Simple, aggressive, repetitive messages break through to voters who don’t obsess over politics. An effective message attacks the other side’s core beliefs.

In other words, the kind of messaging Democrats are terrible at. Democrats’ idea of a good slogan is: “Keep hope alive” and “Yes, we can.” Feel-good lines that at best energize people who were going to vote Democrat anyway but contain nothing that would persuade a non-crazy Republican voter to switch sides.

To help out Democrats, I offer the following sound bites for them to repeat at every opportunity between now and election day:

“The United States is weaker and more isolated today than it has been since 1941.”

“In the last 25 years, the Republican Party has killed more Americans than all foreign adversaries in the history of the United States, combined.”

“Republicans don’t believe in the right to life or anything else. They only believe in one thing: their own self-righteousness.”

“Being pro-business is the opposite of being pro-growth…unless you know of a business that doesn’t need workers and customers. Democrats are pro-balance and pro-growth.”

“Republicans don’t believe in free markets. They believe in allowing big corporations to mine the government for profits instead of competing fairly.”

“There isn’t a single conservative principle Republicans haven’t betrayed.”

“The Republican Party is the best political party money can buy.”

“You can’t call yourself a patriot if you’re ignorant of American history and culture.”

“Republicans talk about freedom all the time, but actual freedom scares them to death. What they really want is someone to tell them what to think. That’s why they behave like zombies, all saying and doing the exact same thing.”

“Why do Republicans lie and cheat all the time? Because their ideas don’t work, and they’re incompetent. And they know it. They’re practically telling you not to vote for them.”

If you don’t hear Democrats talking like this, they’re not winning.

Final note: none of these sound bites mentions Donald Trump. He is not the opponent; the Republican Party is. Democrats waste opportunities every time they attack Trump unless to illustrate how disastrous the Republican Party has been for decades.

Voters are regularly asked whether they approve of Donald Trump’s handling of the economy. In the latest survey, 27% of voters said yes, 63% said no. Thus, Trump is underwater by 36 percentage points, a result which encourages Democrats for the midterm elections.

At almost the same time, voters were asked which party they trust more on the economy. 52% said they trust Democrats, 48% said Republicans. Democrats hailed the result—it’s the first time they’ve led on this question since 2010. But notice that Republicans are only underwater by 4 percentage points! 4 rather than 36 points.

You’ve probably anticipated my point. The Republican Party nominated Trump three times for president and have supported him completely. Trump’s economic policies are the Republican economic policies. There are no others. Yet the Republican Party has escaped most of the blame for a bad economy that we all experience personally.

This big discrepancy appears even stranger if you take a longer perspective. Go back however far you want—25 years, 50 years, 75 years, 100 years. Whatever measure of time you choose, Democrats outperform Republicans by wide margins in economic growth and job creation. Nevertheless, for the last 50 years, voters instinctively believe Republicans are better at managing the economy, a belief called into doubt only during an economic crisis and returned to, perversely, as soon as Democrats have started the country back on the road to recovery.

How can this be so? Because Republicans have bragged about being economic experts for five decades, and Democrats haven’t seriously contested the point. If you listen to Democrats, the blame for today’s economy lies almost entirely with Trump. He’s the one they call out over and over again. So it shouldn’t be a surprise that Trump is upside down on the economy while the Republican Party remains at near parity with Democrats.

You can see what’s going to happen. Voters will punish Trump in 2026 and probably 2028 by voting Democrat. But after that, Republicans will regain their traditional advantage on the economy in voters’ minds and retake power. How do I know? Already three times since 2000 voters replaced a Democratic president with a fabulously successful economy with a Republican president with a disastrous economy. It’ll happen again unless Democrats do something to break the cycle.

You used to benefit from them. If they were still alive, they’d generate $36 billion a year in income. They’d buy things, and some of that money would circulate into your pocket.

You also feel the 40,000 Americans killed by guns every year. And the tens of thousands who die from cuts to healthcare and services to the poor. And the hundreds of thousands of immigrants who would have been working and spending and paying taxes but now aren’t here to do that.

You feel the promised jobs that never materialize after Republicans cut taxes on the wealthy. You feel the growing economy that flat-lines when Republicans take over.

The average person today would be making $15,000 to $20,000 more a year if not for what Republicans have done over the last 30 years.

The benefits you’re not getting are invisible, but you still feel them like ghosts. You know life used to get better in the past but isn’t getting better today. Switching back and forth between parties isn’t working. Something big has to be done, and it’s making you uneasy.

Republicans realize this, too. In their hearts, they’ve known for a long time they failed. Over the last 30 years they tried out all of their ideas many times. Every time it led to disaster. It’s becoming more and more obvious, and Republicans are freaking out.

They cultivate hysteria to keep from admitting their own failures. Illegal immigrants! Woke! Deep state! Climate hoax! Vaccine hoax! Voter fraud! And on and on, one after the other. Republicans are genuinely scared—they’re scared to face the truth about themselves. They’re desperate to keep you from seeing it, too. Republicans are happy to let you think they’re assholes so long as you don’t see that they’re confused and incompetent.

The ghosts of your absent prosperity won’t leave you alone until you punish those responsible. They want you to vote against the Republican Party so there’s no possibility of it returning to power. You sense how restless they’re becoming. They’ve been waiting for years. It’s time you give them justice.

It was always a quixotic endeavor. For years, I watched in despair and disbelief as Democrats employed the same tired arguments over and over while Republicans slowly accumulated more power. Two summers ago, with a second Trump term looming, I decided it was my duty to do something and started “Attack.” I worked on my own. I could post just once a week. I didn’t have graphics. I didn’t have a fancy website. I didn’t do videos. I didn’t do live broadcasts. I didn’t interview people. I didn’t address the events of the day or Trump’s latest outrage. All the things you need to do to build an audience.

I don’t consider “Attack” a failure. It gave me the space to articulate my ideas about political rhetoric. I’ve said just about everything I have to say. Anything I write in the future would just elaborate on what I’ve already said. “Attack” will remain available for anyone who finds it useful. I don’t entirely close the door to writing posts in the future if there’s a compelling reason.

