Napoleon is to have said that in war, “Morale is to material as three is to one.” This concept is being shown right now on the Ukrainian front with Russia. Although Russia was assumed at the start of this war as having the bigger and more well equipped army than Ukraine, the conduct of the war is showing how important morale is to an army’s success. Right now from all accounts the Ukrainian morale is vastly superior to Russia’s and this is enabling Ukraine to avoid being taken over by Putin and his thugs.
The same thing is true in political campaigns. During a political campaign you are asking volunteers to do things that millions of Americans hate to do: Knock on the doors of strangers for yard sign locations or during canvassing, ask donors for money, give money, risk being criticized by friends and co-workers for their political support of their political candidates, or, if they are the candidates or the candidates’ families, risk the humiliation of having thousands of voters reject you or your loved ones. These are not easy things to do and to do them successfully requires morale.
Morale is defined in an online dictionary as “the confidence, enthusiasm, and discipline of a person or group at a particular time.” Those things are just as needed in a political campaign with volunteers and candidates as they are needed by an army in a battle. This elemental fact of political campaigns seems to be recognized by Republicans, not so much by Democrats.
Not all Democrats, though. When Speaker Pelosi tore up the Orange One’s State of the Union speech she recognized that she needed to revive the morale of the Democratic Party and she did just that. Democrats need to do more of that sort of morale boosting activity.
If Democrats are not willing to fight for what they believe in, why should people work for them? Back them? Give them money? How do others know what they are willing to fight for? By what they say and do publicly. It is all fine and good to say that we have better policies or better morals or better positions, but if we are not willing to advocate for ourselves and our positions publicly, what good is all that?
If we are going to go down in the midterms, then far better to go down advocating for what we as Democrats believe in.