An old rule in politics continues to apply today: If you’re explaining, you’re losing.
Democrats face strong headwinds going into the 2022 midterm elections, and the chance that President Joe Biden will have a Democratic majority in Congress next year drops every day.
Yet to hear Democrats and their allies talk, you’d think they’ve given the country a wide range of successes that they’ve merely failed to explain adequately. It’s the damned messaging that’s the problem!
When Democrats lose, find themselves on the wrong side of approval polling, or face a likely election loss, the one excuse they cling to like guns and religion is poor messaging. “We’re doing great! But we’re not conveying that effectively to people!” They’re like the person at the American Idol auditions who can’t sing to save their lives but look positively baffled when Simon Cowell tells them, “If you had lived 2,000 years ago and sung like that, I think they would have stoned you.”
Despite robust GDP growth and an unemployment rate under 4%, Biden’s job approval numbers are in the toilet. That flummoxes Democrats who cannot understand why amid such terrific economic news they’re not poised to expand their congressional majority and “why in the world is that Glenn Youngkin guy the governor of Virginia and not Terry McAuliffe?”
If Democrats could wipe away the sanctimony from their eyes, they might notice that despite positive GDP numbers and low unemployment, people are watching their grocery bills climb every week. Couple that with gas higher gas prices, continuing supply chain snarls, and Calvinball rules over mask and vaccine mandates, people might not be all that thrilled with the party in power.
Naturally, instead of recognizing when the facts change, Democrats focus on the messaging. Some go so far as to blame outside forces for that failed messaging. For example, Dan Pfeiffer, a former communications director for Barack Obama, recently appeared on a Vox podcast. The
write-up reads:
“His main point is that Democrats are struggling to define themselves and get their message to voters because the media environment is stacked against them in fundamental ways.”
When you stop laughing, you’ll see they’re dead serious. People like Pfeiffer have convinced themselves that the media landscape above all else prevents them from getting their winning message through to the public. When they try to go that route, they sound like Scooby-Doo villains: “We’d have a permanent majority if it weren’t for those meddling kids like Ben Shapiro!”
Another misstep Democrats continue to make is confusing popular support in a public opinion poll with what drives voters to the polls. When Biden tried to sell his social spending plan, Build Back Better, Democrats would point to polls showing support for the bill as a means of pressuring people to sign on. Of course, people supported it. What’s not to like about “free” community college and childcare, monthly cash payments, and universal pre-K? But none of it is top-of-mind for many voters, particularly the independents and suburban voters Democrats can ill-afford to lose.
Buried beneath all the pomp and lofty talk about “messaging” lies the real problem for Democrats this election cycle, and it is the contempt they have for the very people they want voting for them. To argue about messaging is to assume that voters don’t have the cognitive ability to recognize the wonderfulness of what Democrats have offered them. Or that voters are like cats who will stop whatever it is they’re doing to chase a little red laser light.
Unfortunately, contempt often breeds indifference. When that happens, Democrats are the ones no longer paying attention, operating under the assumption that “they just don’t get it.” Before long, they wake up one day, and they’re Terry McAuliffe, losing in a state that Biden won 365 days before by 10 percentage points. We see some Democratic governors waking up to that realization with the sudden announcement of lifting mask mandates in states such as New Jersey, Delaware, and California.
But they’re not getting it entirely, as they’re continuing to mandate mask-wearing by children in schools. The message Republicans have sent is: “We’re getting away from this dystopic climate we’ve set up in our public schools. We’re going to let students take the mask off, and there are no more school closings.”
That is a message that resonates with voters.
