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- Playing the Long Game
I’ve been mulling over a key question. Why (and how) have Republicans been able to keep getting elected - and hold federal majorities in congress - when their policy positions are actually relatively unpopular (especially when they are actually implemented).
It’s a complex issue touching on education, messaging, and public understanding of complex issues, among other factors.
But more and more, I’ve come to believe that a major problem for Democrats is their lack of ability/willingness to build a communications ecosystem that approaches politics and policy in such a way that (I hate to be so repetitive) enters into voters Circle of Trust.
Let’s face it - most Democrats believe that presenting a rational and logical 10-point healthcare plan or dryly reporting on positive economic data buttressing Dem policies is somehow enough to get people to vote for them This is utterly false.
I’ll say it again - policy is politics and politics is policy. In order to get the policies we want - say universal and affordable healthcare, reducing inequality in a growing economy, protecting the environment - we need to elect people who will pass laws to that effect. In order for those people to get elected, they need to engage in politics. And politics is not about being logical and rational and dry. Politics entails presenting one’s case in such a way that engages, connects, captivates, and convinces.
Where have Democrats failed? Dems have failed to play the long game, to build a sustainable and culturally engaging ecosystem that encompasses education, think tanks, news, legal, media, opinion, and more. Republicans, on the other hand, have invested years and money into building such an ecosystem: education (Young Republicans, Liberty University and Hillsdale College), think tanks (Heritage Foundation), news (Fox News, Newsmax, Breitbart, even Drudge back in the day), legal (The Federalist Society), media (Sinclair, Fox, Rupert Murdoch newspapers), opinion (Rush Limbaugh, Alex Jones, Ben Shapiro, ad infinitum). One could even add religion into this mix.
Quick Story:
I experienced this lack of institutional support first-hand during my time as a federal candidate.
I ran for office several times in one of - if not the - reddest states and districts in the country. In my first race, as a political rookie, I nearly pulled off the biggest upset in the country against a six-term incumbent. While doing so, my campaign helped revive a moribund state party by bringing in hundreds of thousands of dollars (above and beyond what we raised directly for my campaign) for voter registration, field and GOTV efforts. It was almost enough.
[SIDE NOTE: The DCCC had pretty much ignored me my entire race until polls showed me neck and neck with my opponent in the waning days of October. One night I received a phone call from the Chair of the DCCC essentially telling me they would support me with $$$ if I would run extremely negative ads about my opponent. I’m talking dirty. I tried to explain to him that - if he had been paying attention, my entire campaign had been predicated on three things: authenticity, accountability for my opponent and positivity about how things could be different. I explained my view that if I came across late as just another mud-slinging DC wannabe who was no different than my opponent, people would hold their nose and vote for their party candidate (which they had done 6 tines before). And in deep red, that wasn’t going to be me. The DCCC Chair insisted. I told him thank you but no thank you.
Would I have won if I had listened to him? We’ll never know. I do know, however, that what they wanted wasn’t who I was. On election night, I had been leading in the vote tally until it started to turn late in the night (near midnight). I received a call from the public radio reporter in my state who covered elections, and he asked me a simple question. “You’re currently down by 100 or so votes. Do you think if you had gone negative you wouldn’t be in this position?” I was tired and fried from over a year of hardcore door-to-door campaigning. Without thinking about my answer, I simply replied “That’s not me. If that’s what I had to do to win, I don’t want to win.”]
After my first race, I was overwhelmed with people who told me that I had given them their first ray of political hope in a long time (this comprised both Ds and Rs BTW - after all I had gotten nearly 40% of Rs to vote for me in that first race. After a period of time, I realized that I would probably be running again in the next cycle.
As I set about exploring support and figuring out the logistics for another run (including talking to the DCCC who eventually named me first wave “Red-to-Blue”), I realized something that stunned me: I essentially had to rebuild not just my campaign, but the supporting infrastructure - field, GOTV, issue identification, communications, you-name-it - from scratch. In mountaineering terms, I had climbed Mt. Everest and reached the forbidding “Hillary Step” where I was stymied just meters from the summit. But my next climb wouldn’t start there or even at Camp 4 (the highest overnight Camp before attempting a summit push). I would be starting over all the way back at Everest Base Camp, with no porters - only myself to carry the load. Simply put, there was no foundational Democratic institutional ecosystem upon which to build my campaign.
Here is a post from Oliver Willis:
"we are announcing today our new investments in green energy, providing a solid foundation for the future in which massive reductions in pollutants are the norm" vs "BOOM: Green tech wizards just saved THE FUTURE" ill take the second one every day
— Oliver Willis (@owillis.bsky.social)2026-03-04T17:42:09.293Z
And a follow up:
the news can be factual and accurate without being boring. and it should be.
— Oliver Willis (@owillis.bsky.social)2026-03-04T17:38:19.049Z
And another:
its so weird to me that people think theres no need to sell a liberal pov and that somehow liberal aligned voters have some unique psychological buildup that we dont need to see our pov reflected in the press. its a very incorrect view. we're humans. we need this. we're not special.
— Oliver Willis (@owillis.bsky.social)2026-03-04T14:40:24.575Z
I’m with Oliver. His point is that Dems think that just stating the truth or facts in a dry manner is enough. It isn’t!
Democrats need three things: we need to build the foundational, sustainable ecosystem like the Republicans did, we need an “echo chamber” and we need to be more performative. Why on earth are Democrats not holding unofficial hearings on any - or all - of the unconstitutional and illegal things this Admin is doing? We need our own Benghazi hearings every single day. This isn’t unethical or immoral or illegal. Yes - it’s performative and its politics and it’s not how we do things, but it’s also effective and how you start to engage/educate the country about all the crap these guys are doing.
We tried Air America radio network as a counter-balance to Rush Limbaugh and gang. It lasted 6 years and then we just… gave up. A group of big donors founded the Democracy Alliance as a counter-balance to Republican fund-raising organizations but its effect has been… underwhelming (how many Democrats or voters know it even exists?).
Reality has a liberal bias. It’s okay to report news and facts and policies in such a way that may appear somewhat slanted but that actually pushes a more progressive/liberal view of the world. We need to get off our high horse and engage.
If we don’t, well, look at where we are today…
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