I’d like to thank my readers and subscribers. I hope you got something out of it. If you’re interested in this line of thought, I can recommend two people to follow:

• Lukium’s “American Manifesto” offers very good diagnoses and prescriptions for how to combat Republicans.

• I like Scott Dworkin’s “The Dworkin Report” as an antidote to doom scrolling—he focuses on the resistance’s successes.

Thank you again, and bye for now.

Midas was embarrassed and hid his ears under elaborate head coverings. No one at court knew, but Midas couldn’t keep the secret from his barber. The barber would have lost his life if he had told anyone, but he couldn’t keep the secret to himself. One day he went out into a field, dug a hole, whispered into it, “King Midas has ass’s ears,” and refilled the hole. Later reeds grew up in that spot, and when the wind blows, the reeds whisper, “King Midas has ass’s ears.”

The press is the referee between our two political parties. These days the Democratic Party is full of successful policy makers with a solid grasp of reality while lies, fantasies, and corruption dominate the Republican Party. Yet the professional news media—I don’t mean right-wing media—can’t bring itself to render a clear judgment, in effect favoring the goatish Republicans.

The press is like the barber, whispering the truth in a way that no one can hear it. It reports what Democrats and Republicans say without revealing that one side is telling the truth, the other is lying. It covers small Democratic flaws obsessively while barely noting Republicans’ disqualifying faults. It publishes even-handed headlines that don’t reflect reality for stories where the key point is buried a dozen or more paragraphs down.

Democrats want to think of the press as their friend. So they issue gentle critiques of access journalism, false equivalence and so on. I doubt the kid-glove treatment will change the press’s behavior. What the press does has been ingrained by generations of J school teaching and professional practice. And thick-skinned reporters resist all criticism. Show how they betrayed the truth in a particular story, and they will dismiss you as partisan.

The press has an exalted view of its role at odds with its timidity. It preens itself on keeping the public informed and holding the powerful accountable. It boasts that its freedom of speech is enshrined in the Constitution. Journalists’ hypocrisy is where Democrats should attack and shame them into reporting the truth. Accordingly, Democrats should:

• Demand truth, not just facts. Reporters think they’ve done their job if their stories contain facts, but the news media distorts reality by choosing which facts to report and which to ignore, which to emphasize and which to downplay, and by refusing to tell readers what those facts mean in practical terms.

• Set public awareness of the truth as the standard. Insist that it’s the press’s job, not just to make the truth available, but to ensure the public knows it. It’s not a defense to say, “We ran a dozen stories on this,” if the point of the stories wasn’t clear and they were drowned out by horse-race political coverage.

• Name names. Call out specific stories, journalists, and publications for suppressing the truth or for reporting it effectively. Every speech or blog post should mention an example of good or bad journalism, and Democrats should explain why it was good or bad.

• Propose pro-truth reforms of the new media. For example, amplify studies showing which news outlets have the best-informed readers. Or restore equal-time regulations to what they were before Reagan’s FCC allowed more partisanship.

Over time these demands will shame the press into reporting the truth more faithfully. But in the short term, demanding more from the press alerts voters that the truth is different from what they’ve been led to believe—Republicans are worse than they imagine and Democrats are more competent.

This is an example of “aesthetic blindness,” the inability to see what’s right in front of you because it’s not anticipated in the model of the world you have in your head. Republicans suffer from aesthetic blindness. Republican ideas, policies, and administrations fail repeatedly while Democratic ideas, policies, and administrations succeed, yet Republicans can’t see it. In their head, Republicans are wise, competent, and principled, Democrats weak, wrong, and foolish. They interpret events as confirming these prejudices and are oblivious to everything else.

Before the country collapses, Democrats must demonstrate Republicans’ blindness to them. How do we do that? Politicians focus on the present and the future because that’s what motivates voters, but the key to curing Republicans lies in the past, in their long track record of getting things wrong. Republicans will change their model of the world when they are forced to confront its past failures.

So Democrats must shift some attention from debating public policy to spotlighting Republicans’ mistaken predictions about it. Rather than relitigating past debates, use the results to dramatize Republicans’ habitual poor judgment, which continues today. In other words, focus less on what Republicans got wrong and more on the fact that they got it wrong. The argument should run like this:

• Do you remember how every Republican administration you voted for ended in a recession and how every Democratic administration created tens of millions of new jobs?

• Do you remember when you said Bill Clinton raising taxes would hurt the economy? His economy boomed.

• Do you remember saying the national debt threatens our national security? But you let W. and Trump balloon the debt and nothing happened.

• Do you remember how you were sure Saddam Hussein had WMDs and we’d be greeted as liberators if we invaded Iraq? You were wrong about both.

• Do you remember fearing inflation under Obama? Yet inflation remained at historic lows.

• Do you remember saying Obamacare would never work? Now millions of Republicans are covered by it.

• Do you remember worrying about Medicare “death panels?” But they never existed.

• Do you remember believing Democratic officials were running a pedophile ring? But Trump was deeply involved in a pedophile ring.

• Do you remember being against vaccinations and masking? And now diseases we had beaten are starting to run out of control.

Use a number of big and small examples of various kinds so that the list doesn’t have a single policy position that Republicans can dispute. Don’t go into detail or get drawn into a debate about the facts. Make simple, clear statements: “You believed X, but you turned out to be wrong.” Their mistakes should be the clear theme.

The point is to rehearse a long list of things Republicans expected to happen that never happened and then to draw the conclusion that Republicans show a consistent pattern of bad judgment. By repeating litanies of such examples, Democrats can slowly break down Republican self-confidence and get them to look at the world differently.

[Open on a Billy Graham-lookalike sitting behind a desk dressed in a white shirt, tie and dark suit jacket, a gold cross pinned on his lapel.]

Hello, I’m Satan, and I want to thank evangelical Christians for all the work you’re doing for me.

