There's a lot of rattle going on around the diaries about how the Democrats are going wrong with party messaging. I agree there is, and I've been thinking about it a long time. There have been some people that have said the party is leaving behind middle class white guys. I don't think that's a racist statement any more than saying the party is strongly structured on the support of minorities. However, there's a root that is common to almost all Americans. There is one topic that the Democrat party needs to be slamming home every electorate cycle.
That topic is money. Put aside any idealistic aspirations you have about humanity or its nature. Human beings are wild beasts driven first by concern for themselves, then their immediate family, friends, and finally society at large. I don't want to hear about how your Aunt Sally proudly gave years of her life driving people to the voting booth, because for every altruistic action there are a dozen more selfish ones.
Since his days as a hunter gatherer, stooped around a fire, mankind has sought one thing: survival. That is the base instinct upon which all other moral foundations are constructed. The sense of justice, or the sense that man should be treated equally, comes from an inherently selfish desire. Because if I step on a playing field, I want to know I have equal capability to survive as my opponent. In reality I may even cheat to ensure I have greater capability of surviving.
Still, at the very least, I ask for a fighting chance to survive. In ancient days, that chance rested in weapons, numbers, and the security that provided. In the old days of the United States that rested on a good plot of land to farm, a feeling that was so strong it drove settlers for generations until every inch of the country was covered. Selfish? Of course. The history of the West was written in blood as much as with the farm tool, and nobody need recite the story of the indigenous peoples of the United States. The voices of those oppressed people still linger to remind us of one very important truth: That given an opportunity, mankind will rob from his neighbor to line his own pocket, will steal land and make it his own, and now, in 2014, vote whatever he thinks will enhance his ability to make a dollar even at the consequence of those that are less well off.
Money is the means of survival. It is the shiny green beacon in the back of every American's mind. It influences them every time they go to the polls and pull a lever.
Think about the ongoing narratives. Racists feel that blacks are lazy. Nativists say that immigrants steal jobs. The wealthy say the poor deserve their place.
Everything is money because money is survival. To thrive as an organization, the Democratic party needs to abandon the convoluted blanket it has thrown over itself. This party has buried itself beneath layers of equal health care, equal racial treatment, voter ID, clean energy, and on and on. So many causes. All worthy ones. But to get the man to the voting booth tie, you don't have to abandon them.
Instead, the man must be made to see that each of these causes will line his pocket. It will ensure his survival as well as that of those that are close to him. Green energy? Necessary, because it will provide jobs to your city and your state. All politics are local, so stop arguing the global ramifications of global warming. Tell them that the green sector is going to cause a job boom in the man's region. He doesn't care if the coral in the Gulf is dying from acidity. Instead tell him that improving climate is going to make crops spring forth like mana falling from heaven, and drive down the prices of the vegetables he buys at the supermarket.
Equal payment for men and women? You tell the man that every dollar in her pocket is a dollar that can be spent boosting this economy, when she shops at the store, when she shops for her family, and when she shops for herself. It's a dollar she can spend on her child for Christmas, or a dollar for her father on father's day. Give her that dollar =, because a dollar in her pocket is a dollar spent.
Health care? Give them all the healthcare. The less people spend on it, the more they'll buy. They'll flock your local stores, buy from your hardware stores, take their cars to your car garages, and buy from your markets. When your citizens don't have to worry about how to pay for health care they'll start buying up everything in your city. Local businessmen will experience untold profits as more and more people no longer worry about whether they can afford a doctor or afford a present for themselves.
Every single time, money is survival. Man is not complicated. Bribe him, and bribe him extensively. Not with the gift of voter ID, or green jobs. Those are layers over a more fundamental need: the need to survive. Bribe the population with its own survival. Tie every single issue to the way it will bring jobs and lift the economy. Explain in brief and clear terms, to every single person, that by supporting an issue that they'll be boosting their pocketbooks.
Because while we would all like to imagine a world in which the moral merits of our arguments carried weight, we know from history how quickly a moral argument can be reversed. What cannot be reversed, though, is the need to survive, a fundamental need that has existed from the dawn of humanity and that will persist long after this generation. Tell the man that you can help him survive now; Do not give him a message about how he will help his great grandchildren survive. Tell each and every person that when they vote Democrat they boost their pocketbooks and those of their immediate children.
Take your moral arguments. Treasure them. Stand by them. But sell them. Sell them with survival.