There’s this long-running debate about what the Democratic Party “message” should be. It then manifests with stuff like this:
“We need to remember that one of the reasons young voters, especially, were uninspired is you can’t have a message of, “I’m not him,’” cautioned DNC vice chairman R.T. Rybak, the former Minneapolis mayor.
I don’t remember that at all. Hillary Clinton won millennials handily, and if any were uninspired, it was because of claims that she was “neoliberal blah blah no difference.” Here’s the reality:
- “No” as a message is powerful, and gave Republicans control of government. The fact that Republicans are scrambling now that they’re the dogs catching the bus is irrelevant. They won with “no.”
- Our biggest non-Obama-year victory in recent memory was 2006. What was our message? “We’re not Bush.” Shit works.
- We’re liberals. Good luck trying to settle on a message we can all agree with. Having attended countless brainstorming sessions with top liberal groups and activists, I’ll tell you right now—it ain’t gonna happen. Luckily, it doesn’t have to. See bullet point above!
- Party message is irrelevant. Republicans are well branded, right? Strong national security, strong family values, and lower taxes! Except that they nominated and elected a guy who violated two of those three tenets—a Russian puppet who may be the single-most morally loathsome individual in the country. In other words, the message we’re taking into 2020 will be the message of whoever ends up being our nominee.
- “We’re not him” works better after someone is president than before, and that will go triple for Trump.
So keep our message simple: we are the resistance, and we oppose Trump and his Republican cultists. Period. The End.