We are two months into the Trump Administration and the Democrats are still wondering why they lost the election. There was a recent poll by Axios that listed a whole slew of reasons why the Democratic Party lost. The list included too woke, Trump’s appeal, Podcasts and social media, Elitist policies, the border, Biden’s fault, inflation, Elitist words, testosterone, Harris’ fault. While all these answers are correct, the poll was missing one important concept or piece of information. The reason the Democratic Party lost is messaging. The list from Axios’ poll is correct but all those reasons combined are the symptoms of their messaging problem. To steal a quote from James Carville, “It’s the economy stupid,” I would change the economy to, “It’s messaging stupid!” The Democrats are lost. If you stand for nothing, you are capable of anything.
We know exactly what the Democrats are against- anything that Trump supports. We know they hate Donald Trump and now Elon Musk because he is working with the new administration. We know that Democrats are against Title Nine, Netanyahu and Israel defending herself, we know that they are against limiting federal government. But what is the clear and concise message of what Democrats today stand for?
When I was growing up in the late seventies and early eighties the Democrats were known for being the party that supported the common everyday American. I come from a split family as far as politics is concerned.My dad’s family an extensive line of Democrats while my mother’s family more Republican. When I was growing up, I used to ask my father, a lifelong Democrat about politics and why he felt it was important to be a Democrat. To quote my dad he said, “The Democrats care about the underdog. They care about people and want to make life better for the average American like me.” Sounds reasonable and I would have to agree that is what the Democratic party used to be.
Democrats lost because they spent their time covering up a mentally declining President, lying to the American people that the President of the United States was cognitively fine. We the American people saw the decline of Joe Biden well before the Presidential debate against Trump where his decline could no longer be kept a secret as we watched him stumble over his words and seemed to be on a distant planet other than earth. The media can be held accountable by favoring the left and keeping their secret quiet as well by not reporting on Biden’s decline.
When it was obvious they could no longer hide his decline, their other mistake was to “promote” Kamala Harris as the new candidate for President without doing a blitz primary all the while screaming, they were concerned for democracy. Seems if they were really concerned about democracy, they would have let the Democrats vote for a candidate to run for President and replace Biden. But they decided for the people it would be Harris.
Harris’-Walz message wasn’t clear either. “Joy” being a common theme and “democracy” was the other. But really what was their policy? What was their mission statement or their “why”? At one point Harris did say she wanted “no tax on tips” a Trump promise on his platform.
Using Hollywood backfired. Screaming our nation would end with Donald Trump as they let our borders flood with illegal criminals did not help. Identity politics and threatening that women’s rights would end didn't win. Supporting trans in women’s sports,tampons in boys’ bathrooms, Electric Vehicles for all Americans (when we don’t have enough charging stations to support this), Electric School busses, and focusing on “pro-nouns” was not substantive enough to support a person running for the highest office in the land.
The American people clearly understood what the Democrats were against and that was anything and everything Trump. What we didn’t clearly understand was what were and are the Democrats for? What do the Democrats want to do to help the American people? Their platform was a hodgepodge of social issues that effect less than one percent of the population. The Democrats have become out of touch with the issues that are important to American people. They failed to produce a message or mission on how they were going to do better. In the end common sense beat “Joy” and “Trump being an end to our democracy.” Without clear and concise messaging from the Democratic Party they will continue to struggle, and we could see a political scenario dominated by Republicans for years to come.
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