Wednesday, July 25, 2018

Our Audience is Not Ourselves

Most decent folk continue to struggle with how to make sense of the fact that fellow Americans elected, and some continue to support, Donald Trump. 

I share that struggle. This commentary, pasted in full below, from the Wall Street Journal is written by a long time Democratic Party activist and provides some useful clarity as we head into the important midterm elections. You can find the commentary here.

‘Democrats are determined to remove President Trump from office in 2020—or before, if that becomes possible. If precedent holds, he can be unseated in 2020 by a candidate perceived as his opposite: experienced, serious, knowledgeable about policy. If Democrats attempt to rush the process, amid current charges that Mr. Trump is a “traitor” and Russian agent and that his Supreme Court nominee is an extremist, they will further energize their take-it-to-the-streets wing but alienate all but partisan Northeast and Pacific Coast voters.’

Smart. If the objective is win an election, rather than score points in a debate, we need to do all we can to avoid ‘alienating all but our own partisan extreme wing.’

‘The present political and media rage over Mr. Trump’s alleged sellout to Vladimir Putin is an overreach. Any damage done at their recent summit pales compared with the effects, for instance, of the earlier Yalta Summit at which Stalin got a dying President Franklin D. Roosevelt to cede him Eastern Europe, or the Khrushchev-Kennedy Vienna Summit, which led to the Cuban Missile Crisis, Berlin Crisis and a huge buildup of U.S. ICBM forces and budget. Mr. Trump stumbled in Helsinki, but stumbles do not amount to treason.’

Fair point. Because I am embarrassed to have this man as my president, part of me is eager to see every stumble as another confirmation of my deeply held belief that he is the most indecent and dangerous president in my life time. I did not call the Helsinki summit treason, but I could have. Some historical perspective rightly tempers any conclusions for now. It might turn out to be a disaster, even treason, but on the basis of what we know now it is just more of the same appalling ignorance on display.

‘Democrats and some media are now calling for Mr. Trump’s impeachment, presuming that a post-November Democratic House majority would bring such a vote. But it is a risky strategy that would polarize Americans deeply. The case against him would have to be airtight and based on indisputable fact. Otherwise Mr. Trump would be strengthened rather than harmed.’

Also smart. Unless Mueller provides an iron-clad case, even if we win back the House, impeachment may not work. Note: this is not saying it would not feel good & right. But if it ends up strengthening Trump—I want no part of it.

‘Democrats should take a fresh look at why and how Mr. Trump won the 2016 election. The party’s national leadership claims it was because of support from white supremacists, religious nuts, nativists, misogynists and Latino-haters. This is a failure to recognize what actually happened. President Trump was the consequence—not the cause—of a nationwide loss of confidence in all of the American establishment: political, media, cultural, business, financial. Sen. Bernie Sanders played on similar sentiments on the Democratic side and, had he known his potential sooner, could have won his party’s nomination.’

This is highly contested territory, but my sense is that Van Dyk is on point here as well. The weakness of HRC’s candidacy fits into this analytical frame. The willingness to overlook the ----- grabbing tapes, bankruptcies, clear ignorance on policy, obvious arrested development also fit into this frame. Most progressives, if they are honest, would admit that pre-Trump we were all putting our own lost confidence in our major institutions at the top of our own list of concerns. In an odd way, Trump’s administration vindicates the progressive version of this same fear.

‘Most voters knew before the election that Mr. Trump was a crude, freewheeling, womanizing egotist, a man who very well might finance his ventures with money from sketchy sources. They discounted all those negative factors because he was so obviously different from the establishment candidates in whom they had lost trust. Think about it: In one campaign, Mr. Trump polished off the Bushes, the Clintons, and even Ted Cruz. Voters did not love Mr. Trump; they rejected the other guys.’

So obviously different. After years of frustration watching us cycle from one party to the other with little apparent improvement, being obviously different has value, as we say in the election. No one can deny that he was then, and remains today, so obviously different.

‘So where does that leave Democrats? A writer at the Washington Post recently put together a list of the top Democratic presidential contenders for 2020. Ranked first, not surprisingly, was Mr. Sanders, given his strong 2016 showing. Also near the top was former Vice President Joe Biden, who relates well to middle-American voters. But most of the rest of the contenders take an angry, accusatory line toward Mr. Trump. Leading the pack were Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris, from Massachusetts and California, respectively, where bashing the president earns cheers from the party faithful.

