I’ll add my thoughts to this lively and thoughtful discussion (can’t tell you how much I’m enjoying the community we’re creating here).
So why, amid all the good news, are Biden and the Democrats taking a beating? Some of you focus on Biden’s and the Democrat’s poor messaging. I agree it’s awful. Even now, most Americans have no idea what the “Build Back Better” package is. It sounds like infrastructure, but that bill has been enacted. “Human infrastructure” makes no sense to most people. Americans like the particulars in the package – childcare, universal pre-K, paid family leave, lower prescription drug prices, Medicare coverage for vision, hearing, and dental – and most favor measures to protect the climate. But the package isn’t understood, which has left it vulnerable to the worst kinds of demagoguery.
But this can’t be the major reason for the paradox because the Democrat’s failure at messaging goes back at least a half century. I remember in 1968 after Nixon beat Humphrey hearing that the Democrat’s problem was they talk policy while Americans want to hear values – exactly the same criticism of Democrats we’re hearing today. Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were great orators but not great messengers. To my mind, the last Democrat who really knew how to communicate with passion and intensity, and lift up the nation while spelling out what needed to be done, was Robert F. Kennedy.
Some of you rightfully and understandably blame the media – not just despicable Fox News but also the corporate mainstream. I agree. But here, too, the problem goes back a long way. Even before Fox News, Rush Limbaugh was poisoning countless minds. And for at least four decades, the mainstream media has focused on conflict, controversy, sensationalism and scandal. Good news doesn’t make the grade.
So here again, we need to ask ourselves what’s new, now?
Some of you suggest that Democrats are just too self-satisfied, representing the college-educated suburban middle class who don’t want major social change. I think that’s right. But this isn't particularly new, either. As I’ve said before, Clinton and Obama abandoned the white working class by embracing trade, rejecting unions, subsidizing Wall Street and big business, and embracing deregulation and privatization.
So what explains the wide gap between how well the country is doing and how badly Biden and the Democrats are doing politically -- right now?
In two words: Dashed hopes. My sense is that after four years of Trump and a year and a half of deathly pandemic, most of the country was eager to put all the horror behind -- to start over, wipe the slate clean, heal the wounds, reboot America. Biden in his own calm way seemed the person to do it. And most of us were surprised and delighted that the Democrats retook the Senate. Our hopes and expectations soared.
But those hopes and expectations couldn’t possibly be achieved when all the underlying structural problems were still with us -- a nation deeply split, Trumpers still threatening democracy, racism rampant, corporate money still dominating much of politics, inequality still widening, inflation undermining wage gains, and COVID (in the form of the Delta variant) still claiming lives.
Dashed hopes make people angry. Mass disappointment is politically poisonous. Social psychologists have long understood that losing something of value generates more anger and disappointment than obtaining it in the first place generated happiness.
I think Biden and Democrats can take solace from this. Hopefully, a year from now the fruits of Biden’s initiatives will be felt, COVID will really be behind us, the bottlenecks behind the current inflation will be overcome, and the horrors of the Trump years will become more visible by Congress’s investigations and the midterm campaigns of Trumpers. Most importantly, America’s irrational expectation for quick deliverance from all our structural problems will have settled into a more sober understanding that resolving them will require a huge amount of work, from all of us. Then, I suspect, the nation will be better able to appreciate how far we’ve come in just two years from where we were.
One thing dems could do is have a presser in the senate and house after a lively discussion to talk about the positives coming out of congress. Talk about the roadblocks to BBB. Shout about the improvements in our lives. Shut down the rhetoric and block the “big lie” talk. Call out the traitors who are still talking about a lost election.
We don’t talk about our accomplishments like the republicans. They seem to be in front of a camera complaining about the lack of toilet tissue and parking spaces (joking here) but you get my drift.
Take the initiative and use the media the way they want you to use it.
How do we use a media owned by the ultra right? I agree with what you’re saying. But this continues to be the issue. I remember wondering why Bernie wasn’t campaigning as much as he should have been. Then I found out, it wasn’t reported. He went to Liberty University! He went to the south! He had numerous standing-room-only crowds that I didn’t hear about.
The left has a much smaller scale presence in terms of media. It’s such a mess.
One way to get that news is to go directly to the source. I follow Bernie on Instagram so I know what he’s up to. I don’t know if that’s helpful for you though.
Thanks but my point was that the major news sources cut him short. Other people need to know about it. Those of us supporting Bernie didn’t need to be told how awesome he was! 😊
I don't see much success in trying to use the press owned by the ultra right. Even the main stream media like the NYT are subtly biased against the left because the left is challenging the influence of big money and the status quo. My thought here is to politely call them out on it when they get it wrong.
The more important shift is how we change ourselves. We can demonstrate fairness and compassion even when others are not. Consider for example the influence Bernie Sanders has had. His integrity and compassion have dramatically shifted the debate.
I agree. The public can absorb stories. Stories are the means by which lessons are conveyed and learned, over hundreds if not thousands of generations. Policies, numbers, factoids, promises -- all mean little.
Ronnie Reagan was a great story teller. 😏 I think to some degree Clinton did well with stories. Mamma always said…😄
But I remember some of the personal stories my professors talked about more than some of the lessons. So story telling is effective for sure.
John Kerry was one who launched into political speak and did not connect with the person asking the question. To some degree, we have forced these politicians to guard every single letter that comes out of their mouths. If they unintentionally misspeak, news creates much-ado-about nothing. Hillary Clinton comes to mind. How frequently do you hear a politician answer with yes or no?
Excellent point. Why do R’s always seem to communicate the same talking points, but D’s don’t? Who is in charge of determining messaging? I assume the WH, but why is D messaging so lame? Listen to campaign speeches by FDR—he unashamedly touted D reforms and bashed R’s for failing to go along.
As the "Big Tent" party the D's are trying to hold together a much broader coalition. I also think R's are better organized because they feel more threatened. Without gerrymandering, voter suppression, and other unfair advantages, they know they are weak and it worries them.
Unfortunately the D's have their own corruption problems and have little consensus on how to challenge the R's propaganda. This isn't a full explanation of course, just a piece of the puzzle.
Professor, I respectfully disagree that you’re saying toxic media has been around for a long time and so that’s nothing new. It doesn’t have to be new. It’s the 40 years of constant factless news, nationalistic, racist bias and buying all the stations that I think has culminated in where we are today.
Did you see a multitude of people getting violently out-of-control on airplanes before Trump? They have made the violent behavior a badge of honor. This comes directly from Limbaugh, Fox, and other lunies on the TV and radio.
The airlines have the right idea. Ban these people for life and fine them. Any of the deadly coup-attempt attendees should get 20 years…no less. We need to see consequences, that is what drives much anger on the left.
I hope that the Democrats make sure the American people realize that the civil engineering projects in the infrastructure bill require design, preparation and multiple approvals before construction can even begin. It may be several years before they notice the improvements. President Obama was beaten up by the Republicans and others for this misunderstanding in the "Shovel Ready" projects controversy.
I am looking forward to decent Internet and less power outages. Two major pains for us rural folk.
I agree with your analysis. The question in my mind is can and will Biden and the team step up to actually fix the structural problems we have, and in particular, remove money from politics. If not, the disappointment may continue.
Melissa, that's the most troubling thing, to my mind. Fixing the structural problems (climate, democracy, systemic racism, public health) will take lots of energy, time, and political will. There's no way Biden and team can do it in a single term of office, or even two terms. In fact, no president or administration can do it alone. Fixing these requires strong public movements that mobilize, energize, and organize enough of the public that politicians have no choice but to fix them.
Yes, fixing structural problems requires strong public movements that mobilize, energize, and organize enough of the public that politicians have no choice but to fix them. Unfortunately this message hasn’t made its way to the front lines of progressive political leadership.
Yes, that's concerning and I agree that it's impossible to fix these deeply seeded structural problems in one or even two terms even at the best of times (without all of the Republican noise and pushback). So, it worries me too. On a separate but related note, If we think about how religion was spread - through an army of hundreds of thousands of missionaries - not sure why a few Democratic billionaires don't fund that. I would like to think that presented with the information, the people who we need to persuade (ie., white low income) would realize that that the Democrats are the party that is most closely aligned with their interests.
I agree, but I also think the message can be simplified. At some level most people want honesty, integrity, fairness, and compassion. Remind them of this. When you see politicians who aren't delivering these or engage in mud-slinging, turn your back and don't vote for them.
The Democrats have to be as ruthless as the repugs! We are not getting our message out in a resonant manner! The propaganda playbook the repugs have used for 40 years has worked all too well! What I’m finding is the repugs have concentrated on local politics! Installing radicals in ever position possible and creating barriers for progressives! They are the rittenhouse’s of our society! Walking around looking for ways to intimidate progressives and then calling foul when we respond in defense. Violence and intimidation at every level! Nazi playbook!
This explanation feels right to me. If true, then isn't it urgent that Biden use his executive power aggressively and soon - well before the 2022 elections - to do something really important that affects peoples lives, such as free public college tuition and forgiveness of student debt, and universal health care in response to the ongoing world pandemic? I have doubts, seeing the ongoing spread of the virus in many parts of the world, and the slow roll-out of vaccines in many countries thanks to the greed of the pharmaceutical companies, that Covid will be behind us in the fall of 2022.
Makes sense. To be fair, Biden raised hopes of a return to normalcy during the campaign; the seminal message of his campaign was that he is and experienced Washington insider who could set everything right. In a way he has fulfilled that promise in his own actions as president. The problem is that he can't control all the nasty, greedy, power-mad loud voices out there trying to tear him down. Right wing media has incited a substantial portion of the country into outright hostility to Biden. Getting along and working together require cooperation from all parties.
Biden also possibly over-promised with respect to Covid-19, predicting that it would be largely behind us by July 4. He didn't see the Delta variant coming, but predicting what a virus will do risks underestimation. He also didn't think that there would be such virulent resistance to the vaccine, since it was developed during the Trump administration.
In line with your analysis, if I were to give Biden advice, I would tell him to be less optimistic in his predictions about events he cannot control.
He has terrorists in his midst too. And don't forget Climate Destruction! If his administration , justice department and Attorney General can effectively deal with the Traitorous Insurrectionists there could be a lot more done. Lock them up!
I think you’re missing what’s really happening here. Democrats are pissed. They want to see justice for all that TFG put us thru. He’s a criminal and so are his allies. Why is he still walking around free?! Where is the accountability for all the damage done to our democracy?! Every day we watch our democracy circle the drain while the GOP passes voter suppression laws in states across the county, and if the redistricting maps are enacted in their current form the Dems will be out of power for a decade. Biden’s policies are great, what we’ve wanted for many many years, but what good are they if the Republicans get back in power and undo it all? WHY WASN’T VOTING RIGHTS THE FIRST ITEM ON BIDEN’S AGENDA?!!!! That is primo important. Without that the rest doesn’t matter because it can all be washed away with the next election. Plus, we all watched in horror as Trump committed crimes in plain sight, including trying to overthrow the government, yet nothing has happened to him yet. We are frustrated beyond words at the injustice and the Biden administration looks incredibly weak, impotent even, that all this horribleness has been allowed to continue. We are watching our democracy die and want to jump up and down screaming DO SOMETHING!!! But all we hear is talk about policies and Build Back Better and infrastructure and yada yada yada. That’s great! But it feels like decorating the Titanic at this point. Biden needs to get on the same page with us and HEAR us. Do something about the filibuster so we can pass voting rights legislation and still have a democracy where those wonderful policies can actually do some good. Without democracy they will mean nothing. THAT’S why he’s polling so low. We need him to stop the bleeding first, then decorate to his heart’s delight. We’ll love it. But first things first. Save our democracy now.
Biden may have tilted to the left to neutralize Bernie and his supporters but he is a centrist and a Democrat who once took in $100k for endorsing a Republican running in I believe Ohio. As to forceful maybe it is not the appropriate adjective for someone who guts his own agenda.
