The Democratic election loss in Virginia recently was emotionally wrenching for many of us, and despite all the brave-face rationalizing that it was just the continuance of a long historical trend, it’s hard to fathom how we can still be losing elections to a Republic Party that:
- Has literally killed hundreds of thousands of Americans with its homicidally perverse response to a deadly virus
- Engaged in a seditious coup against American democracy in the last presidential election
- Is dominated by a flagrantly immoral, racist, twice-impeached, emotionally and psychologically damaged demagogue
- Has vehemently opposed every meaningful improvement in the lives of average Americans for decades, while showering the rich with windfall tax cuts and political favors
Winning votes just shouldn't be this hard against a party that has become an actual destructive force in America—a collection of do-nothing whack jobs, conspiracy theorists, liars, and seditionists who are demonstrably, grotesquely unfit to govern. Especially when poll after poll shows that overwhelming majorities of Americans agree with Democrats on most major issues, including public health insurance, paid family leave, stricter gun laws, abortion, taxing the rich, and much more.
And it's not just Virginia. This goes back decades: Gore vs. Bush, Kerry vs. Bush, Clinton vs. Trump, countless national and state races—time and again, competent, accomplished Democrats lose to shockingly inferior opponents.
There is one overriding reason for this continuing travesty, and it’s not really a revelation: Democrats just suck at messaging. With few exceptions, our party seems constitutionally incapable of presenting a clear, forceful, and inspiring message to the public about who we are and what we stand for.
That's not just my opinion; that's pretty much everyone's opinion, including, just for starters: DNC chair Jaimie Harrison, Sen. Jon Tester, James Carville, Andrew Yang, this woman, and many, many Kos commenters and diarists (including this excellent, highly recommended one not long ago). It's even the opinion of the Democratic Party itself, whose 73-page postmortem on the 2020 election included this devastating quote: "Win or lose, self-described progressive or moderate, Democrats consistently raised a lack of a strong Democratic Party brand as a significant concern in 2020." But for all the hand-wringing, the problem never seems to be addressed.
Because the Democratic Party is so bad at defining itself, it has allowed conservatives to define our party for us. We are being outmessaged, outhustled, outshouted, and outstrategized by the conservative propaganda machine. As a result, tens of millions of Americans now genuinely believe that Democrats are immoral socialists who hate America and are out to destroy the nation.
With the 2022 election looming, and 2024 right behind that, we have run out of time for inaction or complacency on this topic. At this point, the pathetic state of Democratic messaging isn't really an argument. The only thing left to argue is: What do we do about it?
Since Democratic leaders don't seem to be answering that question, here are a few ideas to get them started:
1. CREATE AN EMERGENCY RESPONSE TEAM
The situation demands crisis management. Restoring the party's brand should be even more of a priority than candidate recruitment, grassroots organizing, and getting out the vote. Why? Because a powerful brand and an inspiring message make all those other things easier.
- Hire the smartest communications people you can find. Not politicians—we need cutthroat, savvy marketing and strategy professionals. (Anyone who remembers the Democrats' last branding campaign—the hopelessly wonky, soulless, committee-driven mess called "A Better Deal"—will understand why. If you don't remember, that proves my point.)
- Create a centralized strategy and command structure. Democrats desperately need a kick-ass strategy guru—our own Pat Buchanan/Newt Gingrich/Karl Rove type—who thinks big-picture and has an instinctive understanding of populist rhetoric. Absent that, at the very least the DNC should appoint a highly respected strategist and a team of pros to coordinate branding and messaging. Every politician and candidate—national, state, and local—should know this is our party’s highest priority and should get regular emails on Democratic messaging, talking points, and values. Our message will get through to voters only if every Democrat is reinforcing them so often they become truisms. Conservatives understand this; we must too.
- Fight back! The emergency response team should be launching instant countermessaging to destructive conservative memes and exploiting Republican vulnerabilities. Why, for example, have Democrats left an American hero like Dr. Fauci twisting in the wind during a coordinated right-wing smear campaign? Why were Democratic leaders uniformly silent when the shocking news hit that Trump had asked the acting attorney general to falsely declare the election corrupt? Why is the most incisive, hard-hitting Democratic messaging coming from conservatives at the Lincoln Project? We need messaging warriors.
2. DON’T TALK ABOUT ISSUES—TALK ABOUT VALUES
Democrats still haven't learned the most basic rule of political messaging: To win the hearts of American voters, don’t talk about issues—talk about values.
Republicans learned this rule long ago, and they practice it relentlessly. Listen to conservative politicians talk: They never shut up about “freedom,” “liberty,” “family values,” “Christian values,” the Constitution, and the Founding Fathers. Guns are about "freedom" and the Constitution. Anti-gay bigotry is about “religious freedom.” Tax cuts are about “liberty.”
Democrats, by contrast, talk about issues: health care, climate change, economic inequality, LGBTQ rights. While Republicans appeal to the emotions; Democrats try to win over voters with facts and reason. And then we wonder why we lose elections.
Don't take my word for it; the Democrats' own 2020 postmortem said exactly the same thing: "This election, Republicans tended to reach people and connect at an emotional level and Dems tried to connect with people at an intellectual level.”
