Updating, a little intro to why this is so important for our canvassing and GOTV and why this is our secret weapon to win in November
This is basically a repost of Diary from last month, but we’re getting such strong positive traction with this messaging even among many registered Republican voters in our canvassing—particular in Battleground States—that we felt it a priority to repeat this message. We’ve been getting cautiously encouraging results in general from recent GOTV, the tl-dr on why: the GOP has damaged themselves even worse than they in their worst fears could’ve imagined with their abortion extremism and stupidity, it’s angered even many conservative voters in ways that aren’t being picked in most polls. But if there’s one messaging area still with room for improvement, it’s in kitchen table economic messaging. That’s because—and a lot of this is media’s fault, and the things the Treasury dept. puts too much emphasis on—there’s still too much emphasis on GDP and economic growth in claims that “the economy is good” when in reality, the overwhelming majority of Americans don’t use these stats to measure how the good economy is (and care even less), in actuality they measure the US economy based on living costs and their buying power, and THAT is where our emphasis needs be in all our messaging. Not only because it’s how Americans in reality measure the economy, but also because Biden, Harris and the Dems as general have actually been doing many good things to help bring down living costs (caused by Trump policies) and buying power, but this hasn’t been getting messaged effectively because too much of our GOTV is getting overshadowed by the “economy is good because GDP is up”, that sounds tone-deaf to American voters.
That’s what this repost is about, and it’s why there’s so frequent a disconnect between the way the media (and our own Treasury data and press releases) report on the economy—talking about how good it is based on GDP—and how Americans actually experience and feel it, that’s based on how well they can stretch their budgets each month for necessities and avoid debt. As we said before, one of the biggest mistakes made be either party in office and by the media, pundits and reporting agencies was to place so much emphasis on GDP and economic growth. Even mainstream economists are loudly pointing out how terrible GDP is as a measure for the real economy, it doesn’t tell us how good things are for the huge majority of Americans because it’s imprecise (and often wrong—Wall St. transactions that add nothing to the economy figure a lot into it) and because GDP in the US goes up for many of the worst reasons—more expensive medical bills, unaffordable daycare or college tuition or a housing bubble for example that makes mortgages and rent less and less affordable for the majority of Americans. It was never something that should have gotten so much attention in our stats much the less in our GOTV, and we come off as tone-deaf to Americans concerns when we focus on it and ignore living costs. (We’d do ourselves a favor by stripping it out of economic reports and focus on living costs and Americans buying power instead, to account for inflation—that is what they care about, and when we acknowledge this in canvassing, we get much stronger positive responses from virtually all groups of voters we contact, most say they’d even be happier for GDP to go down if it made things more affordable with rent, healthcare and groceries, it’s just the reality we need to be aware of)
Fortunately Democrats have introduced a lot of concrete policy here to bring down living costs, make things more affordable and help Americans buying power, and not just the IRA. The inflation and surge in living costs is mainly due to Trump policies like the PPP fraud (he removed the inspectors who were watchdogs against the fraud), tax cuts for the rich and weak tax enforcement on billionaires and his pressure on Jerome Powell at Federal Reserve to push interests rates to zero and the quantitative-easing that led to asset bubbles especially things like housing. And Dems have done a lot to improve this by going after PPP fraud and better tax collection from billionaires, better anti-trust and action against corporate price-gouging, better border enforcement that Republicans have tried to tank with a border bill that even their own Senators drew up (helps reduce pressure on housing) and policies to bring down healthcare costs.
And there’s one other wildly popular thing Dems have done here, so much that this should be a center of our messaging in Swing States: going after corporate price-gouging in housing, by taking up suits against RealPage—source of an algorithm to allow collusion on rent hikes—and corporate purchases of scarce housing. We can’t emphasize this enough, in all our canvassing across the country, some of the strongest approval we’ve gotten from voters of every affiliation has been this most popular, populist and smart policy effort to go after the corruption and practices causing US housing to become less affordable. The response is so overwhelmingly positive—and it differentiates us from the GOP who haven’t done anything like this to attack housing inflation and bubbles at the source—that this is truly our ace in the hole to win across the country in 2024. Please spread the word on this and make it a centerpiece of your messaging, canvassing and GOTV--this is what American voters really care about from coast to coast, and pointing out Dem awareness of voters concerns here and concrete policies, is how we’ll win. Voters will tune out most other things (aside from women’s rights to their own bodies which is also of great importance), but they absolutely do care a lot about living costs and housing as this affects them so much. So focus on what Dems are here, and make this a center piece of our messaging nationwide. We’re heading to see family for the holiday so won’t be able to answer here but that’s in fact why we’re so urgent getting this message out/ Best for Memorial Day for everyone, and details in the repost below.
