“No” Is Not Enough
So you’re running for president—great! Stop telling us what you’re against and start telling us what you’re for.
In a Medium post over the weekend, Howard Schultz said the response to his independent presidential flirtation was “beyond any expectation I had.” That may be the most honest line in the whole post. Nobody could possibly have predicted the anger that Schultz’s presidential aspirations would bring out in the American people.
I know I was (happily) stunned to see how negative the response to Schultz’s self-described “centrist” run has been. I’ve written at length about Schultz’s failure of a book launch here in Seattle, where I saw that distaste in person. Even in a very friendly room full of Starbucks executives, Schultz was heckled. One audience member begged him to pay more in taxes (That comment earned a healthy round of applause, but Schultz apparently pretended to not hear it.) When Schultz spoke dismissively of single-payer health care and free college, the room clearly clapped for the ideas—not the billionaire deriding the ideas.
But when you’re richer than Batman, you can pay your advisers to filter reality however you choose. In Monday’s post, Schultz dismissed all the negative responses as out-of-touch commentary from “party activists and inside-the-Beltway pundits in the press and on social media.” It’s funny that Schultz is deaf to the negativity about his campaign, because his candidacy seems to be built on a platform of pure negativity. He’s never met a “no” he didn’t love.
At his book launch in Seattle, I was horrified to note that Schultz offered not even one policy proposal in an hour and a half. In the weeks since, he still has not endorsed a single policy that he believes can improve the lives of ordinary Americans. Instead, he loves to tell us what we can’t do: we can’t afford to ensure health care for everyone in America; we can’t make sure that anyone who wants to work is able to work; we can’t provide housing for people who need help.
Schultz doesn’t believe every person in this country is worthy of affordable medical treatments. He doesn’t want everyone to have shelter. He doesn’t believe the American Dream applies to everyone.
Why can’t we do those things? Well, because we can’t raise taxes on billionaires, the billionaire says. Schultz claims that the federal deficit is the single biggest problem we must confront as a nation—not climate change; not declining life expectancies for Americans; not an infrastructure that is collapsing; not America’s shrinking position in the international community. He’s a negative-space candidate, defined solely by his opposition.
I’ve also been thinking a lot about this tweet from a commentator about Amy Klobuchar’s town hall on CNN over the weekend:
To be fair to Senator Klobuchar, I think Zeleny is selling her policy proposals short. Let’s be clear: She’s no Schultz. Klobuchar is more moderate than most of the Democratic field, but she definitely has ideas for what she would like to do beyond just saying what’s not possible.
But here’s the thing: pundits love it when candidates say “no,” because “no” is at the heart of conflict and conflict makes for good television. “No” defends the status quo, which pundits are constitutionally inclined to favor. “No” puts the pundits on offensive and requires politicians and activists to defend their forward-thinking ideas. “No” is unimaginative, and because it is unimaginative, it is safe.
As popular as negativity may be with the chattering classes, I can’t think of a presidential candidate who managed to win on a platform of “no.” Even Donald Trump, who has easily led the most regressive White House I’ve seen in my lifetime, campaigned on the possibility of building infrastructure and building factories and creating jobs. You win on what you promise you can do, not what you say you can’t do.
But you’ve got to stand up for something. In a little less than a year, Democratic primary voters will begin to decide who will represent them in the 2020 presidential campaign. It’s way too early for me to decide who I’m backing—in fact, I’d go so far as to say that I’m not ruling any Democratic candidate out. (Sorry, Howard.)
I’ve tried to acquaint myself with the Democratic presidential field by doing research into their positions. But as I’ve looked at their websites, I’ve been horrified to see that most of the Democratic presidential candidates—including people I have admired for years—have fully-stocked merch pages on their presidential campaign sites but no policy pages.
Sure, platforms change over the lifespan of a campaign, and candidates have every right to be deliberate as they lay out their visions for America. But every candidate needs one or two signature issues from the very start—a topic that demonstrates their vision for governing, their story of what America can and should be. Of course personality matters in a presidential campaign, but policy is what matters most—especially in these early days.
I get it. Making a statement, saying what you stand for, is a risky proposition. When you say yes, when you make a positive statement about the change you want to bring to the world, you have a thousand Schultz-alikes bellowing “no” back at you every day. But we want our leaders to lead—to be additive to the conversation. Give us a positive affirmation of what your American story is.
Stop telling us what you’re against. Stop talking about the political conversation and start a conversation, instead. Tell us what you’re for. As we’ve seen over the past few months, Americans are ready to follow a leader with bold policy ideas. We want to reshape the country for the next century. We’re just waiting for someone to stand up and say yes to the future.