I have never heard Biden endorsed a republican! He may have but I don’t care! Let’s stop attacking each other! I love Bernie as well but he is not president!
Alexander Burns in Jan 2019 in The NY Times reported on a $200k speech Biden gave in Benton Harbor Michigan to a Republican audience in 2018 endorsing Republican Upton. This may shock you. As for Bernie not being President that is hardly the point. Biden’s original BBB is not the bill that the House passed.
There must have been a good reason to do so if indeed he did! Why don’t you argue with trumpers? Why argue with a progressive and a Bernie/Biden supporter?
While I agree with you that Trump moved the country down the path to fascism, and that now that he is gone as a roll model bullying is no longer in fashion, there are millions of voters that support the right wing agenda Trump stands for. You don’t put someone in jail because you disagree with his politics, you change the country in a positive direction so that he no longer has any support. Republicans voted for Trump because he promised to stack the Supreme Court against abortion, gave the Born Again Christian Right what they wanted and cut taxes for the wealthy. You may want Trump in jail but that isn’t the point. The Dems had the choice of Bernie, a real reformer, and Biden. They went with Biden. If BBB doesn’t give people what they need they will go with the other option. I agree with you that voting rights are the most important legislation before Congress but how can you blame the Republicans for not wanting it to happen? They know they are a dying minority and will do anything to retain power. Unfortunately Biden just doesn’t seem to care or doesn’t have the convictions to find a way to make voter rights legislation get through the Senate where the Dems have the votes but not the strategy. If you voted for Biden you just backed the wrong guy to get the reforms accomplished. It’s sad but true.
Thanks for your response. A couple things.. I don’t think TFG should be in jail bc I don’t like his politics. He belongs in jail bc he broke many laws, many times, in plain sight, we all saw it. As for policies, David Plouffe says it best: “The infrastructure of Democracy is in worse shape than our physical infrastructure. Dems in Congress must act to ensure voters decide who is in power, not GOP state legislators. Or else we’ll have lots of nice roads and bridges in an autocracy.“
I don’t disagree with you but to date Trump hasn’t been indicted for breaking any laws. I’m at a loss to explain that given the certainty most Democrats have that he has done so. I believe his tax returns are in the hands of prosecutors but there are no indictments I’m aware of.
Do we really have a year? Are the Biden initiatives going to deliver people from their current anxieties? Larry Summers, some current Fed members, and influential financial journalists like Martin Wolf of FT are looking for the Fed to end buying of debt and to raise interest rates to reign in inflation in early 2022. Very soon. Summers doesn’t oppose the Biden initiatives but considers them weak stimulus compared to monetary measures currently providing easy money. So a change in monetary policy might be felt a lot stronger than any of the weakened Biden initiatives in the pocketbooks of Americans. That is why your highly optimistic view might in retrospect be seen as Biden missing his one opportunity.
Prof. Reich: I imagine we’ve all grown increasingly discouraged to learn that that the generic ballot has Republicans up and Democrats down. Daily, I tell myself that it’s hard to imagine a more challenging situation than being the party governing America in the year 2021. Be it the health crisis, the economic inflation crisis, the climate crisis…I could go on, I recognize every one of these crises is outside the control of any one party. Still, as I’ve argued elsewhere, I maintain that virtually everything that is disfunctional in our politics at this point, in some way, can be attributed to the filibuster. For instance, the only reason Biden has to ram his entire social and climate legislative agenda into one bill that can only be passed through what, understandably, has become an unwieldy reconciliation nightmare is because the Republicans refuse to allow regular order.
I grant there currently aren’t 50 Senators who support either abolishing the filibuster or exempting it even to pass bills protective of our most basic rights. Therefore, in my view, we must press for an alternative rule change initially proposed by heavyweight Norm Ornstein that, in all likelihood, would pass: replace the 60-vote threshold required to end debate with a 41-vote threshold to continue debate, thus shifting the burden from the majority to the minority, 41 of whom would have to be present, speaking nonstop about the issue at hand, to sustain a filibuster. I don’t imagine any Senator (we only need 50 to enact a rule change) could mount a credible opposition in defiance of this reform. Furthermore, who wouldn’t want to see 41 Republicans opposing an extension of the child tax credit over 10 years, the first piece of Biden’s BBB I would hope Dems would introduce?
Roosevelt wasn't a timid liberal, afraid to make any changes without "support across the aisle". Biden's popularity is so low because people don't see him fighting for his agenda. And making excuses for not doing something to get around these institutional impediments doesn't fly well with voters. Biden and Schumer haven't tried any of the suggestions like the one you are making. Defending this behavior is ludicrous. Opening up more of the Gulf to oil drilling is unacceptable. Only a partisan Democrat could find an excuse for that type of behavior in a President who said the US would lead by example.
Peter: Although by the time I got back on line someone already had replied to your response to my comment, I, nonetheless, will inject a few thoughts. To start, because I was responding to Prof. Reich, I deemed it appropriate to acknowledge “the underlying structural problems…still with us” [Reich’s words] when Biden took office. As for your observation that neither Biden nor Schumer has shown any interest in the filibuster rule change initially proposed by Congressional scholar Norm Ornstein, I have two thoughts. First, they seem to expect that 50 Senators, ultimately, will sign on to most of the BBB bill that passed in the House and, second, that the 50, ultimately, will consent to a carve out to pass voter protection legislation that would preempt the suppression and subversion policies that, in some states, already have become law. Still, I imagine both Biden and Schumer have pocketed Ornstein’s proposed rule change should they need it.
As a final point, let me be clear that I am sick about the billions in subsidies for nuclear energy and the fossil fuel industry included in the bipartisan infrastructure bill and am counting on the BBB climate package to offset these horrific measures.
If Schumer actually uses the Ornstein proposal I will be the first one to cheer about it. It certainly makes sense from a non-partisan point of view. I also think you can preserve the filibuster where a Senator has to stand up on the floor. But the 60 vote filibuster has to go. It is fundamentally in Democratic.
Nothing stops the President from doing what he believes is necessary to protect our national security. Global warming threatens to bring on natural disasters that do that.
Juliet: I write in the event you wish to read my reply to Peter’s thoughts about the comment I had posted. Meantime, I appreciate you cared enough to initiate your own conversation with him. Barbara
They don’t have the majority that FDR had. That may seem like an excuse, but it’s true I think. I’m feeling really hopeless about everything with the redistricting and the ratings. The Republicans are not pliable, either, so that’s another comparative hardship we have now.
Here’s the problem. The House centrist Dems held up BBB until they could get the SALT cap raised to 80k which allows a hole to be blown in the revenue for BBb and gives an enormous tax cut to the rich. This is unbelievable. They have been cutting out benefits for working families and they turn around and give a tax break to the rich. You would have to be a fool to excuse that away. I never thought they would raise the cap to such an outrageous height. The Republicans will take this all the way to the ballot box. Trump cut back on SALT and the Dems rewarded their rich friends and put it back. I can hardly believe how scandalous this is.
A number of people here seem to think the problems the Democratic Party has is all about messaging. It isn’t.
On almost every issue of importance the Democratic Party has been willing to compromise benefits for working people off the table.
The reason that Democrats talk about messaging is that the Party is dominated by self satisfied upper middle class voters who control the Party and see nothing wrong with the status quo.
The majority of people in the US are not in that zone of satisfaction.
No amount of messaging can work when you are the party of Manchin and Sinema.
Just look who Biden let speak at the White House to celebrate the infrastructure bill—-Sinema.
The Party of Sinema isn’t going to win the 2022 election.
The reality is that the Dems in the Senate have a faux majority as Manchin and Sinema are conservative, bought and paid for by Big Coal and the oil lobby (Manchin) and by Big Pharma (Sinema) so the actual division in the Senate is Dems 48, GOP 50 and independents who caucus with the Dems 2. Plus one tie-breaker (Harris) if the Senate could dump the filibuster which tends to negate the implicit Constitutional assumption that 50-50 ties will occur. That doesn't work when you need 60 votes to pass legislation.
It's much more effective for the GOP to have 2 spy-moles pretend to caucus with the Democrats, while sabotaging everything. Then the GOP can tell uninformed Independent voters that a Democratic "majority" cannot accomplish anything
But the public sees the Biden agenda going down the drain because of Democrats and not just in the Senate. Look at the House Dems waiting for CBO to decide for them whether to support a strangled BBB. The public sees that for what it is—-the lack of elected Democratic support for their own President. And as for Biden he is just going along like it doesn’t matter.
Please read some of my messages below. It is aimed at people like you who want to blame the Democrats while forgetting how much death has occurred in this country specifically because of the illegal and callous behavior of the Republicans. Get a grip on what the hell is happening here! We’re fighting Fascism & authoritarian take-over by the republicans. You following republican messaging. Yes, there are issues on the Democratic side but this republican scandal can end our democracy!
Without the end of the filibuster the Democrats do not have enough surplus in Congress to overcome this.
I very strongly agree that this is a time to direct criticism at Republicans not Democrats. I actually think Democrats as a whole have gone farther left in recognition of the realities out there but are struggling for legit reasons like the Senate.
Thank you! Blaming things like "messaging" and Dems being "out of touch" with everyday Americans is absurd. They're literally the only ones doing anything to protect and raise up everyday Americans while the GQP does nothing but lie, obstruct, deny, take credit for things they fought against and lie some more. All while taking their voters money & promising to save them from the evils of communist, socialist, marxist, fascist, radicalist democrats. (not sure how Dems can embody all these different ideologies, but they're now interchangeable labels on the right). Dems are not perfect by any means, but when I hear these arguments it just makes me think of people comparing a hurricane to a light drizzle and some 10mph winds. How people see them as the same things is so hard to comprehend.
Thank you. I work in an alderman’s office and stay very politically active after a career in banking..it didn’t blind me to the politics of the banking industry, I actually loved my work, but it has moved in a direction I couldn’t take part in anymore.
I enjoy supporting my alderman who sets a high bar for politicians.
Do you really think you can fight fascism by not trying everything to show the public you are supporting their interests. Biden says at Cop26 he is going to lead by example. Today he opened up 80 million acres in the Gulf for oil drilling. As a Democrat are you satisfied with this?
Who is “the public” you are referring to? The whining right wingers who vote republican to support their racist views. We’ve been conceding to them for the past 40 years and that is what brought us to this. No, I don’t give a damn what the terrorist-supporting portion of the country have to say. They’ve stood by and supported police officers aggressively handling the black population and don’t care about anyone else’s right. They’re not going to hop aboard at this point. Give up on that fantasy.
I think Biden allowed Sinema to speak as a part of his strategy to pull her "into the fold." Sinema is a narci$$i$t who needs attention focused on her. Maybe this was a kind of "tit for tat" maneuver on Biden's part. Unfortunately, he and everyone else is stuck with her until she is primaried out, and that couldn't happen sooner!
The last idea I had was to find a BBB acceptable to Manchin and then put full Medicare negotiating drug prices back in and have a vote. Call their bluff. Biden could also executive order more writing off of student debt.
In general self satisfied Democrats could finally admit they were wrong to go Bernie light with Biden and demand the Party open up to young people on their terms not establishment Dem terms. Self satisfied Dems need to be retired and all those young activists I saw cheering for Warren and Bernie at the New Hampshire State Democratic Party Convention need to be brought into leadership roles. All before 2022 because after the coming debacle don’t expect anyone to pick up the pieces and immediately succeed. Remember capitalism has to confront global warming and right now I would bet against that happening. We no longer have the Roosevelt brain trust.
We don't need a third party. Ralph Nader tried that in 2000. Progressives must be elected as Democrats. And we could use some star power. Tom Hanks would make a great president.
