In a famous scene in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Paul Newman was facing a much larger opponent in a knife fight that he was sure to lose, if he fought fairly. As the fight was about to commence, Paul Newman, stops everything and says to his opponent, we need to discuss the rules. His opponent lets his guard down and says, “There are no rules.” Paul Newman walks up to him in his unguarded state and proceeds to kick him in the balls. Winning the fight for Newman was a piece of cake after that.
I thought of this when I read an opinion piece entitled, “Democrats, if you want to win, get tough” by Joe Lockhart.1 I thought he made an excellent point. He argues that political messaging, in general, takes two forms – hope and fear. When Joe Biden won the last election (and he did win!), it was primarily because of a message of hope that he campaigned on. Although there was some talk about fear for the country if Trump won again, the primary message from the Biden campaign was one of hope. And, it worked.
However, things have changed. The Democrats are trying to negotiate their way through the swamp of hope that they have created with the ‘Build Back Better’ plan and given their track record to date, running a campaign based upon hope is going to be a losing proposition. Even if the Democrats are able to pass part of the ‘Build Back Better’ plan and the infrastructure plan, they will have fallen short on some of the campaign promises they made. Further, given the wheels of government bureaucracy grind so slowly, it is unlikely that there will be a lot of tangible benefits for a wide segment of the population by the time the next elections roll around. So, during the runup to the next elections when the Democrats are talking about ‘hope’, many people will just hear ‘blah, blah, blah!’
That is exactly why Joe Lockhart argues, and I agree, that the Democrats must make the campaigns in both 2022 and 2024 about Trump. They need to create fear of another Trump presidency and another Republican controlled Congress. The ammunition and the facts are there, they just need to choose to engage. I know that Michelle Obama always said, “When they go low, we go high.” That sounds wonderful but it will not win the next set of elections.
Right now, there are a majority of senior Republicans who are trying to essentially coverup what happened on January 6th. Tucker Carlson, of Fox News fame, is launching a series that will spew false information about January 6th to millions of Americans. And many of those people will believe it. Trump is continuing to try to overturn the 2020 election and takes every chance he gets to talk about voter fraud and how the election was stolen. He is his own worst enemy. And, the Democrats need to help him! Trump is digging his own hole and the Democrats need to jump in with as many shovels they can find. If the Democrats start making the next two elections about Trump, his chaotic administration, the plethora of criminal indictments brought against his cronies not to mention all of the ongoing investigations into Trump and the Trump organization, the fact that he was impeached twice but an impotent, cowardly Republican-controlled Congress failed to convict him, not to mention his movement toward authoritarian policies, perhaps it will scare the crap out of people. And that is what needs to happen. Fear needs to replace hope among the voting public.
Hope is a good thing and the Democrats should not totally abandon talking about their vision for the future. After all, the Republicans rarely talk about their policy initiatives these days. They spend their political capital pushing falsehoods and blocking any attempt to enact laws that will actually benefit a large segment of the population. We Americans deserve hope. We deserve leadership with a vision. But hope and a vision for the future will only blossom if elections are won so the Democrats retain control of Congress and the White House. Otherwise, they are just words.
The fact is, if the Democrats make the next two elections about Donald J. Trump, Trump will do everything in his power to help. He can’t help himself. The more they go after him, the more vocal and outrageous he will become. I believe that going after Trump and Trump allies will just cause Trump to get more and more riled up. His craziness will be on full display and, hopefully, people will remember how bad it was. We don’t want people to forget. It is no secret that most voters have short term memories. It would be a mistake to think that people will remember how outrageous Trump was. They need to be reminded.
It’s time to stop being genteel and classy. This is a knife fight for America and there are no rules in a knife fight! It’s time to walk up and kick Trump and his toadies in the balls!