Winning the midterms, part 1: Change how we communicate

Photo by MADISON SWART/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images

If we want to win in November, we must achieve two central goals:  Change how we communicate with the American people and embrace a bold policy agenda that can improve their lives right now, as well as in the long term.

We must make it clear, and believable, that we truly care about people.   What we’re going through, what we love, what drives us crazy, our hopes and fears and dreams.

Trying to scare people into voting for us by saying that democracy, abortion rights, immigrants, people of color, science, truth, etc. are under threat, or that we want to preserve norms and institutions, is JUST NOT ENOUGH.  

Nobody wants to go back to the way it was. Our candidates need to talk about how we can build a city, a state, a country, and a world that’s BETTER than it ever was.  Name the villains and the solutions.  Give people hope that if we come together, if we fight for it, we can really do this.

Coming Together On A Winning Agenda

 

The Democratic party establishment can’t and won’t make a bold policy agenda. But candidates and progressive groups can do it themselves.  If they embrace just a few key issues together, they can build far more power.

Shout out to the State Innovation Exchange (SiX), a group I’ve long admired, for showing how it can be done.  They’ve put out something called The Real Affordability Agenda. As they say, “This isn’t theoretical. It’s achievable. And it’s already happening [at the state level].”

Their policy agenda (a short version by me in parentheses):

• Ban rent gouging and expand permanently affordable housing (Affordable Housing)

• Raise wages to at least $25/hour and end subminimum wages (Higher

  Working-Class Wages)

• Guarantee universal child care, free public college, and health care for all (Health Care and Child Care For All)

• Strengthen worker organizing rights and establish a public jobs guarantee (Organize Workers, Protect Jobs)

• Tax extreme wealth and close corporate loopholes to fund brighter futures (Tax The Rich, Fund Brighter Futures For All)

Can we learn from why people love Trump?

People love Donald Trump because they believe he cares about people like them. Because he’s a man of action, and he talks like a regular person, not a politician.  He doesn’t drown you in graduate theses, legalese, laundry lists, norms and rules, or low expectations. He says he’s going to do things and then he does them.  I’m seeing the impact of “no taxes on Social Security” in my tax refund right now.

We CAN learn from his success and apply the lessons to selling and executing OUR agenda.

 

Some candidates and elected officials who show us the way

Here’s James Talarico, running to win a Senate seat in Texas. He’s coined a radio-simple political statement that we all should adopt: “It’s not about left vs. right. It’s about top vs. bottom.” Can someone please write a song and create a Tik Tok dance around that? He holds out hope: “I’m not fighting for class warfare, I’m fighting for the American dream.”

Here’s Greg Casar on the House floor, naming villains and holding silence for 3 minutes and 26 seconds: the amount of time that elapsed between when Renee Good was shot by an ICE agent, ICE agents refused to allow a doctor who was right there to help her, and the time that medics arrived.

And here’s Zohran Mamdani, getting right to work as New York City’s mayor.  As it happens, NYC has far less public bathrooms than other cities.  When I moved there, this was one of the first things I noticed. I learned not to leave my home without knowing what my bathroom options were on the trip. It’s a real problem.

In a CNN story, Zohran says, “The dismal state of bathrooms is symbolic of a larger failure to build and sustain public goods in America.”

 Mamdani recently marked the opening of a new bathroom and pledged $4 million of city funding to build 20 to 30 new modular public toilets around the city.

“This has to be the start of showing what competent government can actually look like,” he said. “Every time you deliver on this, you are making the best case for New Yorkers to believe in government’s role as a positive force.”

Sample Agenda: Our Promise To The American People

Here’s my idea of what a broad policy agenda could look like.  I’m the first to admit I’m not a speechwriter. To get something like this into language that will sing, I suggest hiring Julian Gerson, Zohran’s speechwriter.

Our Promise To The American People

1)    We won’t settle for small-ball solutions.  America has the resources, the big ideas and the can-do spirit to create a better future for all of us.

2)    We’ll make our economy work for all of us, not just the billionaires.

3)    We’ll make our government work for all of us, not just the billionaires.

4)    We’ll make our democracy work for all of us, not just the billionaires.

5)    We’ll stand for peace, democracy and an open hand. Our Statue of Liberty will once again be a beacon of freedom and justice to the world.

We could develop simple slogans for each of these promises and for the policy solutions that go with them.  We could make videos, showing how we would use these principles to fix healthcare, housing, poverty, small business, whatever the issue might be. 

Coming up

As a former radio professional, I’m grounded in the idea of winning an audience.  Find out what the people want, give it to them, then tell them you’ve given it to them, that’s how we used to do it. 

In part 2 of this series, we’ll look at research that shows what issues are most highly rated as important, not only by Democrats, but also by significant chunks of Republicans and independents.  Focusing on these is how we mobilize our base AND bring in the new folks we need to win.