The headlines read, "Wyoming GOP says it will no longer recognize Liz Cheney as a Republican after she criticized Trump". Is this the GOP we remember. NO, Liz Cheney is as Republican as you can get, so, the existing GOP is the "TRUMP PARTY" Conservatives need a new party they can move forward with like "The Constitutional Party" or the "States Rights Party" because the GOP does not recognize either the Constitution or States' rights. The party of Trump violates both. The GOP is now "The American Nazi Party" and looks very much like the German Nazi party looked in 1934.
This is true but are there enough Republicans to form and replace the existing murdering party of traitors? I would love to see it happen. I know there are never-Trumpers like The Lincoln Project and I would warmly welcome a republican party that is as repulsed as we are about these murderous psychos.
To paraphrase H. Rap Brown: “Racism is as American as cherry pie.” All of the ridiculous rhetoric and profession of conspiracies is just a nod and a wink disguising the racism of white Europeans like the Slovene, Gosar.
Hmmm … Perot sucked a lot of votes out of HW’s totals, as I recall it … could do with another such, if they could get any votes.
The Republican Party was formed from dissatisfactions with the Whig Party, as I recall my high school history. Somebody could do that again, to the current Rs, way past time — b.rad
I lived through the Virginia Governor election and I have to say it was sooooo painful. Youngkin lied about how the dems were going to infiltrate the school system and cause mayhem, take away parent engagement, destroy the learning process. Not once did we come out and say, it's just republican bullshit! Instead, we did the Trump, Trump is bad, Youngkin is a Trump Acolyte, oh yeah, Trump. No message. Nothing to instill trust. What the heck were we going to do if we won the Governor's race? Don't know and didn't even tell a good story.
What is the message? What are we going to do to fix the huge divide? How do we make government functional?
The world is enjoying the dismantling of American Democracy.
I have a friend in Virginia who had supported Terry McAuliffe and even had dinner with him. I said to him, "telling parents they should not be telling schools what they should teach" was his "deplorables" moment. WTF Really???
How can they not have seen the vitriol at the school board meetings PRIOR to the election??? That’s what Republicans were using to get the voters out. But somehow no one saw this coming. Are you serious???!!!
Don't forget McAuliffe was the head of the DNC in 2008 when the Democrats ran away from the Affordable Care Act and got their asses kicked!!
We don't seem to learn from our mistakes. History is a pain in the ass, but it seems to bite us quite often.
You know it's bad when Trump's approval is equal to Biden's. It doesn't matter if it's true, but that is what the media is spouting. It is depressing and disgusting.
How in the world can "intelligent" humans think that Trump is better than anything smarter than a lump of coal. This is going to be an epic battle leading up to the mid-terms.
To be fair, we have squandered almost a year focused on Manchin and Sinema when we should have been positive, delivering a solid message about progress.
Every state is looking at how they can use the infrastructure money that the republicans have given them. Oh wait, I meant the democrats.
We aren't even talking about the republicans who are leaving politics because the party is too far right. That is a major talking point that we are missing. Sadly, the congressmen leaving are the ones who can bring positivity back to the republican party.
That is a message that should be shouted from the rooftops of every state capital building.
That’s true, they should have been more observant about the school board meetings. But I have vitriol that this manipulation of sentiment about race has worked to elect someone in my state Governor. It’s obvious that the schools were trying to help things because racial makeup of the schools was forcing them to, not that they should not have considered this stuff earlier. They have been trying to help kids not feel “less than,” not the opposite (toward white people suddenly very barely minority).
They have been rather clumsy at it. I guess their interpretation of CRT involved problematic dichotomies. I like what John McWhorter says about “woke racism.”
What we see in Washington is disfunction. Biden is basically silent, Harris is an embarrassment.
Promise $2000 checks - deliver $1400 checks.
Promise universal pre-k - deliver Matt Bruenig estimated only 5% of kids will be covered by what is in the bill in some states.
Promise 'serious' (for washington) climate action - deliver watered down industry friendly compromises
Promise Medicare lowering drug prices - deliver 10 drugs with generics.
Promise student debt forgiveness- deliver only for a small minority of student borrowers
Promise a sane and just border policy - deliver crickets.
Social justice- crickets
Bidens biggest campaign promise was to return us to normal. But he has left some of the worst Trump policies in place- Cuban sanctions which he could lift immediately as an example - tariffs on goods which are adding to the supply crisis.
The American people aren't stupid..Aid to Israel was voted through immediately - not scored by CBO or whittled down - but the people who live in this country have to settle for crumbs. And whole we can't let Republicans off the hook for it - democrats are keeping these policies from becoming reality.
Not every voter agrees with your list of policy objectives. Moderates, independents, and certainly Republicans may consider some of your items of low importance or may actively oppose them. These voters are included in Biden's poll numbers. I think that voters see high gas and food prices and supply shortages and blame the guy in charge. His poll numbers will go up if these problems lessen, or down if they get worse.
Specific policies in the social and environmental legislation poll well over 50% - drug price negotiation polls at over 75%.
I completely agree - prices that pinch wallets that are already thin are a reason to lose faith in the current administration. But with good messaging the major hit could be avoided. We are all going to get through this - we are releasing strategic reserves to deal with high fuel costs and heating oil for this winter.
I believe that you are seeing, in this paradox, with Biden and company making legislative achievements and their press appearing so much in the negative column, the success of chaos making. It is found in a phrase attributed to Bannon. Or a simple theory, shall we say. The idea is to continue to create chaos, a chaos mixed up with domination of the message in as many places as possible, as often as possible. Dems are not controlling their message because they are being overrun with the chaos machine of the Far Right. "Just drown out any hint of progress for the people!" is the Right's message. Take over Left's narrative." When, when, for God's sake, will we ever learn? This is propaganda taken from the pages of all successful dictators! The response is to call it that! Vicious, false propaganda and the Dems and the Left better figure out how to counter it, and fast. And providing long explanations to the public will not do. They are too busy to listen and connect the dots. Pull off the ugly facade of the Right. Name it. Call it.
Betty, I agree. I feel like I’m on repeat saying how every media conglomerate is owned by the right wing. More frustrating are some of the people on sites like this saying…just what the rt wing wants them to say…Both parties are the same. It really makes me angry. The republicans pulled off a deadly coup attempt, the the whole party blocks investigations into this heinous crime! The Democrats are the ones who have saved the American people. I don’t deny that there is corruption everywhere. It’s what you get when corporations are allowed to buy politicians. But even with that, it angers me when the people saying the parties are the same can’t list the accomplishments of Biden so far. Every push for advancement has been hindered by Republicons. And they support authoritarianism! Look what they did to Lynn Cheney!
What if the Dems launched an epic ad campaign to educate the white working class in particular? Literally targeting them and speaking to them in their language.
We need an education campaign for sure just to highlight Dem ideas. Then teach…here’s what Dems helped us get in the past and recent past, here’s what we want to add. We have enough for everyone. Now here is what the military takes. (We haven’t won a war in decades with a military 15 times bigger than any on earth). That money should be helping YOU. What if we had a military, 5 times bigger than any on earth?
But part of the problem is the absence of broad-reaching media, similar to Fox News, CBS, NBC,ABC etc…
We don’t have that. And the brainwashing is deep. How do we convince people who believe things as nutty as Democrats are forming child pornography groups…meeting in pizza parlors! There’s a bizarre psychosis that we can’t handle and it keeps getting fed by Fox et al.
Seeking Reason, one consolation is that some of their conspiracy theories are so out there, that only the lunatic fringe will believe them. Most people have more sense.
A good ad campaign is what we need. I just gave to Act Blue to support a group that is planning an ad campaign and support to get traitors out of office . There is mounting evidence that people in Congress and the Senate had been involved in planning the Jan 6 attack on our Capitol. We don't need them in Government!
you are right. No idea why billionaires in the Democratic party don't put more money into this. What are they spending on? If it were me, I'd pour in billions into educating people.
I think the Democrats lack the kind of messaging needed to show that things are going well for them. If we did like the Republicans and bombarded the news, with how things really are, maybe the public would see the truth. There is a real disconnect between what is happening or what is possible, and how people see that things are happening. Also, the news would be very boring if the media didn't try to spin Biden's actions with sensationalism and doubt.
I think the big issue for democrats is they can't deliver on even modest promises. As a parent if my kid says he is going to take care of the lawn - and I see it overgrown, brown, etc - I know that I've made a mistake in trusting them. What politicians do we actually have trust in anymore? Without trust we can't give them the benefit of the doubt.
We should see people calling out Manchin and Sinema every day. We should be organizing marches in DC - strikes, etc - demanding the 4T dollar investment in America's future.
I'm on board with calling out Manchin & Sinema. However, I think the original price tag was an opening bid for negotiations. I think Biden may have miscalculated concerning exactly >who< he would be negotiating with. I think he was trying to get started with the Republicans, and not their de facto agents imbedded among the Democrats.
That way, the news is about how Democrats are ineffective and inept, while nobody's making an issue about how the Republicans are voting - mostly - as a fascist bloc against >any< measure the Democrats settle on, having >absolutely no intention< of negotiating about >anything.< And worse, the Republicans will - predictably - pull the ol' turn-around, claiming they voted against those measures because the Democrats didn't include them in the discussion. That move - that we have seen many times before - is listed on the first page of the Republican playbook - if anyone's been paying attention.
I think you are right. I also think the mainstream news media, for whatever reason are not talking about the positives of what Biden has been doing. I listened to CNN yesterday and it was all doom and gloom, how high are gas prices, job shortages, possible lack of supplies that will hamper holiday shopping and the list goes on. I know these news companies are owned by billionaires and this may be part of the reason for their lack of discussing anything positive but come on. Also why aren't they discussing the bizarro world of QAnon and Trump and the second coming of JFK? The findings on Trump become more frightful by each day but no reporting on this.
I have no objection to the news going dark on ol' Tweety & the gang. That clown car has garnered >entirely too much< free campaign advertising from mainstream news outlets reporting on their bat-s**t antics.
The only thing I'm interested in concerning that matter is when they think they'll wrap up the investigations and start putting the bad actors in the Federal can - Ft Leavenworth would be my >first< choice.
The only attention that crew should get - for now - is close scrutiny by the FBI & Homeland Security. Hell! As far as I'm concerned, the CIA has ample valid cause to take a peek at the international connections, as well!
My only question in all of this is why the US Marshals haven't been dispatched to >confiscate< the documents and records the investigation requires! It also seems to me Congress should be able to order the IRS to turn over >all< tax records they require, as well. That would be with House jurisdiction, wouldn't it? Why aren't they doing any of that - that anyone has said anything about, anyway.
Sometimes spin is more confusing than facts and clarity. It would be riveting if we got real information. I would like to see what our justice department is doing. Tired of private hearings and fighting for real info. If I want media spin there is plenty out there. Sadly, many people are too busy trying to make a living in a hectic world.
Voters need to be not only engaged, but inspired. In 2012 Obama/Biden carried 17 of the 19 municipalities in Adams County, Wisconsin. In 2020 Biden/Harris carried none. In many of the wards the difference was greater than 20%. The Urban/Rural gap is very real. Rural schools are losing funding, teachers, programs and jobs while farmers are struggling to keep the family farm, without health insurance or a pension and their kids, if they graduate are leaving for the cities. The Republican's siren song is all about lowering taxes but the taxes keep going up even as the property values are going down and in 2020 public school districts passed referendums totaling more than$173 billion dollars to keep their schools open. Democrats need to do a better job of listening to the grassroots and standing with teachers, workers, environment groups with specific proposals for good jobs, good schools, affordable healthcare, a clean and sustainable environment, responsive government, safe communities and fair taxes.
The reason for Biden's low approval rating can be described in one word: Fear. Many lower income whites have been fed lies about Biden's competency and intentions. They fear Biden wants to take away their jobs and freedoms, and give them to minorities. Many higher income whites are afraid Biden wants to destroy their wealth and privilege. On the other side, people who hoped Biden would protect our democracy and champion a more equitable and compassionate society are dismayed at the lack of progress, and fear for the future.
