The job Obama faces seems obvious. We’ve got sinking cities, collapsing bridges, soldiers in maggot-infested hospitals, a broken army, exploding numbers of uninsured Americans, melting polar caps—you name it. There’s hardly a facet of life in America or the world that doesn’t demand some quick, decisive action on the part of the U.S. government.
That’s why on Election Night, November 4, 2008, masses of people were out in the streets cheering all over the world. On January 20, 2009, the nation and the world breathed a collective sigh of relief upon the realization that the U.S. government was ready to take action pronto. It was the moment we’d all been waiting for.
But hold on, Kemosabe, not so fast.
There’s one little, minor problem that we have to deal with first: people no longer trust not just the Republicans but this government to do anything. George W. Bush’s monumental conservative achievement is that he has undermined Americans’ faith in their own government.
In May 2008, as the economic crisis was taking hold, just 37 percent of people, fewer than four in ten, felt favorably toward the federal government. In January 2007, as many people liked the government (45 percent) as disliked it (46 percent). Flash back a few years to December 2002, early in Bush’s first term, when almost two thirds of people (64 percent) felt favorably toward government and fewer than three in ten (27 percent) took issue with it. That’s the Bush effect.
I can predict a few ways the Bush administration could try to excuse this retroactively. Let’s address the big one right now—this isn’t a broad antigovernment attitude or a social trend that’s been occurring independently of the Bush administration. People still like their state and local governments. It’s six in ten people who hold a “favorable” view of their state government and more than six in ten (63 percent) who like their local government. Those numbers have held steady since 2002.1
So now comes the two-part question of the moment. What do we do about this, and where does this fit into the much-dreaded litany—or, as I would prefer to call it, the narrative—of the Democratic Party?
It’s time to make reform the highest priority of the Democratic agenda. You’re thinking, if you’re still with me here, what are you talking about, James? How many times have we had the same discussion? I hear it over and over: “Nobody in my district cares about reform.” Everyone who comes to Washington says no more business as usual, but there’s only one way to do business in Washington.
They’ll tell you that any issues poll ranks almost everything higher than “reform.” The war in Iraq, health care, Social Security, stagnant wages, and nuclear proliferation are all higher priorities. Reform appeals only to a bunch of rich, suburban women in Montgomery County, Maryland, and it has nothing to do with the union halls and church basements where the heart and soul of the American Democratic Party resides. The average Democrat out in the country never brings up any of these issues in any town hall meeting.
All of the congressmen and women say pushing reform is a waste of time. In Latin, it’s just appesumatum editorialisma. It’s an overused word that folks just toss around. Every huckster that’s ever tried to scam the government for anything has done so under the guise of reform.
Republicans love to “reform” things. They “reformed” Medicare on behalf of big drug companies, and they tried to “reform” education and “reform” Social Security. “Reform,” in the literal sense, is exactly the right word. Republicans love to take apart government programs and re-form them so that they more closely resemble something that benefits corporations and Republican interests.
So, okay, you’ve won. To hell with the word “reform.” You’re right. I don’t want reform. I want accountability. It has the added advantage of sounding responsible, even conservative. It’s a solid word with concrete policy implications.
Republicans will hate it because it would make government the thing that they fear most, accountable to the people. It’d be harder to trash government then. And if government were accountable, Republicans wouldn’t be able to point to partisan failures as proof of government failure.
So, my dear friends, I am suggesting that we remember to place accountability at the very center of the Democratic narrative going forward, at every level. It’s the simplest thing in the world. Understand that if you are the party of government action, if you think that the federal government has been and can be a positive force in American life, then you have to be for accountability.
If you think that government is the root of evil and the creator of problems, then you’re anti-accountability—you don’t want people to trust the government, and you delight in stories of government incompetence. Your dream day starts out reading the newspaper about a broken levee, because that just proves to you that government can’t do anything. You can use that as an example of why we don’t need environmental regulations, why we don’t need safety laws, why we don’t need National Parks, publicly funded museums, or even public schools. Because if government can’t build a levee, what can it do? (Of course it was a private contractor that build the levee, but that doesn’t fit their narrative, so let’s let that go.)
People have lost faith in government. It’s a fact. We Democrats cannot do what we all too often do and blame people instead of addressing their real concerns. It’s up to us to put accountability front and center.
Let’s go back to Basic Communication 101. What constitutes a narrative? It is simply this: every book ever written, every movie ever made, every story ever told has a basic construct: setup, conflict, and resolution. That’s the way that the human mind absorbs information. There is no other way to communicate. The human mind does not absorb information through a litany. Litanies are boring and meaningless, and they lead to defeat in elections.
It’s like I said before, in Take It Back and a thousand other places: Democrats need a narrative. I’m sick of trying to find new ways to say it, and even more sick of having a wealth of examples of Democratic failure to draw from, so I’m going to repeat myself unapologetically here:
Think of The Godfather. Setup: You meet everyone in the family and community. They eat pasta and drink wine and run a crime syndicate. Some you like, some you don’t. Someone comes in and shoots the Godfather. The rest of the time there’s a conflict between the Corleones and the Tattaglias. Then Michael comes in and blows all of their asses away. There’s your resolution.
In every movie, every book, every everything, there’s setup, conflict, then resolution. That’s how it goes every time.
When my daughters were little, they’d bring me a Winnie-the-Pooh book, and, like a good father, I’d read it to them. It was always the same deal. Winnie lost the honey, and Piglet and Tigger were always confused and didn’t know what to do. Then they brought in Christopher Robin, and he found it for them. That’s what it was. You got the setup, you liked all the characters in the Hundred Acre Woods, you were rooting for them when there was a problem, and you were delighted and relieved when Christopher Robin came in and saved everyone at the end.
If you get a Ph.D. in classics from Oxford and you read the Iliad, which I never have, it’s going to be the same basic structure. It doesn’t change.
So there’s a nifty narrative here, that America was a nation that was making some progress. We were respected around the world. We were getting things done. And then the Bush administration came in and government fell apart. Now we have to make government accountable to the people, and once we’ve done that, we can begin to accomplish the things we have always dreamed of.
America was reducing poverty, running surpluses, and building its reputation around the world. Then comes the conflict. The bad guys ride into town—and I’ll let you figure out who the bad guys are in this scenario—to destroy progress, accountability, reputation, and all sense of responsibility. Last comes the resolution. A posse of good folks led by President Obama rides into town, runs the bad guys out, says we’re going to restore the faith of the people. Schoolmarms, preachers, teachers, and storekeepers are happy again. Therein lies the simplicity of the accountability message.
So let’s apply our newfound knowledge of narrative. Let’s set about crafting a message that wraps up accountability and policies. Let’s get a Real Deal. Turn the page, loyal reader.