I’m very proud of the efforts of many Democrats in Congress fighting this awful legislation. I think of people like Senators Chris Murphy, Jon Ossoff, and Elissa Slotkin, who fought it to the last inch. Some say it will have trouble passing in the House, so we’ll see. I appreciate the effort. If it passes, billionaires get richer. The poor get poorer. I guess Republicans still think that everyone poor is lazy.
It’s time to look at the effort of these Senators and let it serve as a model for other Democratic legislators at all levels of American government. THIS is how you do it. Senator Murphy was on Twitter, Bluesky, and Substack, keeping us informed, urging us to contact our Senators, and explaining in detail why the bill was very bad for the economy.
So, as Simon Rosenberg implores us, focus our limited time and energy on Trump and the evil things he is doing, and remember he is failing, despite his pr efforts to the contrary. Still, it is helpful to self-scout, as they say in sports, and take care of our blind spots.
Our primary blind spot: We need to support Democrats running for office, even if we disagree on policy. We are a party of many diverse interests, ranging from the far left with Progressives to Moderate Centrists and New Coalition Democrats who are diverse, younger, socially liberal, and economically moderate. Somewhere also in there are Establishment Liberals and Labor-Oriented Dems. All of these aims of these camps are valid and worthy of fighting for, but we have to be smart about it. It cannot, no, it can NEVER be about all or nothing, or you will never be in the position to win. It’s about picking our battles and getting behind a handful of strong leaders who have broad appeal nationally.
In the words of Democrat Sam Harris, we have to find a leader who can pull together the broad interests of the coalition but not be railroaded by the orthodoxy of the extreme left wing of the party into pushing ideas that will be rejected by half of the country. He said this in a recent interview with Professor Scott Galloway, who added, Do you think the Democrats’ hearts are in the right place, but they go too far? Sam Harris quickly replied, “Yeah, so in that sense I find the Left fairly culpable for Trump and Trumpism.” His point being that the extreme positions at the expense of issues important to most Americans cost us the election. This thought was further echoed by Anthony Scaramucci, who, having successfully prepped Kamala Harris for her debate against Trump, which she won handily, was told his services would no longer be needed because he wasn’t orthodox enough.
In the Marketing profession, my area of expertise, there is a concept called Positioning. It is the conceptual space a product or political party occupies in the mind of the target customer (the voting public in politics). If you don’t take steps to secure and support the positioning you want in the minds of your voting public, your opponent will. This happened in the 2024 election. Kamala did a great job in a short time, but was unable to properly position what she specifically would do for voters weary of what they perceived to be an inflationary economy and a pandemic. Trump spent hundreds of millions of dollars to position Kamala in the minds of many voters as just being concerned with marginal issues, such as trans rights for children and criminals. She did nothing to blunt this and lost.
There were other issues, such as well, she was a woman and many Americans held that against her, but even THAT could have been overcome by messaging a clear focus on the kitchen table and pocketbook concerns of everyday Americans. As smart young Democratic politicians like Senator Slotikin and Mallory McMorrow say often, it’s not enough to be against Trump and point out all of the evil things he’s doing to hurt Americans; we have to say loud and proud WHAT DEMOCRATS WILL DO WHEN THEY GET ELECTED. And THAT has to be clearly communicated and in line with the concerns of most voters, to wit: their finances and health care.
Democrats need to prop up and feature strong leaders today, such as Chris Murphy, Cory Booker, Gavin Newsom, and others who can emerge as speaking for all Democrats. But this time, they cannot be railroaded by the extreme liberal wing of the Democratic Party, but focus on issues with broad appeal that are still progressive at their core. These issues must be important in the minds of our target constituents, and address their key concerns: Money in their bank accounts and health care. Start there. End there. The other issues? Of course, they matter, just not as much to our voters. And we’ll never get to them if we never get back in power.