To be frank, when Jesus said, “Love your neighbor,”

[Image of Matthew 22:39]

I was scared. I thought the game was over. A commandment can’t get any simpler or clearer than that. But you proved you can twist even that one around. I’m especially proud of how you tear the country apart to rescue a knot of cells that might never become human…

[shots of confrontational antiabortion protesters, headline about opposition to Mifepristone]

while you kill hundreds of thousands of children and adults every year by voting for guns…

[statistic of gun deaths in latest year, video of aftermath of mass shooting]

poverty…

[statistic of children living in poverty, headline of Republicans voting against WIC]

disease…

[antivaxx headlines, statistics on deaths from communicable diseases]

pollution…

[shot of pollutants being dumped, statistic on deaths from harmful chemicals]

[shot returns to Satan]

Then you proclaim you’re for the right to life. [In an admiring tone] You’re more cynical than I am!

Another great move is when you declare that Christianity is under attack in the United States—one of the most religious countries in the world. Classic. The fallen angels roll on the floor laughing every time you try that one.

But my favorite is when your preachers shout…

[video of evangelical preacher saying “Get behind me, Satan”]

[shot returns to Satan]

I AM behind you. 100 percent! Keep up the good work.

[END]

As the prince keeps asking for money, you start to have doubts. Your children reason with you. They beg you. But they show less interest in you than your new friend. They only want your money. You keep paying because you don’t want to disappoint your friend, you don’t want to lose the money you already sent, and you’re too proud to admit a foolish mistake. Your fantasy of wealth and friendship is stronger than your reason.

In the end, your savings are gone, and your friend disappears. Only then do you go to the police.

Republican voters are delusional like the victim of the Nigerian prince scam or the members of a cult. But do we have to wait till freedom and prosperity are completely gone before Republicans wake up? No. It’s possible to break delusions before brutal reality does it. We break delusions by inducing self-reflection, not by reasoning and pleading with someone. Can we convert enough Republicans to save the country by inducing self-reflection on a large scale? Yes. Here’s a three-tier approach:

Tier 1: Define Them. The first step is to set a favorable background by painting an unflattering picture of the character of Republicans. Show how they violate their own principles. For example, they say they value individual liberty, but they think and act in a herd. Privately, they have their own opinions about various issues, but they meekly go along with whatever Republican leaders tell them to believe. Call them cowards for not standing up for their own personal beliefs. Go though the whole list of Republican values, pointing out their betrayal: honor, strength, patriotism, individuality, freedom, order, responsibility…

This should be an impersonal attack, an attack on Republicans in general, but you can give a face to the enemy by targeting Republican Congressmen. You can say anything you like about Congressmen. Through steady propaganda over time Democrats will change the public perception of Republicans into a group no one wants to associate with. At first, Republicans will think, “That’s not like me at all!” On second thought, some will think, “Maybe I’m a little like that.”

Tier 2: Split Them. Next, pick off voters by tailoring pitches to specific constituents of the Republican coalition. Either champion them, or challenge them. For example, champion the free market more than Republicans. Many small and midsize businesses supply large companies. Attack the Republican Party for allowing big companies to consolidate too much market power so that they can dictate terms to their suppliers. Demand that the number of major competitors in each market must be expanded from today’s three to a minimum of five to give smaller businesses greater bargaining power. Or Democrats can challenge Republican groups by asking them to live up to their own values. Ask evangelicals why they don’t support a right to life when it comes to healthcare, poverty, guns and so on. Demand their votes on these issues.

This approach will encourage Republicans to reconsider whether their party really serves their interests. They’ve been Republican for a long time out of habit and because the party projects an attitude that appeals to them. But by exploiting wedge issues, Democrats can show how the Republican Party has abused their trust.

Tier 3. Counsel Them. When you encounter individual Republicans, don’t debate the issues with them. Don’t try to reason with them or educate them. Instead, act as if you were a counselor. Bring the discussion back to them personally. Ask them why they believe as they do. They will cite facts and authorities. Gently probe beneath that: why do these facts seem plausible to you? Why do you trust that authority? What role do your beliefs play in your life?

By not challenging their positions directly, you can get them to remember that they made a choice to think as they do and that other choices are possible. Sometimes they will change their voting behavior or at least be less extreme in their views.

Again, we don’t have to convert the whole Republican Party. We just need to convert a sliver of Republican voters in order to break the political stalemate in the U.S. and save democracy.

The Republican Party in general and Trump in particular exploit a curious way people think: we discount what other people tell us, especially when their claims exceed our expectations. Thus, if you want your audience to get an accurate estimate of something, you must exaggerate your claims about it. (And if you want them to overestimate something, you must exaggerate your claims beyond all bounds.)

Exaggerated claims yield a couple of advantages. First, they get you noticed. The Forbes reporter wouldn’t have spent much time on Trump, except for the big number Trump bragged about. You can claim almost anything you want as long as it’s plausible or realistic on the surface. The reporter wouldn’t have given a second thought to Trump if he had said Martians gave him a trunk containing $10 billion in cash.

Second, the claim you make sets an anchor point for the audience. The audience doesn’t evaluate your claim from zero, assuming nothing and considering only objective evidence. The audience starts from the marker you set down. If Trump had never contacted him, the Forbes reporter would have looked at the objective evidence and given a much lower estimate of the assets’ value. Instead, the reporter started from Trump’s number and worked down. Trump’s wild claim subtly injected an assumption into the reporter’s mind: Trump is a billionaire. The $10 billion starting point gave the reporter plenty of room to discount and made it easy to accept Trump’s net worth was $1 billion.

If Democrats make some exaggerated claims, they will capture voters’ attention while inserting favorable assumptions into their minds and achieving the lesser goal they’re really aiming at. Here are three examples of extreme demands Democratic leaders might issue.

Demand #1: All Republican officeholders at the federal level should resign.

Justification: Republicans refuse to fulfill their responsibilities, including protecting the public, upholding the law, and checking executive power.

Plausibility: Even Republican voters don’t respect Republican officials, whom they view as weak and slippery.

Discounted assumption: There’s systemic failure in the Republican Party.

Outcome: Convincing voters it’s safer to put Democrats in charge.

Demand #2: Republican voters should apologize to people in their community.

Justification: Giving Trump and the Republicans control of all three branches of government has led to chaos.

Plausibility: Republicans value personal responsibility and accountability.

Discounted assumption: Ordinary Republicans have shown bad judgment.

Outcome: Forcing Republicans to justify themselves.

Demand #3: Only publications making a good-faith effort to convey the truth should be allowed to call themselves “news.”

Justification: Right-wing political propaganda coming from supposed “news” organizations confuses voters.

Plausibility: The government has a responsibility to ensure airways are used in the public interest.

Discounted assumption: People who get their news from right-wing media are misinformed.

Outcome: Turning right-wing media into a political liability.

If you like this piece, please share it. If you don’t like it, tell me why.

I am writing to ask you to admit what many of you already know in your heart. I’m asking you to admit you’re wrong.

You feel under siege, and you’ve felt that way for a long time. You think your values and beliefs are under assault by “liberals.” But people don’t wake up in the morning intending to destroy conservative values. People whose backgrounds, experiences, and temperaments are different from yours simply have different values and beliefs.

You don’t understand them, and you’re afraid, thinking anyone with different views threatens your own. This either-or mindset sets you up for harsh judgment by reality—the ultimate decider—and it has ruled against you. The extreme beliefs that have dominated the Republican Party for the last 30 or 35 years simply don’t work. The world doesn’t operate the way you think it does.

Of course, it’s hard for Republicans to accept that verdict. Anyone needs time to adjust when they discover they can’t have what they love. But after a while, denial becomes pathological. You’d rather believe the most convoluted conspiracy theory than a plain truth that contradicts your beliefs.

Years ago, Republicans had ideas they enacted as policies, and you were absolutely convinced they would work. Those policies repeatedly failed real-world tests. So Republicans gave up on ideas and policies. Now they’re angry and just want to tear down anything they perceive as liberal. That dark, “if we can’t have it, no one can” turn in the Republican Party is a virtual confession you’ve been wrong.

Reflect honestly on your track record. Think back over the last three decades, and consider all the predictions and claims you and your fellow Republicans made—this liberal thing will fail; this conservative thing will succeed; if we do this, such-and-such will happen… You’ve been wrong time and again. In your heart, you know it. The tell is that you never go back to see whether you were right or wrong; you just move confidently onto to the next prediction. No one is that oblivious. You don’t check the results because you don’t like what you’ll find.

You insulate yourself from reality inside the right-wing media universe, where you’re seldom told anything that contradicts your views. It’s cozy. Millions of your fellow conservatives reinforce what you want to believe. You complained about the liberal bias of mainstream media and professional journalists. It was easier to criticize the people reporting facts than to look those facts in the eye. You never entertained the possibility that MSM seems liberal because conservatives might be wrong.

Regardless of how truthful the MSM is, you’re being dishonest in choosing right-wing media. You suspected the political bias of MSM and then turned to conservative media whose political bias is blatant. You weren’t looking for the truth; you wanted to escape the truth.

You’re lying to yourself above all. As a conservative, you like the certainty of having the right values, the conviction that comes from fixed principles…unlike wishy-washy, relativistic liberals. Your self-righteousness made it easy for the Republican Party and right-wing media to manipulate you, throwing you into one panic after another over fake threats to your values. After decades of that diet, you lost faith you could persuade the country to adopt your views.

Now all you want is for conservatives like you to be in control, and you don’t care how you obtain it. You’ve gone wild. For political convenience, you argue one way on this issue and the opposite way on that issue. You support positions now that you abhorred just recently. Institutions that you revered yesterday you dismiss as corrupt today because they block you from grabbing power. There isn’t a single conservative principle you haven’t betrayed.

You might be thinking you’re not like the description above. You listen to different views. You don’t put a lot of stock in conspiracy theories. You can’t be expected to agree with everything the Republican Party stands for. Here again you’re kidding yourself. Believing a paler version of the falsehoods that extremists spread doesn’t make you reasonable. You remain loyal to the Republican Party despite the serious doubts you can barely acknowledge you have. In the past, you paid lip service to individual liberty while going along with the Republican herd. Now honor requires you act like a free individual. For the good of the country, summon the courage admit what you already know: you’re wrong.

The nice customer service rep would reapply the credit card, but a month or two later the same thing would happen. Finally, not knowing what to do, my mother asked me to try to fix this. I called two or three times. I explained the problem. I listed the times my mother and I had called and who we spoke to. I would ask them to fix the problem permanently, which they promised to do. But it kept happening.

You can imagine how alarming and frustrating this was—just when our attention was occupied with my father, we had to scramble to deal with a problem caused by the insurance company.

Finally, I wrote a letter to the company’s CEO, explaining the problem, all the times we had to call, and how this affected my parents. That did the trick. The problem was solved permanently. The monthly premiums were charged automatically to the credit card, and the company never threatened to cancel their insurance again.

This episode reveals two lessons Democrats should take to heart. First of all, they have to be clear what winning means. For us, winning didn’t mean getting the insurance premium paid for one month; it meant a permanent fix, getting monthly payments to occur automatically. Likewise, Democrats shouldn’t be satisfied with winning one or two elections. They should aim at winning a permanent majority so that they can implement policies and secure them from being nullified by Republicans.

Republicans losing doesn’t mean Democrats are winning.

If you’re over 50, you probably remember New Coke. In 1985, Coca-Cola retired its signature soda and replaced it with a new formula, New Coke. Coke drinkers refused to buy the product. Sales of rival Pepsi shot up. Coca-Cola retreated, apologizing to customers and restoring classic Coke. Ultimately, the publicity caused sales of classic Coke to go higher than they were before New Coke.

