Trump uses race, culture to divide and distract while GOP is government by the corrupt, for the rich
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A news analysis in the New York Times ominiously warned that House Democrats are “discarding the lessons of successful midterms past and pressing only a bare-bones national agenda.” The article notes that they’ve chosen a new slogan, “For the PeopleTrump uses race, culture to divide and distract while GOP is government by the corrupt, for the rich
A news analysis in the New York Times ominiously warned that House Democrats are “discarding the lessons of successful midterms past and pressing only a bare-bones national agenda.” The article notes that they’ve chosen a new slogan, “For the People” (“For All the People” would have been preferable) and issued some relatively thin policy statements. The article’s authors then speculated that failing to adopt something along the lines of 1994’s House Republican Contract with America or House Democrats’ Six for ‘06 plan from 2006 might “raise questions among voters about how Democrats would govern.” Then there was more of the usual blather about Dems in disarray, the kind our own Laura Clawson rightly skewered here. Democratic strategist Ed Kilgore had a great response to the NYT’s handwringing. He pushed back on the idea that Democrats have offered only a “bare bones national agenda,” and pointed out that Republicans retook the House in 2010, and the Senate in 2014, without any noticeable unified policy agenda. He also questioned just how important those aforementioned national platforms really were, citing polls that showed most voters in 1994 hadn’t even heard of the Contract with America. As for Six for ‘06, Kilgore himself couldn’t remember a single plank from it, and writing about national politics is his job. Going further, Kilgore pointed out that this year’s midterm elections, like every other one, would see voters making their decisions primarily based on their feelings about the president, in particular given just how much oxygen Mr. 46 Percent of the Popular Vote takes up in our national conversation. Kilgore concluded: Democrats could publish 100-page agenda books and together croak out poll-tested message slogans like frogs after a summer storm — but it’s not going to override the basic fact that Democrats are the party that’s not the party of Donald J. Trump. Kilgore’s right about agendas and slogans, and that’s one hell of a simile. But there is a message Democrats can embrace—one that must be tweaked, of course, for local circumstances—which can attract voters specifically by contrasting our values and priorities with those of the Man Who Lost the Popular Vote. Read more