This series tries to make the case that the Democratic Party desperately needs to rethink how it communicates to America and that to connect with voters Democrats should focus on four primary themes:
- These are the values Democrats stand for.
- Democrats fight for workers and the poor.
- Democrats are the party of reform and clean government.
- Conservatism is dead.
This final post will focus on message #4.
Given that conservatives now control all three branches of national government and three-fifths of statehouses and governorships, the message that "conservatism is dead" is a bit, shall we say, aspirational.
But consider that for 40 years, since the time of Reagan, Republicans have attacked “liberals” so effectively that the word has become an epithet. Today few Democratic politicians are brave enough to call themselves liberals in public. Now they have to call themselves “progressives.” Attacking liberalism as an ideology has obviously been an extremely effective strategy. So why haven't Democrats ever launched an aggressive, collective assault on conservatism? It's an enduring mystery. But it's time to fight back. Here's how . . .
If Democrats ever hope to win the messaging wars, they need to follow an ironclad rule: Don’t just attack “Republicans” or a particular opponent; attack conservatives. The goal is to not just argue about issues but to discredit the very foundation of Republican thought—to delegitimize the entire philosophy of conservatism.
The unpopularity of Trump makes this a perfect time. The message is: Trump is only the end result of conservatism—its meanness, its narrow-mindedness, its fundamental pessimism, its obsession with helping the rich at the expense of the poor. Conservatism is not a philosophy of greatness. It is an old, tired, outdated ideology that long ago lost its relevance for a superpower in the 21st century. At every opportunity, Democrats must portray conservatives as:
- Mean-spirited, stingy, hard-hearted, and callous
- Concerned about the wealthy, not average Americans
- Afraid of new ideas
- Pessimistic
- Irrational anti-government zealots who don’t believe in the ability of Americans to govern ourselves
- Fiscally incompetent
- Old-fashioned and backward
- Unable to envision a better future
- Immoral and un-Christian in their policies of rewarding the rich and hurting the poor
- Unworthy of leading a great nation
- More than a little nuts
Democrats have to pound the message home: Conservatives are turning America into a second-rate superpower. Their caveman thinking and drastic budget cuts are diminishing us as a great nation. They are crippling our influence and moral leadership abroad, abdicating our responsibilities here at home, crushing scientific progress, and taking away the benefits that should come from living in the greatest, richest, most powerful nation on earth. As America’s challenges are growing, conservatives want to shrink America by putting our nation on a starvation diet.
Beyond simple name-calling, Democrats must graphically depict the real-world consequences of life under conservatism. We will have no trouble drawing the ugly picture of a shrunken America:
- A country of growing inequality, where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer
- Soaring deficits
- A tattered safety net for families in poverty
- The privatizing of Medicare, which would threaten seniors with an untried, untested new system
- The threat of millions of Americans without insurance
- Devastating cuts to food stamps and Medicaid
- Drastic cuts in scientific research and space exploration
- Diminished funding for education, including fewer loans for students who can’t afford college
- The deterioration of our national parks
- The degradation of the environment and our natural resources
- Reduced foreign aid and the declining influence of America abroad
All of that is typical of the narrow thinking of conservatism. In the modern history of America, it’s impossible to name a major social advance—Social Security, Medicare, civil rights, health care, and so much more—that conservatives didn’t at first oppose. The sad truth is that not only do conservatives have very few ideas of their own, they spend most of their time fighting tooth and nail against the good ideas of others, until time and collective good sense force them to concede.
What does it say about a political ideology when, at every important turning point in our nation’s history, conservatives have had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the future? Conservative policies reveal a deep pessimism about the ability of humans to improve our lives and America’s ability to solve its problems—despite abundant proof that we can.
That utter lack of idealism, that profound disinterest in trying to change the world for the better, that pinched, uninspired, regressive thinking, is ultimately what makes conservatism seem so impoverished, so intellectually and emotionally unappetizing.
Conservatism is a recipe for stagnation. No great nation, no superpower, can continuously resist progress and remain a great nation for very long. No leader can lead by looking backward. Only Democrats have the leadership, agenda, and proven history to move America forward and improve the lives of our people. Democrats have to tell the story.
Other posts in this series:
The New Democratic Message: A communications plan to win back America
The New Democratic Message (Part 2): Don’t talk about issues. Talk about VALUES.
The New Democratic Message (Part 3): Democrats fight for workers and the poor
The New Democratic Message (Part 4): Democrats are the party of reform and clean government