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Reposting tl-dr (from the April Diary):
The summary at the top for tl-dr: If you’re in a state with a Democratic attorney general that hasn’t done so already (or even in Red or Purple States where other Democratic officials in cities can launch these moves), please contact them to encourage for joining other Dem attorney generals in the recent moves and lawsuits against Realpage and price-gougers in the rental market, and in your GOTV and ads, mention these efforts as high priority in your messaging, since they’re wildly popular with voters, even with Republicans. State and Federal bills to target and prevent big corporations from buying up scarce housing (ie., pre-existing housing like single family homes, not building new housing) to convert to rentals and drive up costs, is also wildly popular.
For tl-dr purposes, here is the ground-breaking Propublica article on Realpage, an incredibly corrupt and almost universally hated provider of an algorithm for big corporate landlords to basically do monopoly collusion and cause artificial scarceness in rental housing, driving up the costs of rent (and as consequence, also housing prices in general) when millions of Americans are already struggling with affordable housing. The practice is not only wildly unethical, it’s also flat illegal and in addition to massive class action suits, many Democratic officials are also doing statewide or city-wide suits , that are not only morally justified, they’re also very popular politically. For example, Attorney General Josh Stein in North Carolina, Kris Mayes in Arizona and, Brian Schwalb in Washington DC. We should have every Democratic Attorney General esp in Battleground States starting lawsuits like this and following with news stories, and even in states with Republican officials in that position, Democratic officials in cities and towns can also help launch lawsuits, gathering favorable media attention and provide a huge source of support and new votes for Democrats.
Just sharing a valuable find from recent canvassing, though sounds like many of you have been finding this too in your own GOTV. We’ve been putting together a GOTV Action Alert for Dem canvassers based on the key economic issue for voters going into November 2024: concrete steps to help bring down cost of living in the US and make things more affordable, especially for essential things like housing costs, healthcare, food, and the cost of college and transportation. President Biden and Democrats have actually been doing many good things on this issue, but messaging still seems to lag behind these accomplishments because most voters don’t seem to be aware. This turns out to be an opportunity because when voters do become aware of what Dems are doing to tackle the cost of living crisis, it’s become one of our strongest assets with both in winning voters to our side (even registered Republicans) but also, in improving voter turnout.
What are these pro-citizen Democratic policies to bring cost of living down? Like we’ve written before, some are relatively well known, like better prosecution of Covid PPP fraud to drain out these asset bubbles—a clear result of terrible Trump admin policy, from when he got rid of the inspectors to help guard against fraud when the pandemic PPP money was given out. And too, there’s the IRA and it’s steps to bring down the cost of major medications, better tax collection from billionaires (who outrageously, pay a tiny percentage in taxes while working and middle classes have to pay a much higher burden.)
And things like better anti-trust and targeting of corporate price-gouging, and, things like Senate Bill 3402, to discourage hedge fund and corporate purchases of scarce housing to turn into rentals, worsen scarceness in homes and make housing costs even worse. Even Democratic attempts at better border security that help to reduce the pressure on housing from uncontrolled irregular migration—including the combined border control-aid bill (mostly Republican crafted, that Democrats wisely supported) that Republicans themselves tanked in February, at Trump’s request. But one of the biggest, most sure-fire vote-getters we’ve been finding in canvassing, has got a lot less atention--the work by Democratic attorney generals in many states to sue and punish Realpage, that corrupt seller of the algorithm to encourage landlord collusion and drive up rent anti-competitively, and similar housing price-gouging.
The results so far have been amazing, with massive support for Democrats going after these price-gougers in the rental market, often over 90%--even among Republican voters. The media often likes to say Americans are so polarized that we’ll split on every issue, but a lot of that’s just gas-lighting—although it may be true for the stupid cultural wars the media likes to divide us on, on economic issues like this, Americans are surprising united in hating the corporate price-gougers and supporting more economical populist policies, including universal healthcare, and especially on costs of essential things like housing, food, transportation and education.
And, Democratic attorney generals have taken the lead in this important fight. Rent and home-buying costs are one of the biggest sources of economical anxiety for Americans, and these costs are often hard to capture in normal inflation stats. The country has a lot of homelessness and increased housing costs are one of the biggest causes of this. While the GOP unsurprising is stuck in corruption and bought by bribes from companies like Realpage, Democrats are taking a strong, ethical and populist stand in fighting these corrupt rental market cartels, that’s also helped to relieve some of the price pressures in housing and reduce inflation, that also helps us all over the ballot.
