In many ways, social issues ARE economic issues. Take marriage equality, for example. Unmarried lesbians and gays have a higher economic burden than their married straight counterparts.
Then there’s contraception and abortion issues. For women the lack of coverage for medicinal contraceptives means suffering from extreme medical issues that can prevent a woman from working one week out of the month, or cause her to work in extreme pain. Both contraception and abortion are involved in not only making sure women can be healthy, but prevent a household that does not need more children from having to add the economic burden of having another child.
Institutionalized racism means that there are a dearth of jobs in majority Black areas, and because many Blacks living in those areas do not have access to affordable transportation to jobs outside of their areas, they have trouble getting and maintaining jobs. Add to that, non-standard (that is English-sounding) names often mean that companies won’t hire people.
Institutionalized homophobia and transphobia often leave LGBT people at risk for losing their jobs and homes. The medical costs of being transsexual are exorbitant, which means that someone transitioning cannot pay for much else, add to that the economic burden of the medical costs associated with depression, anxiety, etc.
The Democrats should frame these issues in terms of how they effect and impact the whole economy, but let us be honest here- they really do hit the economy pretty badly.
Look, this story is a great “if only they’d done what I’ve been saying they should do, they’d have won” template, but there are two basic problems that have to be fixed if we’re ever going to win an effing midterm.
The first is that a majority of people simply don’t believe, and as best I can tell from historical polling data have never believed, that Keynesian policies work. At best, they think they do more long term harm than good and at worst they think it’s a big phony excuse for wasteful Democrats to shower largesse upon the underserving, unworthy, lazy, no-account Others paid for with what they are convinced are their hard earned tax dollars. The hard fact is that there doesn’t seem to be any way to get people to understand the need for deficit spending when aggregate demand stabilizes below full employment levels because because there doesn’t seem to be any way to convince them that it is the aggregate effect of all the rational microeconomic decisions they make during a contraction that’s the problem. The rentiers, on the other hand, only have to say “welfare and wasteful federal spending and lazy no good byuocrats,” and they win.
In short, it’s easier to convince people that our problems are due to insufficient austerity than to convince them of the truth that the problem is insufficient deficit, or at least redistributive, spending. I don’t know how to fix this. But I do know that it means we can’t fix it with a simplistic “be more Democratic” campaign strategy. (A complex “be more Democratic” strategy would be worth giving a try, however.)
The second problem is structural: presidential elections are about what you want to see done, midterms are about what you’re afraid will be done to you. against. Democrats are all about what they want to see done, Republican voters are all about what they think is being done to them. All other things being equal, this means we win the presidential elections and they win the midterms.
True believers tend to be the dogmatic conservatives. They are more likely to vote and today, they are lied to with great cleverness by the corporatists. On the other hand, democrats, being everybody ELSE, are like herding cats. They don’t have a unifying belief. They’re more 'anti-Republicans" than they are a single party.
I think while Obama was a better choice that the two scary people the Republicans put against him, America’s really not ready for a black president. There’s far too much hate in the country over color.
Obama’s not done badly, considering he was targeted. In fact because of the corporatists, he’s not been able to do much but regulate the banks and get Insurance reform started as the Bush recession healed itself–which it wouldn’t have done had the Republicans held the White House.
Yet he’s tormented by the right who needed a scapegoat for public unhappiness, low wages, or NO wages… The republicans who blamed him for their successful obstinance because they don’t want the people to realize what they’re actually up to on behalf of big business.
Democrats need not engage in the self-loathing. Progressivism is a hard fight but all of the improvements in the country have come because of reformers–except maybe Ike’s interstate highway system.
“They” can call themselves whatever they prefer. Makes no difference to me.
I am a liberal. I have always been a liberal, and always will be. I detest the failed ideology that is modern conservatism.
I don’t identify with either party. Lately, the only reason I vote for Democrats is because (1) as a citizen I feel it’s my duty to vote, and (2) their policies are slightly less anti-American than the (viable) alternative.
Libertarians? Don’t make me laugh. There ain’t no such thing, when the rubber hits the road.
The rest are single-issue parties - I’m not a single-issue voter.
Abortion? Check.
Gay marriage? Check.
Drug testing for food stamps? Check.
Eliminating “entitlements”? Check.
Eliminating the ACA? Check.
Eliminating the National debt? Check.
Eliminating any and all immigration? Check.
Ending environmental regulations? Check.
Impeaching the President? Check.
