She is talking about corruption in Washington.
It is about process, not solutions.
It adds to voter cynicism.
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| Message for the Iowa stretch |
It is the dangerous platform of virtue.
It is self defeating.
Elizabeth Warren honed her message for this last push in Iowa. Here is her ad. Take thirty seconds to watch it: Click Here
Of course corruption is a problem and it can be argued--as she and Tom Steyer both do--that it is the root of all problems with our government. Our leaders have been captured by special interests and they represent those powerful people, not us, so nothing good can happen until we fix that--which is to say, fix everything.
The problem with a process message is that it is indirect, and does not actually solve a problem facing voters. "End the war" addresses a problem. "Lower your taxes" addresses a problem. "Save Iowa hospitals" or "Stop the trade war ban on soybeans" address Iowa problems. By election day Trump will be talking about having ended wars in the Middle East or having reopened Iowa soybean or corn markets--whether or not he has. He will have a simple message of tangible benefits.
Isn't that oversimple? Yes. That is how Trump works.
Cynicism is real. The problem with her message of endemic corruption in Washington is that people do in fact believe her. As this blog described on December 1, Click a YouGov.com poll reported that most Americans have deep distrust of government, with 63% thinking "quite a few" government officials are crooked and only 24% thinking government does what is right most of the time or almost always.
The problem is that she--and Sanders--are advocating big government solutions to problems: government to take over health care, higher education payments; drug patents and pricing; banks; child care. Warren's solutions involve trusting government with your money, your health, and your children. Yet she has just told us government is corrupt.
A message of corruption worked for Trump, since he was a disrupter who would reduce the reach of corrupt, swampy government. But cynical nihilism undermines Warren, who wants us to turn our lives over to a corrupt system no one can fix, possibly not her, and certainly not immediately.
Virtue and hypocrisy. She criticizes fundraising events, implying corrupt promises are made there, and that Buttigieg is guilty of something that she is not. She and Sanders are, currently, both raising money entirely off the internet, but that is not the case for her prior Senate campaign and she transferred money from it to her presidential campaign. A platform of virtue is a dangerous thing, and I would have thought she would have learned from the Hillary Clinton campaign and from her own Pocahontas problem. Trump brags about being a rule breaker, but for a good cause. Torture people? Sure, to get information. Overrule Navy Seal brass? Sure, to protect a brave warrior who killed a Muslim. UnChristian behavior? Look at my judges. Bad behavior is his brand.
But she is putting forward a brand of virtue. Look how clean I am! That brand means that any action she has taken, now or in the past, can show her to be a fraud. It does not even need to be bad, nor illegal, just "questionable," and everything is questionable. Maybe she got advantage from saying she was part Native American. Harvard says, no, but questions can be raised. She herself had fundraisers that rich people attended, so did she promise them something? She got paid $400,000 a year to teach at Harvard, which seems like a lot for a professor, and one can question why.
Crooked Elizabeth.
Elizabeth Warren is committed to an anti-corruption theme. It sets her up for failure. Simpler and better would have been a message that she was going to fight the tax loopholes that let big corporations get away without paying taxes, and going to use the money to lower middle class taxes and make health care more affordable for working people who are screwed by the banks, insurance companies, and drug companies. Something like that.
It isn't too late.
5 comments:
You raise an interesting point, Peter. The US has clearly been an oligarchy for decades, and we need a message that will unite Americans in their own self-interest, as opposed to the interests of the 1%. But the billionaire class has the advantage that they need not speak truth and they have plenty of money to repeat a lie until it is "common knowledge."
The best example of such a message is "We must lower taxes on job creators, so they will create jobs." In reality, the best way to create jobs is to raise taxes on PROFITS to the point where the best return on a job-creator's investment is building the company rather than taking a profit.
My personal opinion is that the very idea of running a presidential campaign on "facts and Information" is a doomed strategy. The 2020 Presidential Election will wind up being a reality TV show where Trump will either be seen as the savior of the American people, or the Villain in a melodrama with the Democratic candidate as the Hero.
It's basically binary. Either the electorate is sufficiently alarmed to vote out the Republicans or they are not.
The post Obama/Clinton Democrats are in disarray. They need to go Progressive full stop and, win or lose, at least start showing that they are indeed the lessor, by far, of two evils. You can get in the weeds with all the candidates on one issue or another, but a strong anti-corruption message should be the foundation of the platform. It provides the greatest contrast between the parties and has a good chance of putting a lot of GOP office holders on the defensive, starting with justifying the 50 odd administration officials that have resigned or been indicted.
As far as fund raising goes; by advocating public funding (like a tax deductible voucher) Democrats are at a disadvantage on the issue, since they are forced by the current system to raise money from where ever they can. As is often noted; you can't change anything if you don't win (impeachment as a case in point).
The best rebuke of the Regressives is electing a Progressive woman. This is Sen. Warren's moment.
There is one presidential candidate that is not "forced to raise money from wherever they can" because he has the support of the people because the people know now, and have known for 50 years, exactly what he stands for and who he represents. And it's not Elizabeth Warren, who used to be a republican, who wavers on the details if her platform and who says she will take large corporate donations after the primary. Who will she be making promises to then?
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