party allowed itself to be painted as coastal elites who believe that they know what is better for an individual or group than the individual or group does. Even in Oklahoma, I hear Dems tell me what is good for me. It's condescending. The voters described in the article, like a lot of other voters, voted based on what they believed they needed. It was an individual decision (the toxic individualism running rampant in the US is an entirely different problem).

Think about education. The Biden campaign and administration focused a lot on “education.” But, in my opinion, it was mostly limited to higher education, with the message that the only way to succeed is to go to college (even better if it is Ivy league), get a degree, and make a decent living. What they forgot is that education is not limited to colleges and universities. For many people in the US, higher education is unattainable. For example, one of the largest universities in Oklahoma has a freshman class that has nearly more out-of-state students than in-state. (It's for the money). Vocational or trade schools, apprenticeships, and certification programs are the best some people can do or want to do. The push for student loan relief doesn’t do anything for those people, meaning you’ve already lost them. I’m still not sure why they didn’t think of an education tax credit or something, rather than just canceling loans. Maybe they did and, as was the case for Biden, didn’t talk about it.

I’m not saying talking about education is the solution, it’s just an example. Another example is how the value of work is perceived.

To me, the solution is getting off the ivory tower and getting comfortable with the people that make you uncomfortable. Look no further than Clinton and FDR. They and their administrations were able to connect with us commoners and it made them wildly popular. One of the architects of the New Deal didn’t go to college (Henry Wallace) and another went to a small college in Iowa (Harry Hopkins). James Carville went to LSU and Leon Panetta went to Santa Clara. These people connected.

I think it was best described by Robert F. Kennedy in 1968 (and yes, I get the irony):

[I]f we seem powerless to stop this growing division between Americans, who at least confront one another, there are millions more living in the hidden places, whose names and faces are completely unknown - but I have seen these other Americans - I have seen children in Mississippi starving, their bodies so crippled from hunger and their minds have been so destroyed for their whole life that they will have no future. I have seen children in Mississippi - here in the United States - with a gross national product of $800 billion dollars - I have seen children in the Delta area of Mississippi with distended stomachs, whose faces are covered with sores from starvation, and we haven't developed a policy so we can get enough food so that they can live, so that their children, so that their lives are not destroyed, I don't think that's acceptable in the United States of America and I think we need a change. I have seen Indians living on their bare and meager reservations, with no jobs, with an unemployment rate of 80 percent, and with so little hope for the future, so little hope for the future that for young people, for young men and women in their teens, the greatest cause of death amongst them is suicide. That they end their lives by killing themselves - I don't think that we have to accept that - for the first American, for this minority here in the United States. If young boys and girls are so filled with despair when they are going to high school and feel that their lives are so hopeless and that nobody's going to care for them, nobody's going to be involved with them, and nobody's going to bother with them, that they either hang themselves, shoot themselves or kill themselves - I don't think that's acceptable and I think the United States of America - I think the American people, I think we can do much, much better. And I run for the presidency because of that, I run for the presidency because I have seen proud men in the hills of Appalachia, who wish only to work in dignity, but they cannot, for the mines are closed and their jobs are gone and no one - neither industry, nor labor, nor government - has cared enough to help. I think we here in this country, with the unselfish spirit that exists in the United States of America, I think we can do better here also. I have seen the people of the black ghetto, listening to ever greater promises of equality and of justice, as they sit in the same decaying schools and huddled in the same filthy rooms - without heat - warding off the cold and warding off the rats. If we believe that we, as Americans, are bound together by a common concern for each other, then an urgent national priority is upon us. We must begin to end the disgrace of this other America. And this is one of the great tasks of leadership for us, as individuals and citizens this year. But even if we act to erase material poverty, there is another greater task, it is to confront the poverty of satisfaction - purpose and dignity - that afflicts us all. Too much and for too long, we seemed to have surrendered personal excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our Gross National Product, now, is over $800 billion dollars a year, but that Gross National Product - if we judge the United States of America by that - that Gross National Product counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them. It counts the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and counts nuclear warheads and armored cars for the police to fight the riots in our cities. It counts Whitman's rifle and Speck's knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children. Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country, it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans. www.jfklibrary.org/...

I think this loss of connection explains the paradox pointed to by The Critical Mind of why voters prefer Democrat’s policies over the GOP. Speak to voters and voter issues, talk about Trump policies, not the man, and stop taking up every cause. Rising prices and lost jobs should be the only thing Democrats should be saying right now, everything else will take care of itself. Take action and stop with the letters.

No one reads them and no one cares.

If you made it this far, thanks for reading my ravings.

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[1] Url: https://dailykos.com/stories/2025/2/18/2304561/-It-s-the-Messaging-Stupid-or-Why-the-Dems-are-losing-right-now?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=latest_community&pm_medium=web

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