If you had the best-selling soft drink in America, wouldn’t you remind shoppers of that every day?  If you had a dominant share of the automobile market, wouldn’t you encourage non-buyers to experience the same joy of driving current owners have?  And if you had the most effective drug for treating a medical condition, wouldn’t you be flooding the airwaves with facts about your success?

Of course you would.  Which is why, for way too long, it puzzles me that Democrats have shied away from exploiting their advantage when they are on the popular side of most issues about which Americans care.

• 74 percent agree “the wealthiest Americans should pay higher taxes.” (September 2021 POLITICO/Morning Consult Poll)
• 63 percent say “abortion should be legal in all or most cases. (Pew Research/March 2024)
• 88 percent support universal background checks for gun purchases.  66 percent support bans on high-capacity magazines.  And 64 percent want a ban on assault weapons. (Pew Research/June 2023)
• 62 percent have a favorable view of the Affordable Care Act.  (Kaiser Family Foundation/April 2024)
• 74 percent favor free breakfast and lunch programs for all students. (Data for Progress Poll/2021)
• 69 percent do not think teachers are paid fairly. (IPSOS/NPR/May 2023)
• 65 percent oppose banning books from classrooms and school libraries in their own district. (IPSOS/NPR/May 2023)
• 74 percent support U.S. participation in global efforts to address climate change.  66 percent favor federal government incentives to support alternative energy sources.  (Pew Research/March 2023)

It may have taken too long, but “the times, they are a-changing.” That is why I get excited when Tim Walz dares the Trump campaign to call him a “monster” for signing universal school breakfast/lunch legislation in Minnesota.  Or when Kamala Harris does not hesitate to promise when she is president she will sign legislation requiring universal background checks, red flag laws and a ban on assault weapons.  Or that Democrats now know it is not enough to tell voters Trump and Vance are on the wrong side of an issue.  Politicians who want to ban books or make your personal healthcare decisions or peek in your bedroom windows are just plain “weird.”  “Mind your own damn business!!!!”

Not only do Democrats have the right message, they have the right messengers.  All the charts in the world have failed to convince voters of the truth about the success of the Biden/Harris administration on the economy, immigration and crime.  But when a former prosecutor and a Nebraska farm boy tell you violent crime is at a 50 year low, undecided voters are more likely to say “Huh?” instead of “You’re lying.”  And when the say “Huh?” maybe, just maybe they Google “crime in the USA” and hit on the headline, “Joe Biden is correct that violent crime is near a 50-year low” (Source: Poynter.com based on FBI data).

Of course, they have not done this alone.  And perhaps their best ally is Trump, Vance and their brain trust.  You don’t like inflation?  Every page of Project 2025 has a solution to an imaginary problem that will raise the cost of living for every American.  Shut down NOAA and home insurance costs rise because actuaries have less reliable data.  Eliminate Head Start and the parents of children in that program now have to pay for nine months of day care per child.  Deport 10 million migrant workers and the cost of fresh produce will skyrocket. 

Which is why Donald Trump now lies about his attachment to the Heritage Foundation and Project 2025.  He originally bet on what he thought was the same ambivalent, disorganized and inarticulate Democratic Party which has let him and his sycophants get away with murder for eight years (hundreds of thousands if you count COVID).  A bet which seems likely to add to his portfolio of bankruptcies.

It reminds me of the sign in many retail establishments.  “If you break it, you own it.”  In this case, it’s just the opposite.  By owning their shared affinity with American voters on most issues and challenging GOP lies which camouflage that affinity, Harris and Walz can break a pattern of timidity which has plagued their party since the Reagan Era.

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP