Democrats Need to Learn How to Take Credit and How to Blame

Republicans do it with lies. So why can’t Democrats do it with the truth?

Written by Ben Meiselas

Why are Democrats so afraid to take credit for their successes?

Even going back to when they originally passed Obamacare, they refused to celebrate it for more than a day, and then ran away from that historic accomplishment.

More recently, despite President Biden and Democrats passing the Infrastructure Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, the CHIPS Act, the PACT Act, and the American Rescue Plan, I barely heard Democrats take credit for these things. Instead, Republicans who voted against these laws showed up at ribbon-cutting ceremonies and pretended they supported them. Democrats would mock the Republicans for taking credit for things they voted against, but most voters were none the wiser.

By and large, voters aren’t paying attention to how the sausage of legislation is made. They literally need to be told over and over who to give credit to when things go well and who to blame when things go badly. It’s pretty simple.

Here’s another example. Under President Biden, the stock market set dozens of record highs. The Dow, the NASDAQ, and the S&P hit records that likely meant most Americans saw increases in their 401(k)s or other retirement accounts. Unless I was wearing noise-canceling headphones at the time, I almost never heard Democrats taking credit for this.

Compare this to Trump, who took credit for minor stock market gains even during the worst days of the pandemic—between historic market crashes.

Seriously, why weren’t Democrats taking credit for turning the calamity handed to them by Trump in 2020 into an economic miracle? What am I missing here?

I understand that people were and are struggling to pay bills and that inflation was a real problem. But it wasn’t Biden’s fault. Biden fixed the issues caused by Trump. Why did Democrats let Republicans set the narrative that Biden did what Trump did and Trump did what Biden did? It’s crazy to me.

Are Democrats so afraid to offend voters that they don’t take credit for their accomplishments and allow themselves to get blamed by Republicans, thus offending voters anyway?

Democrats don’t set the political discourse; they react to the framework of discourse set by Fox News and Republicans. Call me naive, but I just don’t think this is all that complicated.

Here’s what Democrats need to do: Take credit for their successes and blame Republicans for their failures every single day. Yes. Every. Single. Day.

Democrats delivered real gains for workers. An actual manufacturing boom took place under Biden—the kind Trump promised but failed to deliver. Take credit for it. Give it a name.

Say we are living in the “Golden Age of Manufacturing.” Call it the “Manufacturing Miracle.” Call it the “Wonder of the Worker.” Heck, call it anything cool or inspiring, but just take credit for it. Own your accomplishments. Be loud and proud. Be cocky and confident about it.

“We did it! They screwed you! We’ve got your backs!” Spike the damn football in the end zone. Set the narrative. Set the tone.

At the same time, blame the Republicans for their failures. Starting in January 2021, Democrats could have held fireside chats (or podcasts) with the American people showing how they were cleaning up Trump’s mess. Make a scorecard of how Trump’s disasters are being cleaned up so Americans could follow along. Blame the Republicans for their systemic failures. Keep it simple.

If you’ve listened to my podcasts lately, you’ve heard me say, “Always be campaigning,” or ABC. In today’s digital age, you always have to be in campaign mode. You can’t wait until an election year. Your ABC campaign message has to be consistent and repeated over and over. You have to take credit, make bold promises you can deliver, and loudly blame the other side for the problems they caused.

We can all wish for the days when politics didn’t require self-promotion of successes, and people simply understood on their own who to give credit to and who to blame. But that’s not the world we live in now.

In the absence of honest self-promotion of accomplishments, the void will be filled by dishonest usurpation of your hard work by others for nefarious ends. Trump and MAGA saw that void and exploited it.

Even though it’s too late to implement these lessons for the 2024 election, these teachings are existential to the Democratic Party going forward—especially as Trump and MAGA move to destroy democracy over the next four years. Democrats have two years to set the record straight, proudly remind Americans of their actual legacy of success, and blame Trump for the failures he is about to inflict—and is already inflicting.