CORE VALUES & WINNING ELECTIONS: Practical advice for Democratic candidates

I’ve known Oathkeeper type men, and a few women, over 

the course of the last few decades, not that any of them were actual members.  The common thread between them was a deep suspicion of a tyrannical government that threatened their rights and freedom by ever deeper intrusions into their personal lives. Tyrannical and tyranny of the majority were sprinkled throughout their political conversation, terms they learned from and were egged on by right wing talk radio and social media.  It’s nothing new, but rather the universal language of what was once called the peasant class that today we often call the working or lower middle class.

Liberal democratic policies have done much to create conditions that have opened doors to greater opportunity, more equitable justice, and safer, healthier conditions for life, so one would expect the working class and lower middle class voters to embrace them, and they have, up to a point.

What’s changed?  Liberal democratic policies have done much good, but they have also put limits on some aspects of individual freedom.  One is not free to do whatever one wants with his/her property.  There is an obligation to the common good that comes with property rights.  The same is true in other areas: public health, worker safety, environmental protections, etc.  Extending equal rights to others who have not previously enjoyed them can be seen as taking rights away from those who have long had them. The growing racial and ethnic diversity of the U.S. threatens to take away the presumption of white Anglo-Saxon hegemony.  It’s the ammunition needed for those who favor oligarchy over American representative democracy to use to incite fears of tyrannical government and tyranny of the majority.  They’ve used this ammunition to its maximum effect.

Right wing media have made it possible to create and sustain polycentric local groups in a networked movement intent on defending core values of family, freedom and property against a tyranny that doesn’t exist, against the government that is on their side.  It’s worked well.

The liberal response has been to use reason, data, and fact checking to illuminate the corruption and lies of right wing propaganda, and especially to show how it’s a threat to democracy itself.  As important as that is, it’s not enough because the question is not about facts and data, but about feelings centering on core values.

If Democrats want to win back middle and working class voters in the midterms, they must convert their facts and data into the language of feelings about core values, promoting with pugnacious effort in every possible way, and most especially through local in person events attracting local news and social media.  They must ignore right wing taunts and traps, sticking to their own message without deviation.  

Biden, not the most gifted of public communicators, has done that, but he’s only one voice. What he needs is a powerful, coordinated voice from the DNC and every Democratic candidate all focusing with feeling on the core values of their voting constituencies.

As important as social media is, as important as email appeals for funds are, it’s more important that voices be heard on every community radio station, appearances on every local tv newscast, and in person interviews with every local newspaper.  

None of it will convert the right wing base. They are not the target audience.  The target audience is the 230 million voters who are not right wingers, but who have been sown with seeds of right wing voices and are unsure.

Our democracy depends on Democrats doing it right this time.  Whether hard right wing voters know it or not, the values they most cherish depend on Democratic success.  If the trumpers and oligarchs win, those who most fear losing their freedom will lose it.