Re-branding the Democrats (revisited).
At the beginning of the summer I put together some thoughts on how the Democrats might be able to pick themselves up, shake off the surprise knockout punch of the 2016 election, and the re-brand the party. It looked to me like a generational opportunity.
It wasn’t really about the new president, as tempting a target as the Trump administration might be. I was more intrigued by how the Republican obsession with a crazy extreme view of individual freedom had led the whole party to abandon almost everything it once stood for.
All this useful political high ground is just sitting out there like the land of milk and honey, waiting for the Democrats to step up and own it.
You can read the whole analysis below, but it boils down to building a new brand for the Democrats as the party that stands for truth, justice and American values. The strategy is to let the Republicans chase their narrow view of freedom, which New York Times Columnist Gail Collins described as little more than a dull echo of the old Janis Joplin lyric, “Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose.” The Democrats get to own everything else. In short, all the ideas and principles that make America the country of E Pluribus Unum.
Now that we’re some nine months into the Trump administration it’s time to check back in. Is this still the opportunity I suspected? Are the Democrats doing anything to take advantage of it? Yes, and sort of.
The Republican Party has certainly spent the summer laboring mightily to shore up the prospects for the Democrats, mostly by repeatedly shooting themselves in the foot. Machinegunning themselves in the foot might be the better description.
The party’s seven-year fabrication about having a better plan than Obamacare met an ugly Waterloo. Their years of dog whistles to racists and fascists finally caught up with them at Charlottesville. It continues to haunt them every time the president tries to divert blame from the Nazis and Klansmen that staged the rally. The unpopular repeal of the DACA program has made the Dreamers poster children for the inhumanity of Republican immigration policy. The policies of underfunding FEMA and declaring war on science just got hit by two of the biggest hurricanes in history, with more on the way. An inept foreign policy has returned us to the days of going to bed wondering if we might wake up under a mushroom cloud.
Whatever else you might think about President Trump, his blunt style does have a way of dragging his party’s worst ideas into the harsh light of day.
Mostly what the Republicans have accomplished in their first year of trying to pull all the levers of government is to demonstrate just how much of their thinking is squarely on the wrong side of history.
Across the aisle the minority party made one attempt at launching themselves to the high ground, but the effort fell quietly back to earth. Democratic leaders premiered their A Better Deal theme with fanfare. Mostly, it just felt old, and at a time when voters have so clearly signaled their hunger for something new. It mainly felt like a repackaging of the usual programs, with a handle left over from the days when Roosevelt was in the Oval Office.
The New York Times netted out close to the same place I did, when a writer on their opinion page suggested if the party thought they needed a slogan it would be better to borrow from Superman: fighting for truth, justice and the American way.
The Democrats are doing a better job down in the trenches. In particular the deals made with President Trump to accomplish popular goals like funding hurricane relief and keeping the government running.
With these surprise deals the tag team of Schumer and Pelosi are stealing the ruling party’s thunder. It feels new and bold, in all the ways that the Better Deal theme did not. Some question whether the Democrats can trust the president, or should make deals that give his administration much-needed victories.
Looking at the party through the lens of a brand lets us avoid self-defeating political questions like that and think instead about higher principles. For example, a compromise that improves border security and enshrines Obama’s DACA program in law fits the brand. Compromising on money for a border wall does not. It’s contrary to American values.
The same sort of logic applies to the healthcare debate, where many Democrats are torn over whether they should work across the aisle to shore up the existing system, or insist on the single-payer idea proposed by Bernie Sanders. Sticking with the truth let’s them have it both ways.
Everyone knows single-payer healthcare isn’t going to happen in the U.S. anytime soon, so the existing system needs to be fixed. At the same time, if the Republicans continue trying to destroy Obamacare without any feasible plan of their own the only honest alternative will eventually be some sort of single-payer system. Truth is a bright sword. The Democrats have intriguing ways to wield it in the healthcare debate.
Heading into the end of the Republican Party’s year in power it’s more clear than ever there is a political realignment going on. It could shake out any number of ways. There’s even talk that Trump will form his own party and run as an independent in 2020 (see Theodore Roosevelt and the Bull Moose Party).
Last summer the voting public was hungry for change, even if they didn’t know what it was. After the past summer of political craziness I think what they mostly hunger for is a return to an era of honest government. Brands are about trust. The Republican brand was already crumbling even as it was doing a good job of winning elections. They’ve spent the past summer blowing it into a thousand pieces.
For the Democrats, that makes this an opportune moment. Tactically they’re doing the right things to press the advantage. Now they just need a speak more eloquently about truth, justice and American values.
