Democratic messaging gaps: fix messaging that are just time worn platitudes

Democrats have a messaging problem, and relying on the old platitudes will not work. What is missing from the message is what exactly did Democrats proposed to do that was different than their past? Exactly what were they going to do about it?    Here it is, patterned after Zoran Mamdani's simple words of three promises under the umbrella of one word, affordability: here are three things I propose to get done and take leadership on if elected. It was specific, and it was directly stated: affordability meant those three things almost in the same breath. (Mamdani, a candidate for mayor of New York).

The other day, I listened to the Democratic Party chair attempt to say the party was redirecting its messaging to address people's unhappiness with the unaffordability of basic family needs, such as healthcare, housing, groceries, child care, and then just left it at that. No specifics. I suppose it is progress that the party can ID the problem, but that is just platitudes if it is left at the complaint stage with the implication that Dems are not Trump.   In recognition of the success of Zohran Mamdani acknowledged that it could not be the same as the old messages. Now wait a moment: Democrats have always been champions of all of that,  MAGA had stolen the message from them, and now they were failing to produce and fulfill their promises. The question voters will be asking is so "what are you going to do about it?" Harping on the failure of theTrump regime is only an opening salvo; the rest needs to be what "actions" are you going to take that is different than what Biden did that caused them to vote for Trump in the first place.  

 Democrats have an opportunity, but if they get tied up in knots over social issues and wonky statistics and policy minutiae and verbiage platitudes,  they will muff it.  VP Harris in 2024 treated kitchen table issues as an aside acknowledgment. But that other issue. women's rights, for example,  occupied the bulk of her set stump speech and failed to be specific about what she would do differently than what Biden had done, which many felt did not work for them.. For those who worried about grocery and gas at the pump prices, unaffordable housing, and high costs of child care,  Harris had no specifics. But Mamdani hit the nail on the head. He pushed these issues to priority status and gave a plan of how he would make it better, with three specific issues related to what they had in common: affordability, and then provided his actions to fix it.  It was specific, and it was directly stated: affordability meant those three things almost in the same breath and provided a specific solution that made sense and cents to those who saw what was important to their lives. It was specific, and it was directly stated: affordability meant those three things almost in the same breath; they were so directly and closely related..

Nationwide Democrats could choose one or two ACTION topics under which state and local candidates could fit.  For example: affordability and fair treatment for all.  This would be instead of just harping on Trump's failures to reduce the cost of living or that he's a dictator.

 Here is what I mean if I were coaching a candidate to say.

A point under the topic of affordability: I will restore the health care cuts to Medicaid and ACA and make Medicare sounder, but reduce the costs to consumers by competitive bidding of prescription drugs and charges for participating in these popular programs. 

.. I will support early childhood education and give financial support to those providing childcare to make it affordable.

I will support making groceries more affordable by supporting market competition and opposing monopolies, stopping tariffs on imported food, and providing enduring work permits for migrant farm workers (the old bracero method?). 

 I will support the building of more affordable housing and housing for the homeless. including tax breaks and some funding, etc. 

 To the question of how we should pay for all of this? Reverse the outrageous tax breaks to the very rich.  I would reverse Trump's tariffs to what they were before and use tariffs in the future to support national security interests, not as a government fundraising project, causing costs that will just be passed on to customers..

Under fairness: I will improve our free and fair elections: I will end political and racial gerrymandering, end untraceable campaign money, and work to keep the federal government from controlling state-run elections. (Note: the lack of reference to the damage done by MAGA in cultural and racial issues; those victimized by such, we hear plenty of that from other organizations, but in a federal election campaign, fairness is a value all can subscribe to.)

"Slavery was not that bad" is Trump's newest propaganda line.

 As part of the White Nationalist influence in the GOP, as personified by Project 2025's anti-DEI purpose, now the Trump regime is trying to rewrite official history (revisionism like the Chinese and Russian communists undertook to justify their policies) by pressuring the Smithsonian to stop portraying slavery as so terrible. Trump says the Smithsonian focuses too much on 'how bad slavery was'   Even now, reference to Trump's impeachments is removed from the Smithsonian because of his objections. Trump’s impeachments have been removed from a Smithsonian exhibit, for now : NPR If the Smithsonian complies, it will become the Trump Propaganda History Museum.  Its lies will be revealed by the preservation of the real history of newspaper report archives and of slavery in America by many institutions not dependent on federal funding. This recent outrage, coupled with recruitment appeals to racists to join ICE "to defend your culture", is the newest example of Trump's racist appeal to some of his core supporters.