Opposing increases to the minimum wage? Check.
Improving the economy? ??? Only in terms that mean that corporate America retains controll over who runs this country. Ending environmnetal regulations means jobs! Increased fracking means jobs! Energy independence means jobs! Lowering the minimum wage means jobs! Cutting taxes means jobs! Making things worse for the American worker so that corporate America can grow means jobs! Of course, we’ll soon see zero unemployment when we impeach the President.
Economic issues only make sense to people who think. Do you think about abortion? NO. You feel abortion is the justified right of every woman. Do you think about gay marriage? No. You feel that it’s the right of every American. Republicans don’t win elections getting their constituency to think. They win elections by controlling and manipulating how their constituents feel. How do you feel about economics? Well, let’s ask US Presidential Candidate John Kerry. He lost? Gee. I wonder why. It’s because he spent too much time engaging in rational thought, and he did a horrible job at articulating whatever it was he was thinking about.
Emotions win elections! Emotional issues are what Republicans preach. Responsible economic issues are above their levels of comprehension. Thinking is a waste of time! It’s too confusing. La-la-la-la! Abortion is bad! Immigration is bad! Big Government is bad! Obama is bad! Stop pestering me with your attempts to get me to think about things. I don’t want to think. I just want to know how i’m supposed to feel about things, and for that, i have those wonderful people at Fox News to tell me exactly how i should feel about everything that Republicans tell me are important.
The Dems are just as much owned by Wall Street and the corporatocracy as are the GOP. So their big dilemma is how do you APPEAR to fight for the middle class, while simultaneously protecting the interests of your fat cat benefactors? Such a quandary…
Hillary and the Third-Way Democrats (and their Wall Street supporters) don’t want to hear that kind of talk!
Why, that could lead to fair taxation (all income taxed equally)! Jobs programs! Immigration Reform! a rise in the Minimum Wage! Single Payer Health Care! Infrastructure Improvements! applying S.S./FICA taxes to ALL INCOME! increased Union Representation! and the result of all of this is the worst outcome of all: A Reduction of Financial Inequity (the Horror! the Horror!)
Why, the very THOUGHT of it has the Hedge Fund Managers and International Banking CEO’s clutching at their pearls!
Banish this upstart! Immediately! (so say the Masters of the Universe.)
But that’s exactly the point: People don’t want to be beneficiaries of a program; they want to see more in their paycheck. Less Keynes, more Dean Baker.
But there’s the problem. Dean Baker is what you say during the election, but when it comes time to write laws, the policies that actually put more money into middle class pockets are precisely the kind of Keynesian policies that supply the argle barge common sense kitchen table economic belt-tightening wasteful government spending blargh people with the anecdotes that drive their worldview. Infrastructure spending (a/k/a paying people to stand around and do nothin’ but lean on a shovel because those are the only highway workers my confirmation bias filter lets me see), transfer payments to the poor ("I saw a lady using a SNAP card buying beer and cigarettes!), science, R&D and space exploration (BLARGH!) is what puts the money in middle class pockets and its what drives them insane because they are incapable of grasping the connection.
Infrastructure, science, etc. are ways to spend money that have much more support than what can more easily be tagged as redistributionist spending. Americans don’t like “handouts,” even when they’re on the receiving end (unless they’re rich and smart enough to take the money and shut up). You’ll get more support for a higher minimum wage then you would for an expanded EITC.
The ONLY DEMS I got emails from that actually addressed what they have done, and what they plan to do, were from Senator Tester and senate candidate Amanda Curtis. The rest of communications from DCCC and DEM candidates across the nation were copy/past pearl clutching about ‘what the GOP is doing NOW’ along with pleas for more donations. I deleted from 12 -25 of those, A DAY.
The SAME message a dozen or more times a day from ‘different’ candidates in other states. IOW, DCCC’s only tactic was to give my email addresses to all the DEM candidates and tell them to ‘stay on message’, AKA: ‘be too lazy/foolish to actually communicate their ideas for legislation to help the US voters’. It is NOT communication or campaigning. It made DEMs look even weaker. That does not instill fervor among likely voters.
Yes, I know candidates/party need our donations. I also know the DCCC left Curtis without any help from national DEMs and that Ambassador Max Baucus has a lot of $$ in his campaign coffers, though it is unlikely he will ever run for elected office again. Pissed me off in the extreme that national DEMs wrote MT off, while ignoring how well Dean’s 50 state strategy worked in the past and worked for Obama.
