Democrats would be smart to follow Elissa Slotkin’s example
“Authentic” has become a political cliche to describe unpretentious, down-to-earth and earnest politicians. That such qualities deserve praise tells you a lot about the state of our performance politics. Nevertheless, Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) personifies these attributes — which is a good thing for her future and for Democrats now that she has announced her run for the Senate.
If the MAGA Republican Party is pining to return to a time when White males dominated, Slotkin shows how Democrats can win on shared values in a Senate campaign announcement ad that is finely crafted for her swing state and for contemporary America.
Most striking is how she talks about her home state. Slotkin’s affection for Michigan is not bathed in nostalgia for a bygone era but in a sense of home. “No matter where I’ve gone in my life, no matter who I’ve met, nothing is more important to me than this place,” she says. She speaks with deep affection for the values her fellow Michiganders hold. (Her mother’s “enduring gift” to her was the way the community rallied around her family in their moment of crisis when her mother was stricken with ovarian cancer.) She voices pride and affection for her family’s beginning (starting a meat company that eventually sold hot dogs to baseball stadiums), but she is not trapped in the past nor angry about change. She is not trying to make Michigan great again.
Moreover, Slotkin doesn’t mention her opposition at all. In contrast to presidential candidate Nikki Haley’s opening ad, she does not show scary pictures of Republicans or demonize “Washington politicians.” Noting that she served under both a Republican and Democratic president, she makes clear her enemies are America’s enemies, stressing her CIA service in
Iraq. Her objective is not pummeling Republicans, but solving problems: “there are certain things that should be really simple,” she says, “like living a middle-class life in the state that invented the middle class.”
It’s also noteworthy that she does not explicitly use Jan. 6 images. Instead, she ties democracy to love of country. She talks about “preserving our rights and our democracy so that our kids can live their version of the American Dream.” Few politicians so adeptly make the case that without democracy, our freedom and our right to self-determination disappear. Democrats would be wise not to speak of democracy or rule of law in the abstract, but rather to emphasize that we have opportunities because we have a democracy. That serves to underscore the common stake we have in defeating authoritarianism.
Certainly, Slotkin doesn’t sugarcoat what people have endured. “We all know America is going through something right now. We seem to be living crisis to crisis,” she says. In channeling the collective sense of emotional exhaustion — with causes from economic recession to COVID-19 to gun violence — she does not fall into the trap of arguing people are better off than they think. But neither does she flood them with images of shuttered factories, schools that look like war zones and hospitals bursting at the seams. Simply reminding Americans of traumas is not leadership. Indeed, it’s demoralizing and paralyzing. Other Democrats would be wise to project such steadiness, confidence and hope.
Political pundits focus excessively on ideology, stressing a candidate like Slotkin’s moderation. But tone and demeanor can communicate far more than a politicians’ words. Republican politicians these days appear perpetually outraged, belligerent and hysterical. That’s the way social media and right-wing “news” outlets keep the MAGA base engaged. But something in Slotkin’s approach seems to echo President Biden’s promise of a return to normalcy.
Indeed, the constant Sturm und Drang emanating from the House and from MAGA presidential contenders is not wearing well with voters, as polls suggest. Voters might welcome a quiet, calm and mature voice, delivered without phony emotion and ginned up anger. That’s what Slotkin delivers in her announcement. Savvy Democrats will follow her lead.