Whining isn’t winning
It wasn’t so long ago when Missouri was a purple state, up for grabs by whichever party did the best job capturing voters’ imaginations. The state was split down the middle politically as recently as 2000, and even in 2016 Democrats held a U.S. Senate seat and the offices of governor, attorney general and state auditor. While Democrats watched helplessly, Republicans went for the political jugular by focusing on hot-button inspirational issues like gun control and abortion rights.
That’s not the Republicans’ fault. Responsibility for Democratic failures lies entirely with their own ineffective policies and messaging. The culmination of the party’s failures came this month with a U.S. Supreme Court draft ruling that could overturn Roe v. Wade.
Democrats have yet to come up with a workable strategy to chip away at Republican solidarity around that party’s beloved candidates and bedrock issues. Liberals stomp and protest at each new Republican outrage, yet they repeatedly fail to mobilize liberals and moderates the way Republicans rally their own faithful behind the conservative mission.
Republicans in 2012 were as horrified as were Democrats when the state’s leading U.S. Senate candidate, Rep. Todd Akin, blurted out his ridiculous assertion that women’s bodies had a natural way of rejecting pregnancies caused by “legitimate rape.” These days, such remarks might elicit barely a shrug among Republicans or perhaps even a gleeful chuckle as they watch Democrats erupt in outrage.
To national Republicans’ credit, the GOP years ago began mapping out a strategy to mobilize voter support around key life-ordeath issues. They focused on controlling state legislatures, which gave them control of redistricting to help ensure their domination of future elections. They focused on down-ballot judicial elections and attorney general seats, allowing them to flood the courts with challenges that have yielded landmark lower-court rulings on gun rights, religious education and abortion restrictions.
None of this means the Republicans are morally right. All it means is that they’re winning—at Democrats’ expense.
Democrats are wasting valuable time focusing on political correctness while complaining about the unfairness of GOP messaging. If that strategy isn’t winning elections, then clearly it’s time to change strategies.