Oy... She said this vs he said that. It's old and tiresome. Outside of the purposefully combative diaries, most of the policy diaries posted these days are also devolving into battles over what's realistic vs not realistic. What's ambitious vs settling for less. She’s this and he’s that!
If one side prefers Mounds the other would argue for Almond Joy. It's enough to drive you nuts!
Lets remember something about the Dems political process that often goes unmentioned but needs to factor into managing everyone’s expectations.
Not proposing publically doesn't not mean something wasn't considered or even attempted. Nor does it mean it's not on the table for consideration.
What's lost in many of these “conversations” we have here and elsewhere is that we are a big tent party and often in that tent our agendas don't have the support from some Dem senators or their voters in red or even purplish states that we take for granted (and which we need to help change).
Simply put, we don't vote in lock step like the GOP. That's what comes with having a diverse party. It sucks and can be painful sometimes especially when we have to settle for less than ideal results. We also have to recognize that not everyone thinks as we do, even in our own party.
Rather than embarrass our party leader, our President, these issues are oftentimes discussed behind closed party doors beforehand. So proposing X publically may often times be a factor of internal support rather than lack of effort. Same holds true for our candidates.
While this has been going on for years, it's become pronounced with this election cycle. HRC should try and accomplish more, while BS should temper his asks to be more realistic.
When we talk about infrastructure as another diary discussed this morning. We all argued about amounts (and I have to say a lot of nuances in both candidates stances were ignored in the “debate"). But what we do not know is what our party’s internal support is and that is a factor for every bill.
But let's all be clear! For us to say Obama undersold X and should have tried for X + Y negates the possibility that perhaps he did, or perhaps he even started by trying for X+Y+Z but initial internal conversations mitigated that approach.
In the GOP if that happens, the legislators are told to get in line or else. ,that else can be loss of committee position, financial support or a lobbying group can be asked to send a subtle or not so subtle message to the wayward legislator such as the NRA threatening to run negative ads against you in a primary.
Democrats really don't do that to the same degree. Yes we strong arm and wrangle, but there is far less of it and a large part of that is we understand we will lose voters and states if we force legislators to vote against their constituents.
That leaves us with often not knowing what was or is intended behind the scenes of our party’s legislative body.
And yet we judge them and they are judged on the public facing elements only.
Lets all be more nuanced and understanding that there's more happening than perhaps we know.
Then lets help our party and whomever leads it and/or seeks to help it grow to accomplish their/our goals so they don't have to settle for less.
Simply put, it's our job too.
Until we have the ability to control not just the messaging (requires a better and supportive media) but have the ability to (re) educate voters prone to simple debt = bad, all guns = good, poor = lazy mentalities, we will remain in challenging times.
Clearly more is better. More infrastructure spending, more safety net spending, etc.. all of these put money into the economy that pays back multiples on their initial investment. But much of America actually doesn't know or believe this calculation. So our party and our candidates hedge their bets and manage expectations.
Our job is yes, to be a little more understanding that we don't know everything, to support our party’s attempts to accomplish what they are trying to accomplish, and try to trust that they would do more if they could. Idealistic perhaps, too trusting maybe, but more often than not, true.
And then WE need to become the messengers not just that we need infrastructure spending or a broader safety net, but why and how it helps everyone.
We need to explain that safety nets are more than just helping the unfortunate, but put money into the grocers pocket and that then goes to their employees pockets and to new hiring and some also to the transportation companies and the growers and their employees, etc. (Then we can work on farm subsidies to Corp farms).
I don't want to be so trite as to say “be the change”, however I do know that if we put half as much energy into being the messengers that we do arguing amongst ourselves, perhaps we could actually accomplish much of what we are arguing for and the debate over low or managing expectations would be moot for our party.
There are both simple and complex strategies to accomplishing much of this, but in overly simplistic terms, remember:
1 call or 1 letter = 1,000 emails = 10,000 FB likes. — Personalize your communications to make it count.
Letters of support to your local papers do help your representatives. - Be concise. Always reference an article in the paper so they know what you are responding too and that you took the time to read their story. And again, make it personal.
Remaining positive in messaging reflects on your message. — Let the other side be angry and contemptuous.
Focus on the goal and accomplishing accomplishable tasks — Sometimes baby steps are more doable and a win creates momentum. Or as the saying goes, Crawl, Walk, Run, Marathon!