When DEMS start pushing reminders of what they managed to get done, despite GOP obstruction, and pushing what they want to do to help ALL of the US, they might get some voters to the polls. As it stands, yeah, voters who stayed home are a problem, but a party that offers no clear vision to those who are not political news junkies, well THAT is the bigger problem.
Why would masses leave home to vote for GOP~Lite? DEM candidates need to go liberal, even progressive, or go home. And they need to communicate real messages, not the fear mongering of what the GOP will do if I don’t send another check ***RIGHT NOW!!!***.
These arguments are all well thought out and well stated, but they’re pointless because they will not get Democrats to the polls. What will get Democrats, and a whole lot of independents to the polls are the creation of Death Panels by Republicans who want to strip Americans of their health insurance! Republicans want to determine who lives and who dies based solely on their race and income! Republicans want to engage in Social Engineering by re-writing our children’s text books to read like Aryan propaganda! Republicans want to create an American State based on Apartheide South Africa, where only old white men get to say anything in government. Republicans want to strip Americans who are any color other than white of their right to vote! Republicans want to strip American women of their right to freedom in deciding when they want to reproduce and have a baby! Republicans want to destroy American freedoms!
Cut to the chase and get Democrats excited about voting, and make the entire country afraid of the Republican Agenda! Rational discussion of topics that actually matter are pointless because they do not cause fear of the opposition in the hearts of naive Americans. Pandering, yes. But that’s the book as written by Republicans. And they win elections. Democrats don’t.
You know what is funny is conservatives say the same thing about Republicans. When you campaign as conservatives, you win but when you try to be Democrat lite you lose.
It is funny how both extremes but forth the same arguments when they get beat.
Please the entire Democratic Campaign in 2014 was a continuation of the War on Women. It was all about women’s health care, which means access to abortion and free birth control.
What was the message but forth by the Democratic Party?
In 2006, the Democrats ran the same playbook, to great success, as the GOP did in 2014. When you have a unpopular President, you run 100% against them and then make your opponent into their lackey. In 2006, Democrats ran ad after ad claiming candidate X agrees with President Bush 95+% of the time and they voted for the Iraq war. In 2014, Republicans ran ad after ad claiming candidate X agrees with President Obama 95+% of the time and they voted for Obamacare.
Same tactic, equally as effective. In 2018, if the President is unpopular, the same playbook will be ran again and will, most likely, be just as effective as in 2006, 2010 and 2014.
Establishment GOP will not ditch the ACA on whole. They would probably cut some of the requirements made of insurance companies, but Insurers LIKE that more people can buy their product. Tea Idiots may try to repeal the whole thing, but that’s stupid. It’s a money maker for the GOP as fools mail checks when they TALK repeal.
If the GOP guts the whole ACA, the people will wake up and there will be a bigger movement towards single payer, which Big Insurance does not want to see.
I can’t argue with what you said, but Republicans are masters at creating soundbites that instill fear of Democrats in the hearts of Americans. Democrats try (and lose) to elevate themselves above that tactic. The intellectual will lose to the sledge hammer every time.
Trust me on this. I hate the Republican strategy, and would be embarrassed for Democrats to see them participate in the same games they play, but the fact is that Republicans control the message by creating fear of Democrats. The media buys into it. Democrats try to take the high road, but as we’ve just witnessed, Republicans just ran Democrats off the road, almost entirely. My message essentially is to fight fire with fire. Employ the same rhetoric they use against Democrats against them. Put them on the defensive by using the same words and logic they accuse Democrats of plotting. The accusation of Republican Death Panels has merit. The accusation of Republican Social Engineering also has merit. Make them defend their own employment of these terms with examples of their own actions. Trying to convince people of Republican incompetence with economic arguments will not work at the scale necessary to win elections. Emotional issues is what wins elections for them. So, turn the tables, and make them defend their lack of emotion for the well-being of the American people.
But what you are trying to do gives over the heads of most voters. Furthermore, you are kidding yourself if you think Democrats don’t engaging in the same tactics. They both do it election after election. In 2006 and 2008, the entire Democratic message was, “we are not Bush”. They ran on no vision or agenda, just anti-bush rhetoric and it worked. The repeated the mantra in 2012 and then made up the " War on women".
Both parties do it, there is no difference between the major parties with regards to campaign strategy. Demonize the other side and put forth nothing test can be used against you in the next election.
