This slap in the face to rural America is a chance to turn it blue - Andy Beshear WaPo
As we watch the consequences of the Trump presidency play out in real time, Democrats face a critical inflection point. We must meet this moment with urgency and focus — and with the clear and tangible vision it requires. Democrats won huge victories up and down the ballot this month. We won statewide in Georgia, held the Supreme Court in Pennsylvania, broke the supermajority in the Mississippi State Senate and took two gubernatorial elections by double-digit margins. In New Jersey and Virginia, Mikie Sherrill and Abigail Spanberger won by relentlessly focusing on the pocketbook pressures families across our country are facing.
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Tackling affordability is not enough. To truly lead again, Democrats must be the party of aspiration. When I look at our country, what worries me is the widespread belief that the American Dream is unattainable, even dead. This is the same American Dream — the promise that if you work hard and play by the rules, you can get ahead — that has inspired generations and lifted America to great heights. This concern transcends party lines. Families know how much their grocery and utility bills have gone up, and how unaffordable rent or the mortgage is getting. But they also know that the vacation they took as children has slipped out of reach. Democrats should be the party that will make it possible to build a better life — one in which you’re not just making ends meet but setting your family up for long-term success.
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Trump has given Democrats a huge opening. He is making it so much harder for people to even get by. During the government shutdown, he was willing to use the hunger of Americans — including children and seniors — as a bargaining chip. It was cruel and wrong, and, importantly, it backfired. His One Big Ugly Bill will kick 17 million Americans, including 200,000 Kentuckians, off their health care and threatens to close 35 rural hospitals in the state, and 338 nationwide. His tariffs are jacking up prices across the board — for no reason.
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That’s part of what Democrats can do to win in the areas that have been slipping away. Another is to start talking like normal human beings again. We’re not going to win the messaging battle if we say that Trump’s policies make people “food insecure.” No, they make people hungry. Kentucky was hit hard by the opioid epidemic. I didn’t lose friends and acquaintances to “substance use disorder”; I lost them to addiction. Addiction is hard, it’s mean, and it kills people. So when people triumph over it, we should give them the credit they deserve by calling it what it is.
Finally, we have to start communicating our “why.” For me, it’s my faith. I vetoed the nastiest piece of anti-LGBTQ legislation in the country knowing full well that the Republicans in the Kentucky legislature passed it to use in an election year. But tens of millions of dollars of misleading attack ads against me didn’t work. Why? Because I gave Kentuckians the respect of explaining my veto — that I believe all children are children of God and that I didn’t think the legislature should be picking on vulnerable kids. Democrats are good at explaining our “what.” Let’s get good at explaining our “why.”
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