Built not Bought: Comments on New Democrat Messaging

I got a video yesterday from a group in California that are trying to refocus the Democrats, and I want to tell you a little bit about it today and take it apart and analyze it. If we're all in luck, given the importance of a stable, intelligent, functional two-party political system in the US, and in consequence everywhere else in the world, the video will make a reasonable case for something approximating a return to normad of political debate. An image and word.

I'll show you the whole thing first, and then we'll take it apart.

We stand for the working men and women. Always have and always will. And we define ourselves by what we've done to help them get their shot at the American dream: Social Security, the GI Bill, the Civil Rights Act, Medicare, saving an auto industry, 23 million people with health insurance for the first time in their lives. And all along, it was American workers—farmers and factory workers, immigrants and engineers of every color, speaking every language—who are building the highest standard of living the world had ever seen, whose innovations were changing history, whose courage made America a beacon of hope and freedom for those living in tyranny around the world.

Working people made America work. Then something happened. Some people in Washington took the side of the powerful against American workers. The game got fixed for an entire generation. Income flatlined. Big donors made sure lawmakers cared more about Wall Street than your street. Back in the 80s, a CEO made 30 times what his workers made; now they make 300 times. Since the Great Recession, almost all of the income gains have gone to the top point zero one percent, not one percent point, but one percent.

Instead of raising your salary, they buy back stock to increase their own bonuses. They merge companies and reduce competition so they can make even more money, all while your cable bill gets bigger, your cell phone bill gets higher, your internet gets slower, the seat on your flight gets smaller, their taxes get lower, and your health bills get raised. Who's looking out for you? The people in power are so busy giving tax breaks to the wealthiest that they blow up the deficit and leave nothing for roads and bridges, nothing for veterans or Medicare, nothing for job training.

Something has to change, and we're going to change it. A new generation of leaders who know what needs to be done, and who have the will to stand up to those who would hold us back. We want our America back, the land of decency and fairness, of generous hearts and big dreams, and the freedom for anyone who wants to work hard to make those dreams come true.

I don't care what your politics are. I don't care what God you pray to, oh, what color your skin is. I don't care if you ride a tractor and run a business, and I hope your business is a big success, as long as everybody plays by the same rules, the same rules, the same rules.

Because this is America. This is America. This is America. And this is our generation's great calling to rise to the challenge, like those who had the courage before us to build a future for all Americans, not just the few. To fight for the higher pay working people have more than earned. To fight to make health care available to everyone who needs it. To stop those who would try to cut the Social Security and Medicare benefits that are rightfully yours. To protect the environment instead of selling it to the highest bidder.

To fight for a government free of corruption, where your representatives work only for you. To build a future that is just and free, full of hope and opportunity, a future our children thank us for leaving them. Because democracy is built, not bought, by the strong and the free.

[Music]

So that's the statement, the story, the appeal to voters, and the establishment of direction. We want to take a look at the images, assess the text, determine what's in the video, and equally importantly, determine what is not. So I'll give you some background first.

This is about the group that's created it. After the election in 2016, we created a political organization to work on the important issue of expanding the reach of Democrats and focusing on shared core values. Future Majority—that's the name of the organization—under the leadership of Mark Riddle, continues to work on a vast scale to rebrand and define the party, particularly in red and purple states and districts, in an effort to shore up our base, speak to swing voters, and turnout those voters who we lost in the last election.

Built Not Bought, created by Marshall Hershkovitz, Greg Hurwitz, and Kelly Curry, is the cornerstone of a new initiative that answers the question: What do Democrats stand for? The four-minute film celebrates the singular importance of working people in the creation of modern America while calling out the big donor influences that have eroded our democratic institutions over the past few decades. It is a patriotic, optimistic, solutions-oriented affirmation of core American values—decency, fair play, the belief in a boundless future that seemed too often forgotten in our partisan era.