Like the cola market, two competitors dominate American politics. If supporters of one party are unhappy with its performance, they stay home on election day, and the other party, the only alternative, wins. That doesn’t mean the balance of power has shifted. Cokes drinkers didn’t become converts to Pepsi even if they drank Pepsi temporarily. They returned to Coke as soon as the company went back to its original formula. Similarly, the voters who stayed home will come back to the polls eventually.

Remember W.’s disastrous administration? We assumed Republicans wouldn’t nominate a lying, incompetent fool again for president because W. became so unpopular. After Democrats’ big win in the 2006 midterms and Obama’s win in 2008, we believed Democrats had regained a permanent majority. Then came the Tea Party in 2010 and Trump in 2016. After Trump’s first term, we assumed voters had learned their lesson and would never choose him again. Wrong again.

Now we’re expecting a big Democratic win in 2026 and likely a Democratic president in 2028. But just because voters don’t like Trump doesn’t mean they’ve become Democrats. Democrats focused wholly on the next election will pat themselves on the back for their wins and then be stunned when Republicans win big in 2030 and someone as bad as W. and Trump wins the presidency in 2032 or 2036.

Which leads me to the second big lesson from the episode of my parents’ health insurance company: You have to address the right audience with a message that will move them. The customer service reps my mother and I spoke to didn’t have the authority to order the technical staff managing the payment system to make a permanent fix. I needed to reach someone above both the IT department and the customer service department, namely, the CEO. He had the power to make people do what needed to be done to help my parents.

I wrote a letter designed to persuade a CEO. I documented the half dozen times my mother and I talked to customer service and what the results were. I showed the impact on my mother, how she couldn’t afford to take time away from caring for my father. And I said that my father was a combat veteran.

I painted a portrait of my parents’ situation anyone would sympathize with. I showed that the problem couldn’t be solved through the usual channels. If my parents had trouble with automatic payments, other customers probably had trouble, too. So customer satisfaction was at issue. And the company would look bad if my parents’ plight became public. Finally, the appeal worked on the CEO’s vanity—only you can help us (which was true). All of these factors helped the CEO decide that it was worth his time to intervene.

In the same way, Democrats must address the audience that has the power to give them a permanent majority—Republican voters. If Democrats could persuade as few as 5% of Republican voters to switch sides permanently, they would become the majority party. In the middle of the 20th century, Democrats were the majority party. Then a decisive slice of the electorate was persuaded to vote Republican. It’s not as if Americans are genetically programmed to be Republicans. Many Republicans can be persuaded to switch sides…with the right message.

A message that persuades Republicans to become Democrats would not sound like my letter to the CEO of the health insurance company. Republicans respond to different arguments and rhetoric. But like my letter, a message to Republicans will show them why they should switch sides by showing the impact on themselves and what they care about. And a winning message will play to their emotions (if not to their vanity). Democrats will carefully construct their message and pound it home over many years if they want to win in a meaningful way, not just win one or two elections whose results are easily reversed.

American democracy is in a big hole today because Democrats continue to misdiagnose Republican voters. Unless Democrats change the way they think about this problem, democracy and prosperity will slip away. To a man with a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. To rationalists, every problem can be solved with reason. That is the fatal mistake the left keeps making. Republican voters are not rational, not when it comes to politics. Until Democrats grasp the irrational forces driving Republicans’ pathological behavior, it will only get worse.

Another way to put it is that Republicans are not misinformed; they are delusional. Good answers to the policy questions debated today can be found in minutes by anyone who does a Google search and evaluates sources with a little critical intelligence. The vast majority of voters are capable of this. But Republican voters don’t do it, and when authorities like Justin Wolfers show them the right answer, they don’t believe it. This is not because Republicans are stupid. Rather, they are in the grip of powerful fantasies that prevent them from seeing reality.

Republican delusions aren’t hidden. They’re apparent in the way Republicans talk: us vs. them, makers and takers, Christians face repression, taxation is theft, government is the problem, George Soros, pedophile ring, drill baby drill, don’t tread on me, from my cold, dead hands, and so on. Why the persistence of these obviously absurd fantasies? No, it’s not the right-wing media universe and the propaganda spread by the rich. Republicans want to believe them. These delusions give them power to resist a world they don’t understand and changes they fear. When we try to educate Republicans, we are not simply asking them to substitute facts for falsehoods; we are asking them to alter their whole philosophy of life. They would rather believe the most impossibly complex conspiracy theory than accept a simple truth that contradicts their world view. Educating Republican voters is futile. So what can move Republicans?

Reflection. Thinking about the role right-wing fantasies play in their personal life. A conservative friend advises the top companies in the world on digital technology and business strategy. He relishes disruptive tech and creative destruction in the economy. He’s also terrified of Black Lives Matter, fearing that a violent mob of BLM protesters is going to show up at his house some day. I point out that 98% of BLM protests had no violence and that most of the violence in the other 2% was caused by conservative counter-protesters. These facts make no impression on him. Then I say, “How come you love revolutions in business and technology, but you’re afraid of mild social change?” He says, “I don’t know. I’ll have to think about that.” That is what we need Republicans to do.

The only way to break Republican delusions is to encourage self-reflection in Republican voters. Stop trying to educate them. Stop trying to debate the issues with them and arguing policy. Instead, turn the focus to Republican voters themselves and challenge them to look at their own ways of thinking about the world. Point out the inconsistencies in their behavior—they would never choose a plumber the way they choose a president. By reflecting on themselves, Republicans will be able to see their fantasies as fantasies and not reality, and move beyond them.

That’s what I think of when I turn on my phone every morning. Democratic officials and commenters swarm to the latest thing Trump does: DOGE! Tariffs! ICE! Healthcare! Shutdown! Pardons! Ballroom! Venezuela! Each development triggers a blizzard of Democratic tweets, blog posts, videos, news articles, interviews, analyses, histories—a huge amount of uncoordinated effort that scores few political points.

If you want to see how basketball should be played, watch the UConn women’s team, on track to win their 13th national championship. A casual viewer might think basketball is a game of small moves that UConn players are just a bit better at—a shooter lifts the ball two inches above the defender’s fingers, a defender plants her feet a split second before the ball handler arrives. But this is deceptive.

