How D.C. Works

What's the reality of Washington? I interview an anonymous progressive lobbyist.

“The key is just to get started.”

“People seem to think that we all just sit around having three-martini lunches at upscale restaurants with elected officials while we all share a laugh together as we throw trillions of taxpayer dollars into a firepit in the name of Satan.”

“The system is designed to give more power to wealthy people. But there are methods that people can use to offset wealthy donors’ influence.”

“There are lots of opportunities—everyone should get involved in politics.”

D.C. has to change—your fate depends on that, my fate depends on that, and everyone else’s fate depends on that. We need Washington to lead the way toward rapid decarbonization before we self-terminate—we also need Washington to pursue international cooperation instead of omnicidally wasteful and dangerous conflict.

See below my interview with an anonymous progressive lobbyist. I edited the interview for flow, organized the interview by topic, and contributed some hyperlinks—the interviewee contributed some hyperlinks too. 

This is my first interview where the interviewee is anonymous. It’s fun to publish an anonymous interview—the anonymity reminds me of the 1976 thriller All the President’s Men:

The 1976 thriller contains the famous phrase “Follow the money”. And this is—like I write in my 29 June 2022 piece—exactly what you need to do in order to figure out how D.C. operates.

Getting Started

1) What are the best ways for people to become politically active? For example, I know that there’s a neat website that allows Americans to contact their legislators. 

The best way is to: 

• (A) figure out which issues you’re passionate about

• (B) figure out which existing groups you can get involved with

Many groups have already formed channels of communication with elected officials, so that makes it extremely easy for you to get involved—you just join those groups and then you immediately have a way to influence elected officials. 

Regarding climate change, there’s a useful list that identifies the various relevant groups.

You just have to find out which issues you’re passionate about. Because once you do that you’ll be amazed at how many advocacy groups you’ll be able to find that are working on those issues—there’s an organization or association advocating for just about anything imaginable. 

I even met someone who worked for the American Sugarbeet Growers Association—I learned a lot that day.

2) What can people do right this instant in order to start the whole process of becoming politically active? I guess that starting that process is the most important thing, right? 

The key is just to get started. The Obama campaign used an “escalation model”, which worked like a charm—they started activists out with something basic like knocking doors and then got the activists to take ownership of larger and larger projects as the activists became more engaged with politics.

It’s an important first step to make sure that you know who your elected officials are at all levels. Just go to that neat website that you mentioned—that site will tell you who your state legislators and federal legislators are. 

The more local an elected official is, the easier it is to get their attention—contrary to popular belief, officials actually enjoy hearing from constituents living in their area as long as you’re respectful toward them. I recommend that people introduce themselves to their state officials with no agenda in mind—just email them or phone them, or even just go and visit them.

And you can do the same regarding your representatives’ local offices and your senators’ local offices—these officials won’t be as available for chitchat, but they do use your voice as a benchmark for where they’re at with their constituents on certain issues. These officials will take your opinions more seriously once they know who you are.

State legislators are usually very accessible—they usually lack the money for staffers. Just go make these introductions—it’s easy and fun.

Then figure out the answers to (A) and (B)—the answers to the two questions that I mentioned in my previous answer. 

I wouldn’t recommend donating money unless you have a lot of it—donations will only get you somewhere if you’re in the top percentiles of donation totals. But you can make yourself known and heard without donating.

D.C.’s Machinery

1) What does the public not understand about the way that D.C. works? 

People seem to think that we all just sit around having three-martini lunches at upscale restaurants with elected officials while we all share a laugh together as we throw trillions of taxpayer dollars into a firepit in the name of Satan. And there’s a tiny grain of truth to that—for example, there are a lot of alcoholics in this town. 

But I despise the—mostly conservative—talking point about government workers being lazy leeches. It’s true that there are plenty of leeches in this town, but the people working on Capitol Hill work insanely long hours day in and day out, are constantly talking to people, are constantly attending events, are constantly advocating their messages to various individuals, and are often woefully underpaid—it’s not uncommon on the Hill to start your day at 7:00AM and end your day at midnight. 

