Democrats' Strategy: Shut Up and Clap Louder

There was a time during the GW Bush Administration where it became obvious that the President's foreign policy was falling apart: no weapons of mass destruction, no connection between Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, no real justification for the men and women who lost their lives and/or their livelihood. 

Domestic policies (trying to convince people to invest their Social Security in the Stock Market, Hurricane Katrina response) wasn't fairing any better.

Facing what would later be know as a blue wave (before the media claimed what happened in 2018 one) the GOP decided to implement the "Shut Up and Clap Louder" strategy. It was basically, "Ignore reality, claim that the policy (or policies) help(s) to make the country better, and praise the President at every opportunity."

Flash forward to now, where President Biden is bleeding at the polls, and the Democrats are seemingly employing the same strategy.

Instead of acknowledging the broken campaign promises, we're being told that Biden is some progressive reincarnation of FDR (NOPE). We're being told that  an increasingly trimmed bill that was intended to "build back better" will still help a lot of people (NOPE). We're being told that leaving Afghanistan was a foreign policy game-changer (NOPE).

And now Democrats are telling their "progressive" wing (aka, the Party's sheepherders and PR agents) to just act like everything is going according to plan:

Democratic leadership advised House progressives behind closed doors Monday night that they better start acting like they are getting a major win even if the reality is that President Joe Biden's signature domestic infrastructure plan seems on the verge of "being gutted beyond recognition" thanks to an aggressive assault by corporate lobbyists and the obstructionism of a small handful of right-wing lawmakers within the party.

"If we don't act like we are winning, the American people won't believe it either," House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) told Democrats during a private meeting, according to Politico.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also suggested that spinning the current situation—one in which an initial $6 trillion ambition to invest in the nation's crumbling physical infrastructure and care economy over ten years has reportedly been reduced by relentless corporate pressure down to something between $1.5 and $2 trillion—will be necessary.

After Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.)—both in their own way but also with the backing of huge sums of campaign donations from Wall Street, Big Pharma, the right-wing Koch network, and the fossil fuel industry—have stood against the ambitions and popular policies embraced by the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC), Pelosi suggested to her members Monday that it was time to admit that the corporate influence campaign has won the game.

"Embrace this," Pelosi reportedly said during the same closed-door meeting. "And have a narrative of success."

A real shame that their best idea is to play Make Believe. The Democrats can try to obfuscate Biden's fallings and ignore criticism as much as they want, but it won't help them get many votes.