We need to be honest. The situation is grim:
- We hoped Trump would be held accountable for hiding classified documents from the DOJ. A Trump judge dismissed the case.
- We hoped he would be held accountable for Jan. 6th. The Trump Supreme Court gave him sweeping immunity.
- We hoped he would be sentenced for his 34 New York felony convictions. The sentencing is delayed while his “immunity” is reviewed.
- We hoped he would fade in the polls. He is not.
- We hoped his base would lose interest in him. They have not.
- We hoped Republicans would stand up to him. Instead, the Republican who once called him “America’s Hitler” is now his running mate.
We will lose this country if we do not come out strong, now.
I urge people to think about a topic that should be familiar in political circles: MESSAGING.
The Democrats’ message this election needs to be one flashing word:
DICTATOR.
Trump is a DICTATOR.
He will be a dictator over you and your family.
If America votes him into power, it will be the last election we get.
After what we saw on January 6th 2021, that message sticks. Democrats, when you are in front of a microphone, say it!
Put another way: Democrats need to say the quiet part out loud!
The American voters are capable of terribly flawed decisions (2004)...but they are also capable of good decisions (2008) if their leaders (candidates) present their message clearly.
And to that point: Nothing about “reducing the temperature of the rhetoric” is going to counsel us to weaken this message. Not in the slightest.
“Reducing the temperature of the rhetoric” means not saying we will put our opponents in the “bulls eye”. (Ahem, Biden.) And similar things like that.
It does not mean we will not talk honestly to the American people about what is at stake in this election. In fact, to not do so would be a grave disservice.
The message of the Democratic Party needs to the message of the Lincoln Project, on steroids.
Dictator! Dictator! Dictator! Trump is a dictator!
Not a “threat to democracy.” No one knows what the hell that means. He wants to be a Dictator Over You and Your Family. That is the message.
While we’re discussing things the message is Not, here are some more:
- The message is not Veterans Benefits.
- The message is not Social Security.
- The message is not Climate Change.
- The message is not Women’s Right to Medical Care Post-Dobbs. That is message #2, which falls right out of Message #1 (as do all the others) but is presented as: In a democracy, you have the right to lobby for political change, such as legislation to address the Dobbs decision, or even reform the Court. In Trump’s dictatorship, you have no freedom of speech, abortion rights will be whatever the rulers say they are, and if you don’t like it, you will be jailed or shot!
It is not an exaggeration. It is the norm in countries that are not democracies. That is what is at stake in this election.
Trump will overturn all future elections. He will take power away from the American voters, and he will never give it back.
When you say he is “America’s Hitler”, you are not using inflammatory rhetoric. You are simply quoting his running mate.
Now is not, repeat Not, Repeat NOT!!!, the time for weak or boring messaging!
If it is, after the election we will all be reciting our weak and boring messaging very, very quietly, once we’ve lost our freedom of speech and other rights under the law, and democratic America is gone.
Take what we are all afraid of, and say it out loud to the voters, in front of microphones. Talk to them as if they are adults. They will respond.
America will not knowingly vote itself into a dictatorship.
But we may blindly do it.
Let the Democratic Party empower itself to take critical action, by identifying themselves as the key agent standing between an intelligent choice and a blind choice by American voters this November.
Trump is a dictator. You will lose your way of life if you vote for him. Biden stands for democracy, which is the key to your way of life, freedom, and prosperity.
That is the message, it is the winning message, and millions of Americans are waiting to hear it.
All Democrats up and down the ballot, beginning with Biden, need be ON-MESSAGE with this message, from now until November.