Biden is working at a pretty good pace but we are not seeing the extreme concern for addressing the attack from Trump and his thugs. That’s what continues to worry me. We can’t go forward unless Biden does more fist pounding against the atrocity committed. We’re tired of winning and still losing.
It does not help that Republicans like to insinuate that Biden is senile and all that negativity. They use the age thing. It surprises me when even older people say those things.
The Dems need to step it up. We are drowning in the propaganda. Instead of putting out our own. It’s not good enough to put the facts out. We need to spell out what we are doing for our pocket books and COVID. Who got vaccines into arms? Who got money to us when we needed it the most? Who helped people from not getting evicted from where they live? These are the easy answers that will resonate. Yes infrastructure is important but if you can’t afford to buy milk what does it matter. It’s the little things that matter now during the pandemic. We have to raise funds to feed and house people. That should not happen in the richest nation in the world. We can’t fix it all now. But the message has to be positive. We are working on it. The little propaganda commercials that are on tv playing all the time really seep deep into the brain. Are we putting anything like that out there? Hire some people who know how to do that. The Lincoln project had the best commercials out there. We are still trying to pay for bills. How did the Republicans pay for their bills? Wait, wait they didn’t. We should not be talking about losing but how we are winning. Start fighting back, and when we do, point it out. Take the credit for the good things. Spell everything good out in easy terms. The more hope you give the more you will get. Fix a few things that are broken that will show up immediately. We all need some hope in these hard times.
Exactly! Some of these people need to learn that bashing our own when numerous accomplishments have been made, is a recipe for losing an election. Don’t do the republicons work for them! It is a criminal party..protecting those who attacked our government on Jan 6th. We are in a crisis of epic proportion. Learn how you can support what we’ve done and what we’re trying to push through! For those worried about the rural crybabies…without Democrats they would not have, phone service, electricity or the Food surplus program! Republicans opposed it all! Pls Dems brought vaccine access, tryingto bring health care for all! Republicans fight ALL of this. Snap out of it people!
Many are fond of saying, "What unites us is greater than what divides us." I believe just the opposite to be true. We are divided--politically, culturally, and racially. These divisions are not media fiction and our current dysfunction is not unique in American history. It would be helpful if we Democrats had more effective leadership at the national and state levels. However, we lack centralized, national, inspirational leadership that is effective in creating unity. The ideological war within the Democratic party is overshadowing its ability to legislative effectively. The recent passage of the intrastructure act is a symptom of dysfunction, not a symbol of unified process.
Finally, almost all of us--progressively, liberals, moderates--seem to be fully aware of the electoral disaster which faces us next year. But, as much as we lament the probablility of loss of representation in Congress, I have heard very little about "What should we do" to prevent disaster from occurring. "Hope" is not a strategy.
By now we are all in agreeance about the Dems failure to counter the flood of propaganda from the rightwing. I fear the propa will triple now that the infrastructure bill passed. We aint seen nothin yet. The Repubs are stepping it up going into midterms. What is there to stop them? The Dems are asleep at the wheel.
Thanks Robert so much for asking this important question!
To me it’s an issue of clarity, communication and connection. MLK said that "a fact is the absence of contradiction, but truth is the presence of coherence."
We need a coherent and consistent messaging to describe the real issues, the real solutions and the real coalitions that are in front of us.
Perhaps it's apropos to hearken back to Noam Chomsky's book "Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media" to explain this paradox (and so many things). As we've noted for years now, when it comes to so many of our social/political/economic/cultural themes, the ideology-based conclusions precede the facts. And voila - a different reality is born. There is a relentless creation, dissemination and pervasiveness of "alternate facts" and "false narratives" by media and social influencers of various kinds, from varying backgrounds and groups and communities.
Firstly, there is the tragic reality and the related predictable cynicism as a background context, that the "system IS rigged" as you've written so much on! But apart from the dangers of silos and echo chambers, social media and other mass communication modalities help to sustain an alternate reality, shaping the "public mind" as Lincoln would put it. I think the messaging from the White House and Democrats in general around all the facts and the good news is so fractured and anemic, that conservative ideologues have it pretty easy to ignore, corrupt, and distort the truth. Plus, dark money and massive media funding ensure there will always be enough fuel in the tank.
Recovering from so many recent and current false narratives, effectively and simultaneously deployed, is hard enough. Perhaps if all the videos you have on your website can be played and replayed on primetime! And ensuring you in particular (and so many other progressive luminaries) have even more powerful platforms to present real facts, the real truth and the reality-perspectives is what is needed. That would start the process of one day having a truly educated citizenry, that our Founding Fathers expected.
Being a physician for 30 years, I’m aghast at what has happened to another domain that suffers from the same root causes – the domain of science, medicine, and risk communication – about COVID-19 and a plethora of other population health issues.
One contributing factor is certainly the way much of the media has behaved, as Jane Rubin of the Washington Post recently pointed out in her recent op-ed “Journalists also have an obligation to fix democracy.” [W]e see little evidence the media has examined its own role in Republicans’ assault on democracy. Indeed, one could argue mainstream media outlets have been complicit in the current crisis of democracy. The trivialization of coverage, default to false equivalency, amplification of GOP spin and habitual treatment of Republicans’ conduct as within the normal boundaries of politics have serious implications for a democracy that relies on an informed citizenry.
[unfortunately I have a standing meeting that conflicts with this wonderful new "Office Hours" Institution. Perhaps you might consider doing Office Hours at different times each week and/or recording them so those of us who can't participate can at least hear the conversation]
Right wing ownership of all the news sources means we will continue to hear this spin. We should have addressed this danger 20 years ago but the Republicans, with Putin’s help, do well at throwing out distractions. Listen to FreeSpeech TV, AlterNet, Democracy Now, Truthout etc
Speaking of which, ALL of the alternative news sites--Trurhout, Reader Supported News, Mother Jones, and on and on--are hanging on by their very fingernails. I am afraid we will lose many of them. Support them!
There is an extreme amount of anxiety and fear that the Dems are not speaking to. The Republicans are the bully in the schoolyard, punching little kids with impunity. Impunity! Where is our strong leader to protect us from the bullies? Where’s the outrage about the attempted coup? Biden needs to get rid of Merrick Garland and get a loud aggressive prosecutor in as AG to be on the front page every day attacking and indicting Trump and other traitors to the constitution. Unleash Kamala Harris. The fact that the insurrectionists are getting short sentences and sympathy is not acceptable. If this weak feeble behavior goes on, we will lose democracy altogether. It’s almost gone now.
Allegra, you raise a question I (and I'm sure others) have been wrestling with: to what extent should Democrats play the same ugly games as Republicans? If we don't, we have a metaphoric hand tied behind our backs. But if we do, we lose not only the moral high ground but also, ultimately, our democracy -- because the Republican Party seems willing to destroy our system of government in order to win.
Unleash Kamala Harris, yes! I just loved it when she went after Mike Pence in the Vice Presidential Debates and told him that she wasn't going to sit there and be lectured on what it means to enforce the laws of our country! You could see the real fighter come out! That's the Kamala Harris I want to see now! Give her some leeway and let her get after voting rights!
I Agree, Kamala Harris would have made a great Attorney General and prosecutor. As Vice President, she needs to be "Carbon Paper" on everything the President does and says, so, if called upon, we can have a smooth transition of power. She needs to be kept safe because we know what happened to the last Catholic that was in the White House.
Most overworked, underpaid people have little time to process more than soundbites before getting to a second job. "Only the guy who isn't rowing has time to rock the boat." (Sartre). A few in the Senate have effectively castrated the dreams of this administration along with the planet as they've hacked and chopped at Build Back Better and our morale.
I still will pull for a heavy blue turnout at midterms in the hope that the administration can finally get the support it needs to mitigate decades of widespread damage done by a few holding great power and too much wealth.
I wonder if most Americans who don't have the time to get into the weeds of politics, would just prefer a "President" who ruled by fiat and got lots of stuff done whether or not it was legal. They want to see action, or at least the apparency of action. You know, the way Trump presented all the wonderful and even the not-so-wonderful things he was going to do (most of which he never did) and the things that they actually did (but in glowing tough-guy language).
Democracy tends to be a far slower process than other forms of government (or dictatorship). I wonder if most Americans would be happier with a form of benevolent or pseudo-benevolent dictatorship. But of course that would take throwing the Constitution out the window, and that's scary (ref. Hitler, Stalin and modern-day dictators).
This is a big part of Trump's original appeal and why such horrendous behavior doesn't hurt his standing. America isn't working well for hardly anyone. THis has been true for a long time. So, bring in a bully who moves the damn needle! If he has targeted the wealthy instead of the poor, his base would have believed that with the same fervor. They may incline to racism, but they'd be willing to hate any target that their champion had provided. Unfortunately, like any bully, he chose to target the most vulnerable instead of the most powerful, not to mention the most responsible. No surprise there. He was never acting on principle -- he has none.
The missing essential is ENERGY! The Demos exude the energy of a half dead fish. Energy sells and pulls people to join .. it is the essential element in team building and successful campaigns. Without this the best projects fall flat.
This nation now runs on 'Messaging' instead of sober reality. And nonstop negative messaging is why most poll responders rate their own economic circumstances much better than they rate the nation's. The Biden administration strategy is not effective in this milieu, where anyone can 'buy' the opinions of whatever commentator catches their fancy. Today, talking a good game wins over playing a good game.
People who are confused and used to getting the short end of the stick and losing are chronically sick and tired. If your only source of news is MSNBC or, even worse, CNN you have got to be depressed.
All the major and online news are repeatedly informing us that " everthing is doom & gloom." The economy is rapidly tanking..yoyr not going to be able to pay for gas..holiday expenses and if you can afford the stores won't have the things you want and need. The big 'People's bill' gets something removed or amount of funds available have lowered to help make that need such as 1 week of family leave will hardly make a dent in what the normal family needs. The messaging is geared to frighten people not to make opinions to be glaf the Democrats are supposed to be in the majority to get things done that were promised... thanks for listening
I’ll add my thoughts to this lively and thoughtful discussion (can’t tell you how much I’m enjoying the community we’re creating here).
So why, amid all the good news, are Biden and the Democrats taking a beating? Some of you focus on Biden’s and the Democrat’s poor messaging. I agree it’s awful. Even now, most Americans have no idea what the “Build Back Better” package is. It sounds like infrastructure, but that bill has been enacted. “Human infrastructure” makes no sense to most people. Americans like the particulars in the package – childcare, universal pre-K, paid family leave, lower prescription drug prices, Medicare coverage for vision, hearing, and dental – and most favor measures to protect the climate. But the package isn’t understood, which has left it vulnerable to the worst kinds of demagoguery.
But this can’t be the major reason for the paradox because the Democrat’s failure at messaging goes back at least a half century. I remember in 1968 after Nixon beat Humphrey hearing that the Democrat’s problem was they talk policy while Americans want to hear values – exactly the same criticism of Democrats we’re hearing today. Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were great orators but not great messengers. To my mind, the last Democrat who really knew how to communicate with passion and intensity, and lift up the nation while spelling out what needed to be done, was Robert F. Kennedy.
Some of you rightfully and understandably blame the media – not just despicable Fox News but also the corporate mainstream. I agree. But here, too, the problem goes back a long way. Even before Fox News, Rush Limbaugh was poisoning countless minds. And for at least four decades, the mainstream media has focused on conflict, controversy, sensationalism and scandal. Good news doesn’t make the grade.
So here again, we need to ask ourselves what’s new, now?
Some of you suggest that Democrats are just too self-satisfied, representing the college-educated suburban middle class who don’t want major social change. I think that’s right. But this isn't particularly new, either. As I’ve said before, Clinton and Obama abandoned the white working class by embracing trade, rejecting unions, subsidizing Wall Street and big business, and embracing deregulation and privatization.
