The comments section on a post I wrote before the election was fantastic. I hope to post more in the following days.
First though I'd like to address the comment that's stuck with me for 3 days:
Our numbers, however, don’t really give a shit about the number of poor saps there are. They need money. If you want them to vote, start talking money in pocket and not all that high minded liberal shit. - brooklynbadboy
We've got a story about the poor. It's called raising the minimum wage.
Everyone knows that liberals care. Democrats care. Obama cares. We care about the poor.
What's our story for everyone else?
The number one issue in exit polls
The economy. Go figure.
45% of voters chose the economy as the most important issue.
And you're not going to believe this, but only 1% checked the box that said the economy's condition was "excellent".
Conservatives have a story
It goes like this. Liberals are going to take your money and give (redistribute it) to the poor.
This is their fear angle.
They also have a story about what they're going to do for the middle class. They're going to cut their taxes.
What's our story for the middle class?
We passed health care and health care is extremely important to the middle class and the economy. But I don't think most people see the connection. It's a tenuous link. It's not as real as someone telling you they're going to give you money (in the form of a tax break).
Right now, I don't think we have a story for the middle class.
That is, I bet if we walked up to someone on the street and asked them what Democrats do for the middle class, I'm not sure if people could tell you.
We do have a fear story and it's a good one. The 1% are the people taking your money. It's a good story not just because it's a story but because the 1% are really the people benefiting from the economy.
When asked whether our economic system favors the wealthy or is fair, 63% said it favored the wealthy, and 32% said it is fair to most.
People believe the system is rigged for the wealthy. What we don't have is much of a story about what we're going to do about it.
Higher pay
I'm with brooklynbadboy in that I think we need to start talking money. We should be fighting for higher pay.
Period. Not just at the minimum wage level.
Conservatives are fighting to lower pay and reduce benefits. We should be fighting for higher pay.
The entire conservative platform is designed to lower pay and reduce benefits. This is why they support:
- Destroying unions
- Outsourcing
- Trade agreements
- Privatization
Their entire platform is based on reducing what people make.
Yet we don't make the connection. We let them get away with saying that they have to do this in order to stay competitive or they'll have to cut jobs or some other bullshit.
70% of our GDP is based on consumer spending. 70%. The reason our economy sucks right now is because our country has been waging a war for 40 years against what people get paid.
When was our economy better? When people were f*cking paid better.
We support unions and regulations and manufacturing in America and the public sector because what do they do?
They lead to higher pay (they put upward pressure on wages).
But we don't make this connection very well. In fact, if you asked most people, I bet they'd tell you that they think they'd make more money if we got rid of unions and got rid of regulations and got rid of the public sector.
That's because corporate special interest groups are winning the story about money.
Now the fight is not going to be easy because we can't just ask politicians to do it. If we ask politicians to do it before we do, they will be destroyed during the next election.
Conditions on the ground have to change first. It took corporate special interest groups years to win people's minds before they could start pushing policies that benefited the 1%.
We have to change the story first. Even in an environment where corporations own the media.
We have to demonstrate how 1% policies lead to lower pay and benefits. We have to show how unions and public sector jobs and fair rules lead to more pay and benefits. And we'll have to overcome the fear, the fear the 1% spreads that people we will lose jobs if they are paid more. (Hint: If people are paid more, they can buy more.)
If we want people to vote though, I think we need to start talking more directly about money and higher pay.
For everyone. Not just the poor.
---
David Akadjian is the author of The Little Book of Revolution: A Distributive Strategy for Democracy.