I Am Exasperated

[Bluetus]

41. Believe what you want about "them".

It isn't going to be productive to blame everyone else. All we can control is what we do (our real actions when in power) and how we present/sell ourselves.

The simple fact -- and I know that most people here don't want to hear it -- is that > 75 million people don't think we have any answers that make sense to them, or else if we have the answers, they don't believe we will actually do anything about it if elected.

We can complain that the billionaires are dumping huge amounts of money into advertising and a RW media infrastructure. That's true.
We can complain that we haven't really had a governing majority because of people like Manchin and Sinema. That's true.
We can complain that gerrymandering keeps the GOP in control of the House. That's true.
We can complain that the filibuster rule allows a Senate that is structurally loaded toward low-population states to be impossibly shifted toward the right-wing. That's true.

But news flash: the public doesn't understand those things and doesn't care. They simply don't see us improving their lives when we are in power. In fact, the first half of every Dem Presidency since Carter was consumed with cleaning up the messes put in place by the Republicans. That's true, but it doesn't matter if the public doesn't understand it. We can blame all these things, but ultimately, it is our job to address the issues of greatest concern to the public and to tell our story EVERY DAY. We don't. We are terrible at messaging, and our current President did the least amount of communicating among all the modern Presidents -- by far. And even at this moment when Trump is running around gathering up tribute payments and threatening to forcibly take over Panama, Canada and Greenland, the only official communication from the President is a national "Merry Christmas" card? WTF?

This is Alice in Wonderland stuff.