Democrats, their actions, and their messaging

This is my current Congressional Representative Jackie Speier, who has among other things the distinction of having survived two deadly attacks by murderous cultists. The first was Jonestown 1978, the second was January 6. Rep. Jackie Speier: The GOP Has Elements of a Cult Amanpour and Company 11/24/2021:

She observes there that the Republicans are unfortunately just better in messaging their positions. The Republicans may have awful programs and may use demagogic rhetoric, but they do manage to make their message understandable to the general public and have impressive discipline in spreading the same message acroos the party.

Democrats, on the other hand, talk about politics as though they are reading from a textbook. Jackie is right about that. Other Democrats should listen.

Will Bunch looks at the programmatic problem the Democrats have in The dangerous extremism that’s killing the Democrats is extreme centrism Philadelphia Inquirer 11/28/2021. No, it's not that they are way too socialist and all entranced by "critical race theory"!

We’ve watched this process writ large as the centerpiece of the Biden agenda — the formerly $3.5 trillion social welfare and climate change package with the unfortunate name of Build Back Better — has been stripped of popular items like free community college and seen other key features like paid family leave and lowered prescription drug costs sharply whittled down. The cuts happened not because of Republicans — a hopeless bunch whose votes thankfully aren’t needed to pass this so-called reconciliation bill — but because of conservative Democrats like West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, the Chamber of Commerce lackey who with his family literally owns a coal company, or New Jersey Rep. Josh Gottheimer — whose $450,000 in donations from private-equity firms last cycle is more than any House member, including any pro-business Republican. Even at a much lower $1.5 trillion price tag, it’s not even clear these divided Democrats can pass Build Back Better.

At the end of the day, it wasn’t Republicans but much of this same cadre of “ConservaDems” — including Sinema, whose sharp moves to the right on health-care issues have coincided with $750,000 in campaign contributions from Big Pharma and medical firms — that nearly killed the provision aimed at lowering drug costs (which had reemerged in a much downsized form). And it’s been these same Democrats - particularly Northeasterners like New Jersey’s Gottheimer who’ve benefited as Democrats become the party of college-educated white suburbanites - who’ve pared back politically popular new taxes on corporations and the wealthy but are bringing back a tax break for high-income homeowners, allowing Republicans to bash the party’s seeming hypocrisy. [my emphasis]

He notes that this creates two basic strategic problems for the Democrats. One is that Manchinema and other ConservaDems have put the party in position of having squandered (so far) some major opportunities during "what could have been a brief two-year window — given the dysfunctional cycle of American politics — to take meaningful action on climate change and enact the kind of policies around higher education or paid family leave that are routine in every other developed nation."

And it the drawn-out delays while Democrats negotiate among themselves "has also left the average, not-on-Twitter, not-politics-obsessed voter utterly confused what the party really stands for. I don’t blame them. Many days I wonder myself."

This confronts the voters going into 2022 with the spectacle of an increasingly fanatical Republican Party which is successful at punking the Democrats over and over. And even long-suffering and terminally reliable Democratic voters can't help but look at this and thinking:

• The Democrats control the Presidency and both Houses of Congress but can't get their own programs passed.
• The Democrats control the Presidency and both Houses of Congress but can't get their own programs passed.
• The Democrats control the Presidency and both Houses of Congress but can't get their own programs passed.

I think optimism as a strategic perspective is a good position for the Democratic Party. But the tactical level is where the midterm elections will mostly be decided, as most elections are. You have to get out the vote, you have to get at least minimally competent candidates (a problem with which the Republican Party is not burdened!), and you have to have decent partisan messaging.

In other words, Hell No (I'm Not Alright):