Looking for votes in 2022
Relief is the emotion most Democrats are feeling. Spared from the prospect of four more years of turbulence, uncertainty and disregard of common decency and democratic norms. We are not quite ready yet to celebrate. We anticipate, however, a new day, a new administration and the renewed opportunity to make our communities better for all of us. We won the presidency. But our majority is smaller in the House of Representatives, and the best we can hope for in the Senate is a tie. We are not going to be able to accomplish much of what we would like in Congress or Wisconsin in these next two years. We don’t have the necessary legislative votes. What is the priority? Building on where we are now. Laying the groundwork to win more seats in 2022. Winning enough Democrats votes in Congress to govern. Why is that necessary? For only four of the 40 years since 1980 have Democrats held the presidency and majorities in both House and Senate: the first two years of the Clinton administration, and the first two years of Obama. If we continue to be one and done, we will never get past talking about bold programs to move the country forward. We have to build electoral support among voters we haven’t yet reached, if we want to accomplish anything significant. It will not be easy. Almost always the opposition party adds seats in the election following the swearing in a new President. It will take more than talking points and messaging. It will take a legislative agenda focused on changes that will impact everyday life. Simple. Relevant. Significant. Easy to remember. Easy to talk about with the person sitting on the stool next to you in the neighborhood bar. Difficult to misrepresent. Raise the minimum wage. Jumpstart the economy by putting money in people’s pockets with expanded unemployment insurance and stipends. Increase the subsidies for health insurance under Obamacare. Fix policing and criminal justice. Give all schools the necessary resources to educate their students. Help families take care of their elderly and very young. A job, money in your pocket, no worries about health care, knowing it is safe to walk out your door and your kids are in a good school, are all reasons to reward with a vote. Our ideological battles can wait. Those of us who write and read political blogs are political junkies. We pay close attention. Yanna Krupnikov and John Barry Ryan, two political scientists at Stony Brook University say the real divide in American politics is between us political junkies (less than 20 percent of the population) and everyone else. We, the junkies, tend to be hard partisans for whom “politics is a morality play, a struggle of good versus evil.” We are more likely to reward ideological victories. Our minds are set. It is the other 80 percent who don’t pay close attention we have to reach. Their attitudes are different. Their concerns are bread and butter issues. Krupnikov and Ryan report both Democrats and Republicans in that 80 percent believe low hourly wages are one of the most important problems facing the country. For hard partisans, the issue barely registers. Most of us don’t realize that if the federal minimum wage had just kept up with inflation it would now be near $15 an hour. Those trying to live on the $7.25 an hour minimum wage struggle with the fact every day. Our way forward as Democrats is to go back to our roots. Embrace our claim of being the Party of the People. Lift everybody by lifting those who need it most. Put people first. In the 1860 election, Republicans promised what became the Homestead Act of 1862 which made western land available to anyone willing to go start a small farm. Their slogan that year was “vote yourself a farm”. Our message for 2022: “vote yourself a pay raise”, “vote yourself health care”. People need a reason to vote. Keep it simple. Keep it specific. Keep it at the personal level. Avoid general slogans. Trump’s message on health care during the campaign was, “I’m going to protect pre-existing conditions.” Although a false claim, he picked the most popular provision of Obamacare and promised to protect it, even signing an executive order to that effect. It was theatre, but very intentional theatre. Pre-existing conditions is simple, specific, understandable, and hits people where they live. Contrast “pre-existing conditions” with “Medicare for all”. The meaning of the first is intuitive; the other has to be explained. We have to unpack our policy speak into the discrete actions that people recognize and identify with. The Republicans may well oppose every Democratic proposal. Nothing may get done in these next two years. That is outside of our control. We must, however, be creative in conveying our vision in a way that resonates. That builds support. That provides the foundation for going to the voters in 2022 and asking for the authority to make that vision real. Harry Truman, in 1948, faced much the same situation. His speech in Elizabeth, New Jersey, on October 7, 1948, is the speech Democrats might make in October, 2022. We can start laying the groundwork. Note the simple words. The short sentences. The concrete images. The appeal to universal, everyday concerns.
This country is enjoying the greatest prosperity it has ever known … We want to keep that prosperity. We cannot keep that if we don't lick the biggest problem facing us today, and that is high prices.
I have been trying to get the Republicans to do something about high prices and housing ever since they came to Washington. They are responsible for that situation, because they killed price control, and they killed the housing bill. …
What do you suppose the Republicans think you ought to do about high prices?
Senator Taft, one of the leaders in the Republican Congress, said, "If consumers think the price is too high today, they will wait until the price is lower. I feel that in time, the law of supply and demand will bring prices into line. "
There is the Republican answer to the high cost of living.
If it costs too much, just wait.
If you think fifteen cents is too much for a loaf of bread, just do without it and wait until you can afford to pay fifteen cents for it.
If you don't want to pay sixty cents a-pound for hamburger, just wait …
When a bunch of Republican reactionaries are in control of the Congress, then the people get reactionary laws. The only way you can get the kind of government you need is by going to the polls and voting the straight Democratic ticket on November 2. Then you will get a Democratic Congress, and I will get a Congress that will work with me. Then we will get good housing at prices we can afford to pay; and repeal of that vicious Taft-Hartley Act; and more Social Security coverage; and prices that will be fair to everybody; and we can go on and keep sixty-one million people at work; we can have an income of more than $217 billion, and that income will be distributed so that the farmer, the workingman, the white collar worker, and the businessman get their fair share of that income.
That is what I stand for.
That is what the Democratic party stands for.
Vote for that, and you will be safe.
If we deliver on tangible things that make a difference in daily life, voters may come to trust us with solving the larger, more complicated issues that are difficult for any of us to wrap our minds around. The first step is to win the votes in enough of the many diverse communities across this state and nation to be able to govern for more than one term. To be universal, our appeal has to touch the lives of everyone where they live. We can figure it out.
Douglas Kane is the author of "Our Politics: Reflections on Political Life" published in 2019 by Southern Illinois University Press [subscribe2]