This is different than every other post election, 100 days, which way forward take that you may have read since November for a couple reasons.
First, I stopped writing because — life — but I didn’t stop thinking and observing.
Second, two decades ago I had some hopeful, on point, and fairly widely-read posts about how our party had to find its way out of the political wilderness.
Combine the two, and you may find that I have something useful to share today.
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Now, part of what I mean by — life — is that since I last wrote about politics regularly I’ve also worked, among other roles, as a campaign staffer, a union organizer, a low-level office temp, an entry-level utility contract employee, a campaign volunteer, and, last but not least, as an entry-level employee at a tropical-themed grocery store that you probably know the name of.
That puts me in a good place to share my particular hypothesis.
(Every political strategy needs a good hypothesis, and this one is mine.)
It’s not poll tested, it’s definitely not “right,” no hypothesis is, but it’s also pretty obvious once you think about it.
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We lost the break room.
By we, I don’t mean Kamala Harris, I don’t mean Bernie, I don’t mean neolibs, corporate Democrats, progressives, Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Bill Clinton, Hillary, Barack and Michelle Obama, the Squad, the gerontocracy, Gretchen Whitmer, the DNC, the MoveOn crowd, the resistance, DSA, the Working Families Party, nonprofits, the netroots, or the “woke establishment.”
By we I mean Democrats broadly defined.
And that’s it.
My break room however, is much more widely construed.
My break room is every fluorescent lit, mildly smelly or scented, lunch, dinner, middle of the night, corporate carpeted, sitting on the back of a large vehicle, small town diner, small town McDonalds, cafeteria, big city diner, big city McDonalds, park bench, little league bench, softball league tavern, bowling alley, donut shop, dance hall, cubicled office building, chain store mall, movie theater, auction barn, flea market, strip mall, waiting room, Big Box store, bus stop, train station, airport type place in the USA, and then some.
Break rooms are where people see and talk to each other, they are the common spaces of our country.
(They are also places where people are extremely annoying to each other, but that’s a topic for another time.)
They are also, mostly, public.
And we Democrats have lost the break rooms of the United States, badly.
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Now, I want to be clear, I don’t see break rooms as the scene of some ongoing, never ending Lincoln-Douglas debate with the nation’s future hanging in the balance. They are not.
99% of the time people talk about stuff in break rooms that you’d expect them to talk about.
Look, we’ve all been there, or at least most of us have.
People in break rooms talk about ‘the normal stuff:’ sports, family, TV, life.
But break rooms are important because they are also where people show up wearing everything that’s important to them written on their sleeves, their chests, and sometimes their baseball caps.
Break rooms are where you’ll learn that someone’s relative died, that someone’s sports team won, that someone’s kid did something they are proud of, that they are pissed, or happy, or bored, or moving.
And the most important thing any of us can do in this context is listen to what they are saying.
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Why do I emphasize listening?
Because what we are saying is turning people’s ears off, even if they pretend to hear us.
It’s not toxic. I wouldn’t use that word.
And it’s not woke. I wouldn’t use that word either.
People are one heck of a lot more open minded than we Democrats give them credit for.
But here’s the thing:
What we Democrats have been saying shows people that we haven’t been listening.
And that’s unforgiveable.
It is that simple.
When people can tell you haven’t been listening to them, they are not going to listen to what you have to say.
There’s not a consultant or a polling outfit that can fix this.
The next elected leaders of our party need to fix this.
There’s no other way to do this.
That’s just how democracy works.
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And there’s another level deeper we can go on this one.
One thing I learned as a union organizer is that every single person in a workplace has as sophisticated an understanding of the power dynamic of their workplace as anyone else.
We are all experts in what we need to do to fit in and find our place in our own community.
We show this expertise in myriad ways.
And any aspiring leader ignores this at their peril.
So, on top of not listening to people, though you could say that is a symptom of the greater disease, our party has committed the cardinal sin of underestimating people at the thing that they are most expert in in the whole world.
People are not economists, or political scientists, or biologists.
But our democracy is founded on the notion that people are the best experts on their own lives and their own community’s self interest.
This, more than other “third rails” of politics is the true, fundamental third rail.
No one will give you their vote if you don’t respect their right to have their own opinion.
As a voter, I may need facts, I may need experts, I may need someone to help me understand things that are beyond and outside my own life.
I also may need a leader to be someone who is unafraid to take a bold position, someone who will actually take risks, someone who can lead, and teach, and persuade.
