For decades, Democrats have been clinging to the mantra of James Carville: “It’s the economy, stupid.” It became the standard excuse for every campaign message, every strategy and every setback.
We have to withdraw that sentence from our political lexicon.
My colleague -Democrats forget that Carville’s first line on his whiteboard in Little Rock was not the economy, stupid. It was “change versus more of the same.” Voters still want change – no figures, no apologies. And if President Donald Trump offers change, while Democrats defend the system as it is, Democrats will lose.
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Nowadays my party jumps on a shiny replacement that is considered the winning message that unites everything – “affordability” – as if the idea that lower prices are better than higher, is a revelation. Has a candidate ever been campaigning on the reverse?
Democratic strategist James Carville is famous for its economic advice, but that no longer applies if the party wants to win. (PBS)
During the Biden administration, consumer costs are blown up on our watch, but now we ask the medium voters to give us the keys to the car.
When will my party learn that politics is about culture and connection, no graphs and spreadsheets? It is about being relevant to the lives of ordinary people, not to prove to them that we are right.
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Voters are not in an academic economic reading. They do not care about GDP growth, participation percentages for labor power or the Bureau or Labor Statistics when they think the prices are too high. They do not want to hear that murders, robberies and carjackings have decreased according to the latest statistics when they feel unsafe. Inserting the National Guard will not be a solution for the termination of crime in our inner cities, but it ensures that communities feel protected.
Are Democrats so disconnected from the reality that we have learned the most fundamental political principle of all, that perception and political hand in glove?
Voters do not want to be informed by candidates, especially if they sound like human calculation machines, vomiting figures. Being informed is not the same if you feel informed and the voters tell that how they feel is not real, because figures say that otherwise there is no winning message. Trump voters are ashamed of their choice last year or indicate that this is not what they voted for, insults them instead of convincing them. Beating voters is not a strategy.
What the voters want in these interim elections is a culturally common sense, and to borrow a bullet from the democratic talk points, Democrats have not yet met voters where they are – yet.
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Voters want to hear us acknowledge that crime is bad and say that we need more agents on the street, but not necessarily troops. They want our candidates to give a clear answer and make it clear that boys should not compete in girls’ sports as a matter of honesty. It is great that Democrats say that they believe in merit-based recruitment instead of the Di- and Box control quota.
Most Americans feel like this – and Democrats lose credibility when they avoid these conversations or give evasive answers.
Avoiding Democrats where the news and the conversations take place. Our leaders and candidates dive and cover too often. When problems become culturally sensitive, they play hide and seek. We have to run directly into the cultural warfires, not away from them. Those are the conversations that voters have and we have to join them.
My old boss, President Joe Biden, learned this lesson in the hard way. The presidency of Biden illustrates this danger for Democrats about the mood everywhere in 2026. At the moments that Americans crave leadership – as a national debate about unrest and violent anti -Semitism of the university – Biden was absent. Scranton Joe, who built his career on a chip-on-the-shoulder authenticity connected to ordinary people, became the first non-divy League president in decades. Yet he was quiet when he could have pulled the sharpest contrast of the elites.
Voters are seen at a polling station on November 5, 2024 in Orlando, Florida. (Photo by Paul Hennessy/Anadolu via Getty images)
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Biden said Americans that the economy was the envy of the world, and then his Baghdad Bobs told us that he was as sharp as always. Polls said Americans felt different, yet his instinct was to withdraw further. Voters saw fewer unwritten moments, such as interviews or news conferences, smaller steps of Air Force One and a greater dependence on teleprompers. In a political age where images forms public opinion, Biden looked weak, far and disconnected. He followed an outdated media strategy that led him in a political death spiral.
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Trump, on the other hand, dives for the head in every news cycle and runs every cultural fire against campus protests to fabric-ups of celebrities such as the jeans of Sydney Sweeney or the new Cracker Barrel logo. He does not hesitate, he does not dive, he is not waiting for the perfect poll-tested sentence. Love him or hates him, voters cannot miss that he is popping up with an opinion and a position. He doesn’t keep guessing them.
Democrats do not have to copy Trump’s style. But they need his guts. If voters are talking about transaatletes, immigration, dei or crime – and they continue to remain silent or turn – then they are absent in the conversations that Americans have outside of Beltway with friends, family and their neighbors. It is these social conversations that shape the political identity, not statistics and graphs.
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Voters will coordinate any form of Hellemocrats to increase prices, rates or cuts on Medicare if they think we don’t “get them” on culture.
The way out of the wilderness is not another slogan about affordability. It is courage and common sense. Stop hiding behind statistics. Start running the fire. Only then will democrats earn back the trust of the voters.
