Democrats: more Batman, less Bruce Wayne
There are two things that Democrats keep doing lately which are not helpful to President Joe Biden or the Democratic Party’s chances in the 2024 elections. Both of them have to do with conceding too much to Republicans. First, we see a lot of variations of “Biden is old, but Trump is ______” (crazy, a Nazi, a felon, etc.) from Democrats. While the descriptions of Trump are true, the part that often gets left out is that Donald Trump is also old. He’s nearly the same age as Biden. Moreover, Trump has displayed more signs of physical and cognitive impairment than Biden, from struggling with ramps and water bottles, to forgetting family members’ and opponents’ names, and others. Therefore, the “Biden is old but Trump …” statements are too weak.
Second, we see Democrats repeating mainstream “news” media memes that, we should all know by now, skew Republican. An example of this has occurred this week. The stock markets are hitting new records, in large part because inflation has been tamed on President Biden’s watch, and the business and banking communities are expecting the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates sooner than later as a result. However, a number of financial news articles, such as this one from Reuters on Tuesday have added a third reason:
increasing expectations of a second Trump presidency in the wake of a failed assassination attempt raised hopes of a looser regulatory environment.
That is a crazy premise for a news report. While plenty of folks across the political spectrum wish Trump a speedy recovery, why would a failed assassination attempt “increas[e] expectations of a second Trump presidency”? On the contrary, according to Newsweek, “Donald Trump Does Not Get Post-Shooting Poll Boost.” Indeed, after a two-week media frenzy, President Biden is going into November’s election in an even stronger position, weathering the storm against him and now more likely to win than Trump, according to fivethirtyeight.com. Biden, not Trump, is therefore the Comeback Kid at the moment, and Democrats should never concede that Trump has a better chance to win, especially for the sole reason of being shot at.
Conceding too much to the other side is something Democrats have done for a long time. Perhaps it’s because Democrats are the party of empathy, and a big part of empathy is offering some understanding to others, even one’s opponents. Thus, it might be natural to try and make some kind of concession even when debating (“you make a good point there, but ….”) In today’s political climate, however, that’s a really bad idea. Reasoned political debates between opposing parties are a thing of the past. Obviously, the Republicans don’t make such concessions when they debate. They don’t, for example, preface their arguments with “well sure, President Biden is doing great on the economy, but ….” On the contrary, Republicans seem to spend every moment trying to “own the libs.”
Perhaps, once again, Democrats can learn a thing or two from Republicans about being tougher. That’s why “don’t concede too much” is now the tenth item to be added to our “Messaging Maxims” category on the right side of the page. In short, when making political arguments or public statements, Democrats should be more like Batman than Bruce Wayne. It’s all part of “going on offense,” which happens to be Messaging Maxim #1.
Photo by Jason Cipriani, used under Creative Commons license. https://is.gd/cdeKsb