But I will absolutely shut off someone who treats me and my vote like I have nothing good and relevant to say about what is closest to me.
I will shut down someone who treats me like I’m not an expert in my own life and the things that matter most.
And, to bring this home, if you want to know the real answers to those kind of questions, the break rooms of America are the place to learn what people think.
You do that by listening to people where they are at.
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You can see where I am going with this.
Yeah, we Democrats are in a big mess.
How big of a mess?
Let me try to quantify it.
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We post-Obama Democrats love statistical analysis.
We love data.
I, instead, have something more like a hunch to share with the more statistically inclined among us.
Many of us are obsessed with the 30% of the voting public that will only vote for Trump. (That’s about 46 million voters.)
(Now, we won’t talk to them, but we are obsessed with them.)
We are not at all obsessed enough with the other 20-30% of the voting public, about 46 million voters, who strongly considered voting for Trump. (And in 2024, most of these voters did vote for Trump.)
And we are criminally given to overlook the 89,278,948 eligible voters who did not vote in the last election. (That’s 100% of the non-voting public, and 36% of the electorate.)
So, here’s my hunch.
Those 46 million voters who strongly considered voting for Trump spend a great deal of their time with the 89 million non voters. (And, of course, millions of us Democrats, too, but put that aside for now.)
And where do they spend that time? Where is the best place to find these 135 million Americans?
Blue Sky! (I’m joking.)
In the spaces I am calling break rooms.
And, at 55% of the total voting population, there are many, many more of these Americans than there are of any genre of voting Democrat.
And that’s why losing the break room is pretty damn important.
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Look, as I think I’ve made my main point, I’ll cut to the chase.
There’s two things I’d want any aspiring Democratic leader who cares about the future of our party to take away from my hypothesis:
First, there’s plenty of hopeful things we can change in the United States without repairing our communication with these 135 million Americans, including winning some elections and engaging some important political battles. You will hear from many folks in Democratic circles about their great ideas and important insights about how to execute these strategies. It may be tempting to leave our focus there.
But we can’t and won’t recover from the crisis that is Trump until we figure out a way back with this larger group.
We need to be able to talk to these 135 million Americans; and they need to feel like we can hear what they have to say.
In many ways the crisis that is Trump is specifically represented by the tens of millions of votes he won from this pool of voters.
That reality is not changing until we change as a political party.
We need new leaders, and we need existing leaders to act in new ways.
Second, the next successful Democratic politician has to be able to effectively, enthusiastically, and authentically connect with folks in the break rooms of all 50 states, whether those folks are voters, whether those folks are Democrats, and, for now, whether those folks are even willing to give us the time of day.
I want to be clear, I’m not saying what race or gender or style this next candidate needs to have. I’m not saying what their favorite podcast or TV venue needs to be. And actually, I think making easy assumptions about this stuff is huge mistake. What I am saying is that our next successful candidate has got to be someone who truly connects with this specific majority: the folks in the break rooms of America.
And there’s only one way do that.
Meet with a political consultant in a board room.
Again, I’m joking.
But I do have one final idea that should offer a clue.
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I’ve done more phone banking and door knocking than 98% of the country.
(I’ve done a metric ton less phone banking and door knocking than the other 2%.)
I tend to rip up scripts.
Sorry. Maybe I’m wrong.
One thing I’ve noticed, however, when I jump in to volunteer for Democratic campaigns in one of those big rooms with the cookies and chips and the sound of fifty people reading from scripts.
It’s really hard for our people to make a connection, even with our own voters.
That’s not the volunteer’s fault.
I think it’s our party’s fault.
It’s the fault of our message and our elected messengers.
It’s the fault of our communications.
And the kind of candidate we need is going to be the person who helps us solve this crisis.
And it won’t be with slogans about building the middle class from bottom up and inside out, or whatever that horrible, dustbin of history phrase, and countless others, was.
It’s about meaningful communication.
One thing about when I phone bank is how many quick, real conversations that I have.
So, let me share my script with you.
I’m not saying it’s perfect but it contains a real kernel of my thinking here.
Here’s my whole script:
“Hi, my name is Susan and I’m calling from the Democratic Party. There’s a big election coming up and I wanted to hear what you are thinking.”
The conversations that come off this approach are familiar to me because I’ve had them so often.
They are conversations I could have had at a Wendy’s, on a park bench, or in the break room of a tropical themed grocery store.
They usually end up with me listening and the voter talking.
There’s 135 million people out there.
The first thing we need to do to heal this country and win back our place in the break room is to listen to them.
