"The power of the president is the power to persuade."
Professor Richard Neustadt, Government Dept: "Presidential Power." Fall Term, 1967
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| Published 1964 |
Democrats have lessons to learn. The country shifted toward Trump by four percent. The shift was nationwide and across many demographics.
The perennial way to avoid learning from experience is to blame it on the message: "We are totally right, but our message was garbled." But this year message and messenger did matter, and there is a useful lesson in that.
First, acknowledge the obvious. Trump, for all his faults, crimes, and malevolence, is a superb communicator. He is interesting. He says things plainly, even when it is an obvious lie. Everything is superlative for him: "the greatest," "the worst," "carnage." He is a relentless salesman.
The central job of a U.S. president is not the job that Biden did well: getting his policy agenda passed into law. Democrats tell themselves Biden was a great president with massive achievements. That is an error. Those legislative and policy wins will get diluted or reversed. That process is in motion already. A legislative achievement is durable only if someone effectively sold it to the American people so successor administrations make those part of the new status quo. To be a durable change, people need to know what changed, which person or party made it happen, and value the change enough to want to keep it in place.
Biden did not do that. Biden could not do that. Rank-and-file voters don't know and appreciate the laws Biden passed. He was never an inspirational leader. It got worse as he aged. Biden could do the dealmaking part of the presidency, but not the leadership part of the job.
A president needs to be the narrator, explaining what is going on. In a movie, it would be the voiceover or protagonist saying to the camera an interpretation of events. In a trial, a lawyer's opening and closing statements interpret and make sense of the evidence. They put events into a narrative. We remember organizing messages. JFK's message was that America is young, strong, courageous and capable of great things. Reagan's was that things are getting better because it is morning in America. Trump's is that conditions under Democrats are terrible -- the worst ever in history -- and that he will make America great again, quickly and easily. "Trump will fix it!," his banners promised.
Biden never created a persuasive narrative. The persistent "wrong track" polling demonstrates the problem of the missing narrator. Other presidents have faced counter-narrators: Father Coughlin during FDR's years, Joe McCarthy during Eisenhower's. Normally the sitting president has the bigger megaphone, but in this case Trump occupied that space across all forms of media. Biden could not and did not match him. It wasn't even close. For the past eight years, Trump has been the primary narrator explaining what is going on in America. Green energy initiatives? Trump says wind turbines cause cancer and kill bald eagles. Inflation in decline? Trump says prices are through the roof, no one can afford bacon or gasoline. The very people doing the well-paying jobs building modern chip factories in the Upper Midwest, jobs made possible by the CHIPS Act, tell pollsters they support Trump because Trump will get the country moving again.
In the months ahead, Democrats will be looking at the governors, senators, and celebrities who are making their moves. This will start infighting about deviations from the orthodox policy agendas of Democratic interest groups. I want something different. I want a Democratic candidate who dares to disagree with that orthodoxy and can sell why a change in policy is necessary and good. Mostly, I want a candidate who can hold and inspire an audience.
That person won't inherit leadership. It won't be anyone's turn. That person will seize leadership by the power of his or her personality and message. The ability to command attention and persuade audiences is the primary qualification to be president.
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3 comments:
It sounds like you want a candidate that is another version of Trump – a populist who leads another personality cult. Whatever our future leadership may look like, I just want it to honor its oath of office and the rule of law.
But today is Veteran’s Day, so let’s not forget to honor those heroes that President BoneSpurs calls suckers and losers.
Yes, the Democrats could use a charisma monster like Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, or Donald Trump. The problem is, they don’t come along that often. And when they don’t, you get stuck with apparatchiks like Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and Kamala Harris.
Sometimes the apparatchik can win, because the opponent is even worse, or because of very unusual circumstances. But not usually.
These days you have to be a Rock Star to be President. Policy doesn't count anymore. You have to have "it". Like JFK.
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