Americans don’t want to be informed; they want to be inspired. Tell them how our policies reflect deeply held American, religious, and humanitarian values—values like patriotism, equality, fairness, personal freedom, American greatness, compassion, and helping those in need. No Democratic politician should ever talk about an issue without relating it to a core American value. Universal health care is about equality, fairness, and the freedom to live without fear (one of Roosevelt's Four Freedoms). Social welfare programs are about equality, compassion, and freedom from want (another of the Four Freedoms). Gun safety is about our inalienable right to life. LGBTQ rights are about all of us being created equal and the freedom to follow our own nature, conscience, and beliefs.
3. LAUNCH A NATIONAL BRANDING CAMPAIGN
When corporations need to revamp their image, they launch a long and expensive branding campaign. The Democratic Party must do the same. Restoring the Democratic brand, at this point, will take nothing less than a full-on media blitz.
A well-done Democratic branding campaign, especially in key swing states, would serve several critically important purposes:
- Establishing the Democratic identity
- Creating a positive view of Democrats in the minds of swing voters
- Promoting loyalty and pride among Democrats
- Contradicting destructive Republican memes
Yes, it will be expensive. Very, very expensive. But the future of our party, our country, and indeed our planet are at stake.
The pros can figure out the strategy, but, personally, I’d suggest focusing on these three messages:
1. THESE ARE THE Values DEMOCRATS STAND FOR
See above. For example, I'd love to see a series of ads from average Americans from swing states describing, in their own words, how the Democratic Party represents their personal, religious, and traditional American values.
- A veteran who talks about patriotism and the American principle that all of us are created equal
- A farming couple who say Democrats exemplify their Christian faith of love for our neighbor and care for the less fortunate
- A suburban mother who says compassion and fairness are values her parents taught her and that she tries to instill in her children
- A second-generation union worker who talks about the dignity of having a voice in the workplace
- And so on
2. Democrats Fight for the Underdog
This is a powerful message and the grand unifying theme of Democratic values and programs. It incorporates virtually every Democratic issue under one sympathetic, easily recognized brand. Americans love to root for the underdog. It’s why Americans love superheroes and why there are six (!) Rocky movies. It also offers at least two political advantages:
- It exposes a major vulnerability of conservatives—the perception that their policies are hard-hearted, selfish, and immoral toward people in need.
- It is the universal antidote to every poisonous conservative charge of "wokeness," “class warfare,” or “identity politics.” Democrats simply counter that we fight for underdogs, whoever they may be: workers, the middle class, the poor, or the discriminated against—whoever needs a voice in society.
3. ONLY Democrats CAN MAKE YOUR LIFE BETTER
For nearly a hundred years, the Democratic Party has been responsible for virtually every major improvement in the daily lives of Americans:
- Social Security
- the minimum wage
- the 40-hour workweek
- overtime pay
- Medicare
- civil rights
- affordable health care
- and much more
At one time, conservatives vehemently opposed every one of those ideas. Now we can’t imagine living without them.
Today, Democrats are the only party offering real solutions for making people's lives better and alleviating hardship. Conservatives have no ideas left, just absurd scaremongering, name-calling, and culture wars. Stop listening to conservative politicians tell you all the things America can’t do, what you shouldn’t ask for and don’t deserve. There are benefits to living in the greatest, richest, most powerful nation on earth. Start electing leaders who will show you what America can do, and have a 100-year history of proving it.
4. ATTACK "CONSERVATIVES," NOT "REPUBLICANS"
For at least 40 years now, Republicans have mercilessly hammered "liberals," bashing us as tax-and-spend, anti-military, immoral, un-American, socialist snowflakes. They didn't just attack "Democrats." They didn't just debate issues. Their aim was to discredit the philosophical foundation of liberalism itself. And it worked. Spectacularly. Before long the word liberal became an epithet. To this day, few Democratic politicians will publicly describe themselves as liberals; now—if they're brave—they have to call themselves "progressives."
The strategy has obviously been successful, so why haven't Democrats ever returned the favor? Democratic politicians very effectively criticize Republicans, or specific policies, or individual politicians, but they rarely attack conservatism.
Well, now it's time. We need to launch a rhetorical assault to delegitimize not just conservative policies but their entire belief system. We need to make Americans embarrassed to call themselves conservatives. And we don't need to play nice. We should be truthful but ruthless. We shouldn't be afraid to use words and phrases like "sedition," "treachery," "betraying America,” "traitors to democracy," "unfit to govern."
The message is that the Republican Party has devolved into a malignant ultraconservatism that is taking America down a dark and dangerous path. It is a heartless, morally bankrupt philosophy that lacks traditional American, humanitarian, and religious values such as compassion, concern for the less fortunate, and the belief that all of us are created equal. Conservatives are:
- Immoral in their policies of rewarding the rich and punishing the poor
- Afraid of new ideas
- Narrow-minded and bigoted
- Opposed to American ideals of equality and personal freedom
- Anti-government zealots who don't believe in the ability of Americans to govern ourselves
- Fiscally reckless
- Unworthy of leading a great nation
Democrats have a spectacularly successful history of dramatically improving American lives. We believe in cherished American values like equality and personal freedom. We give voice to the voiceless and are a deeply moral party of decency, compassion, and caring for the disadvantaged.
We have a powerful story to tell. For God's sake, let's start telling it.