Dan Pfeiffer

But I think that is the fundamental challenge in Democratic messaging right now.

I really could talk about this for an hour.

So there's a couple of ways to think about this.

One is

I guess the dilemma for Democrats is, do you try to make the issues that you're best on dominate politics, or do you try to figure out how to win on the issues that already dominate politics?

That is the core question.

That was at the heart of what the Harris campaign struggled with the whole time.

And then the other challenge is, and I think we just have to remind ourselves all the time, that unless you follow politics in the news pretty obsessively, unless you live in a city that has seen troops, unless you are a person who is vulnerable to ICE, who knows someone who's vulnerable to ICE, who lives in a community where ICE is present, a lot of the things that cause us to have

Our alarm bells going off at all times are just background noise to most people living their lives.

And that is the challenge.

They are not feeling it in the way that the people who are dialed into politics who live in the place where this is happening are feeling it.

Yeah.

There is an interesting argument here that I've also been playing with about, using the term libertarianism, that's incorrect and leaves the wrong impression.

But the basic idea is Republicans don't want the government to help you in any way, shape, or form.

Does it want to help you get affordable health care?

Does it want to help you make more money to help you get a job?

Does it want to help your school, have your teachers get paid enough to teach in your school?

But they want the government in your life in every other way.

They want to know they're getting information about abortions.

They don't want you to smoke weed.