UConn wins championships because it has created structural advantages that other teams can’t match. Start with recruiting the best young players in the world. Why do they pick UConn rather than another school? UConn has a record of success. Players know the coaches will help them maximize their talent. And there’s tradition: recruits want to attend the same school as superstars like Sue Bird and Maya Moore. It took time to develop this reputation. Head coach Gino Auriemma arrived at UConn in 1985. It took six years to get into the Final Four for the first time and another four years to win the first championship.

UConn also has a coherent philosophy. Auriemma insists that the team comes before the individual player. UConn boasts some of the greatest basketball talent ever, but they all subordinated themselves to the team. UConn is one of the few teams that don’t have player names on its jersey.

UConn practices harder than most teams, for which the coach gets players’ buy-in. He recruits those who are not just talented but are also willing to do what it takes to win. The game might look improvised on TV, but it’s not. Players rehearse over and over again till plays become muscle memory. A UConn player is already halfway down the court ready to take a long pass and score an easy lay-up before her teammate has grabbed the rebound because they practice the fast break every day. In the half court offense, the players can whip the ball around to each other so quickly, despite them all moving constantly, because everyone knows where everyone else is supposed to go.

UConn has a strategy for every game. The coaches scout opponents’ strengths and weaknesses, and they know their own team’s strengths and weaknesses. They tailor a game plan to exploit them. UConn players watch film of opposing players to see their tendencies—for instance, spinning left in this situation or looking there for the outlet pass. So the UConn defender has herself set when the opponent turns or sticks out a hand to intercept an inbounds pass. What appear superhuman reflexes to a TV viewer is the result of study and anticipation.

OK, so what should Democrats do if they want to win championships like UConn? First, they need to develop their program patiently over many years. Stop responding desperately to everything Republicans do. Stop refashioning the Party in the image of every presidential nominee. Instead, decide what a Democratic championship team should look like and take whatever time is necessary to build it. The Party needs an enduring central committee that acts as a coach to keep everyone pointed toward the goal.

Second, Democrats must put the team first. The Party matters more than any individual politician or interest group. Obama was a talented politician, but when he left office, the Party was no stronger than before he arrived. And I despair when I hear activists demand that the Party support their cause or they’ll stay home on election day. That’s a surefire way to kill both the Party and their own cause.

Third, Democrats need to play with discipline and aggression. Instead of reacting to the latest Republican stupidity, Democrats must systematically advance their own storylines. How can the Party control the issues that voters care most about? How can Democrats frame voters’ perception of both parties?

Finally, for goodness sake, have a game plan that exploits the strengths and weaknesses of both parties. Recognize where Republicans are vulnerable—no, not in swing districts but in their mindset. Turn Republican strengths against them. Are Republicans loyal to their party? Depict them as belonging to a suicide pact. Are Democrats wishy-washy and fond of debate? Brag that this is the way serious people make serious decisions.

Or we could keep swarming Trump’s deranged tweets one after another. Sorry, Mr. Sturm.

That sounds like such a simple thing to ask for, but in fact it’s huge. I speak for millions of frustrated Democratic voters who wonder why their party always seems to be on the losing side of decisive issues when the Republican Party campaigns on lies and fantasies and proves to be incompetent when it wins power.

Why, after decades of Republican administrations ending in recessions and Democratic administrations ending in booms, do a majority of voters still believe Republicans are better at managing the economy?

Why, after Republican administrations one after the other bungle foreign policy and Democrats succeed, do voters respond to Republicans who talk tough?

Why, in a country built almost entirely of immigrants, do voters favor foolishly restrictive Republican policies rather than plainly sensible Democratic ones?

A list of all the issues that fit this pattern would be too long.

Sure, there are historical and cultural reasons why voters look at the world as they do, and there’s the powerful right-wing media universe to spread delusions. But at least as strong a factor is the short-sightedness of the Democratic Party.

The Democratic Party looks ahead only as far as the next election. After every election, the Party resets the countdown clock to two years and starts working to win the next one within the political parameters that exist at that time. Two years is not long enough to change the public’s long-standing views on any major issue, so Democrats don’t even try.

For example, Republicans have spent decades reinforcing free-market, small-government ideology in the public mind. Short-sighted Democrats try to finesse the issue. Yes, we believe in free markets; we just want to implement this affordable little social program, too. Voters won’t vote for me-too Democrats except when the Republican administration has made a hash out of the economy. Voters are throwing out a particular administration, not giving up the economic ideas that Republicans have cultivated in them for 50 years.

If Democrats had spent 10% of their effort over the last 40 or 50 years explaining why conservative economic ideas don’t work and promoting an accurate understanding of how public policy affects the economy, maybe the Democrats wouldn’t lose elections to incompetent Republicans who are demonstrably wrong about the economy.

My Christmas wish is that Democrats stop accepting the political terms dictated by Republicans and start doing the hard work of dictating terms themselves.

At Christmas you can wish for things you know you probably won’t get. I add that sobering thought because I look across the spectrum of Democratic leaders, from the old ones to the young ones, from the moderates to the liberals, from those in Congress to those in state houses, from established interest groups to new, energetic activists. I just don’t see anyone who is willing to play the long game by starting to reprogram the middle 20% of voters whose view of the world, by default, has been set by Republicans.

I wish everyone a restful holiday. See you next year.

1. How can I turn 5-10% of Republicans into Democrats?

2. If I lose, how can I shape the battlefield for next time?

How can I turn 5-10% of Republicans into Democrats? Most Democrats don’t even consider this possibility. The conventional wisdom is to mobilize Democratic voters and win over as many swing voters as possible by attacking Republican failures and repeating standard Democratic messages. That strategy always comes up short in deep red districts.

So what would you have to do to convert Republicans into Democrats? It’s hard. They’ve been voting Republican for years. They’re not going to realize on their own that you’re telling the truth. They don’t trust you, so you can’t flatter them into voting for you. They’ll dismiss standard attacks on Republicans as politics as usual. They’ll even rationalize voting for a Republican who’s obviously corrupt.

