Opinion | The biggest problem for Democrats? They’re bad at PR.

Authored by washingtonpost.com and submitted by brilliant22
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Regarding the Oct. 24 front-page article “Democrats fear ground is shifting under midterm map”: The Post notes the gains that Republicans have made by attacking Democrats on issues such as the economy and crime. The biggest problem Democrats face, however, is themselves. Sign up for a weekly roundup of thought-provoking ideas and debates ArrowRight President Biden has had a strong start to his presidency. Among the many highlights are getting funding to attack climate change, passing a massive bill to repair our infrastructure, enacting the Chips Act to boost the manufacture of semiconductors in the United States, reducing the unemployment rate from 6.4 percent to 3.5 percent, restoring our relations with our allies while strengthening NATO, and enabling Ukraine to defend itself against Russia.

Democrats rarely mention these achievements, apparently because of concerns about issues such as inflation. It is amazing that they don’t understand that inflation is an issue on which they can attack Republicans, especially former president Donald Trump.

Excessive government spending and a shortage of goods, both of which happened under Mr. Trump, fueled inflation. He added $7.8 trillion to the deficit. When covid-19 caused people to stay home for months, it led to a drop in consumer demand for goods. When consumer demand increased as covid ebbed, production could not keep up because of a lack of parts. This created shortages that further fueled inflation.

It is unfathomable that Democrats have not touted Mr. Biden’s record or attacked Mr. Trump for causing inflation. Some of the blame for this has to be placed with the national committee. But individual candidates ultimately should blame themselves.

I was certain that I had gotten the Washington Times by mistake when I saw this headline on The Post’s Oct. 23 front page: “Successes, missteps and failures of Biden’s presidency.”

Those willing to subvert democracy will be so appreciative that The Post chose to illuminate Mr. Biden’s failures and mistakes two weeks before the midterm elections. I guess democracy can die in both darkness and in light.

Instead of focusing on what President Biden has not done, The Post (and the country) should look at what he has done: persuaded NATO to remain united and balance the responses to Vladimir Putin’s aggression and fuel blackmail; began the shift to a green world; kept the economy going (if wages double, there will be some inflation); started prosecuting the traitors who attempted to overthrow the United States.

Caraes_Naur on October 30th, 2022 at 23:32 UTC »

This headline brought to you by every year since 1994.

vonhoother on October 30th, 2022 at 22:46 UTC »

Teri Kanefield just posted about this at https://terikanefield.com/republican-messaging-and-plato/. Briefly, lies can be briefer and punchier than the truth, which tends to be complex and nuanced. A party that runs on lies always has the rhetorical advantage.

rocketpack99 on October 30th, 2022 at 22:45 UTC »

The biggest problem for Democrats is that the billionaires that don't want to pay their fair share of taxes own the media companies and can make it seem 24/7 like Democrats have problems.