Truth in Advertising

The simple fact is that being right and sounding right are two very different things, and the Democratic Party has too long thought that having good ideas is in and of itself a winning strategy. Unfortunately, you also need to convince the American public your ideas are good, and in this area Democrats are simply pitiful.

It is a matter of education versus persuasion. Republicans are very good at sounding right, at persuading with superficialities—but there's nothing to their positions other than kneejerk reaction. There is not depth to Republican positions, not anymore. Once upon a time, Republicans had policy too. No more. Whatever works, whatever gets the job done, whatever helps them win—that’s their only standard now. They have sold out their principles in favor of winning.

Democrats need to counter that by educating. The only way we can win, the only way we can win, is by making facts the issue. We need to make actually being right, as opposed to sounding right, matter. Republicans only win by keeping people from engaging critically with the issues. If we could get into even the same ballpark as them in terms of persuasive ability, we would wipe them off the mat.

This is where someone chimes in about egghead democrats trying to educate being the whole problem in the first place. To which I reply: there is a difference between education and condescension. There is a difference between lecturing at someone, and engaging with them. We have all had good teachers, and we have all had bad ones. We all know what a world of difference that makes—their knowledge is the same, but how they convey it is just as important, perhaps more. We need to teach effectively and persuasively, match our good policies with a persuasive conviction and enthusiasm.

Some will argue that in order to balance out the Republican’s disregard for truth, Democrats need to follow suit. They will say that educating the American people is a lost cause. Only for a short while, they say, just until the Repbulicans are defeated. Then we can go back to being principled. In considering whether it is possible to adopt a win-at-all-costs, opportunistic attitude without fundamentally and irrevocably damaging the Democratic party, this question keeps coming back to me:

Do you believe that every Republican is an amoral sociopath motivated purely by a desire to win, or do you think that, by and large, they are relatively principled individuals who have been convinced by a minority of amoral sociopaths that it is necessary to (temporarily, of course) set aside those principles in order to regain unfairly-lost power?

Personally, I think the latter. Remember, Republicans used to stand for something--a lot of the same Republicans who are still in power. Somewhere along the way they were convinced that winning, at least this once, was more important than preserving their principles. And they still haven't found their way back.

Are Democrats somehow less susceptible to the lust for power than Republicans? I think history suggests otherwise. Do you really think we would be able to put our amoral, successful tactics away once Bush was gone? I have my doubts.