We've spilled some serious digital ink here over the last years trying to sort out the core, the kernal, the essence of the Democrats problems.
Obviously, the main problem has been that we've been losing elections, losing legislative majorities, losing our hold on middle America for a generation. Why is this?
As someone who is coming from "the left"...in other words, as an urban Democrat, I have deep sympathies with those who argue that the Democrats have lost the ability to fight for our "true" values, our "real" people. But as much I sympathize with that point of view I don't think it gets to the crux of the matter...
For me, the crux of the issue is this.
It's a complex world. We Democrats see that. We propose complex solutions to the complex, long term problems we see in that world. We love nuance. We love concepts:
- global warming
- the right to choose
- universal health care
- international engagement and diplomacy
- respect for difference
- freedom of expression
Your average Democratic activist can talk George Lakoff (a brilliant man) till we're blue in the face...without ever
boiling it down into how we are going to use Lakoff to WIN elections. It's as if "we've only just begun" a thirty year project of sharpening our arguments so that we can engage the nation in an extended nerdy debate that will open the door to Democratic majorities.
Trouble is, there's no time.
For the last twenty five years the GOP has successfully used a tactic against our "complexity" and rode it to electoral success.
Whenever and wherever the Democrats stand for complex solutions to complex problems, the GOP has a very simple strategy: They propose simplistic answers for simplistic world views. They don't have to be right, and quite often they are dead wrong. But they are cooking simplistic comfort food and the American public eats it up.
- 9/11 = war in the Iraq
- High oil prices = drill in Alaska
- Murder = death penalty
- Teen pregnancy = abstinence
- Insurgency in Iraq = Bad guys and thugs
- Advise and Consent = an up or down vote
Our problem is that for every progammatic solution we come up with...we have to EXPLAIN our complex analysis before we even get to our complex solution. By the time we've even gotten close to explaining how our international diplomacy and outreach will make us "safer" or our "Apollo program for energy" is best for everyone...we've lost the argument right there before we've even started.
And, of course, our real problem is that we are right. The world is complex...and successful solutions will have to reflect that. We all know this.
The trouble is that the Republicans simple and effective strategy has had the effect making our entire program look merely complicated. Americans don't like "complicated." Even something expressed simply...something that was, at the end of the day, right as hell...Al Gore's "lock box"...became a kind of stand in for how complicated the Democratic agenda really was underneath it all. The "lock box" was laughable because no one believed Al Gore that it was that simple.
The GOP has brilliantly used a tactic we have to emulate. They've made things simple. (And they've done this by cheating...by being simplistic.) The GOP has painted a morally simplistic world and sold the nation a bill of goods, a black-and-white clear-cut map of the country where there is ALWAYS an easy answer. And they've done it largely by playing off of us.
Until we Democrats can boil things down and make them cut and dry....like Markos' formulation the other day that Democrats are the party for people who work for a living...until we can fight back against the simplistic "one note" tactics of the GOP...we won't even begin, in my view, to get started at winning back legislative majorities in this country.
In this regard, I would advocate a one/two punch for ALL Democrats to follow. A simple outline.
First, as complex as the world is right now, as difficult and multi-layered as the problem set facing anyone trying to lead this nation is right now...there is one, extraordinarily simple first step that comes before all the others:
Step one is to kick the GOP out of Washington D.C.
They are problem numero uno. And they've had control for long enough, and made a big enough mess with their "simplistic" answers to real world problems that the first, second and third answer for ANY Democrat is that it is high time we kick those phony, Bible-thumping, "hide behind Jesus" Republicans out of DC and control of our country.
It's that simple.
They are hypocrites. They've run our Treasury, our Military, our Intelligence, our FDA, our Diplomatic core, our EPA and our Judiciary into the ground. They've turned the national tragedy of 9/11 into a campaign ad. They've taken us on a slippery slope of torture and "third party interrogation" that instead of making us safer in the world, has actually made us a target of hate. They've taken fear and prejudice against gay Americans and turned it into a campaign strategy. They've used religion to manipulate voters. Shame on them.
You can use your own words...and if you're Stephanie Herseth or John Edwards...you probably will. That doesn't change the underlying truth of the situation.
If you want take the first step in making the world a better place: elect a Democrat and kick the GOP out of DC.
Now, that's the first part...the "one" of the "one-two" punch.
The second part is that the Democratic party needs to stop kidding itself. We talk complex analysis and multi-part solutions while it's clear as day to everyone that we are out of power. Bill Clinton got impeached. John Kerry and Al Gore talked as if they could achieve big things for our country. Um, probably not. Not with those narrow-minded, self-righteous bigots running Congress.
But we Democrats can promise to do two simple things that eveyone in this country understands:
- we can promise to stop making things worse
- we can promise to work hard to make this country work again by finding solutions to complex problems
In fact, I would shorten Markos' line even more. I would simply say:
The Democratic party is the party that works. We work hard to fix the mess that the GOP has made in DC...and we work hard to confront the problems we see in the world...just as hard as the average American works in their daily lives.
We all know that a Democratic politican talking about ANY big program in the context of the GOP's dominance of our political lives sounds like a fool. We also know that if we sound "wishy washy" or like we think the ticket to success is to become more like the GOP and talk about Jesus all the time, or to distance ourselves from our core constituencies because it's better to appear more "white bread" (read: bigoted against gays, women and minorites.)
That's not just the road to hell. It's also the road to failure in my view.
We need to point out exactly how bad the "simplistic" solutions that the GOP has sold us have been for our country and our world. We need to show how out of touch these small-minded, intolerant (mostly white) men who would shove THEIR version of Chrisitianity down our throats are with the real world. In point of fact, there are ton of Americans of all stripes who would be quite happy if all the thumping and preaching were taken out of DC...and a little bit of tolerance and equality were put back into the civic life of our country.
We need to point out to the country that we in the Democratic party have heard what they want. Folks don't want long winded solutions. They don't want simplistic moralizing. They want a new direction. They want a party that is honest and works hard to confront complex problems head on and speaks in straightforward terms. They want a party that works.
We can give them that. We've tried the other way long enough.