This is anticipating things a bit, but voters might get a bit annoyed if you trumpet the great things you did but it doesn't come online for years, and is underfunded (so not real) when it does.
Or, I dunno, maybe The Left is to blame.
I don't get this. Big, complex programs almost never come online within a few months. That's just the way it is. Why do people complain about this constantly?
And even when they do come online fast, does it matter? The expanded Child Tax Credit started flowing almost immediately; it was nearly universal; and it was straight-up cash in people's pockets. But as near as I can tell, it elicited a big meh from voters, most of whom never really realized that it was a Biden program anyway.
Donald Trump had the right idea on this stuff: Don't worry about all the fussy details, like whether the program actually works or not. Just boast about it to the skies, and keep doing it every time you open your mouth. Eventually people will believe the story, not the reality.
Hell, with Trump he didn't even care if the program made it into law. Just brag about it and Fox did the rest.
Yes. Most of the cult believes he built hundreds or thousands of miles of border wall. Democrats just don’t have such credulous supporters.
We can't help it---the inner wonk wants out!!!
It’s more than that. Democrats know that the media will go over what they say with a fine toothed comb. They can’t get away with the pie-in-the-sky proposals that the media accepts from Republicans. Remember when the media crowned Paul Ryan a “fiscal genius” even though none of his vague proposed budgets ever came close to balancing? In contrast the media won’t even report that the Treasury concluded that Biden’s BBB will actually reduce the deficit somewhat.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/11/04/democrats-in-array/
This is the same media that allowed Republicans to lie for decades by claiming their tax cuts for the wealthy would pay for themselves. They knew that Reagan’s tax cuts had significantly increased the debt. Ditto for Bush II’s tax cuts. It wasn’t until Trump that they bothered to report that his cuts had added nearly $2 trillion to our national debt. Even then they downplayed the fact that those cuts added little to growth.
“ Just boast about it to the skies, and keep doing it every time you open your mouth. Eventually people will believe the story, not the reality.”
Works mainly with “certain voters,” if you know what I mean.
Trump didn’t build the wall, despite running a campaign on that promise. And he’s allegedly in the real estate business. And he let Sloppy Steve make a few million off the rubes asking them to donate to pay for it. Glaring, giant liability.
Our moral strength is our political liability: we don't want to win by becoming like them.
Can you imagine how many Pinocchios the Post would assign to Biden if he used Trump-like policy promotion tactics?
How many? Uh... many more than they gave that former guy?
Yes.
A eugoogly of Pinocchios.
El Jefe barely got any. But, he never lied, only asserted without evidence, i.e. it could be true.
It is pretty funny that the child tax credit gets democrats absolutely nothing in terms of a political benefit. No good deed goes unpunished in America today.
Democrats should enact good policies because that's the whole reason for competing in elections: Doing right by the American people and improving their lives is its own reward.
But it's not at all clear that passing legislation helps a party politically; indeed my understanding is that, because of the strong pro-status quo bias exhibited by (the modest number of) persuadable voters, there's substantial evidence passing stuff tends to hurt the partly in power. (The White House party has lost House seats in every midterm but three going back to the Civil War; and more often than not that White House party has succeeded in enacting legislation in the two year runup to the election).
Thus, I hope Democrats get their BBB plan to Biden's desk (at this point I'd guesstimate the odds somewhat favor failure) because who knows when the opportunity arises again? But I'm not going to assume failure to do so will hurt Democrats politically next November. Indeed, the successful enactment of BBB might well hurt them. It's hard to say.
The mid terms will go republican, no doubt
But over the next 3 years inflation will go down, unemployment will go down, wages will continue to rise
3 years is an awful lot of Boomer die-offs. 3 years is an awful lot of infrastructure job creation.
I would not be surprised to see unemployment reach TFG's levels within 5 months, if not sooner
Barring elections nullification, the early odds have to favor a second term for Biden if he runs, agreed. And yes, (much) more often than not, the White House party gets a bloody nose at midterms.
For the record, although I'd guess Democrats will lose their House majority, my early hunch is next year won't be a particularly bad midterm for them, compared to most. They're not sitting on that much vulnerable real estate in terms of House seats, for starters. And the Senate math looks pretty good. All bets are off, of course, if inflation has worsened by next summer or we're seeing 1,500 covid deaths a day. But I'd say the odds favor amelioration of both those problems ten months from now.
Kinda depends on gas prices.
Which is a sad commentary, right? About voter priorities.
Dems, especially Biden, should indeed boast to the skies about the Child Tax Credit. It really is political malpractice, and I blame it on the geriatric leadership of the party, who long for Grand and Glorious Comity of their youth.
But it wouldn't be Trumpian, because the story and reality are actually one in this case.
Kessler couldn't give it Pinocchios (but he would write a column complaining how boring it is to keep hearing the same stump speech over and over--as I recall, he complained about Biden like that during the campaign, but not Trump.)
Yes, yes, exactly, it is the liberals who are the policy vampires, looking to stifle & deny the youth.
That's why Bill Climpton vetoed S-CHIP, Obama pulled the plug on his own wife's Let's Move campaign, & Biden forced his children to abort all their pregnancies.
The bulk of the voters the CTC doesn't even register with them.
Remember the credit only applies to children up to the age of 17.
The bulk of the voters are over the age of 50.
