The Democratic alternative to Trump

The Democrats don't have one, yet.

Trump is the bad boy hero.   The Democratic opponent need not be an alternative "bad boy" --and indeed must not be.  Trump claims that big bad boy niche.  But the Democrat needs to be create a credible alternative frame to the well developed one that Trump has in place, something equally strong, equally patriotic, equally or more dedicated to the public good.  The difference is that the Democrat has to be "good."

Described as villains, but in fact, heroes

It is still Donald Trump against all comers.    Trump is the sun, that giant point of gravity around which all the other bodies in the political solar system  react to.   The political landscape is not mano a mano.  It is the "misunderstood hero" versus the world.

The landscape feeds Trump's personality and it reaffirms the mega-frame that feeds Trump's success:  Trump as the good "bad boy", the hero who breaks the rules to achieve the higher purpose of making America great again.

In conversations with people in which I recount the notion of the misunderstood "bad guy" who is really the hero, I note confusion and resistance.  We don't really want "bad", people tell me, either verbally or via expression.   Yes we do, sometimes.

Being "presidential".  Americans are accustomed to politicians being goody-goody.   We have a notion of "presidential" that includes decorum and civility, with expressions of faux polite regard for opponents.  There is a similarity to politicians' speeches and they are received as longwinded and boring, full of nice platitudes.  Trump broke that pattern.  His speeches are extemporaneous, not scripted.  Trump resists "being presidential" for the excellent reason that it would break his brand.  He would have joined the swamp and started talking like a politician, calling someone an "esteemed gentleman" instead of a "whiny loser."

Americans had eight years of "the good guy" American hero, in Barrack Obama.  Trump was the pendulum swing.  Obama stayed married to his first wife, his wife wanted people to eat their vegetables, he had lovely well behaved daughters, he spoke respectfully to enemies, he teared up when kids got shot at Sandy Hook, he wanted to take guns away from bad people, he wanted clean water and clean air and he wanted to cooperate with the world on climate change.  He was concerned about cops being fair to suspicious people, he wanted to remove American troops from danger.   A great many voters considered all these actions to represent weakness.  Trump and the Republican candidates conflated all those elements of restraint and social convention and defined them as being a pushover.   Feckless. A fool taken advantage of by the Mexicans and Chinese.    "Good" connoted "weak."

Misunderstood hero

Yes, Americans actually like "bad."  Americans understand and love the character of the "bad boy" hero.  The bad boy hero is the boy who is thought to be bad, and does forbidden or discouraged things, but is actually good because his naughtiness or presumed weakness disguises his actual valuable service.  

America's own origin story positions American independence as the courageous break-away bad boy.   We committed treason against our own king and country.    Canada--nice, polite, well-behaved Canada--stayed loyal, but not us.  Our founders risked being hanged. 

Recall action heroes.  They do bad things, often violent things, or they have secrets about their hidden powers, or they are misunderstood as bad, but are actually good.  Clark Kent is misunderstood as a weakling, but he is really superman.  G.I. Joe, in comics and in the movie, are misunderstood heroes.  Indiana Jones and James Bond swashbuckle their way through women and mayhem as they save the day.  Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn refuse Aunt Sally's civilizing pressure to conform, but they save Jim from slavery.  And as this blog wrote yesterday, Rambo.  The strong and courageous hero set upon by clueless authority.  The audience cheered Rambo.  Audiences liked the underdog fighter so much that Sylvester Stallone came back as Rocky, the under-estimated fighter, taking on the world.

Licensed to kill.  Bad, but good.

Democrats need to understand and integrate into their thinking:   Picking on Trump for doing "bad things" tends to enhance Trump's standing, not hurt it.  His base sees it as him shaking things up and breaking the shackles of convention and restraint, so sometimes he breaks the rules, rules that maybe need breaking, and if he breaks them, no big deal because he is still our hero.

Democrats have wondered why Trump seems to be made of teflon.  Indefensible actions don't hurt him.   He can get caught on tape bragging about kissing women and grabbing their genitals yet a majority of white women vote for him and evangelical Christians say God bless him.  Why?  Being bad is his brand.

The Democratic counter to this need be someone equally strong.  A guest comment from Alonso Quijano suggested, in my post yesterday: 

   "May I suggest that the ideal would not be a Fascistic or militaristic candidate, but someone who might appeal to fundamental principles of decency, justice and honour, all across the board? That would be either a new JFK, or whomever." 

I agree.  An alternative who can stand up to Trump will be a positive hero, representing something strong and good:  hero: decency, justice and honor.  The person's biography will need to exemplify this.  It cannot just be spoken; it needs to be lived.  That person will evoke patriotism and American values just as aggressively as Trump.  That candidate will not concede an inch on patriotic heroism.  The only difference will be means, not ends.  

The Democratic hero will exude strength, and he or she will be good.

Meanwhile, Thad Guyer makes what I consider a similar observation, that the Democratic alternative to Trump cannot be primarily a Trump critic.  As he put it, "hate and condescension don't work for us", i.e. progressives.   Progressives need a positive message with a candidate who expresses hope, not hate.

Thad Guyer

Guest Comment by Thad Guyer

This post [i.e, yesterday's, regarding the Trump message formula] is among the most erudite and incisive I've read in the past month. It advances political thinking and media understanding. Democrats have had too lazy a ride with our left media framing the narrative rather than creative political leaders. Selling ever more bombastic headline clicks is different from building effective political gravitas. Trump-hate is not a winning formula for anyone other than CNN and MoveOn.org.

Hate works for Republicans but not Democrats, for anti government but not pro-government, for what Rick Millward calls Regressives but not Progressives. We Democrats are awkward with hate, it doesn't work for us. Reaganism was stopped by Bill Clinton attacking conservative excesses, not conservative voters. Barrack Obama stopped Bush's neo-conservative march with a politics of hope. Both were adamant in bipartisanship and civility. 

Hillary Clinton's deplorables characterisation of opposition voters has been amplified since it brought us down. We have embraced the very toxicity that felled us because that's what CNN, MSNBC, Washington Post and NYT feed us. Hate and scandalizing satiate their most avid subscribers, but leave the rest of increasingly unappetized. 

Bill Clinton and Barrack Obama are right. Hate and condescension don't work for us. I'm growing confident that a voice from the wings of our party, perhaps a young senator or governor from Illinois or Arkansas, will emerge to lead us out of this dark media miasma.