So what explains the wide gap between how well the country is doing and how badly Biden and the Democrats are doing politically -- right now?
In two words: Dashed hopes. My sense is that after four years of Trump and a year and a half of deathly pandemic, most of the country was eager to put all the horror behind -- to start over, wipe the slate clean, heal the wounds, reboot America. Biden in his own calm way seemed the person to do it. And most of us were surprised and delighted that the Democrats retook the Senate. Our hopes and expectations soared.
But those hopes and expectations couldn’t possibly be achieved when all the underlying structural problems were still with us -- a nation deeply split, Trumpers still threatening democracy, racism rampant, corporate money still dominating much of politics, inequality still widening, inflation undermining wage gains, and COVID (in the form of the Delta variant) still claiming lives.
Dashed hopes make people angry. Mass disappointment is politically poisonous. Social psychologists have long understood that losing something of value generates more anger and disappointment than obtaining it in the first place generated happiness.
I think Biden and Democrats can take solace from this. Hopefully, a year from now the fruits of Biden’s initiatives will be felt, COVID will really be behind us, the bottlenecks behind the current inflation will be overcome, and the horrors of the Trump years will become more visible by Congress’s investigations and the midterm campaigns of Trumpers. Most importantly, America’s irrational expectation for quick deliverance from all our structural problems will have settled into a more sober understanding that resolving them will require a huge amount of work, from all of us. Then, I suspect, the nation will be better able to appreciate how far we’ve come in just two years from where we were.
The Democrats have to pass the Reconciliation Act immediately!
Get Manchin and Sinema out of the news.
Get on message and educate Americans on how their lives will be better and how their hopes will no longer be dashed but improved!
Manchin's on board now per CNN and The Hill
Good news, Martha, but I'll believe it when he commits explicitly.
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/581972-manchin-signals-hes-okay-with-biden-spending-vote-this-year
Hm seems less than on board tho
See what happens....
Of course, you are spot on!
One thing dems could do is have a presser in the senate and house after a lively discussion to talk about the positives coming out of congress. Talk about the roadblocks to BBB. Shout about the improvements in our lives. Shut down the rhetoric and block the “big lie” talk. Call out the traitors who are still talking about a lost election.
We don’t talk about our accomplishments like the republicans. They seem to be in front of a camera complaining about the lack of toilet tissue and parking spaces (joking here) but you get my drift.
Take the initiative and use the media the way they want you to use it.
How do we use a media owned by the ultra right? I agree with what you’re saying. But this continues to be the issue. I remember wondering why Bernie wasn’t campaigning as much as he should have been. Then I found out, it wasn’t reported. He went to Liberty University! He went to the south! He had numerous standing-room-only crowds that I didn’t hear about.
The left has a much smaller scale presence in terms of media. It’s such a mess.
One way to get that news is to go directly to the source. I follow Bernie on Instagram so I know what he’s up to. I don’t know if that’s helpful for you though.
Thanks but my point was that the major news sources cut him short. Other people need to know about it. Those of us supporting Bernie didn’t need to be told how awesome he was! 😊
Got it. Agreed.
👍🏼
I don't see much success in trying to use the press owned by the ultra right. Even the main stream media like the NYT are subtly biased against the left because the left is challenging the influence of big money and the status quo. My thought here is to politely call them out on it when they get it wrong.
The more important shift is how we change ourselves. We can demonstrate fairness and compassion even when others are not. Consider for example the influence Bernie Sanders has had. His integrity and compassion have dramatically shifted the debate.
Anecdotes. Stories. As personal as possible. That’s how to couch the message.
I agree. The public can absorb stories. Stories are the means by which lessons are conveyed and learned, over hundreds if not thousands of generations. Policies, numbers, factoids, promises -- all mean little.
Ronnie Reagan was a great story teller. 😏 I think to some degree Clinton did well with stories. Mamma always said…😄
But I remember some of the personal stories my professors talked about more than some of the lessons. So story telling is effective for sure.
John Kerry was one who launched into political speak and did not connect with the person asking the question. To some degree, we have forced these politicians to guard every single letter that comes out of their mouths. If they unintentionally misspeak, news creates much-ado-about nothing. Hillary Clinton comes to mind. How frequently do you hear a politician answer with yes or no?
She has this incredible laugh! Hillary.
True. That lady has withstood more pressure than anyone besides Nancy Pelosi!
Excellent point. Why do R’s always seem to communicate the same talking points, but D’s don’t? Who is in charge of determining messaging? I assume the WH, but why is D messaging so lame? Listen to campaign speeches by FDR—he unashamedly touted D reforms and bashed R’s for failing to go along.
Military/authoritarian backgrounds vs. non-military/non-authoritarian backgrounds?
As the "Big Tent" party the D's are trying to hold together a much broader coalition. I also think R's are better organized because they feel more threatened. Without gerrymandering, voter suppression, and other unfair advantages, they know they are weak and it worries them.
Unfortunately the D's have their own corruption problems and have little consensus on how to challenge the R's propaganda. This isn't a full explanation of course, just a piece of the puzzle.
Professor, I respectfully disagree that you’re saying toxic media has been around for a long time and so that’s nothing new. It doesn’t have to be new. It’s the 40 years of constant factless news, nationalistic, racist bias and buying all the stations that I think has culminated in where we are today.
Did you see a multitude of people getting violently out-of-control on airplanes before Trump? They have made the violent behavior a badge of honor. This comes directly from Limbaugh, Fox, and other lunies on the TV and radio.
The airlines have the right idea. Ban these people for life and fine them. Any of the deadly coup-attempt attendees should get 20 years…no less. We need to see consequences, that is what drives much anger on the left.
Honestly, there is a nationalized anxiety that can’t end until the lunatics are put where they need to be.
I hope that the Democrats make sure the American people realize that the civil engineering projects in the infrastructure bill require design, preparation and multiple approvals before construction can even begin. It may be several years before they notice the improvements. President Obama was beaten up by the Republicans and others for this misunderstanding in the "Shovel Ready" projects controversy.
I am looking forward to decent Internet and less power outages. Two major pains for us rural folk.
I agree with your analysis. The question in my mind is can and will Biden and the team step up to actually fix the structural problems we have, and in particular, remove money from politics. If not, the disappointment may continue.
Melissa, that's the most troubling thing, to my mind. Fixing the structural problems (climate, democracy, systemic racism, public health) will take lots of energy, time, and political will. There's no way Biden and team can do it in a single term of office, or even two terms. In fact, no president or administration can do it alone. Fixing these requires strong public movements that mobilize, energize, and organize enough of the public that politicians have no choice but to fix them.
Yes, fixing structural problems requires strong public movements that mobilize, energize, and organize enough of the public that politicians have no choice but to fix them. Unfortunately this message hasn’t made its way to the front lines of progressive political leadership.
Yes, that's concerning and I agree that it's impossible to fix these deeply seeded structural problems in one or even two terms even at the best of times (without all of the Republican noise and pushback). So, it worries me too. On a separate but related note, If we think about how religion was spread - through an army of hundreds of thousands of missionaries - not sure why a few Democratic billionaires don't fund that. I would like to think that presented with the information, the people who we need to persuade (ie., white low income) would realize that that the Democrats are the party that is most closely aligned with their interests.
Because there are very few billionaires who have strong Progressive values—it isn’t in their personal interest.
Maybe if Climate Destruction becomes more imminent?!
I agree, but I also think the message can be simplified. At some level most people want honesty, integrity, fairness, and compassion. Remind them of this. When you see politicians who aren't delivering these or engage in mud-slinging, turn your back and don't vote for them.
The Democrats have to be as ruthless as the repugs! We are not getting our message out in a resonant manner! The propaganda playbook the repugs have used for 40 years has worked all too well! What I’m finding is the repugs have concentrated on local politics! Installing radicals in ever position possible and creating barriers for progressives! They are the rittenhouse’s of our society! Walking around looking for ways to intimidate progressives and then calling foul when we respond in defense. Violence and intimidation at every level! Nazi playbook!
This explanation feels right to me. If true, then isn't it urgent that Biden use his executive power aggressively and soon - well before the 2022 elections - to do something really important that affects peoples lives, such as free public college tuition and forgiveness of student debt, and universal health care in response to the ongoing world pandemic? I have doubts, seeing the ongoing spread of the virus in many parts of the world, and the slow roll-out of vaccines in many countries thanks to the greed of the pharmaceutical companies, that Covid will be behind us in the fall of 2022.
Makes sense. To be fair, Biden raised hopes of a return to normalcy during the campaign; the seminal message of his campaign was that he is and experienced Washington insider who could set everything right. In a way he has fulfilled that promise in his own actions as president. The problem is that he can't control all the nasty, greedy, power-mad loud voices out there trying to tear him down. Right wing media has incited a substantial portion of the country into outright hostility to Biden. Getting along and working together require cooperation from all parties.
Biden also possibly over-promised with respect to Covid-19, predicting that it would be largely behind us by July 4. He didn't see the Delta variant coming, but predicting what a virus will do risks underestimation. He also didn't think that there would be such virulent resistance to the vaccine, since it was developed during the Trump administration.
In line with your analysis, if I were to give Biden advice, I would tell him to be less optimistic in his predictions about events he cannot control.
He has terrorists in his midst too. And don't forget Climate Destruction! If his administration , justice department and Attorney General can effectively deal with the Traitorous Insurrectionists there could be a lot more done. Lock them up!
I think you’re missing what’s really happening here. Democrats are pissed. They want to see justice for all that TFG put us thru. He’s a criminal and so are his allies. Why is he still walking around free?! Where is the accountability for all the damage done to our democracy?! Every day we watch our democracy circle the drain while the GOP passes voter suppression laws in states across the county, and if the redistricting maps are enacted in their current form the Dems will be out of power for a decade. Biden’s policies are great, what we’ve wanted for many many years, but what good are they if the Republicans get back in power and undo it all? WHY WASN’T VOTING RIGHTS THE FIRST ITEM ON BIDEN’S AGENDA?!!!! That is primo important. Without that the rest doesn’t matter because it can all be washed away with the next election. Plus, we all watched in horror as Trump committed crimes in plain sight, including trying to overthrow the government, yet nothing has happened to him yet. We are frustrated beyond words at the injustice and the Biden administration looks incredibly weak, impotent even, that all this horribleness has been allowed to continue. We are watching our democracy die and want to jump up and down screaming DO SOMETHING!!! But all we hear is talk about policies and Build Back Better and infrastructure and yada yada yada. That’s great! But it feels like decorating the Titanic at this point. Biden needs to get on the same page with us and HEAR us. Do something about the filibuster so we can pass voting rights legislation and still have a democracy where those wonderful policies can actually do some good. Without democracy they will mean nothing. THAT’S why he’s polling so low. We need him to stop the bleeding first, then decorate to his heart’s delight. We’ll love it. But first things first. Save our democracy now.
I don’t view the Biden administration as being weak or ineffective. The right is very vocal and forceful and the left is not forceful enough!
Biden may have tilted to the left to neutralize Bernie and his supporters but he is a centrist and a Democrat who once took in $100k for endorsing a Republican running in I believe Ohio. As to forceful maybe it is not the appropriate adjective for someone who guts his own agenda.
I have never heard Biden endorsed a republican! He may have but I don’t care! Let’s stop attacking each other! I love Bernie as well but he is not president!
Alexander Burns in Jan 2019 in The NY Times reported on a $200k speech Biden gave in Benton Harbor Michigan to a Republican audience in 2018 endorsing Republican Upton. This may shock you. As for Bernie not being President that is hardly the point. Biden’s original BBB is not the bill that the House passed.
There must have been a good reason to do so if indeed he did! Why don’t you argue with trumpers? Why argue with a progressive and a Bernie/Biden supporter?
