Mazie Hirono is right that she’s out of touch — just not in the way she thinks

Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, thinks Democrats don’t connect to voters because they are so much smarter. In a discussion at the Bend Towards Justice conference in Washington, D.C., with Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick, Hirono made a number of generalized statements about how her party views voters that you’ll have to hear to believe, they’re that outlandish.

Hirono actually said she believes the Democratic Party has a hard time connecting to people’s hearts because, “We Democrats know so much.”

“We’re really good at shoving out all the information that touch people here [points to the brain] but not here [points to the heart].” Hirono said her fellow Democrats need to “speak to the heart, not in a manipulative way, not in a way that brings forth everybody’s fears and resentments, but truly to speak to the heart so that people know that we’re actually on their side.” The real humdinger was when Hirono said, “We have to kind of tell everyone how smart we are, and so we have a tendency to be very left-brain.”

A lot of politicians, even Republicans, come across as elitist and arrogant — many of them don’t know another life than the one where they make six figures performing a job where it often seems like results don’t actually matter. That said, this is not even what makes Hirono’s comments so interesting.

For starters, Hirono is incredibly tone-deaf about her own party, both Democrat politicians and media alike. Yes, there is an arrogance on the Left, but I would say it’s truly a form of narcissistic chutzpah rather than a mark of intelligence. No, if anything, the party (if we’re generalizing) that often comes across as one that values braininess over heart is Republicans. Doesn’t anyone remember House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and his healthcare bill presented via PowerPoint? Have you ever heard a Democrat talk about economics the way he did? Do you even know of a Democratic politician who actually likes Ayn Rand? Talk about real smarts: Politicians who were also physicians make up a small minority in Congress, but the majority of them are or have been Republicans.

Republicans are the ones who are all about lower taxes and personal responsibility, and Democrats are the ones who say things like “hope and change” and inspire warm fuzzies and millions of votes. So Hirono’s misbranding and capacity for being tone-deaf, even for an elitist politician, is rather remarkable and shows she is actually just as out of touch as she says they are, just in an entirely different way.

The other thing that makes Hirono’s remarks so strange and even awful is that she truly believes Democrats have a good heart and good ideas that help Americans. They’ve just been poor at articulating this. Neither of these things are true. As time goes on I’m beginning to think most politicians at the height of their power care about people. What is true and easily demonstrated is how much Democrat politicians seek power, to the detriment of the people around them, plunge the nation into debt (Republicans do this too), and repeatedly advocate for policies that actually do sound helpful but really hurt people. Think about a typical Democratic platform: abortion rights, higher taxes, smaller military, more government programs for those in “need,” and punitive measures for small business owners — to say the least.

It’s so obvious that these policies are harmful to the average American that Democrats must campaign on fuzzy slogans and positive sound bites, not the intellectual answers Hirono claims they give, hiding the consequences of these policies in order to get elected and push these measures through Congress. Otherwise, who would vote for them and why?

In 2018, I expect many of the nation’s politicians to be somewhat arrogant and self-important. However, Hirono’s comments demonstrate a new level of elitism, one where she not only fails to understand her party, but fails to see how Democratic policies aren’t helpful — no matter how they are presented, via the heart or the head.

Nicole Russell (@russell_nm) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner‘s Beltway Confidential blog. She is a journalist who previously worked in Republican politics in Minnesota.