The Democrats’ Game Plan For Losing

It is a measure Democrats should have pushed through back in the early days of summer. Instead, they dithered, dallied, and debated while the country watched and seethed. Clearly, the party needed a spanking to regain its focus.

That’s what Democrats received.

After experiencing a pasting at the polls on Nov. 3—where they found they’d managed to drop more than 10 percent in public support in Virginia and 15 in New Jersey—the party of Jefferson and Jackson decided to re-engage with reality.

At least part of the reason voters punished the party was that Democrats had broken what amounted to a promise to the public.

That promise wasn’t to provide a sweeping social agenda. It’s possible that Americans will support such a broad program, but that wasn’t what Democrats campaigned on. Because they didn’t, they can’t claim to have the mandate to enact such an overarching plan.

What they did campaign on, though, was more basic.

They pledged to put an end to the dysfunction, squabbling, and paralysis in the federal government. They said they were going to be the ones to make the government work.

But that’s not what they did.

Instead of ending governmental dysfunction, squabbling and paralysis, they provided more of it. What’s even more perplexing is that they spent more of their time fighting with each other than they did with Republicans.

Or, for that matter, trying to help the citizens who put them in power.

This has long been a problem and a weakness for Democrats. They somehow seem to think that explaining why their ideas are good—that doing the hard work of persuading people—is somehow beneath them.

Republicans operate under no such illusions.

If U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, had a set of ideas to sell that was as politically attractive as building better roads and bridges in many American communities and improving internet access, he wouldn’t have labeled it as a generic “infrastructure” plan.

One with a $1 trillion price tag, at that.

No, McConnell likely would have taken the most popular parts of the plan and forced individual ballots on each. That way, he would have forced his opponents either to cast a vote in opposition to something that opponent’s constituents really want, or he would have received that opponent’s capitulation and support.

Either way, McConnell—and the Republicans—win.

Democrats don’t think or operate that way.

That’s why they so often get their heads handed to them even when they should hold the winning hand.

That’s what happened with these most recent elections.

Because they couldn’t get out of their own way and talk about how their plans meant safe roads for America’s families to travel over and internet access that evens the playing field for rural communities, they left Americans with only the cost to consider.

And no one likes to spend something for nothing.

Democrats—finally, belatedly—realized that not doing their jobs was a less-than-effective electioneering approach and enacted the infrastructure plan. The country will be better for it because all its parts represent wise investments.

But it doesn’t solve the Democrats’ more persistent problem.

Their attention now has moved to a larger, $1.8 trillion social spending bill.

Many of its individual provisions—support for childcare, incentives to fight climate change, expanded medical coverage, etc.—likely would be attractive to voters.

If they know about them, that is.

But, right now, the only thing most Americans know about the plan is what it will cost.

That’s not a winning argument.

But this is what Democrats do.

They find a good, heavy piece of wood and then hand it to their opponents.

And Mitch McConnell is only too happy to give them a beating with it.

FOOTNOTE:  City-County Observer posted this article without bias or editing.