So it’s important to repeat this fact constantly in our messaging, but just as important, contact other Democratic officials to launch similar moves especially in Swing States, since this is nationwide problem with Realpage and corrupt rental cartels driving up rents all over the country. (Unclear if Attorney General Garland could himself bring such a suit, but if so, it would be a great step to initiate)
In some cases of course Democratic Attorney Generals may already be working on this, but it’s still important to contact them to show support for efforts against Realpage and to let them know if they’re not already doing so, to follow what Attorney Generals like Stein are doing in NC and Maye in AZ, with lawsuits against Realpage and corrupt corporate cartels driving up the cost of rent and housing. Here are some of the most important attorney generals offices to send the word to on this, for any of you living in these, especially in the Purple States:
And it isn’t just Democratic attorney generals who can help bring these suits against Realpage and corporate rental cartels. Some of the most important Purple States may have Republican attorney generals, but still have important cities or medium sized towns with Democratic officials who can bring these suits just the same. This works to our advantage because it clear differentiates pro-citizen and pro-American Democrats from Republican corruption. The GQP has been bought off by many of these corrupt assholes driving rent prices high and Americans onto the street, so even (at the moment) Republican-controlled states, Democrats can gain major support and oust Republican officials by publicly bringing such suits against Realpage and price-gougers in the rental and housing industry. Along with ballot initiatives on abortion rights and women’s rights to their own bodies, this is one of the areas where we can make major headway and boost turnout in the Purple States, including in Texas, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Mississippi, New Hampshire, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska, where Democratic officials can also bring such suits at the local level.
It’s worth mentioning that this subject is part of a broader focus we’ve found to be important in GOTV messaging and canvassing across the country: When talking about Democratic economic politics, focus on steps to reduce cost living and on jobs, don’t talk about GDP, economic growth or “disinflation”. We’ve mentioned this before, but voters simply don’t care about GDP, and boasting about GDP growth just sounds out of touch and tone-deaf to voters, the same with “disinflation” (which just means prices are still going up, if not quite as much then still on top of previous increases that Americans are still struggling to deal with, especially for essential things).
It isn’t just a matter of campaigning—even the mainstream of economists more are pointing out how GDP just stinks as an actual measure of the real economy. Like our own Robert F. Kennedy pointed out, it goes up for all the wrong reasons in the US like housing bubbles and medical bills, and too much is linked to things like those auto-transactions in Wall Street that have little at best connection to real economic activity for Americans. It would actually be better (and certainly win voter support) for GDP to go down modestly if it would also help some of these cost burdens to also go down, that are the real source of economic stress for Americans. Even worse is talk about disinflation or trying to minimize inflation concerns generally—even though it is stabilizing, Americans are stressed by higher cost of living (though as we’ve written before, they do not automatically carry out their frustration at Dems here, it’s general anger at American institutions and the GOP too—something we can capitalize on).
Among the very few times we’ve had voters angrily hang up the phone on us while phone-banking, or slam the door in our faces while canvassing it’s often been college kids—just being real about it—with the syndrome of a little knowledge without getting the big picture, especially on the topic of deflation and price stability. Too often they’ve gotten lectures about how “deflation is bad”, failing to realize that not all forms of deflation are like the “bad kind” we saw in the 1930’s. Sometimes deflation occurs after corporate price-gouging or speculation bubbles in assets, to make things more affordable, and in those cases sustained price decreases are welcome. Especially if they occur after a long period of quite high inflation like we’ve seen since Covid and heavy stimulation by the Federal Reserve and pandemic stimulus.
Instead, Americans measure their economic well being more based on buying power and if their budgets each week cover expenses. It’s a demonstration, yet again of how voters decisions are based mainly on Maslow’s needs hierarchy and concerns that directly affect them. (Although again it’s worth noting, as we have seen in our canvassing, there is very strong support for major Ukraine aid, even among Republicans we talk to and discuss items with.) Again, keep the focus on the concrete and successful things Democrats are doing to bring down costs of living in essential areas, especially as this Diary goes into, in rent and housing. President Biden did this well in the SOTU and this is a proven vote-getter for Democrats, a way we can be populist in the right way and differentiate ourselves from the GQP. We’ll follow with a more general Diary on these Democratic achievements in fighting cost of living, but the topic of this Diary is a great place to start.