THIS is why I wondered just what in the heck the DEMs were thinking.
It's a great program but for vote getting? They seem to be nibbling around the edges rather than taking on the big block of voters.
I genuinely don't understand why Dem politicians have not learned this. It's not complicated or subtle.
Not a matter of not learning, but that the lamestream media will ignore it.
GQP president? Meet the Press guestlist of three GQP electeds, & historian Doris Kearns Goodwin.
Democrat president? MTP guestlist of three GQP electeds, & historian Douglas Brinkley.
Without fail.
Maybe every check or bank deposit notification should carry the legend "Thank a Democrat"?
I agree; Dems need to constantly remind people of their successes, and bring out actual American people who were helped. They also need to make a big, effin' deal out of things they do to repair Republican sabotage.
Every executive tweet that is counteracted. That should be at least a day's worth on the media circuit, with an army of attractive, articulate, camera-ready Dems mobilized to hit the talk shows.
Every Repub policy that's rolled back or otherwise changed. Detail the damage it caused, was causing, and future implications. Let people know that, not only are the Democrats on the job, they've also got to clean out the stables if they want to actually, y'know, MOVE AHEAD.
And, with a view on next year's election, remind people that it was so hard to do, took so long, because there weren't enough Democrats, and the Republican Party has decided not to participate in governing. The GQP are deadbeats, drawing their salaries but doing nothing, other than prancing in front ot the cameras, fomenting insurrection, and lying. So much lying. To YOU, dear Voter.
Lower-income white people believe Trump because he tells them what they want to hear on racial matters, and some on religion (although few people could be less believable on religion than Trump). Top-income people support him whether they believe him or not because they know he will do what they want regarding tax cuts and deregulation. It doesn't require some masterful and expensive advertising or even constant repetition to get these messages across - the targeted people are listening avidly, and not just to Fox News. He got to be the leader of the cult, and cult members will believe their leader on anything.
What Democrats propose is fairly well known, although things are obviously (and deliberately) confused by the "moderates". Democrats' message just does not press people's instinctive, emotional buttons. Their program does not inspire group loyalty the way racism and religion do.
It's a sad thing for the American experiment when one political party will go down in flames because it appealed to people's better natures and tried to do good for them. That, I think, is even worse than the Republicans gaining enduring power by appealing to the worst in us.
Identity politics has, as a natural corollary, that every program is judged on how it meets MY idiosyncratic standards. Long gone are the days where we judged programs on some generic standard like "good for the working man" or "good for african-americans".
So there's a Child Tax Credit? But what does it do about the special circumstances of trans parents of color? Does it tell handicapped latinx's how they are special snowflakes with special child needs? Does it say anything special about gay parents who work night shifts and are especially sensitive to chemicals?
The mass of voters are not woke idiots in this way.
But the mass of journalists and pundits ARE, and if the bill does not stroke their particular itches (which, need I remind you, are different from the itches of every other journalist and pundit) then it doesn't count.
Regardless of other issues, this is a structural factor that works massively to the Right's advantage because they have a lot less tolerance for this micro-segmentation BS, and a lot more of an eye on what matters to the vast bulk of voters.
Or to put it differently, the RIght knows a lot more about the history of Poland, and why it matters, than the Left does.
The issue is not "Their program does not inspire group loyalty the way racism and religion do", the issue is that there IS no group loyalty to be inspired, when every micro-group defines itself by how it differs from some other micro-group, and wants to score points by weaponizing this difference.
I was talking to a friend the other day, as non-political and non-woke as they come, and he mentioned, unprompted, how he finds it impossible to feel part of the LGBTQ community these days because there is no such community, every little segment cares more about insisting that it is different (and punishing you for not making a big deal of that difference) than they care about being part of something larger than their few individual selves.
Funny how "old white people" is not on that list, yet they are foremost in demanding everything goes to them, and nothing benefits anyone else.
Is this your demo tape for a gig with theintercept or jacobin?
Democrats respect others, that's a serious deficit when you're in an environment where your opponents do not.
Republicans have no sense that manipulating the stupid and the gullible is wrong, in fact they think it's virtue, so that's exactly what they do.
Democrats, liberals and progressives think this is wrong, so they don't.
But the stupid and the gullible aren't going to listen to reason, so don't expect it of them.
Democrats need to give people the opinion they want them to have, and they need to do it stupidly.
The stupid and the gullible aren't impressed by your refined argument, they're impressed when you hit your opponent with a bag of crap so he ends up covered in crap, then get a dog to piss on him.
This is how Democrats need to approach every interaction with a conservative.
MONORAIL!!
Also, the Child Tax Credit is something the guy who does your taxes is aware of, something the average person may realize exists, briefly, once a year.
It does not translate into money in anyone's pocket in anyone's mind. It mostly seems like an accountant's trick.
Indeed the Democrats need to learn a marketing lesson or five from Trump. It is the one area he was quite expert and competent in, pushing a message. Of course it is not the best skill when tied to narcissisistic incompetence.
And he lied all the time. ALL. THE. TIME. We can't have Democrats doing this (trust me), even though the vast majority of voters seem to believe that every candidate does it, and has always done it, and will always do it.
But that should not be the Democratic "brand." Somehow, don't ask me how, Democrats need to be able to push "honesty" and "truthfulness" as virtues.
Toot
Surprised to hear that anyone still pays attention to Dunky.