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From left; by George Frey/Getty Images, by Win McNamee/Getty Images, by Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images.

So many times a day, my in-box and social-media feeds burble with outreach from the Democratic messaging machine: from democrats.org, say, or the D.N.C. War Room, the D.N.C. Rapid Response Team, the D.L.C.C. (Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee), or even from Organizing for Action, the Obama political-action committee that is a veritable subsidiary of the national party. Looking at them as a whole can be a mind-numbing task as they variously re-plow and re-litigate the same matters over and over. To be fair, occasionally a message will try to stake out new literary ground, as Senator Al Franken and his overworked thesaurus did in June when he referred to Trumpcare as not just bad, but also contemptible, despicable, execrable, heartless, and malevolent. Generally, though, the Democrats want something: often money, sometimes votes, other times participation in something called the Resistance Summer.

These messages provide a pretty clear picture of how the Democrats want to be perceived by the world and what they prefer to talk about with their voters, donors, and assorted camp followers. Not surprisingly, Obamacare repeal is the largest topic (especially on social media), followed not too far behind by a suite of issues that coalesce around the Trump folliesRussia, the firing of James Comey, the appointment of an independent counsel, and various other malfeasances too numerous to catalogue fully here. Then there is voting rights and gerrymandering; the Paris Climate Change Agreement; the many perceived shortcomings of Betsy DeVos, Wall Street reform, the federal budget, and protection of poverty programs, tax cuts for the wealthy, LGBTQ rights, Planned Parenthood and reproductive rights. I could go on for quite a bit. Even the prospect of a new conservative-inspired Constitutional Convention generates several alarmed e-mails and tweets.

All this is to be expected. What is most intriguing, however, is what the Democrats are not talking about: the economy. If jobs are mentioned at all in their manifold messaging operations, it is often generally as a derivative of a different topic, such as the charge that Trumpcare will lead to the loss of health-care-related occupations in rural hospitals. All in all, it is a stunning omission. Economic concerns almost always top the list of the most important issues facing voters; economic problems have, for instance, topped the monthly Gallup issues poll this entire year, with the exception of June when dissatisfaction with government and poor leadership briefly took the crown.

It is not that Democrats are unaware that the economy and jobs are a centerpiece issue for voters. This is, after all, still the party of its the economy, and since at least the days of F.D.R., the party that championed unions, social security, college-access programs, and other policies that helped create the American middle class. Two weeks after the 2016 election debacle, Chuck Schumer summed up the loss with a simple assertion: We did not have a strong, bold economic message. Joe Biden reiterated the point, characteristically in many more words: My party did not talk [about] what it always stood for, and that is how to maintain a burgeoning middle class. And the truth of the matter is, you didnt hear a single solitary sentence in the last campaign about that guy working on the assembly making $60,000 a year, and the wife making $32,000 as a hostess in a restaurant . . . and theyve got two kids, and they cant make it. . . Similar sentiments were echoed after Jon Ossoff went down in defeat in last months special election in Georgias 5th District. Josh Gottheimer, a freshman congressman who represents New Jerseys purple-ish 5th District, told me that when you peer inside the party caucuses, economic issues dominate the Democratic conversation. Its all job creation, reducing regulation on small businesses, and economic development. And thats what Gottheimer talks about with his constituents, too.

Yet none of that though comes through in Democratic messaging, at least on a national level. Some of this flows from our modern politics. One Democratic congressman suggested to me that this is all the result of our data-driven times. Responses to e-mails and tweets are tracked on a molecular level and what works is repeated; what doesnt, on the other hand, gets dropped. Stories of Trump misdeeds energize the Democratic base. Plans to expand economic growth from 1.9 percent to 2.5 percent, for instance, apparently dont. And the media operates on much the same basis, recruiting party officials eager to blab about the latest news-cycle talking points at the expense of covering larger economic trends and policies.

But there is more to it. Chris Murphy, the Senator from Connecticut whose name is now increasingly invoked in 2020 conversations, lamented to me that Democratic messaging has become mired in identify politics that we have made the mistake of thinking constituency groups care only about their issues. We talk to women about reproductive rights and African-Americans about police brutality. Those are important issues, but they all care about other things. The Democratic economic message has become soft, Murphy lamented, before noting that the party needs to aggressively promise more jobs, more growth, and more opportunity for the middle class. Tim Ryan, the outspoken representative from Ohio, frequently espouses this message as well. To be successful, Democrats need to return to core pocketbook issues: how to create middle class jobs, how to spur economic development, how to help the nations 2 million small businesses.

But Ryans outcry is otherwise in danger of being lost amid the daily, if not hourly, verbal warfare that dominates cable news and social media, and thus permeates national organizations calls to arms. Without a more specific, focused economic message, the Democratic Party will run the risk of becoming a blue-water party, confined to the coasts and largely irrelevant to broad swaths of the country.

Ryans concerns, as the 2016 general election map evidences, may already be coming true. It is not news that the Democratic Party is in bad shape, but it is still astonishing how beaten up it has become. Republicans occupy the White House, and both houses of Congress; they have made the majority of Supreme Court appointments, hold 33 governors seats, and have outright control of 32 state legislatures. If you judge a partys success by the number of people that they elect into officea pretty good measure, if you ask meDemocrats are in worse shape than any time since the Civil War.

The six months of Donald Trumps presidency may have been invigorating, what with all the marches and the resistance summer hashtags, but it has done little for the feckless reputation of the Democrats. A Washington Post-ABC poll earlier this month showed that only 37 percent of respondents agreed with the statement that the Democratic Party stands for something while 52 percent rallied to the belief that the Democratic Party just stands against Trump. Among Independent voters, it was even a bit worse, with only 32 percent agreeing that the party stood for something and 55 percent merely viewing it as the disloyal opposition.

It is a terrible long-term position for the party, to be defined by what you are against, not what you are for, and this reputation is clearly influenced by the failure to develop a coherent economic message. In the short-term, you can be sympathetic to Tom Perez, the chair of the D.N.C., and the party leadership for wanting to stand by while Trump immolates the Republican brand. Yet the Trump wildfire also has the potential of destroying not only his party and his presidency but public faith in both parties. And even if the pendulum swings and the Democrats claim power, it is difficult to govern when you have defined yourself entirely by opposing someone else, as Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan have recently found out to their chagrin. For the Democrats to both win and govern, they will need to convince the public and themselves that they have a vision to grow the economy for the benefit of all. Right now, they are a long way from achieving that goal.

Excerpt from:
How the Democrats Fell for Trump's Trap - Vanity Fair