Comms Advice for Democratic Lawmakers

You didn't ask, but I'm offering it anyway.

(Not an actual house fire. A training site for firefighters, yet oddly appropriate for representing many Democratic lawmakers at the moment. Image credit: Oceana County Press)

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What I’m about to say is offered without any sarcasm, cynicism, ironic detachment, or intention of harsh spirit.

I’m a proud Democrat. I am grateful for what the Democratic Party accomplished over the past four years and long before that. This is not some “both parties are the same” bullshit, I promise.

This is good faith comms advice for Democratic lawmakers. Because with all due respect, most of y’all really need to hear this.

Imagine your house is on fire. The fire truck shows up. The firefighters get out.

They look at the fire, then at you, and say:

"This fire is such a grave threat. This house cannot possibly sustain. We owe it to those who came before us to confront this conflagration. In the long history of the world, no home of this making has ever endured such flames.”

And then they just stand there and keep looking at the fire.

This is how many of y’all are coming across right now. I’m not kidding.

The past eleven days have seen a relentless avalanche of unconstitutional, illegal, and immoral actions by this administration—transparently cruel and horrific—and with few exceptions, the Democratic messaging to all of it has been incredibly weak.

We know you’re out of power. We understand you’re in the minority. We hear that, loud and clear.

What we’re not hearing is your anger. We’re not hearing your outrage. We’re wondering whether or not you actually hear us.

I have seen numerous statements from Democratic lawmakers this week that are embarrassingly subdued in tone and out-of-touch. A complete failure to read the room.

I mean, sure, ideally, I would love for Democratic lawmakers to stop solely pointing out the obvious problems dispassionately and start publicly talking about how to aggressively address them. At least spitball some approaches.

We know our democracy is unstable and unhealthy. What are you gonna do about it? Cease the platitudes and broad statements. Get specific and talk about actions.

But listen: even if you’re not exactly sure what to do right now, even if the plan isn’t yet clear, at the very least, bare minimum, make an effort in messaging.

It's not that rhetoric can’t be useful. It's that not only is there an absence of a plan to combat what we're seeing, but on top of that, the rhetoric from most Democratic lawmakers feels detached. The messaging is ludicrously subdued. Unhelpfully formal.

Simply put: we need y'all to get angry. We need y'all to be pissed. We need y'all to reflect what we're feeling and seeing right now. We need to know that y’all feel our collective pulse.

We need y’all to remind us why we voted for you in the first place.

It is not enough in this moment to calmly point out that a crisis exists. That is wholly inadequate. It’s embarrassing and demoralizing to watch so many Democratic lawmakers essentially shrug their shoulders and say “well, this is really bad, but are ya gonna do?”

Raise your voices. Ring the alarm. Stop holding back. Show us that you understand the consequences of this moment. Get loud. Get angry.

There are too many excuses being offered or implied right now: you only have the one fire engine and only a few hoses and fire hydrants are scarce and the ladder is too heavy and the fire is too big and overwhelming.

And yet, meanwhile, most of y’all are standing there, and just looking at the damn thing with us, without any sense of real urgency.

Grab a damn bucket, and be quick about it.

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