To make gains among Republican voters, you have to take the risk of breaking a cardinal rule in politics: don’t offend voters. But if you’re going to convert Republicans into Democrats, you must shock them out of their complacency first. Tell them point blank that their beliefs are wrong and that they’ve been suckers for voting Republican. Tell them they’ve betrayed their own values. Challenge them to have the courage to face the truth and the grace to admit they’re wrong.

You know that’s what needs to happen to rescue the country. Don’t hint around about it. Put it directly to Republican voters. Sure, maybe you’ll offend them. But they wouldn’t vote for you just because you’re nice and they like you personally. If you don’t take the risk of being blunt, you’re going to lose anyway.

If I lose, how can I shape the battlefield for next time? Maybe there’s nothing you can do to win this election, and this time Republicans are going to vote Republican no matter what. They’re not going to listen to you. But that doesn’t mean they don’t hear you. If you lose, what you want to happen is that Republican voters later realize you were right.

In other words, use your campaign to set benchmarks for measuring the success of the next Congress. After 2026, Republicans will still control the White House and possibly the Senate. They will cause chaos, bungle problems, and damage the economy. Of course, during the 2026 campaign, Republicans will promise that things will be great if they win. Ask voters to judge the two parties by results. “They say X. We say Y. Let’s see which one of us is right.”

Force Republicans to own the results. In 2028, you or another Democratic candidate can point back and say we were right and they were wrong. Republican voters who are honest with themselves will be open to what you have to say.

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“Some evangelicals believe Donald Trump was sent by God to do His work in the world. I agree. Donald Trump was sent by God to test the Republican Party. The Republican Party has failed God’s test.

God wanted to see:

• If there was anything Republicans wouldn’t do to hold onto power.

• If there was any bad behavior Republicans wouldn’t tolerate.

• If there was any of their own principles Republicans wouldn’t betray.

• If there was any lie Republicans wouldn’t swallow.

• If there was any crime Republicans wouldn’t excuse.

• If there was any incompetence Republicans wouldn’t overlook.

• If there was any responsibility Republicans wouldn’t evade.

• If there was any cruelty Republicans wouldn’t find acceptable.

• If there was any reality Republicans wouldn’t ignore.

• If there was any degradation Republicans wouldn’t undergo.

And now God has his answer. That answer is no. He found no limit to how low Republicans are willing to go. They nominated Donald Trump three times for president. They have supported him without question for 10 years. They tolerate no criticism of him within the Republican Party. God can only conclude that Republicans really mean it. Donald Trump is the clearest expression of who they are. He is the instrument sent by God to show the Republican Party for what it is.

So if you are not blind, if, with the eyes God gave you, you can see the many disasters Trump is wreaking on this country, you shouldn’t blame him. He is only doing what he has always done his whole career. No, you should blame the whole Republican Party, which insisted—three times!—that Trump was the leader it wanted. His disasters are really their disasters. The test is over. The results are clear. Now it’s time for you with your vote to give all Republicans the grade they deserve.”

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For sure, Democrats must shift from criticizing Trump to blaming the Republican Party, which supports him. But voters are used to hearing the parties criticize each other, and they discount most of it. Instead, Democrats should propose a benchmark for what Republicans must do to return to normal democratic politics. What changes in behavior should voters want from the Republican Party? What conditions must Republicans meet before people consider it safe to vote for them again? Here are five.

1. Stop lying. Lying is standard practice for Republicans. They lie on an industrial scale. Republicans must give up lying and acknowledge reality even when it contradicts their beliefs.

2. Leave right-wing media. Right-wing media is politically motivated, spreading disinformation and conspiracy thinking. Republicans must refuse to engage right-wing media and return to professional, non-partisan journalism and social media platforms that combat disinformation.

3. Abandon violence. Republicans use violent rhetoric against opponents, and conservatives are responsible for 70% of political violence. Republicans must work against right-wing violence, including disarming militias.

4. Kick out the fascists. The Republican Party cultivates the support of neo-Nazis, neo-confederates, and other far-right groups. Republicans must eject these groups from the Party, stop dog-whistling to those voters, and show no tolerance for their ideas.

5. Cap campaign donations. Even many Republicans see it’s not fair that one guy spends $100 million on a campaign while another guy can barely afford to donate $10. Republicans must support a low limit to the amount anyone can donate in a campaign season, and campaigns should make all donations public immediately.

These five conditions are more than just a political attack. They say nothing about Republican beliefs and policies but only about the way Republicans practice politics. These conditions try to rise above polarization and the daily back-and-forth of politics to furnish a measuring stick for what’s acceptable and unacceptable. They will sound simple and reasonable to most voters and the press. When Democrats introduce these terms, it will start a debate. If Democrats continue to reiterate them, voters will absorb them and judge the Republican Party by them, and the press will frame stories with them.

The conditions will also be hard for Republicans to accept. Republicans will ignore them, deny the complaints are true, claim Democrats are just as bad, and pretend they’re already meeting the conditions. The longer Republicans refuse to reform themselves, the weaker they’ll become politically.

But Democrats must set these conditions now, before large numbers of Republican voters become disillusioned. The list of terms must be already available to voters when they discover a need for them. The Democratic Party should announce these conditions formally, do the rounds with the media to publicize them, and continually refer back to them until they become familiar to everyone.

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Effective sound bites are simple, striking, and assertive. They crystallize perceptions that are vaguely forming in the public mind, or they offer a resolution to people’s worries. They undermine the beliefs of the other party and supercharge the confidence of one’s own party. Here are eight sound bites for Democrats, with brief explanations.

Republicans are wrong about everything. Republicans don’t understand how the world works. They reject reason and science. They scorn government. Consequently, every policy they’ve implemented in the last 25 years has turned into a disaster.

The Republican Party is a suicide pact. Republicans blindly support their leaders. When leaders enact bad policies, the whole party goes over the cliff with them. Today the most extreme leaders drive the party, which can no longer moderate its behavior.