Really! So what!
While I agree with you that Trump moved the country down the path to fascism, and that now that he is gone as a roll model bullying is no longer in fashion, there are millions of voters that support the right wing agenda Trump stands for. You don’t put someone in jail because you disagree with his politics, you change the country in a positive direction so that he no longer has any support. Republicans voted for Trump because he promised to stack the Supreme Court against abortion, gave the Born Again Christian Right what they wanted and cut taxes for the wealthy. You may want Trump in jail but that isn’t the point. The Dems had the choice of Bernie, a real reformer, and Biden. They went with Biden. If BBB doesn’t give people what they need they will go with the other option. I agree with you that voting rights are the most important legislation before Congress but how can you blame the Republicans for not wanting it to happen? They know they are a dying minority and will do anything to retain power. Unfortunately Biden just doesn’t seem to care or doesn’t have the convictions to find a way to make voter rights legislation get through the Senate where the Dems have the votes but not the strategy. If you voted for Biden you just backed the wrong guy to get the reforms accomplished. It’s sad but true.
Thanks for your response. A couple things.. I don’t think TFG should be in jail bc I don’t like his politics. He belongs in jail bc he broke many laws, many times, in plain sight, we all saw it. As for policies, David Plouffe says it best: “The infrastructure of Democracy is in worse shape than our physical infrastructure. Dems in Congress must act to ensure voters decide who is in power, not GOP state legislators. Or else we’ll have lots of nice roads and bridges in an autocracy.“
I don’t disagree with you but to date Trump hasn’t been indicted for breaking any laws. I’m at a loss to explain that given the certainty most Democrats have that he has done so. I believe his tax returns are in the hands of prosecutors but there are no indictments I’m aware of.
Agreed. That plus the unaddressed threat to voting rights is the source of Dems frustration and low polling, in my opinion.
I think you are spot on, as usual. Thank your for writing and educating us. I am eager to learn more!
Thanks, Suzanne.
Do we really have a year? Are the Biden initiatives going to deliver people from their current anxieties? Larry Summers, some current Fed members, and influential financial journalists like Martin Wolf of FT are looking for the Fed to end buying of debt and to raise interest rates to reign in inflation in early 2022. Very soon. Summers doesn’t oppose the Biden initiatives but considers them weak stimulus compared to monetary measures currently providing easy money. So a change in monetary policy might be felt a lot stronger than any of the weakened Biden initiatives in the pocketbooks of Americans. That is why your highly optimistic view might in retrospect be seen as Biden missing his one opportunity.
Prof. Reich: I imagine we’ve all grown increasingly discouraged to learn that that the generic ballot has Republicans up and Democrats down. Daily, I tell myself that it’s hard to imagine a more challenging situation than being the party governing America in the year 2021. Be it the health crisis, the economic inflation crisis, the climate crisis…I could go on, I recognize every one of these crises is outside the control of any one party. Still, as I’ve argued elsewhere, I maintain that virtually everything that is disfunctional in our politics at this point, in some way, can be attributed to the filibuster. For instance, the only reason Biden has to ram his entire social and climate legislative agenda into one bill that can only be passed through what, understandably, has become an unwieldy reconciliation nightmare is because the Republicans refuse to allow regular order.
I grant there currently aren’t 50 Senators who support either abolishing the filibuster or exempting it even to pass bills protective of our most basic rights. Therefore, in my view, we must press for an alternative rule change initially proposed by heavyweight Norm Ornstein that, in all likelihood, would pass: replace the 60-vote threshold required to end debate with a 41-vote threshold to continue debate, thus shifting the burden from the majority to the minority, 41 of whom would have to be present, speaking nonstop about the issue at hand, to sustain a filibuster. I don’t imagine any Senator (we only need 50 to enact a rule change) could mount a credible opposition in defiance of this reform. Furthermore, who wouldn’t want to see 41 Republicans opposing an extension of the child tax credit over 10 years, the first piece of Biden’s BBB I would hope Dems would introduce?
Roosevelt wasn't a timid liberal, afraid to make any changes without "support across the aisle". Biden's popularity is so low because people don't see him fighting for his agenda. And making excuses for not doing something to get around these institutional impediments doesn't fly well with voters. Biden and Schumer haven't tried any of the suggestions like the one you are making. Defending this behavior is ludicrous. Opening up more of the Gulf to oil drilling is unacceptable. Only a partisan Democrat could find an excuse for that type of behavior in a President who said the US would lead by example.
Peter: Although by the time I got back on line someone already had replied to your response to my comment, I, nonetheless, will inject a few thoughts. To start, because I was responding to Prof. Reich, I deemed it appropriate to acknowledge “the underlying structural problems…still with us” [Reich’s words] when Biden took office. As for your observation that neither Biden nor Schumer has shown any interest in the filibuster rule change initially proposed by Congressional scholar Norm Ornstein, I have two thoughts. First, they seem to expect that 50 Senators, ultimately, will sign on to most of the BBB bill that passed in the House and, second, that the 50, ultimately, will consent to a carve out to pass voter protection legislation that would preempt the suppression and subversion policies that, in some states, already have become law. Still, I imagine both Biden and Schumer have pocketed Ornstein’s proposed rule change should they need it.
As a final point, let me be clear that I am sick about the billions in subsidies for nuclear energy and the fossil fuel industry included in the bipartisan infrastructure bill and am counting on the BBB climate package to offset these horrific measures.
If Schumer actually uses the Ornstein proposal I will be the first one to cheer about it. It certainly makes sense from a non-partisan point of view. I also think you can preserve the filibuster where a Senator has to stand up on the floor. But the 60 vote filibuster has to go. It is fundamentally in Democratic.
fundamentally undemocratic
Didn’t they get forced to open up the Gulf by a judge who struck down an executive order?
Nothing stops the President from doing what he believes is necessary to protect our national security. Global warming threatens to bring on natural disasters that do that.
Juliet: I write in the event you wish to read my reply to Peter’s thoughts about the comment I had posted. Meantime, I appreciate you cared enough to initiate your own conversation with him. Barbara
They don’t have the majority that FDR had. That may seem like an excuse, but it’s true I think. I’m feeling really hopeless about everything with the redistricting and the ratings. The Republicans are not pliable, either, so that’s another comparative hardship we have now.
Here’s the problem. The House centrist Dems held up BBB until they could get the SALT cap raised to 80k which allows a hole to be blown in the revenue for BBb and gives an enormous tax cut to the rich. This is unbelievable. They have been cutting out benefits for working families and they turn around and give a tax break to the rich. You would have to be a fool to excuse that away. I never thought they would raise the cap to such an outrageous height. The Republicans will take this all the way to the ballot box. Trump cut back on SALT and the Dems rewarded their rich friends and put it back. I can hardly believe how scandalous this is.
A number of people here seem to think the problems the Democratic Party has is all about messaging. It isn’t.
On almost every issue of importance the Democratic Party has been willing to compromise benefits for working people off the table.
The reason that Democrats talk about messaging is that the Party is dominated by self satisfied upper middle class voters who control the Party and see nothing wrong with the status quo.
The majority of people in the US are not in that zone of satisfaction.
No amount of messaging can work when you are the party of Manchin and Sinema.
Just look who Biden let speak at the White House to celebrate the infrastructure bill—-Sinema.
The Party of Sinema isn’t going to win the 2022 election.
The reality is that the Dems in the Senate have a faux majority as Manchin and Sinema are conservative, bought and paid for by Big Coal and the oil lobby (Manchin) and by Big Pharma (Sinema) so the actual division in the Senate is Dems 48, GOP 50 and independents who caucus with the Dems 2. Plus one tie-breaker (Harris) if the Senate could dump the filibuster which tends to negate the implicit Constitutional assumption that 50-50 ties will occur. That doesn't work when you need 60 votes to pass legislation.
Most voters don't understand nuance, or filibuster. They buy into the message that the Dems own Congress and cannot get ANYTHING done.
And how do they get that message?
They get THAT message from the GOP & Corporate media (which increases views of its commercials via fear-mongering)
It's much more effective for the GOP to have 2 spy-moles pretend to caucus with the Democrats, while sabotaging everything. Then the GOP can tell uninformed Independent voters that a Democratic "majority" cannot accomplish anything
But the public sees the Biden agenda going down the drain because of Democrats and not just in the Senate. Look at the House Dems waiting for CBO to decide for them whether to support a strangled BBB. The public sees that for what it is—-the lack of elected Democratic support for their own President. And as for Biden he is just going along like it doesn’t matter.
Please read some of my messages below. It is aimed at people like you who want to blame the Democrats while forgetting how much death has occurred in this country specifically because of the illegal and callous behavior of the Republicans. Get a grip on what the hell is happening here! We’re fighting Fascism & authoritarian take-over by the republicans. You following republican messaging. Yes, there are issues on the Democratic side but this republican scandal can end our democracy!
Without the end of the filibuster the Democrats do not have enough surplus in Congress to overcome this.
I very strongly agree that this is a time to direct criticism at Republicans not Democrats. I actually think Democrats as a whole have gone farther left in recognition of the realities out there but are struggling for legit reasons like the Senate.
Thank you! Blaming things like "messaging" and Dems being "out of touch" with everyday Americans is absurd. They're literally the only ones doing anything to protect and raise up everyday Americans while the GQP does nothing but lie, obstruct, deny, take credit for things they fought against and lie some more. All while taking their voters money & promising to save them from the evils of communist, socialist, marxist, fascist, radicalist democrats. (not sure how Dems can embody all these different ideologies, but they're now interchangeable labels on the right). Dems are not perfect by any means, but when I hear these arguments it just makes me think of people comparing a hurricane to a light drizzle and some 10mph winds. How people see them as the same things is so hard to comprehend.
Well said. Have you thought of running for office, at whatever level suits you?
Thank you. I work in an alderman’s office and stay very politically active after a career in banking..it didn’t blind me to the politics of the banking industry, I actually loved my work, but it has moved in a direction I couldn’t take part in anymore.
I enjoy supporting my alderman who sets a high bar for politicians.
You saw the banking industry change? It moved in such an awful direction that people quit?
Do you really think you can fight fascism by not trying everything to show the public you are supporting their interests. Biden says at Cop26 he is going to lead by example. Today he opened up 80 million acres in the Gulf for oil drilling. As a Democrat are you satisfied with this?
Who is “the public” you are referring to? The whining right wingers who vote republican to support their racist views. We’ve been conceding to them for the past 40 years and that is what brought us to this. No, I don’t give a damn what the terrorist-supporting portion of the country have to say. They’ve stood by and supported police officers aggressively handling the black population and don’t care about anyone else’s right. They’re not going to hop aboard at this point. Give up on that fantasy.
That’s yet another criticism of Democrats. We do this so often.
I think Biden allowed Sinema to speak as a part of his strategy to pull her "into the fold." Sinema is a narci$$i$t who needs attention focused on her. Maybe this was a kind of "tit for tat" maneuver on Biden's part. Unfortunately, he and everyone else is stuck with her until she is primaried out, and that couldn't happen sooner!
Before she is primaried out the Democrats lose the 2022 Senate. The Republicans have already offered her a switch.
Unfortunately he has to get her on board.
What do we do then?
The last idea I had was to find a BBB acceptable to Manchin and then put full Medicare negotiating drug prices back in and have a vote. Call their bluff. Biden could also executive order more writing off of student debt.
In general self satisfied Democrats could finally admit they were wrong to go Bernie light with Biden and demand the Party open up to young people on their terms not establishment Dem terms. Self satisfied Dems need to be retired and all those young activists I saw cheering for Warren and Bernie at the New Hampshire State Democratic Party Convention need to be brought into leadership roles. All before 2022 because after the coming debacle don’t expect anyone to pick up the pieces and immediately succeed. Remember capitalism has to confront global warming and right now I would bet against that happening. We no longer have the Roosevelt brain trust.
