Democrats created the middle class
and that is what made America great
Republicans spent an enormous amount of effort over the past 20 years embedding a basic message into the heads of millions of conservative as well as passive and apathetic voters. That message is this: "Smaller government means lower taxes and more freedom." It’s an effective message and it’s even technically true. They just leave out the part about it only being for the rich. They pumped it out on talk radio, FOX News and every possible outlet. So, when a Republican candidate uses a slogan like: "Make America Great Again" voters already know what it means "smaller government, lower taxes and more freedom." A connection is made between the candidate's slogan and the embedded message, like two magnets coming together with a click. The listener feels it and instead of the message washing over them, it sticks.
When you add repetition and fear mongering, it reprograms the way people think. So when people hear: "Repeal and Replace Obamacare" it gets decoded as "Smaller bureaucracy, lower costs and freedom to choose my own doctor." Trump is also a master at tapping into common preconceived beliefs to transmit his message. The harder we try to replace these false beliefs with facts, the tighter people cling to those false beliefs. So Trumps message is sticking and the harder we try to replace it, the tighter his message sticks. Trump also delivers his message louder than anyone else and all of the above inspired conservatives to vote for him and kept passive and apathetic voters home on election day.
The challenge for Democrats is different because we have a different base of voters and we have a bunch of messages that are all over the map and drown each other out. However, almost all of them are related to growing the middle class to create a stronger economy. So how do we tie our many different issues into one message about growing the middle class? How do we tell our stories to illuminate that message in a dynamic and powerful way? Let's take a look at what Democrats have done in the past, Obama’s recent success and what Democrats are proposing right now.
Democratic Track Record: Democrats created the middle class, which created the greatest market economy in history and that is what made America Great. Republicans stood in the way of every policy that built the middle class and now they are trying to take it apart. FDR's New Deal policies like Social Security, collective bargaining, 30 year mortgages, a national minimum wage, building new infrastructure, Banking and Wall Street reform, laid the foundation for a middle class that became the largest market economy in history. Later Democrats and Unions fought for a forty hour work week, eight hour work days, overtime pay, paid sick leave, workmen compensation, the GI bill and more. LBJ's Great Society included Medicaid, Medicare, Civil rights, Voting rights, Public education investments, Job Corps, Fair Housing Act, Consumer protection, and Mass Transit projects that continued a long record of policies that grew the middle class and made America great. All of which Republicans tried to block and are now trying to take apart.
Obama's Success: In 2008, Obama talked about "Growing the economy from the middle out." Once elected, Obama saved us from a Republican depression by investing in the middle class. He saved the auto industry, greatly improved and expanded healthcare coverage, rebuilt some of our infrastructure, cut taxes on working families and created the longest period of job growth, the highest corporate profits and highest stock market performance in US history. All of these were investments in the middle class to grow the economy from the middle out and it worked. And now Republicans are trying to take it all apart.
Current Democratic Proposals: Equal pay for women would boost the middle class more than anything in history. It's also the most popular proposal in America. The only thing standing in the way are Republicans. Paid family and medical leave, fixing our infrastructure, building a new clean energy economy, banking and finance reform, removing loopholes for large corporations, raising the minimum wage and lowering the cost of college are all about investing in the middle class to create a stronger, more stable economy that works better for everyone. Even comprehensive immigration reform would boost our middle class as well as our tax base. The only thing standing in the way are Republicans.
The Bottom Line: The basic message of the Democratic Party is about creating and building the middle class. Let's tell our story because it’s a great one and it is the American story. Below is an example slogan, message, contrast and talking points that can work in any corner of the country. For this example we could develop our stories to illuminate this message so that when our candidates talk about "growing the economy from the middle out" people already know: "because it creates a stronger, more stable economy that works better for everyone." If you have something better, please include it in the comments and let’s use it but at some point we need to pick a single message and try to get a million Democrats all singing the same tune so people can hear it.
SLOGAN: Rebuild the Middle Class
MESSAGE: Democrats invest in the middle class because it creates a stronger, more stable economy that works better for everyone.
CONTRAST: Republicans still believe in trickle down economics, even though it crashed our economy in the last 2 Republican administrations.
TALKING POINTS:
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Democrats created the middle class, which created the greatest market economy in history and that is what made America Great.
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Republicans tried to block every policy that built the middle class and now they are trying to take it apart.
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Republicans have a track record of crashing our economy with trickle down economics that hand our taxes over to the rich, leaving us in depressions and recessions and Democrats have a track record of pulling us out of those crashes by investing in the middle class to build a stronger more stable economy that works better for everyone.
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The way to bring wages back up and fix our economy is to stop Republicans from crashing our economy in the first place.
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Republicans talk about smaller government, lower taxes and more freedom and it sounds great but they leave out the part about it only being for the rich.
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They take our taxes and hand them over to billionaires and then tell us some of it will trickle down but it never does.
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When they talk about "freedom" they mean deregulating banks and corporations so they have the "freedom" to rip us off until they run our economy into a ditch, again.
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Republicans did everything they could to sabotage our recovery under Obama and then blamed Democrats for moving too slow.
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FDR's New Deal policies laid the foundation for a middle class that became the largest market economy in history and Republicans did everything they could to stop him.
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Social Security, collective bargaining, 30 year mortgages, a national minimum wage, building new infrastructure, Banking and Wall Street reform, federally insured bank deposits (FDIC), unemployment benefits, child labor laws, disability insurance and more.
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Later Democrats and Unions fought for a forty hour work week, eight hour work days, overtime pay, paid sick leave, workman’s compensation and the GI bill.
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LBJ's Great Society included Medicaid, Medicare, Civil rights, Voting rights, public education investments, Job Corps, Fair Housing Act, Consumer protection, Housing and Urban Development, Rural development and Mass Transit projects.
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All of these Democratic policies created and grew the middle class, which made America great. And Republicans tried to block everyone of them.
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Almost every current Democratic proposal is also about investing in the middle class to grow the economy from the middle out.
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Equal pay for women would boost the middle class and our economy more than anything in history. It's also the most popular policy proposal in America and the only thing standing in the way are Republicans.
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Paid family and medical leave, fixing our infrastructure, building a new clean energy economy, banking and finance reform, removing loopholes for large corporations, expanding access to healthcare, raising the minimum wage and lowering the cost of college are all about investing in the middle class to create a stronger, more stable economy that works better for everyone.
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Even comprehensive immigration reform would boost our middle class as well as our tax base. Republicans are the only thing standing in the way.
- To bring wages back up for everyone and fix our economy we have to stop Republicans from crashing our economy in the first place and stay focused on rebuilding the middle class and that means voting for Democrats in every election.
- Voting is like driving, if you want to go backward (into a ditch) select R. If you want to go forward select D.