Actually, Panic Looks Good on Democrats 

It’s time to ditch the playbook and forget about ‘the narrative’

As President Biden talks to donors and advisors about whether to stay on the ticket, and other less-employed former Democratic officials appear on TV to ask him to get off it, here is my question: Which of these people are the advisors who told President Obama he should not tell anyone about the Russian interference in the 2016 election? 

Because the Democrats should do the opposite of whatever those people said. 

Do you remember this? In the summer of 2016 the president received intelligence that the Russian government was trying to influence the election through fake social media campaigns. The Internet Research Agency, a Russian troll farm, planned and promoted Trump events. Obama learned about all this and decided to keep it quiet because he didn’t want it to seem like the U.S. government was trying to influence the election. When the administration couldn’t get GOP senators to go along, they mostly hushed it up. 

In sum: The president hid the truth from Americans and allowed the election interference to continue. Obama chose a policy based on how it looked rather than whether it protected the American people and their government. 

That didn’t work out great. 

As the media continues to discuss Biden’s bad debate performance, I am reminded of this example. Although everyone agrees that Biden got better as the debate went along, every Democrat not associated with the campaign chimed in on social media about how Biden managed to look old after his campaign had promised he would not look old. David Plouffe, a former official, called the moment “Defcon 1”: Democratic officialdom in panic mode. 

And Democratic officialdom hates to be in panic mode. The Democratic Party loves to seem on top of things and in-command, even when they are behind in the polling. 

The Republican Party, on the other hand, does not care. At this point they more or less say whatever they want. Witness their ability to not impeach President Trump in 2021 by saying that Trump should be tried by the courts and not the Senate—followed by their ability today to argue that the president must be tried by the Senate and not the courts. 

But Democrats want the messaging to be perfect and sweet. When it is not, they cringe. They are more worried that Biden looked old (he sounded hoarse!) than they are on focusing on Biden’s many achievements. Democrats care too much about how things sound rather than whether they are true. This was the root of Obama’s catastrophic 2016 miscalculation.

This is doubly odd because Democrats seem not to have noticed that things have changed. Donald Trump and the Republicans say very random, unscripted, untrue, dangerous things—and it usually doesn’t affect their numbers. Americans are very, very tired of scripted messaging. People think Donald Trump tells the truth because he does not sound scripted. In fact, Trump lies—he lied frequently in the debate—but he sounds like he’s cutting through red tape as he does so. It is what makes his lies so dangerous. 

And yet Democrats remain convinced that if they could just get the right message, the right fundraising, the right candidate, everything would fall into place. This was the strategy when many Democrats in 2016 raised alarms about Hillary’s candidacy. To no avail: The Clinton campaign felt determined to present an air of strength and inevitability. When Democrats panicked after her missteps, we were angrily told by campaign staffers not to worry. That sense of security and inevitability may not have directly caused her loss, but it didn’t help. 

Yet Democrats still cling to the idea that they can control the narrative. The wiser among us realized long ago this is impossible with Trump. 

In fact, Democrats seem to run better when their political advisors are scared and discombobulated. Consider 2020, when anger with Trump’s pandemic mismanagement and support of police brutality exploded into national protests. Democrats split on questions of whether to support the protests, whether statues of Confederates and Columbus should remain standing, and over how to respond to Trump’s violent dispersals of protesters. In 2022 Democrats pollsters howled when Biden sounded the alarm over American democracy, calling it a terrible move that would never resonate with the public. Except it did resonate, and what had been a predicted Republican rout turned into a tactical Democratic victory. 

I am not saying that Democrats should ask Biden to step down. I am saying that it is fine if they consider it. I am saying that they need to think about what is best for the nation before they consider what is best for the narrative. Narratives are not the same thing as truth. 

Democrats need to jettison their fetish for narrative. If Biden stays on the ticket, he needs to throw out the rulebook and keep the GOP guessing. Call Congress back into session in August and demand the GOP pass a border policy. What? say the advisors. August is when we fundraise! That’s when the Democratic Convention is! Yes, it is. You can do both. Go ahead and make the GOP work for a living. Make them attack border security in July and then vote against it in August. Have President Biden issue an executive order on student debt every single day. But a conservative court knocked it down! So they did. Issue the orders and let them be overturned—one order a day and one overturn a day, to let young voters know that student debt is a con job and Biden won’t stand for it. Get serious about adding more justices to the Supreme Court. But we might make people nervous! Yes, you might. But when six Supreme Court justices declare that the president is above the law, we’re already pretty nervous. An eleven-justice court is completely constitutional—and when American freedom is threatened, Democrats have to show they are ready to respond. People will vote Democratic when Democrats shoot straight. The Supreme Court’s decision is tyrannical and un-American. So tell people what you’ll do about it. 

And while you’re at it, end all the expensive dinners for donors. Biden’s a hamburger guy—let them eat hamburgers and save money for the campaign.  

Every person committed to the idea of equality before the law and against autocracy knows the Democrats must win this election. And the Democrats can still win this election. But they cannot manage this election—and they never could. It is my prayer that the president and his advisors understand this. 

If they don’t, they should find the people who told Obama to bet the election on not telling Americans the truth and do the opposite of what those chumps suggest. That might be a good start. 

Adam Jortner is the Goodwin-Philpott Professor of History at Auburn University, and the author of Audible’s anniversary series, The Hidden History of the Boston Tea Party.  

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