Republicans are lying to themselves. Right-wing media spews lies, but Republicans choose to consume them—they aren’t being brainwashed against their will. They prefer to believe in fantasies than to admit they’re wrong. They lack self-awareness, projecting their own failings onto Democrats.

The Republican Party is on the verge of collapse. All of their ideas have failed, so party leaders whip up hysteria in a desperate attempt to keep their voters from seeing the truth and switching to the Democrats. The more hysterical Republicans become, the closer their voters get to this realization.

Democrats know the right things to do. Republicans stoke fear and chaos for everyone. People are exhausted. They know life doesn’t have to be like this. They want security and prosperity. Democrats have the right policies, and they are proven to deliver results.

Voting Republican costs you $15,000 a year. Democratic administrations far outperform Republican administrations in economic growth. If the economy had grown as fast under the last three Republican administrations as it did under the last three Democratic administrations, median household income would be $15,000 higher today.

We need more competition at the top. Republican and Democratic voters alike sense that the biggest companies and the wealthiest people dictate terms to everyone else. Over the last 45 years, there’s been vast consolidation at the top end of the market. More competition there would benefit both workers and small businesses.

Good government solves problems. Since the New Deal, we’ve seen many examples of an active government making people’s lives better and the country as a whole stronger and richer. Today Democrats are the only party with the ability to do this.

This collection of sound bites tells a coherent story. It explains why things have gotten so bad today and offers a path to prosperity. Democrats must repeat these lines in every speech, every interview, every social media post until the story becomes real to a segment of Republicans and independents who are dissatisfied but still stuck in a Republican mindset.

Believe in your product. This familiar saying doesn’t mean telling people that the product itself is good. It means showing people how the product will make their lives better—“people” in an expansive sense. Today, Democrats say things like, “The ACA has given healthcare to 25 million people,” out of a population of 340 million. In other words, there are 315 million who think, “This has nothing to do with me.” Democrats should sell the ACA to people who don’t use it. How does it benefit them? People who are healthy show up at work, produce more, earn more, and spend more. That spending goes into the pockets of everyone else.

There’s something else, too. I thought it went without saying, but after yesterday’s cave-in by the 8 Democratic Senators, I guess I need to say it: You have to at least act like you believe in your product. If you treat policies like things that poll well and can get you elected but back away from them when the going gets rough, voters won’t trust you to sell them anything.

Don’t offer discounts. When you see someone looking at your product, hesitating to buy, it’s tempting to offer a discount. But that signals you don’t think your product is worth the full price, and maybe even the discounted price is too high. Hold firm. If prospects need the product, they will pay full price; if they don’t, they probably won’t buy even at a discount. This is the trap Democrats fall into. They propose a great policy. While the country hesitates, “moderates” offer a discount—how about if we do this on a smaller scale and for a shorter time? Consequently, the policy makes less of an impact on people’s well being, so there’s a smaller constituency willing to fight for it.

Ask for the sale. A prospect shows up at your shop, looks at your merchandise, asks you questions. Then they stand there wondering what to do. A good salesman puts the question directly: “Can I ring that up for you?” More people in red states benefit from Democratic policies than in blue states. Democrats are aware of this, but they seldom go to red areas to ask for the sale. They need to start doing this. Go in front of Republican audiences, even hostile ones, and ask for their support. Democrats will make more progress by convincing 5% of red voters than by mobilizing blue voters, who already incline toward Democratic policies.

Next time I’ll say more about attitude, a critical part of convincing voters.

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The Republican Party is made up of several factions (evangelicals, national security hawks, pro-business, and so on), but they all share four ways of thinking about themselves in relation to the world. If Democrats can invalidate these habits of thinking, they will disorient Republicans and lure some of them away.

Conservative. Republicans want to preserve or restore America as it was supposedly at its peak. They must protect the country from liberals, who want to push the country “too far.”

How to attack: The underlying model here is that America progressed until it reached perfection—when the Republican was young or some time in the past that can’t be specified. Of course, this model is sentimental and absurd, and Democrats should mock Republicans for trying to tell history to stop. When voters recognize the conservative view as a fantasy, they will discount Republican arguments based on it.

Values. Republicans believe that they are successful or will be saved or have otherwise attained a higher standing in the world because of what they believe and how they live their lives. Others are poor or going to hell or otherwise have a lower standing in the world because they have the wrong values.

How to attack: Democrats can crack Republicans’ self-righteousness and “us vs. them” attitude in two ways. First, spotlight how selective Republican beliefs are. For example, where are evangelicals when it comes to poverty, lack of healthcare, climate change, and numerous other problems that kill people? They don’t really believe in a right to life. Second, remind Republicans how dependent they are on others. Are they well off? It’s because millions of other Americans work to be able to afford what their company sells.

Government. Republicans think that government threatens their freedom. They view taxes and regulations as infringements on individual liberty, and they believe the government is the captive of “special interests” that secretly exercise power.

How to attack: Remind Republicans it’s their government, not some alien creature. Government is what ensures order and guarantees freedom. Without government, there’d be chaos. In a democracy, everyone is a special interest. Everyone contributes to and receives benefits from the government. It’s bad faith and undermines freedom and prosperity to expect to get your benefits and deny benefits to others while minimizing your contribution.

Realist. Republicans believe that they understand the world better than others. They focus on the most important issues. They know how the economy works. They have the toughness to protect national security. And so on. Liberals are too wishy-washy to make hard-headed decisions.

How to attack: Point to the long record of failure of Republican policies. When there’s a Republican administration, the economy weakens and falls into recession. Republicans’ military-first approach to national security leaves the U.S. weaker with fewer allies. And so on.

Relentlessly attack these four components of the Republican mindset rather than Republicans personally. For example, don’t simply point out when a Republican is being hypocritical. Say that what he believes is wrong, it doesn’t work and even he recognizes it or he’d be more consistent. Force Republicans to face the failure of their world view.

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