Shrill attacks and identity politics got a strong start during Bill Clinton’s two presidential terms. Under fire on multiple fronts, the Clinton White House took an aggressive posture toward critics, asserting that it was just “fighting back.” Democrats repeated that pattern in President Obama’s 2012 campaign. They labeled Mitt Romney, a temperate former governor of Massachusetts, as antiwoman, antigay, antiblack, anti-Latino, anti-immigrant and a tool of big finance. That theme worked so well that Democrats repeated it in congressional races two years later. Now the beat goes on, only stronger, against Mr. Trump.’

Neither identity politics nor shrill attacks started during the Clinton presidency. At the same time, it is not inaccurate to say both were deployed by our side.

‘There are some basic misapprehensions here. Most voters see abortion and gay rights as accepted issues and wonder why Democrats present them as threatened. They do not see racism as on the rise or the country as moving back toward Jim Crow. On the contrary, they see several decades in which the barriers to equal opportunity, legal or otherwise, have been steadily dismantled. They do worry about the problems of big-city neighborhoods: violence, drug use, broken families, unemployment, daunting dropout and incarceration rates. But they see little evidence that “white privilege” is the cause. They like immigrants and refugees but generally believe everyone should take a legal path to citizenship.’

This is where it gets tough to stay focused on winning the midterms. Here Van Dyk is making claims about what ‘most voters’ think and believe. So, my first reaction (that I do not believe these statements to be accurate) is not relevant. Then I ask myself: is it accurate to say that many voters unlike me believe these to be true…and it is difficult for me to deny that this is possible, perhaps likely. Most Americans are pragmatic and (until very recently) far less partisan than our party leaders and activists, so these very moderate positions both overstate our progress on race and poverty while also capturing the voters we need to reach out to right now.

‘National security and the economy are the two principal issues in any presidential campaign. The Trump record in both those realms should be critiqued by Democrats. They should, in turn, offer credible alternative policies. If they do, and their presidential candidate seems reasonable, Democrats can reclaim the White House in 2020 not through a constitutional crisis but through a free election and with a popular mandate.

My own guess: By 2020, Mr. Trump will have fatigued the public. Voters will be turned off by him, just as they were in turn by the Johnson, Nixon and Carter presidencies. They will want to see another face on their TV sets. The danger is that Democrats by then may have fatigued the public even more.’

Van Dyk concludes that angry narratives highlighting white privilege (or any type of identity politics) and casting Trump (and by extension anyone who does not share a deep existential disgust with Trump) as a traitorous villain will lose. For voters who are mobilized by these narratives, Van Dyk would advise, let them be mobilized on the basis of Trump’s daily tweet storm. No need to fan these flames, Trump is doing just fine on that front all by himself.

Instead, focus on the harm-causing policies of this administration and offer thoughtful, family-friendly, alternatives that are easy to understand and make sense to an average voter who is not a policy wonk. Be the change here means to enact in our candidates and our platforms the reasonable alternative, the option that promises to help families and strengthen our democratic institutions.

Summing up…
  1. We are struggling on many fronts.
  2. Step one to addressing our struggles is to contain this president before he gets us into a war or gets re-elected to complete his environmental destruction.
  3. To do this we must avoid ‘alienating all but our own partisan extreme wing.’ This is election 101. We cannot win with just people like us sharing our anger.
  4. As good and right as it feels to make criticism of Trump our central guidance system…this replicates Trump’s own anti-Obama guidance system…and risks strengthening the forces we need to weaken.
  5. Because many of us have lost confidence in our major institutions, we should be able to find room in our hearts to believe that some (clearly not all) Trump supporters are also decent folks we want to rejoin our coalition.
  6. A big tent party cannot purge identity politics or shrill attacks, but to the degree that these alone become our brand we will lose.
  7. Most Americans are pragmatic and want to hear how leaders plan to solve problems and improve their lives.
  8. Focus on policy. Speak clearly. Be the reasonable alternative. Our audience is not ourselves.

No comments:

Post a Comment