It's a call to action to build a future that is just and free, full of hope and opportunity. First is the name of the video itself, "Built Not Bought." This is obviously a direct appeal to the idea of Labor as opposed to capital and is in keeping with the traditional Democrat emphasis on the contribution of the working class. I think it skews a little left in an unfortunate manner strategically, because the amazing infrastructure around us was built, and since people need to be paid for their labor, and because capital contributes just like labor.

But perhaps that's a forgivable rhetorical flourish. Let's turn from that to the opening shot.

[Music]

We stand for the working men and women. We open, moving forward to a sun-dappled mountain vista that indicates the possibility of upward movement, progress. Then we switch to an image of a typical American nuclear family. I like the choice of that image a lot. To open the opening scene of a film is particularly important, and the fact that these filmmakers chose to highlight a typical American nuclear family strikes me as a reasonable, intelligent, cautious, and somewhat traditional initial choice.

And we define ourselves by what we've done to help them get their shot at the American dream: Social Security, the GI Bill, a Civil Rights Act, Medicare, saving an auto industry, 23 million people with health insurance for the first time in their lives. This is followed by a 20-second section detailing the Democrats' contribution to the higher standards of living currently enjoyed by working-class people in the United States.

This seems to me to be handled with reasonable credibility. And all along, it was American workers—farmers and factory workers, immigrants and engineers of every color, speaking every language—who are building the highest standard of living the world had ever seen, whose innovations were changing history, whose courage made America a beacon of hope and freedom for those living in tyranny around the world.

Working people made America work. I like this section quite a bit and found it surprising. It was surprising because of the unabashed appreciation shown by the filmmakers for the effort put in by American working-class people to produce a higher standard of living. There's some genuine appreciation for the fact that this occurred, and I see this as standing quite marked contrast to the altie typical dialog on the radical left concentrating on the pernicious effects of modern culture.

By image and word, the filmmakers in this section testified to the utility of the efforts of people in the working class to producing the productive and relatively wealthy society that exists in the United States and elsewhere today. So I thought that was really good. I also think it's important not to miss the positively radical inclusion of a young boy playing in an army helmet with an airplane. That's a bit of respect shown both to the way boys typically play and the military, all simultaneously.

So that's quite something. Then something happened. Some people in Washington took the side of the powerful against American workers. The game got fixed for an entire generation. Income flatlined. Big donors made sure lawmakers cared more about Wall Street than your street.

Back in the 80s, a CEO made 30 times what his workers made; now they make 300 times. Since the Great Recession, almost all the income gains have gone to the top point zero one percent, not one percent point, but one percent. Instead of raising your salary, they buy back stock to increase their own bonuses. They merge companies and reduce competition so they can make even more money, all while your cable bill gets bigger, your cell phone bill gets higher, your internet gets slower, the seat on your flight gets smaller, their taxes get lower, and your health bills get raised.

Who's looking out for you? I think that the section we just watched is the weakest part of the film, and I think its inclusion was an error. Although there are reasons to decry excess inequality, I thought the emphasis on the unnamed they and the images of wealth as unearned luxury were unsophisticated, clichéd, and unnecessarily divisive.

It is absolutely necessary for the Democrats, and for all those who wish for a return to politics as usual, to distinguish between the majority of wealthy individuals in the U.S. who earned their money honestly and through benefit to society, freely chosen by consumers, and the minority who gathered their position through unsavory or counterproductive means.

There is almost nothing more important than distinguishing between the successful who earned their success and those who managed it through exploitation. Conflating the two is an assault on the ideas of competence, aspiration, and accomplishment. As such, I truly believe that all this section was a regressive mistake—a call to resentment as a reason for civic engagement and an insult to the hard-working people of the U.S. whose accomplishments were celebrated just prior to the deliverance of this darker message.

The people in power are so busy giving tax breaks to the wealthiest that they blow up the deficit and leave nothing for roads and bridges, nothing for veterans or Medicare, nothing for job training. Something has to change. Now, I found this section problematic.

