I’m an American citizen living in Germany. Which in many ways is wonderful, like the fact that copays generally don’t exist for any necessary medical care or a visit to your family doctor, or how universities are tuition free in my state, or how high quality beer here costs less than Bud Lite in America. Of course, it has its downsides — like the fact you have to separate your recyclables into five different bags or that every German I meet inquisitively ask my thoughts on Trump (though they do breathe a sigh of relief when I unequivocally condemn him, because almost this whole country realizes Trump is an abomination).
Walking home today, I noticed Die Linke (The Left Party) put up signs all over the city streets like the image I uploaded. Each sign began with the words “show strength” and then followed with a message. Examples include:
- For better schools for our children
- For a €12 minimum wage
- For acceptance of all religions
- For better local healthcare
- For love
Each sign had a different person’s image. Not the image of a politician, rather the image of a constituent. A mirror for the person reading it. I started to wonder why we don’t see signs like this in the United States. But think about the next election — it can be your local, state, or national election. And imagine that your preferred candidate’s name didn’t take up the whole sign. Instead, it would be readable and readily visible but not the largest or most distinct text. Instead, the center of the sign would have a message:
- Expand Medicaid
- Renew Our Infrastructure
- Protect Social Security
- Improve Our Public Schools
- Affordable College
I think it would make a difference. Perhaps not an election winning difference, but this is one idea I see for improving our politics, and I do firmly believe if combined with hundreds of other good ideas, you would see drastically different results, especially in districts and states Democrats have performed poorly in.
One tragic factor in Trump’s electoral college victory is that people lost sight of what was at stake. One each end you have dedicated bases for each party — but those bases have to be motivated to come out to vote. In the center, messaging matters even more. If one party fails to get a coherent message across, then a loudmouth, manipulative conman from the other side will do well. Trump promised more American jobs — he lied of course, but too few realized he was lying until it was too late.
The Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton’s campaign were not effective in messaging last election. That became perfectly clear for me when I saw the awful ad called “Role Models” that depicted children watching Trump talk during some of his asshole moments. That was ridiculous. No one cares that Trump is an asshole, they care about the things that affect their lives.
If an obnoxious jerk who supported universal healthcare, environmental protection, and a living wage ran against a perfectly nice person with Republican ideology, I would still vote for the obnoxious jerk without a second thought. A candidate is just a human being; what that candidate stands for makes the difference. How much money spent airing that would have actually been useful if her campaign instead made an ad explaining to people that their healthcare was on the line? Maybe next time, take an example from Europe: “These are the issues that matter and we are the ones who will fight for you.”