What Democrats Need to Do, Part 2: Smaller Bites

Yesterday, I suggested that the most important thing Democrats need to do as they work to regain momentum is to seize control of their own narrative and push back against relentless Republican misdirection, distortion, and outright falsehoods. Today, Part 2 of my three-part series of posts on what the Democratic party must do to move forward in the face of the political equivalent of total war ...

The next step in rebuilding Democratic momentum is to realize that the average American, left to his or her own devices, lives within a relatively narrow range between “liberal” and “conservative.”* Most people are amenable to change, but not too much and not too fast, and this is where I think the Democrats have gone off the rails with their current agenda**. 

Virtually everything in the President's Build Back Better program is popular with a majority of Americans, but when it’s all put together in one gigantic package, it scares people who would otherwise be happy with incremental change ... trying to do one gigantic FDR-style package in the absence of a visible threat along the lines of the Great Depression is frightening and allows the right to raise the terrifying specter of “socialism,” which they do not understand, but which serves as a useful  boogeyman. Having one gigantic package with a vast price tag that is beyond the comprehension of voters whose annual income seldom exceeds $60K allows Republicans to harp about the cost rather than acknowledge the benefits. 

When we combine this with yesterday's discussion of aggressive messaging, it's easy to see how the Democrats routinely shoot themselves in their fiscal feet. Defending an enormous and complex program to a population used to sound bites and bumper stickers and unused to critical thinking and analysis is virtually impossible. How much easier would it have been to break the enormous Build Back Better program into smaller, easier-to-understand segments that would resonate with middle America and more easily gain bipartisan support? As a clear example, working families would cheer the provision of paid family leave, but when it's just one small part of a gigantic package, it gets lost in the political noise.

It's understandable that Democrats want to press their advantage while they have it, knowing that American voters have limited attention spans and short memories. But with such slim majorities in Congress, the dragging weight of such faux-Democrats as Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, and a Republican opposition in thrall to Der Furor and totally united to mindlessly block their agenda, the Democrats must live in the political world that exists ... not the one they think exists. There's no such thing as a "mandate" without an enormous electoral victory ... which they don't have.

The obvious answer is to work in phases. Decide the relative importance of the things you want to do, prioritize them, and move forward. Build support by clearly explaining how each one positively affects the lives of average Americans. Build momentum ... each small victory will make the next one easier.

In summary, these are the first two steps that will help the Democrats regain the support of American voters: 

(1) Define your own programs; don't let the Republicans do it for (or to) you.

(2) Don't focus on gigantic, complicated programs that scare voters ... go for smaller individual initiatives that are easy to explain and defend to voters with the attention span of a two-year-old and the critical thinking skills of a religious fanatic. 

An old saying says there is only one way to eat an elephant: a bite at a time. Let's eat that elephant.

There's another thing the Democrats need to do***, and I'll discuss that in tomorrow's post.

More thoughts then.

Bilbo

* Democratic strategist Paul Begala recently commented that most Republicans are "theoretical conservatives but operational liberals" ... they spout the conservative rhetoric, but tend to support liberal policies and programs that benefit their daily lives. I think that's spot-on.

** And where the Republicans, given the opportunity, will overreach in exactly the same way.

*** If you have ideas on others, leave a comment. We're all in this together.