Democratic legislators on Tuesday began attending lessons designed to help them learn how to speak to everyday Americans so they can connect better with Donald Trump’s voters ahead of the 2018 midterm elections.
The gathering, held in West Virginia, featured panels from Joe Manchin and Heidi Heitkamp, both moderate Democratic Senators from heavily industrial, blue collar states. It focused on “speaking to those who feel invisible in rural America,” and “discussions with Trump voters.”
The instruction on how to speak normally and what actually happens in “flyover country” seems a clear departure from the party’s public face. Until now the Democrats have been strongly opposed to the Trump agenda, and adamant in their political superiority for the “common man.”
Even outspoken Sen. Elizabeth Warren got into the act, strategizing with other Congressional Democrats on how to work around GOP firewalls: Aligning with the Trump administration where Republicans fear to tread—infrastructure, foreign trade and corporate protectionism.
This comes as the Democratic Party seems prepared to jettison longtime mega-strategist David Brock. He has “volunteered to lead the party’s reconstruction” but his sweeping plan to reform the way the DNC does business is creeping some Dems out.
“His ability to produce wins for Democrats is nonexistent,” said Bernie Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver, who attended Brock’s “Democratic inservice” in Florida the weekend of Trump’s inauguration. “He does not have the kind of understanding of what kind of coalition you have to bring together to win national races—that’s his fundamental problem.”
Another Democrat called Brock “unhelpful.” An Obama Administration official was even plainer. “I met with him I’m a couple times—he’s fucking weird…I felt like I was meeting Mugatu from Zoolander.”
They say that Brock, while smart enough to launch the left-leaning media watchdog Media Matters and raise money for a SuperPAC, hasn’t shown that he can win elections as a campaign manager. Brock is resisting his ouster, but it seems, especially to Democratic insiders, that his era of superiority is over.
And Brock’s sudden change of heart, expressed in an apology to Sanders, isn’t enough to save him.
If it’s true that Democrats are dumping Brock, then it may officially be “over” for the Clinton arm of the party, and the beginning of an ascendency for the more populist approach espoused by Sanders.
The change could be good—it could help Democrats reconnect with the key demographics they lost to Trump in Rust Belt swing states. But if they aren’t careful, it could mire them in identity politics, which Trump voters now say they rebelled against.
Either way, Brock is probably out, and country music is probably in. We’ll know which strategy they choose if the full Senate caucus shows up to budget hearings in cowboy boots.
