NO Is So Much Easier
“Don’t take the bait,” advised one GOP strategist. “If you are pro-life, say you are pro-life, then, get back to the kitchen table.” Inflation, gas prices and violent crime are the devils to run against. The pitch is simple: vote for me because I am against the same things you are against.
It is a game plan with a long history, pushed by strategists of all persuasions. Find a devil to oppose. Attach your opponent to the devil. Go negative. Say as little as possible about what you are for. When you do talk about what you are for, use only poll tested words that resonate with the audience and get back as quickly as possible to the negative.
A game plan rooted in human nature. It is so much easier to agree on what we don’t like, than it is to come together on what we do like.
Throughout history, those filling the streets and marching in unison to protest what is, splinter on the question of what should be. No is so much easier than Yes. Deposing the king is so much easier than choosing a successor.
Police misconduct and brutality must go. But what does reform look like? We have yet to agree.
Right to Life advocates who worked together for 50 years to repeal Roe v. Wade fight vehemently with each other over what the law should be now.
Republicans, who have become the Party of No, have not said what they stand for as a Party since 2016.
Saying No to what is brings together everyone who is dissatisfied, for whatever reason. Arriving at Yes requires a common vision of what comes next. Getting there can be difficult.
Republicans have discovered just how difficult in their recent attempts to decide what to do now that Roe v. Wade has been overturned. Having long appealed to conservative religious voters with their promises to ban abortions, they now must decide what that means. As a Republican senator from Indiana acknowledged, “We’re recognizing that this is pretty hard work.”
It's precisely that hard work political strategists want candidates to stay away from. Run against the problem. Feel the pain. Forget the fix.
In Kathleen’s first race for the State Senate, health care was the hottest topic. More than 500,000 Wisconsin residents were without insurance, many because of pre-existing conditions. Individual insurance was expensive and hard to get. Voters had stories. They wanted answers.
The Party strategist told Kathleen to limit what she said about health care to three phrases: reform health care … cut costs … cover more people. Those were the words that had been poll tested. She should repeat those words and not say anything more.
Similar platitudes were used by Republicans several years later to describe their anticipated (but never produced) replacement of the Affordable Care Act: patient-directed care … better coverage … lower costs.
This year, Republicans have made no attempt to offer even platitudes on how to solve inflation, gas prices, and violent crime. It is sufficient just to be against.
We are not rational beings. We are easily frightened, manipulated, and coerced.
As Machiavelli, the would-be adviser to Lorenzo the Magnificent, wrote 500 years ago, “Those princes [who] have done great things . . . have been able by astuteness to confuse men’s brains.”
That belief is embraced by today’s politics. There is little interest in securing informed consent for proposed action. The goal is securing a vote. To that end, everything is fair. The voter exists to be entertained, manipulated, fooled, tricked and cajoled.
Fear, anger and prejudice are the tools. The strongest motivators. Emotions that divide. Emotions that readily serve the politics of No which requires no agreement on moving forward, only a stitching together of various dissents and grievances.
Today’s conventional political wisdom says that is where you must go to win. Consultants preach it. The media assumes it. The public expects it.
Writing in the summer, before campaigning really got started, a long-time former reporter for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel matter-of-factly told readers, “Both incumbents (Evers and Johnson) will do their best in the fall to portray their challengers as dangerous or extreme in order to drive up their opponents’ negatives with independent voters and energize their own base.”
NBC News Political Director Chuck Todd commented during a recent visit to Wisconsin, “Rhetorically, everyone wants [polarization] to end … But that's not the way to win an election … what it takes to win an election … is to polarize.”
The directive to Kathleen from the Party’s consultant was emphatic. And typical. “As for the Brown negatives, I’m going to be blunt here: I won’t change them. These are not phrases or numbers that came in a dream. They are poll-tested in your district. They are extremely reliable and extremely powerful. They show the greatest potential to move voters.”
The politics of division and the politics of No go together. If we can’t talk civilly to each other, nothing gets done. And the Nos win.
The Republicans took a step down the road to becoming the Party of No with Ronald Reagan’s first inaugural address. “Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem.” The conservative leader Grover Norquist was more graphic. The goal is to “take government down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.”
Norquist was also clear in the strategy to make drowning happen. “We are trying to change the tones in the state capitals and turn them toward bitter nastiness and partisanship. Bipartisanship, he added is “another name for date rape.”
Democrats have a more difficult task. The Party sees government as essential for building community and finding solutions to the problems and inequities the private sector does not have the tools or desire to address. For politics to get to Yes and for government to get stuff done, a bond of shared vision is essential.
Which requires a different approach. By their nature, fear, anger and prejudice, the tactics designed and adopted by the Nos, are not suited to building the stable coalitions required to get to the politics of Yes. In the short run perhaps, voters can be scared into voting against the Nos but in the long run they must be attracted by where the Party wants to go.
This can’t be done just during a campaign season or by tweaking the message. Convincing people to join in Yes takes time. It requires a melding of program, action, and attitude. Bringing people together by connecting personally. Building a common vision of community. A place where people can thrive. A place where we want to live, work, play, and share a beer with a neighbor.
Douglas Kane is the author of "Our Politics: Reflections on Political Life" published in 2019 by Southern Illinois University Press
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