We don't need a third party. Ralph Nader tried that in 2000. Progressives must be elected as Democrats. And we could use some star power. Tom Hanks would make a great president.
The headlines read, "Wyoming GOP says it will no longer recognize Liz Cheney as a Republican after she criticized Trump". Is this the GOP we remember. NO, Liz Cheney is as Republican as you can get, so, the existing GOP is the "TRUMP PARTY" Conservatives need a new party they can move forward with like "The Constitutional Party" or the "States Rights Party" because the GOP does not recognize either the Constitution or States' rights. The party of Trump violates both. The GOP is now "The American Nazi Party" and looks very much like the German Nazi party looked in 1934.
This is true but are there enough Republicans to form and replace the existing murdering party of traitors? I would love to see it happen. I know there are never-Trumpers like The Lincoln Project and I would warmly welcome a republican party that is as repulsed as we are about these murderous psychos.
To paraphrase H. Rap Brown: “Racism is as American as cherry pie.” All of the ridiculous rhetoric and profession of conspiracies is just a nod and a wink disguising the racism of white Europeans like the Slovene, Gosar.
Hmmm … Perot sucked a lot of votes out of HW’s totals, as I recall it … could do with another such, if they could get any votes.
The Republican Party was formed from dissatisfactions with the Whig Party, as I recall my high school history. Somebody could do that again, to the current Rs, way past time — b.rad
Count the money. Count the votes.
I lived through the Virginia Governor election and I have to say it was sooooo painful. Youngkin lied about how the dems were going to infiltrate the school system and cause mayhem, take away parent engagement, destroy the learning process. Not once did we come out and say, it's just republican bullshit! Instead, we did the Trump, Trump is bad, Youngkin is a Trump Acolyte, oh yeah, Trump. No message. Nothing to instill trust. What the heck were we going to do if we won the Governor's race? Don't know and didn't even tell a good story.
What is the message? What are we going to do to fix the huge divide? How do we make government functional?
The world is enjoying the dismantling of American Democracy.
I agree with you 100%
I have a friend in Virginia who had supported Terry McAuliffe and even had dinner with him. I said to him, "telling parents they should not be telling schools what they should teach" was his "deplorables" moment. WTF Really???
How can they not have seen the vitriol at the school board meetings PRIOR to the election??? That’s what Republicans were using to get the voters out. But somehow no one saw this coming. Are you serious???!!!
Don't forget McAuliffe was the head of the DNC in 2008 when the Democrats ran away from the Affordable Care Act and got their asses kicked!!
We don't seem to learn from our mistakes. History is a pain in the ass, but it seems to bite us quite often.
You know it's bad when Trump's approval is equal to Biden's. It doesn't matter if it's true, but that is what the media is spouting. It is depressing and disgusting.
How in the world can "intelligent" humans think that Trump is better than anything smarter than a lump of coal. This is going to be an epic battle leading up to the mid-terms.
To be fair, we have squandered almost a year focused on Manchin and Sinema when we should have been positive, delivering a solid message about progress.
Every state is looking at how they can use the infrastructure money that the republicans have given them. Oh wait, I meant the democrats.
We aren't even talking about the republicans who are leaving politics because the party is too far right. That is a major talking point that we are missing. Sadly, the congressmen leaving are the ones who can bring positivity back to the republican party.
That is a message that should be shouted from the rooftops of every state capital building.
Apparently it is not safe for any Republican to be at odds with the orange Furher.
That’s true, they should have been more observant about the school board meetings. But I have vitriol that this manipulation of sentiment about race has worked to elect someone in my state Governor. It’s obvious that the schools were trying to help things because racial makeup of the schools was forcing them to, not that they should not have considered this stuff earlier. They have been trying to help kids not feel “less than,” not the opposite (toward white people suddenly very barely minority).
They have been rather clumsy at it. I guess their interpretation of CRT involved problematic dichotomies. I like what John McWhorter says about “woke racism.”
What we see in Washington is disfunction. Biden is basically silent, Harris is an embarrassment.
Promise $2000 checks - deliver $1400 checks.
Promise universal pre-k - deliver Matt Bruenig estimated only 5% of kids will be covered by what is in the bill in some states.
Promise 'serious' (for washington) climate action - deliver watered down industry friendly compromises
Promise Medicare lowering drug prices - deliver 10 drugs with generics.
Promise student debt forgiveness- deliver only for a small minority of student borrowers
Promise a sane and just border policy - deliver crickets.
Social justice- crickets
Bidens biggest campaign promise was to return us to normal. But he has left some of the worst Trump policies in place- Cuban sanctions which he could lift immediately as an example - tariffs on goods which are adding to the supply crisis.
The American people aren't stupid..Aid to Israel was voted through immediately - not scored by CBO or whittled down - but the people who live in this country have to settle for crumbs. And whole we can't let Republicans off the hook for it - democrats are keeping these policies from becoming reality.
Not every voter agrees with your list of policy objectives. Moderates, independents, and certainly Republicans may consider some of your items of low importance or may actively oppose them. These voters are included in Biden's poll numbers. I think that voters see high gas and food prices and supply shortages and blame the guy in charge. His poll numbers will go up if these problems lessen, or down if they get worse.
Specific policies in the social and environmental legislation poll well over 50% - drug price negotiation polls at over 75%.
I completely agree - prices that pinch wallets that are already thin are a reason to lose faith in the current administration. But with good messaging the major hit could be avoided. We are all going to get through this - we are releasing strategic reserves to deal with high fuel costs and heating oil for this winter.
"Promise $2000 checks - deliver $1400 checks" ( $1,400.00 automatic deposits) plus a $600.00 debit card added up to $2,000.00 each in my household.
I believe that you are seeing, in this paradox, with Biden and company making legislative achievements and their press appearing so much in the negative column, the success of chaos making. It is found in a phrase attributed to Bannon. Or a simple theory, shall we say. The idea is to continue to create chaos, a chaos mixed up with domination of the message in as many places as possible, as often as possible. Dems are not controlling their message because they are being overrun with the chaos machine of the Far Right. "Just drown out any hint of progress for the people!" is the Right's message. Take over Left's narrative." When, when, for God's sake, will we ever learn? This is propaganda taken from the pages of all successful dictators! The response is to call it that! Vicious, false propaganda and the Dems and the Left better figure out how to counter it, and fast. And providing long explanations to the public will not do. They are too busy to listen and connect the dots. Pull off the ugly facade of the Right. Name it. Call it.
I remember Bernie Sanders saying it blows his mind that people keep voting for those who are not going to act in their best interests.
Betty, I agree. I feel like I’m on repeat saying how every media conglomerate is owned by the right wing. More frustrating are some of the people on sites like this saying…just what the rt wing wants them to say…Both parties are the same. It really makes me angry. The republicans pulled off a deadly coup attempt, the the whole party blocks investigations into this heinous crime! The Democrats are the ones who have saved the American people. I don’t deny that there is corruption everywhere. It’s what you get when corporations are allowed to buy politicians. But even with that, it angers me when the people saying the parties are the same can’t list the accomplishments of Biden so far. Every push for advancement has been hindered by Republicons. And they support authoritarianism! Look what they did to Lynn Cheney!
What if the Dems launched an epic ad campaign to educate the white working class in particular? Literally targeting them and speaking to them in their language.
We need an education campaign for sure just to highlight Dem ideas. Then teach…here’s what Dems helped us get in the past and recent past, here’s what we want to add. We have enough for everyone. Now here is what the military takes. (We haven’t won a war in decades with a military 15 times bigger than any on earth). That money should be helping YOU. What if we had a military, 5 times bigger than any on earth?
But part of the problem is the absence of broad-reaching media, similar to Fox News, CBS, NBC,ABC etc…
We don’t have that. And the brainwashing is deep. How do we convince people who believe things as nutty as Democrats are forming child pornography groups…meeting in pizza parlors! There’s a bizarre psychosis that we can’t handle and it keeps getting fed by Fox et al.
Seeking Reason, one consolation is that some of their conspiracy theories are so out there, that only the lunatic fringe will believe them. Most people have more sense.
It is jaw dropping that more than 12 people can be that deluded!
Brilliant!
A good ad campaign is what we need. I just gave to Act Blue to support a group that is planning an ad campaign and support to get traitors out of office . There is mounting evidence that people in Congress and the Senate had been involved in planning the Jan 6 attack on our Capitol. We don't need them in Government!
you are 100% right and I agree with you. The noise machine is very powerful. The question becomes what do we do to counter it?
See above comments.
you are right. No idea why billionaires in the Democratic party don't put more money into this. What are they spending on? If it were me, I'd pour in billions into educating people.
That would be the most empowering thing to do. Knowledge is power.
I think the Democrats lack the kind of messaging needed to show that things are going well for them. If we did like the Republicans and bombarded the news, with how things really are, maybe the public would see the truth. There is a real disconnect between what is happening or what is possible, and how people see that things are happening. Also, the news would be very boring if the media didn't try to spin Biden's actions with sensationalism and doubt.
I think the big issue for democrats is they can't deliver on even modest promises. As a parent if my kid says he is going to take care of the lawn - and I see it overgrown, brown, etc - I know that I've made a mistake in trusting them. What politicians do we actually have trust in anymore? Without trust we can't give them the benefit of the doubt.
We should see people calling out Manchin and Sinema every day. We should be organizing marches in DC - strikes, etc - demanding the 4T dollar investment in America's future.
I'm on board with calling out Manchin & Sinema. However, I think the original price tag was an opening bid for negotiations. I think Biden may have miscalculated concerning exactly >who< he would be negotiating with. I think he was trying to get started with the Republicans, and not their de facto agents imbedded among the Democrats.
That way, the news is about how Democrats are ineffective and inept, while nobody's making an issue about how the Republicans are voting - mostly - as a fascist bloc against >any< measure the Democrats settle on, having >absolutely no intention< of negotiating about >anything.< And worse, the Republicans will - predictably - pull the ol' turn-around, claiming they voted against those measures because the Democrats didn't include them in the discussion. That move - that we have seen many times before - is listed on the first page of the Republican playbook - if anyone's been paying attention.
I think you are right. I also think the mainstream news media, for whatever reason are not talking about the positives of what Biden has been doing. I listened to CNN yesterday and it was all doom and gloom, how high are gas prices, job shortages, possible lack of supplies that will hamper holiday shopping and the list goes on. I know these news companies are owned by billionaires and this may be part of the reason for their lack of discussing anything positive but come on. Also why aren't they discussing the bizarro world of QAnon and Trump and the second coming of JFK? The findings on Trump become more frightful by each day but no reporting on this.
I have no objection to the news going dark on ol' Tweety & the gang. That clown car has garnered >entirely too much< free campaign advertising from mainstream news outlets reporting on their bat-s**t antics.
The only thing I'm interested in concerning that matter is when they think they'll wrap up the investigations and start putting the bad actors in the Federal can - Ft Leavenworth would be my >first< choice.
The only attention that crew should get - for now - is close scrutiny by the FBI & Homeland Security. Hell! As far as I'm concerned, the CIA has ample valid cause to take a peek at the international connections, as well!
My only question in all of this is why the US Marshals haven't been dispatched to >confiscate< the documents and records the investigation requires! It also seems to me Congress should be able to order the IRS to turn over >all< tax records they require, as well. That would be with House jurisdiction, wouldn't it? Why aren't they doing any of that - that anyone has said anything about, anyway.
But I'm getting >waaaaay< off topic. My apology.
That is something that would excite me.
Yes!
Sometimes spin is more confusing than facts and clarity. It would be riveting if we got real information. I would like to see what our justice department is doing. Tired of private hearings and fighting for real info. If I want media spin there is plenty out there. Sadly, many people are too busy trying to make a living in a hectic world.
