[Note: This diary is longer than I usually like to post, but I’m hoping you’ll find — as Vermont hikers say — the view is worth the climb.]
“We don’t need any message beyond NO!”
From Markos Moulitsas’s recent “Ask Me Anything” dialogue...
kos: Policy is useless right now. We don’t need any message beyond “NO!” 2020 will be different, but next year? It will ALL be about resisting Trump.
Rob in Vermont: Can you elaborate on why you think policy is useless right now and “We don’t need any message beyond NO!” For example, New York state is starting a free college tuition program, along the lines of the 2016 Democratic Party platform. Does it not make sense that Democrats in Congress are currently pushing this at the national level?
kos: Every midterm is a referendum on the president. Always has been, always will be.
Having a message in 2020 will clearly be important, but that’ll be dominated by our presidential nominee. Look at how Trump stepped over the GOP’s carefully crafted messaging.
Me, I don’t worry about message in 2018. It won’t matter. If Trump is popular, we’ll lose, if he’s not, we’ll win. KS-04 wasn’t close because Dems had a message. We don’t. And we won’t, because we’re like herding cats. No one will ever agree on a fucking message anyway.
I’m more focused on Dems doing the right thing. And right now, doing the right thing is easy—just oppose Trump. It gets harder when you’re in power, as the GOP is now finding out. But “NO!” got them to where they are today. We’re not as incompetent as they are in governing.
So, to summarize Markos:
Democrats don’t have a message, but that doesn’t matter in 2018, and anyway it’s an impossible thing to expect from them.
After the 2014 blowout, Markos prodded the Democratic Party to “figure out how to inspire their voters”
In a piece titled “The electoral boom-bust cycle, and why parties have no incentive to change,” Markos lamented that Democrats have been relying on “demographics and data” rather than inspiring voters:
In 2012, Democrats won big, so they decided everything was fine. Demographics and data to the rescue! Republicans decided to rebrand, until they decided fuck that, no rebranding was needed.
And now in 2014, Republicans are validated again in the Democrats' own 6-year-itch election. Democrats are scrambling for answers.
And I'll tell you what the future looks like:
In 2016, Democrats will win big on the strength of presidential-year turnout. Republicans will realize they really have a shit time winning presidential elections, and maybe they should do something about that!
...
And that cycle won't be broken until 1) the Democrats figure out how to inspire their voters to the polls on off years, or 2) Republicans figure out how to appeal to the nation's changing electorate.
And given that each party is validated every two years after a blowout loss, the odds of either happening anytime soon? Bleak.
Of course it turned out a “big win” for Democrats and a blowout loss for the hidebound GOP was not a “given” in 2016. Indeed, commenter “jabuhrer” presciently responded to Markos’s certitude about election cycles...
I think almost everyone is making a huge mistake in the way they are interpreting "presidential years" and "off years."
Younger and more diverse voters came out in such numbers in 2008 and 2012 because of Barack Obama, not because it was a presidential election year.
I'm quite sure that, unless something changes, the next non-Obama election (2016) will look basically like the last couple of non-Obama elections (2010 & 2014)...the Democratic edge we saw under Obama will be gone.
And I responded: Markos and jabuhrer are both right...
Democrats have bad odds of winning in the low-turnout midterms. And we only have so-so odds of winning even in higher turn-out presidential elections, when we don't have the benefit of an extraordinary candidate like a Barack Obama or a Bill Clinton….
The solution lies in what Kos says will end the cycle; when “Democrats figure out how to inspire their voters to the polls”
Markos says 2018 will be all about Trump. Yes, we should fight Trump tooth and nail. But just as we shouldn't expect to always have extraordinary candidates, we shouldn’t expect that the only thing we need to do to increase the Democratic vote is to play foil to this loathsome presidency. So let’s also heed Markos’s 2014 advice: let’s inspire more people to vote Democratic.
Clinton/Kaine got about 66 million votes, the second largest tally in history. But an estimated 96 million people who were eligible to vote in the presidential election didn’t cast a vote. That needs to be addressed on many fronts, and one of those fronts is messaging.
Most successful organizations and companies don’t get by on just having objectively better ideas and products — they also put a lot of effort into marketing their brand — proudly touting their values and achievements and aspirations. So that over time, more and more people develop a subjectively positive view of that brand.
Who invented this?
I’ll wager the average American today would be quicker to associate I-Phone with Apple, and Mickey Mouse with Disney, than programs like Social Security and Medicare with Democrats — even though of course Democrats invented and have protected these very popular, very effective programs.
Promoting the Democratic brand is a key — not the only key, but one of them — to increasing the Democratic vote. It also helps remind Democratic politicians of what is expected of people who wear that label.
As I wrote recently, we don’t have to wait for the party to do a better job of promoting the brand. We can creatively and actively promote the Democratic brand at the grassroots.
For my part, I’ve designed several bumper stickers to promote the brand and set up a CafePress shop with zero markup (no profit for me) so folks can purchase them at CafePress’s base prices. These messages are available on magnetic and regular bumper stickers and on T-shirts. I’ve bought them and can attest that they are all high-quality products. (Visit cafepress.com/donkey).
The values and achievements and aspirations of the Democratic Party — like fighting for workers and civil rights and for kids and seniors and for health care for all Americans — this is our brand. This is our history. We can promote it. We should.
“No one will ever agree on a fucking message” is a cynical, can’t-do attitude. That kind of attitude never helps. But the opposite — a positive, can-do attitude — is often an essential ingredient for success.
Like when a candidate inauspiciously called Barack Hussein Obama got the most votes in U.S. history and even put traditionally red states like Indiana in our column.
¡Sí se puede!
Yes we can!