The Joy of Policy
Newsletter #77 / February, 3 2025
Donald Trump, the candidate, had no policies. He had no platform. He had no list of achievements. And he was elected President of the United States. Twice.
We had policies. Lots of them, very specific policies right down to how to use pronouns. We had lists of achievements, all sorts of statistics, endless lists of them. And we definitely had a platform, a platform loaded with … policies.
And we lost. Twice. (And barely won the third time).
Moral? People don’t vote on policies or political positions. They vote on emotion.
And how is our Party looking at it now? In the middle of a genuine identity crisis, with large numbers of the American public saying they don’t trust us, there’s near total agreement at the top: whatever else, we need to keep leading with policies and positions. Yep, we just need to pick better ones. Working class policies, rural policies, health care policies? It doesn’t matter. Pick one, message the hell out of it, and make that our identity.
We fool ourselves, but we don’t fool anybody else, certainly not the American people. Constantly changing our “brand”, constantly looking for some new messaging tactic to define us, is it any wonder no one knows who we are anymore? Policy isn’t identity, and neither are political positions or messaging. Identity is who we are. Identity is what we believe. Identity is why we’re in politics in the first place. Identity is permanent. Twenty years ago or twenty years from now, it’s the same.
Why is that so hard to understand? Policies shift in the wind, anything connected to politics does. What seems like the key to election success today, may be virtually irrelevant a year down the road. And we have never agreed on policy or positions anyway. Ever. So how can they ever become our national identity?
Retreating into a list of accomplishments doesn’t work either. Ask the Biden team.
Emotional connection wins elections, and the proof is staring us in the face. Trump got to the White House because he appeared on The Apprentice. That’s where he created the image of “strong”, “decisive”, “a leader who gets things done”. And that image … plus giving the finger to the Establishment … is what created a base of fanatics, and propelled him into the Presidency. Sure, those wink-winks at White Supremacists and anti-abortion folks didn’t hurt, but it’s that base emotional identity … the one we never countered, that propelled him into power.
It’s time to wake up. We don’t turn this around with policies. We don’t turn it around with platforms and lists of accomplishments. And we don’t turn it around with Resistance, with constantly harping on how bad he is. We turn this around by establishing our own powerful emotional identity, one that inspires people, one that makes all those unaffiliated and fed-up-with-politics folks say, “Yeah, I believe that, too!”
And we have that identity. It’s been lying at our feet for a very long time, unused and undefined. Now it is defined, clearly and succinctly: the Democratic Creed and the definitions of Freedom, Justice, and Opportunity, words that have the power to unite and inspire every single Democrat in this country, regardless of the policies they prefer.
We have it now, but who’s going to wave that banner? Where is the national figure who’s going to stand out front and say, “We are the party of America’s future, and these are the values that will carry us there.”?
There is no one, not these days. There is only us, the grassroots. We are the ones who have to stand up and lead. We are the ones who have to wave that banner. Collectively, we are the party, and when enough of us stand behind that flag, everything will change.
Don’t wait. Stand up now and adopt the Democratic Creed. But don’t just adopt. Take these values to heart. Talk about them. Live them. Make them your personal identity. Then reach out to us and join the growing community of values that is forming across America. A movement is happening, a grassroots, county-level movement determined to take back our identity, determined to put an end to this madness. Join it.
Jim
Volunteer!
This is an all-volunteer, grassroots movement, made up of folks like you, from every corner of our country. And we need help. This is growing faster than we can keep up, and the need becomes more urgent every day. It doesn’t matter what you bring, or how much. The time to stand up and do something is now.
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