Voters need to be not only engaged, but inspired. In 2012 Obama/Biden carried 17 of the 19 municipalities in Adams County, Wisconsin. In 2020 Biden/Harris carried none. In many of the wards the difference was greater than 20%. The Urban/Rural gap is very real. Rural schools are losing funding, teachers, programs and jobs while farmers are struggling to keep the family farm, without health insurance or a pension and their kids, if they graduate are leaving for the cities. The Republican's siren song is all about lowering taxes but the taxes keep going up even as the property values are going down and in 2020 public school districts passed referendums totaling more than$173 billion dollars to keep their schools open. Democrats need to do a better job of listening to the grassroots and standing with teachers, workers, environment groups with specific proposals for good jobs, good schools, affordable healthcare, a clean and sustainable environment, responsive government, safe communities and fair taxes.
I think you're on to something here, although an earlier post cites some issues that may be a factor.
The reason for Biden's low approval rating can be described in one word: Fear. Many lower income whites have been fed lies about Biden's competency and intentions. They fear Biden wants to take away their jobs and freedoms, and give them to minorities. Many higher income whites are afraid Biden wants to destroy their wealth and privilege. On the other side, people who hoped Biden would protect our democracy and champion a more equitable and compassionate society are dismayed at the lack of progress, and fear for the future.
Biden is working at a pretty good pace but we are not seeing the extreme concern for addressing the attack from Trump and his thugs. That’s what continues to worry me. We can’t go forward unless Biden does more fist pounding against the atrocity committed. We’re tired of winning and still losing.
It does not help that Republicans like to insinuate that Biden is senile and all that negativity. They use the age thing. It surprises me when even older people say those things.
The Dems need to step it up. We are drowning in the propaganda. Instead of putting out our own. It’s not good enough to put the facts out. We need to spell out what we are doing for our pocket books and COVID. Who got vaccines into arms? Who got money to us when we needed it the most? Who helped people from not getting evicted from where they live? These are the easy answers that will resonate. Yes infrastructure is important but if you can’t afford to buy milk what does it matter. It’s the little things that matter now during the pandemic. We have to raise funds to feed and house people. That should not happen in the richest nation in the world. We can’t fix it all now. But the message has to be positive. We are working on it. The little propaganda commercials that are on tv playing all the time really seep deep into the brain. Are we putting anything like that out there? Hire some people who know how to do that. The Lincoln project had the best commercials out there. We are still trying to pay for bills. How did the Republicans pay for their bills? Wait, wait they didn’t. We should not be talking about losing but how we are winning. Start fighting back, and when we do, point it out. Take the credit for the good things. Spell everything good out in easy terms. The more hope you give the more you will get. Fix a few things that are broken that will show up immediately. We all need some hope in these hard times.
Exactly! Some of these people need to learn that bashing our own when numerous accomplishments have been made, is a recipe for losing an election. Don’t do the republicons work for them! It is a criminal party..protecting those who attacked our government on Jan 6th. We are in a crisis of epic proportion. Learn how you can support what we’ve done and what we’re trying to push through! For those worried about the rural crybabies…without Democrats they would not have, phone service, electricity or the Food surplus program! Republicans opposed it all! Pls Dems brought vaccine access, tryingto bring health care for all! Republicans fight ALL of this. Snap out of it people!
Many are fond of saying, "What unites us is greater than what divides us." I believe just the opposite to be true. We are divided--politically, culturally, and racially. These divisions are not media fiction and our current dysfunction is not unique in American history. It would be helpful if we Democrats had more effective leadership at the national and state levels. However, we lack centralized, national, inspirational leadership that is effective in creating unity. The ideological war within the Democratic party is overshadowing its ability to legislative effectively. The recent passage of the intrastructure act is a symptom of dysfunction, not a symbol of unified process.
Finally, almost all of us--progressively, liberals, moderates--seem to be fully aware of the electoral disaster which faces us next year. But, as much as we lament the probablility of loss of representation in Congress, I have heard very little about "What should we do" to prevent disaster from occurring. "Hope" is not a strategy.
By now we are all in agreeance about the Dems failure to counter the flood of propaganda from the rightwing. I fear the propa will triple now that the infrastructure bill passed. We aint seen nothin yet. The Repubs are stepping it up going into midterms. What is there to stop them? The Dems are asleep at the wheel.
Thanks Robert so much for asking this important question!
To me it’s an issue of clarity, communication and connection. MLK said that "a fact is the absence of contradiction, but truth is the presence of coherence."
We need a coherent and consistent messaging to describe the real issues, the real solutions and the real coalitions that are in front of us.
Perhaps it's apropos to hearken back to Noam Chomsky's book "Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media" to explain this paradox (and so many things). As we've noted for years now, when it comes to so many of our social/political/economic/cultural themes, the ideology-based conclusions precede the facts. And voila - a different reality is born. There is a relentless creation, dissemination and pervasiveness of "alternate facts" and "false narratives" by media and social influencers of various kinds, from varying backgrounds and groups and communities.
Firstly, there is the tragic reality and the related predictable cynicism as a background context, that the "system IS rigged" as you've written so much on! But apart from the dangers of silos and echo chambers, social media and other mass communication modalities help to sustain an alternate reality, shaping the "public mind" as Lincoln would put it. I think the messaging from the White House and Democrats in general around all the facts and the good news is so fractured and anemic, that conservative ideologues have it pretty easy to ignore, corrupt, and distort the truth. Plus, dark money and massive media funding ensure there will always be enough fuel in the tank.
Recovering from so many recent and current false narratives, effectively and simultaneously deployed, is hard enough. Perhaps if all the videos you have on your website can be played and replayed on primetime! And ensuring you in particular (and so many other progressive luminaries) have even more powerful platforms to present real facts, the real truth and the reality-perspectives is what is needed. That would start the process of one day having a truly educated citizenry, that our Founding Fathers expected.
Being a physician for 30 years, I’m aghast at what has happened to another domain that suffers from the same root causes – the domain of science, medicine, and risk communication – about COVID-19 and a plethora of other population health issues.
Thank you!
Well said! Confusion may be intentional we must consider the source always.
Thank you for the MLK quote!
One contributing factor is certainly the way much of the media has behaved, as Jane Rubin of the Washington Post recently pointed out in her recent op-ed “Journalists also have an obligation to fix democracy.” [W]e see little evidence the media has examined its own role in Republicans’ assault on democracy. Indeed, one could argue mainstream media outlets have been complicit in the current crisis of democracy. The trivialization of coverage, default to false equivalency, amplification of GOP spin and habitual treatment of Republicans’ conduct as within the normal boundaries of politics have serious implications for a democracy that relies on an informed citizenry.
[unfortunately I have a standing meeting that conflicts with this wonderful new "Office Hours" Institution. Perhaps you might consider doing Office Hours at different times each week and/or recording them so those of us who can't participate can at least hear the conversation]
The media is owned by corporate entities. They have their agendas. Not our best interests.
Right wing ownership of all the news sources means we will continue to hear this spin. We should have addressed this danger 20 years ago but the Republicans, with Putin’s help, do well at throwing out distractions. Listen to FreeSpeech TV, AlterNet, Democracy Now, Truthout etc
And Robert Reich!
Speaking of which, ALL of the alternative news sites--Trurhout, Reader Supported News, Mother Jones, and on and on--are hanging on by their very fingernails. I am afraid we will lose many of them. Support them!
There is an extreme amount of anxiety and fear that the Dems are not speaking to. The Republicans are the bully in the schoolyard, punching little kids with impunity. Impunity! Where is our strong leader to protect us from the bullies? Where’s the outrage about the attempted coup? Biden needs to get rid of Merrick Garland and get a loud aggressive prosecutor in as AG to be on the front page every day attacking and indicting Trump and other traitors to the constitution. Unleash Kamala Harris. The fact that the insurrectionists are getting short sentences and sympathy is not acceptable. If this weak feeble behavior goes on, we will lose democracy altogether. It’s almost gone now.
Allegra, you raise a question I (and I'm sure others) have been wrestling with: to what extent should Democrats play the same ugly games as Republicans? If we don't, we have a metaphoric hand tied behind our backs. But if we do, we lose not only the moral high ground but also, ultimately, our democracy -- because the Republican Party seems willing to destroy our system of government in order to win.
Unleash Kamala Harris, yes! I just loved it when she went after Mike Pence in the Vice Presidential Debates and told him that she wasn't going to sit there and be lectured on what it means to enforce the laws of our country! You could see the real fighter come out! That's the Kamala Harris I want to see now! Give her some leeway and let her get after voting rights!
I Agree, Kamala Harris would have made a great Attorney General and prosecutor. As Vice President, she needs to be "Carbon Paper" on everything the President does and says, so, if called upon, we can have a smooth transition of power. She needs to be kept safe because we know what happened to the last Catholic that was in the White House.
Most overworked, underpaid people have little time to process more than soundbites before getting to a second job. "Only the guy who isn't rowing has time to rock the boat." (Sartre). A few in the Senate have effectively castrated the dreams of this administration along with the planet as they've hacked and chopped at Build Back Better and our morale.
I still will pull for a heavy blue turnout at midterms in the hope that the administration can finally get the support it needs to mitigate decades of widespread damage done by a few holding great power and too much wealth.
Loved the quote!
Yikes!
I wonder if most Americans who don't have the time to get into the weeds of politics, would just prefer a "President" who ruled by fiat and got lots of stuff done whether or not it was legal. They want to see action, or at least the apparency of action. You know, the way Trump presented all the wonderful and even the not-so-wonderful things he was going to do (most of which he never did) and the things that they actually did (but in glowing tough-guy language).
Democracy tends to be a far slower process than other forms of government (or dictatorship). I wonder if most Americans would be happier with a form of benevolent or pseudo-benevolent dictatorship. But of course that would take throwing the Constitution out the window, and that's scary (ref. Hitler, Stalin and modern-day dictators).
This is a big part of Trump's original appeal and why such horrendous behavior doesn't hurt his standing. America isn't working well for hardly anyone. THis has been true for a long time. So, bring in a bully who moves the damn needle! If he has targeted the wealthy instead of the poor, his base would have believed that with the same fervor. They may incline to racism, but they'd be willing to hate any target that their champion had provided. Unfortunately, like any bully, he chose to target the most vulnerable instead of the most powerful, not to mention the most responsible. No surprise there. He was never acting on principle -- he has none.
With power, someone who is a bully can throw anyone in jail. Wealthy or not.
Porter: benevolent or psuedo-benevolent. Uh uh!
Easy is not necessarily good. In a word, YIKES!
The missing essential is ENERGY! The Demos exude the energy of a half dead fish. Energy sells and pulls people to join .. it is the essential element in team building and successful campaigns. Without this the best projects fall flat.
This nation now runs on 'Messaging' instead of sober reality. And nonstop negative messaging is why most poll responders rate their own economic circumstances much better than they rate the nation's. The Biden administration strategy is not effective in this milieu, where anyone can 'buy' the opinions of whatever commentator catches their fancy. Today, talking a good game wins over playing a good game.
Not with everyone
Remember, the majority voted in Biden. Not because he is an almighty savior but because he is way, way better than the last guy!
People who are confused and used to getting the short end of the stick and losing are chronically sick and tired. If your only source of news is MSNBC or, even worse, CNN you have got to be depressed.
All the major and online news are repeatedly informing us that " everthing is doom & gloom." The economy is rapidly tanking..yoyr not going to be able to pay for gas..holiday expenses and if you can afford the stores won't have the things you want and need. The big 'People's bill' gets something removed or amount of funds available have lowered to help make that need such as 1 week of family leave will hardly make a dent in what the normal family needs. The messaging is geared to frighten people not to make opinions to be glaf the Democrats are supposed to be in the majority to get things done that were promised... thanks for listening
The Republican culture wars are rattling voter subconscious and affecting their perception of what's right for them and in their best interest.