The Democratic Party’s unveiling their new slogan this week and this overly focus-grouped hot mess is already going over like a lead balloon.
So what is this new and inspirational catchphrase that’s supposed to help Democrats take back the House in 2018? Wait for it…Here it comes…
A Better Deal: Better Skills, Better Jobs, Better Wages.
Not a “new” deal? Or a “fair” deal? Or even the “real” deal? Just a “better” deal? Meh. Is it just me, or is this slogan less than inspiring? And what’s up with the “better skills” thing? U.S. workers are constantly having to upgrade their skills and education at their own expense. Why? Because the “new economy” is based on socialized risk and privatized profit with companies that no longer invest in the people who help make them profitable. The last thing voters want — when many are already hurting — is to feel like they’re being scolded for not keeping up.
Jeff Stein from Vox tweeted that a top kick from the Democratic Party told him “this is the result of months of polling and internal deliberations among the House Democratic Caucus.”
POLITICO explains party leaders want to sharpen their message and show they stand for something besides not being Donald Trump.
The rebranding attempt comes as Democrats acknowledge that simply running against President Donald Trump wasn’t a winning strategy in 2016 and probably won’t work in 2018 either. The slogan, which is still being polled in battleground House districts, aims to convince voters that Democrats have more to offer than the GOP and the self-proclaimed deal-maker in the White House.
Already several Democrats with seats to defend in 2018 plan told POLITICO they’ll be crafting their own danged slogans, thank you. Business Insider and a host of others also note it sounds a lot like Papa John’s tagline, “Better Ingredients, Better Pizza.”
Yikes. It seems like the Democratic Party’s always hiring consultants and running ideas through polls and focus groups. And the stuff they come up with nearly always sounds like the product of consultants, polls, and focus groups. They still haven’t learned a thing from the candidates who’ve (for better or worse) surprised them by coming up from behind, and who came up with powerful slogans that resonate.
Back in 2008, a then-unknown Barack Obama won the White House in a landslide with his message of “Hope and Change.” In the 2016 election, Donald Trump vowed to “Make America Great Again” while Bernie Sanders drew massive crowds by promising “A Future To Believe In.” Yet the Democratic Party still doesn’t get it. Voters respond best to clear, uplifting messages that sound like things actual humans would say. And by “actual humans,” I mean “the kind of actual humans who didn’t get beaten up every day at school for being the insufferably smug smart kid who seemed to think he was better than you.”
As Politico reported in early July, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) are focused on jobs, infrastructure, trade, and raising the minimum wage. That’s a great agenda, yet somehow, the Democratic Party makes it sound awful. Why does their leadership have such a hard time communicating with voters?
During the 2016 election, Donald Trump said all the right things to jam-packed crowds, but had no intention of keeping his promises. Hillary Clinton would have done better with keeping her promises, but just somehow couldn’t say the right things in the right way. Even now — with the GOP controlling the House, Senate, and White House and pushing an insanely unpopular healthcare bill that only 12 percent of Americans support — the Democratic Party has trouble communicating what they stand for.
Jeff Stein writes on Vox:
A recent poll from the Washington Post found that 52 percent of voters believe Democrats solely stand “against Trump.” Only 37 percent agreed that the party “stands for something.”
If that many of us still can’t tell the difference between Democrats and Republicans, even though the Trump administration and the GOP are Voldemort-level evil, we’re in big trouble. At least Chuck Schumer and others now know they need to do something.
“When you lose an election with someone who has, say, 40 percent popularity, you look in the mirror and say: ‘What did we do wrong?’ And the number one thing that we did wrong is we didn’t tell people what we stood for.”
Unfortunately, this slogan offers only more of the same. Republicans tell their story in broad strokes and flashy headlines. Democrats, on the other hand, come across like the boring fine print no one wants to read. The fact that their new slogan sounds like something some soulless corporate marketing hack would write likely has a lot to do with why so many people think the Democratic Party is soulless and corporate. We can do better.
Featured image: Composite with photos CC Public Domain via PublicDomainPictures.Net and CC Public Domain 1980 via Wikipedia.