To bring this up to date, the persistence of these racist attitudes in my native Oklahoma is that the anti-woke attitudes will be taught to their children in school, as all teachers hired from blue states will have to be screened to get teaching jobs for compliance with anti-wokism..Exclusive: Oklahoma to begin controversial test to weed out ‘woke’ teacher applicants today | CNN Politics  Oklahoma by any measure ranks lowest in education, near the bottom of the 50 states. Oklahoma schools ranked nearly the worst in the nation in new study  Whatever education their children get will now be MAGA's view.  Oklahoma has already banned  DEI on higher education campuses.  DEI ban on Oklahoma college campuses signed into law • Oklahoma Voice.   Nearly 8% of Oklahoma's population in African-American per Google AI, and Tulsa was the site of the most famous racial massacre of blacks  by whites,( Greenwood, 1921), in US history per Wikipedia..

 What is so horrible about this newest example of the racism element in Trump's MAGA movement to paint slavery as not that bad is that slavery has been a part of human history forever, and usually those enslaved were bounty and victims of a lost war, regardless of race or religion, but the uniqueness of American slavery is that those enslaved were of a particular race and color, enslaved because they were considered inferior, less intelligent, less competent, for one reason, because they were black.

. I remember my days growing up as a little white girl in a Jim Crow-like culture in Oklahoma, where I was sat down, not my parents, but by my music teacher,  and told  Negroes were descended from monkeys and were just not equal to white people. I was 12 or so in the early 1950s.  I had been told by my parents, who were from the north, that black people were every bit as smart and intelligent as white people.  They were human beings like us and deserved to be treated likewise.

 There were two attitudes I heard expressed by other adults then, too. It was either that they deserved being cared for because they were inferior to us whites, a paternalistic holiness; after all they got free food, clothing, and housing, and medical care. Say what? Here is what I know. This was in return for work with no pay, rape, beatings of the slackers, and death to those who revolted. Slaves were property.  Starving and sick and unable to work were of no value. Rebellious slaves were to be feared.  Negroes were to be controlled by violence, lynching,  and brute force to keep them in their place. (I am using the word "Negroes"; that was the term used in "polite" white people's conversation then; the "n" word was in more common and open usage.).  Whether Trump himself is like that, he is careful with his words, is a matter of deduction and surmise, but with such statements, he reflects some of those same racist attitudes held in the ruby red south that  I remember from growing up in that culture.  Cudos to  Joe Scarborough on MSNBC today, that those who deny the awfulness of human slavery in the US are like the holocaust deniers.  He is right: both deniers are ...trying to erase the guilt of their participating or approving in acts that are the worst examples of an awful side of human nature.

Trump's newest attack democracy's rule by people via a vote: ban mail in ballots and voting machines

 Trump to ban mail-in ballots and voting machines in executive power play

This is one more attack on federalization of voting to give an advantage to "his" voters, in addition to watering down racial minority representation in Congress through a mid-decade gerrymander in Texas. in time for the 2026 November midterms. Colorado is in the bullseye. Colorado is nearly 100% mail-in voting, though physical polling places are still available.   Colorado is also the one place where Trump's minion got caught listening to his "secure the voting machines", and giving a Trump loyalist the codes as she locked them away.. She, Tina Peters, is now sitting in federal prison for that one. A few other instances were reported, similar to taking orders from Trump instead of the state election officials, but the real danger is federal control of the voting process. This is one example of Trump's wish list. He seems determined to abuse voters and control the outcome of elections in his drive to act like a dictator, just like Putin does. There are reports that Trump is being coached by Putin himself.(New York Times report) , The fundamental difference between a dictatorship and a democracy is that the voters//people control who governs them in a democracy, and in a dictatorship, the form of a ballot box may exist or not, but the dictator controls who votes and how they are counted. One person, one vote is the ideal, honestly and freely.  Since 2020, Trump and his loyal minions still claim the 2020 elections were stolen and after 5 years of trying, no evidence has ever been found. Charges of Dominion voting machines being messed with got FOX millions in punishment in liable verdicts. Now Newsmax also gets hit with a $67 million settlement for lies about Dominium. The only people in jail for tampering with voting machines are Trump loyalists, and Tina Peters is the poster lady for that one..

