Why would the DNC cede the narrative on impeachment to the Republicans by not matching their ad campaign with our own truth campaign? It is mind-bogging. Those of us in the independent media and blogosphere do it ad nauseam but sometimes find divergent narratives or are simply ignored instead of amplified.
Recently, Stephanie Ruhle asked a prescient question on Democrats’ fast response to the Republican lies. Jonathan Alter replied with what many activists and independent media have been saying for some time now.
Jonathan Alter admonishes the DNC for poor response
I will repeat this to anyone who will listen. DEMOCRATS WILL WIN IN 2020. THE QUESTION IS HOW BIG!
To be clear, Biden recently showed what quick response would look like. Even though he is not the candidate for a progressive direction, we can learn from his team that responded in lightning-fast fashion.
Donald Trump is a paper tiger. His win was a fluke, yes a constitutional aberration called the electoral college. But irrespective of that, less than 80,000 votes made him president even after losing the popular vote by 3 million. All things being equal, we can actively work to get multiples of that in the appropriate states. Had Hillary campaigned in Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, and Detroit, she would be president. But too often, many of our voters are taken for granted. Then we blame all but our failures to perform. To be clear, that happens on all sides.
Sometime’s one wonders if the establishment of the party is playing a game of calibration. Polls are clear that most Americans, not only Democrats, support progressive policies neither establishment really supports.
Disregard the DNC? If Democrats went out and campaigned for the wants of the people, they would not only excite new people who saw a real chance for change but they would likely remind many from the other party that their vote is private which gives them deniability even as they support progressives.
Instead, we are being asked to seek a mythical center to supposedly get the moderate vote. There ain’t no moderate vote. All votes are ideological as Working Families Party Director Maurice Mitchell recently pointed out at Netroots Nation 2019.
Let me tell you what I am doing. I am reaching not the choir but purported moderate Democrats and Republicans and dispelling the caricature of progressives. Interestingly, these conversations go very well when we personalize these conversations to their own reality, their kids’ student loans, their healthcare, their kid rearing, and more. When we speak nonconfrontationally and make it about them it is amazing how they lead the conversation to a rather progressive direction.
This morning I asked a Biden Democrat who said he hated that he had to vote for Biden because the other viable candidates were too left to win, what policies of these candidates he disagreed with and that most Americans would. He could not quite come up with one. My final answer to him was simple, “Too many people buy into the baseless narrative, the progressive caricature and it hurts us all. Let’s educate folk instead of being manipulated robots by a corporate establishment.”
We need to all become activists with a flare of a psychologist and economist with a huge dose of patience and empathy. Mostly, we need to disregard and go past those who want the status quo or return to a comfort few ever had and a fear too many acquiesce to too often.
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