To the people in power—well, for a lot of the last while, those people were also Democrats. And the tone in this section of the film we just watched implies that it was someone other than the people who are addressing you who are responsible for the current mess. I think this part of the film would have been a lot stronger had the Democrats taken some responsibility for the corruption that they're decrying instead of attributing its existence to unnamed others lurking somewhere in the background.

This was a great opportunity in the course of the film for the Democrats to note their own contributions to the current state of affairs and to promise to do better. And we're going to change it—a new generation of leaders who know what needs to be done, and who have the will to stand up to those who would hold us back.

They're that invisible enemy made its appearance again. It's not good to look for the cause of trouble outside; it's an ethical error. It's another place where the filmmakers missed an opportunity to take responsibility on the part of the Democrats for what's happening around us today. So that's an ethical mistake.

We want our America back, the land of decency and fairness of generous parts and big dreams, and the freedom for anyone who wants to work hard to make those dreams come true. I don't care what your politics are. I don't care what God you pray to; oh, what color your skin is. I don't care if you ride a tractor and run a business, and I hope your business is a big success, as long as everybody plays by the same rules, the same rules, the same rules.

Because this is America. This is America. This is America. I like this section a lot and again found its inclusion quite surprising. There's even a bit of nostalgia for the past—something never seen on the progressive landscape.

There's emphasis on generosity, certainly, but also real consideration given to aspirations, big dreams—something that has been woefully lacking in the discourse generated by the left. This is reiterated in the statement and the freedom for anyone who wants to work hard to make those dreams come true, which is again remarkable for its unabashed insistence there's a relationship between hard work and success, and that success in itself is desirable, admirable, and worth pursuing.

Then there's a positive disavowal, in my opinion, of identity politics, with each speaker alone and identified visually as an individual—an insistence on Fairplay, an analogue of equality of opportunity, not outcome—and this direct statement from a policeman, no less: "And I hope that your business is successful."

Very radical, in the time where success is all too often reflexively equated with privilege and oppression. I think the ethos in this section stands in powerful contradiction to that presented earlier, where wealth and success was negatively portrayed.

Which attitude is going to prevail? It's obvious to me that the latter message is most desirable and also most likely to generate a favorable majority response. People vote their dreams, not the realities, and it is perfectly reasonable for the Democrats to reconstitute themselves as the party that can make the dreams of individuals come true, even if those individuals occupy a lower rung on the economic ladder, and to do so by insisting upon a fair playing field.

The same rules. And to note finally that this characterizes America. This borders on stating that a shared value structure is a necessary precondition for social harmony and for the possibility of progress and upward mobility. Much more of this on the part of the Democrats is necessary and would be widely applauded and welcomed.

And this is our generation's great calling to rise to the challenge, like those who had the courage before us to build a future for all Americans, not just the few. To fight for the higher pay working people have more than earned. To fight to make health care available to everyone who needs it. To stop those who would try to cut the Social Security and Medicare benefits that are rightfully yours.

To protect the environment instead of selling it to the highest bidder. To fight for a government free of corruption, where your representatives work only for you. To build a future that is just and free, full of hope and opportunity—a future our children thank us for leaving them. Because democracy is built not bought by the strong and the free.

The film ends positively with a call to the future to build something promising. It's smart, once again, in my opinion, by the reference to those who had cut benefits and sell the environment to the highest bidder—more politics of resentment—but uses positive imagery of infrastructure, productive work, and aspirational engagement.

Presents a promise to fight corruption and closes with something positive about both strength and freedom. It could have been better for the reasons I outlined, but it could have been a lot worse.

There's much less of the radical leftist tilt towards identity politics that has characterized so much as the recent democratic conversation. There's a strong sense of shared American society and values. There's tremendous emphasis on a fair playing field and the importance and promise of hard work—not something typical of those who insist, for example, on equity or equality of outcome and who claim that our whole society is a patriarchal tyranny.

In my estimation, this film is a welcome move towards classical liberal values and away from the divisive politics of political correctness and naive but dangerous utopianism.