Trump wants paper ballots filled out at a polling place.. Guess what: Colorado's votes are all on paper ballots. and voters have a choice: fill out the paper ballot or drop the ballot at a polling place in person, return ballots filled out by mail, or put them in a secure drop box. Only 2-6% of voters choose to cast their votes in person at a polling place. Everyone gets a ballot mailed to them who is registered to vote. Thanks to computer technology, cheaters voting twice can be caught instantly. Election officials compare signatures on returned ballots as verification and counting to catch forgeries. The value of using paper ballots no matter if mailed, dropped off, or at a polling place, get to the county clerk; audits. Paper ballots filled out at home is so convenient; Colorado has one of the best voter turnout percentages in the nation. At home voting also gives voters a chance to give thought and do a bit of research if they have questions. It makes for a better-informed voter. If there is a close election, the paper ballots are there to verify they were tallied correctly and signatures match the signatures on record.. The attempt to claim the tabulation method,, running the paper ballots through a scanning machine, and in other states, voting on a machine, and claim the company Dominion system fixed the 2020 eleciton cost both Fox( $787 million) and Newsmax enormous settlements in defamation suitsfor lying The newest to feel the loss: Newsmax, $67 million. By having each state separately being in charge of elections,it is hard for a foreign hacker or a domestic dictator to make a difference in a federal election. Individual states are in charge of elections per the Constitution. In Colorado, county clerks count the ballots coming from their county, and tabulations are reported to the Secretary of State using their own separate secure system and not on the internet, another layer of protection from hackers.

Newsmax agrees to pay $67M in defamation case over 2020 election claims | AP News

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/08/18/us/trump-news?smid=nytcore-android-share

From a prior blog post: Update 5/6/2025: Trump demands that Peters be released from prison as his federal government tries to interfere with state and local court decisions. MUFTIC FORUM BLOG: Colorado is being singled out by Trump's DOJ trying to validate conspiracy theories

. https://coloradosun.com/2025/05/06/tina-peters-donald-trump-social-media-post/

Update on the Tina Peters trial: 9 years for criminal election interference. She was defiant to the end, no remorse. A true MAGA soldier, a true believer who was loyal to Trump but not to democracy and the Constitution. Her conviction should serve as a warning to other election officials who try to interfere with the count, as the Trump campaign appears to be planning to do in 2024 as they did in 2020.  The rule of law still prevails.  Prior post of the case of interest: MUFTIC FORUM BLOG: Update on the Tina Peters trial: 9 years for criminal election interference

Felicia Muftic is a former Denver elections official.

Trump's piece deal for Ukraine; could be a fool's errand.

 Trump's piece deal. Reports are emerging that Trump's desperate deal to make good on a campaign promise and win his campaign to get the Nobel Peace prize was to hand over a chunk of Ukraine that Putin had not won in battle, because that would at least get the firing stopped. Putin had come up with this Trojan horse, and it made sense to Trump's own ambitions.. The only obstacle he, as Putin told him so, was Zelensky agreeing to it. Zelensky was the problem, not the victim of a Putin land grab, because he dared to want Ukraine's independence from "mother Russia" and had been fighting for that for the past three years..Trump had run that idea past European leaders to give Putin a land gift: the entire Donbas region, only partially occupied by Russia before the Alaska summit, and that would be a peace agreement, not just a cease-fire. However, there was some hint that Trump and Putin discussed some sort of a NATO "light"? agreement that any peace deal/real estate deal would need to be enforced with an effective security method. That Putin would agree to that would be a surprise since he has clearly stated publicly he wanted all of Ukraine and former USSR satellites. Without such an agreement, gifting Putin a portion of Ukraine would be foolish.

Echoes of 1938: Prime Minister of Great Britain, Neville Chamberlain. led and lauded the Munich agreement, claiming that handing over a chunk of Czechoslovakia, the Sudetenland, to Hitler's Germany, claiming "it would bring peace in our time". He was a fool and failed to recognize that Hitler had plans to grab the rest of Europe. Chamberlain would not have been worthy of a peace prize any more than Trump would be. The only award both deserve is for "the fool of the decade".

In 2025, Europe, before and after the Alaska summit, got on the phone with Trump, whom they feared had swallowed Putin's proposal: gift us Donbas.without any security agreement or a way to stop him from renewing his aggression. This will be a peace deal, not just a cease-fire, promises Putin. European leader will, as a group under the auspices of the European Commission, and including President Zelensky, deliver their views directly in a group visit to the White House on Monday. Europe recognizes that its peace and stability are at risk, and that Ukraine has been fighting a proxy war on its behalf. too. They are willing to do their part to provide security to Ukraine. European leaders to join Ukraine's Zelenskyy for White House meeting with Trump  If Putin agrees to some security agreement as his deal, it had better be a good one that will work and have military repercussions for the violator. 

Europeans are no fools. Been there, done that. Once again, over 80 years later, they are threatened by an imperialist actor. They understandLike Hitler, Putin's ambitions do not end in the Donbas region, openly stated by Putin for the record,: all of Ukraine and the former USSR satellites, destabling and threatening western Euope, Without a military effective security agreement to stop and punish Putin militarily for violating an agreement, make any deal with Putin, handing over the Donbas is a non starter for them as well as a non-starter for Putin or especially Zelensky..

MUFTIC FORUM BLOG: Fallout from the Alaska summit: Trump now owns Ukraine's future