And congressional staffers have it really bad—they take a lot of verbal abuse and often receive extremely little pay. Death threats are so common for some congressional staffers that they’ll make jokes about it at dinners and parties.

I can guarantee you that most people who claim that “D.C. swamp rats” are lazy wouldn’t last one week under the dome. 

One of my coworkers retired recently—he was our main lobbyist and worked on some of our largest clients. I didn’t ever work with him, but some of my coworkers remarked that they saw him smile for the first time ever after he announced his retirement—they’d never seen him smile before. 

2) What would surprise people about the way that D.C. works? 

It shook me to my core to find out just how cliquey everything is—it’s like high school all over again except on a grander scale and with real stakes involved. People might stab you in the back even if you’re on their side regarding the issue in question—maybe they don’t like you or they see you as a threat or maybe it’s a “bad look” optically to be working with you. Anything you say or do can and will be used against you in this town—when I first started lobbying, one of my coworkers said to me “Trust nobody but yourself, and even then, verify”.

My first day on the Hill was one of the most nerve-wracking experiences of my life—there are a ton of people everywhere, and everyone’s getting lobbied to some degree, and you have no clue where to start, and there are 435 members of the House each with their own staffers, and there are 100 senators each with their own staffers as well. You get used to the Hill after a while, but it’s overwhelming when you walk around lobbying for the first time—nothing can prepare you for the insanity and the commotion and the chaos. 

3) How does lobbying work? I don’t understand how you can have a system where you pay people money and then those people bend politicians’ will in your favor—it sounds inherently corrupt and undemocratic and wrong. 

As a lobbyist, you try to get elected officials to vote the way whatever interest group you’re working for wants. 

Lobbying is about efficiency—there are 330 million people in the US and billions of people around the world, so there has to be an organized way for the countless sectors out there to have collective voices on the matters that affect them. Just like everyone has a legal right to an attorney, pretty much any group has de facto access to lobbyists. 

So lobbying isn’t inherently evil—it’s a tool for advocating your interests to members of Congress. 

4) There’s one obvious respect in which lobbying is undemocratic, namely that those with more money can hire more lobbyists—and more effective lobbyists—than people with less money. So that’s undemocratic. But there’s another undemocratic phenomenon where wealthy interests make campaign contributions to politicians and then gain exclusive and privileged access to those politicians—what do you make of this “pay-to-play” phenomenon where donations give you special access? 

There’s an excellent article about lobbying that everyone should read. The article explains that lobbyists “raise gobs of money for elected officials” and “write laws themselves” and “effectively bribe members of Congress with lucrative job offers”; that politicians “who walk through the revolving door are in for a massive raise”; that “many elected officials go on to take what are effectively revolving door lobbying jobs without ever having to officially register as lobbyists”; and that researchers “estimate that there’s actually twice as much lobbying as what’s publicly disclosed”. 

Lobbyists typically don’t donate to candidates—the client already donates. 

But contract lobbyists⁠—who don't work for a specific client—will donate to candidates in order to maintain a certain status and in order to be seen as worth a lot of their clients’ money. Contract lobbyists—and their lobbying firms—will fundraise for politicians through multiple methods in order to advance the clients’ interests. And a contract lobbyist will sometimes introduce the candidate to the clients—or to the billionaire—through hosting PAC fundraisers or through other means.

Billionaires donate to politicians—sometimes politicians even seek out a billionaire donor instead of the reverse. And billionaires usually vet the politician carefully enough to feel confident that the politician is on the right track, although sometimes billionaires will set up a relationship between the politician and the billionaires' lobbyists. 

The more you donate to a candidate, the more access you have to the candidate down the road. And there’s no question that this pay-to-play phenomenon heavily skews the power dynamic toward those with the deepest pockets.

You could ban lobbyists from fundraising for politicians—that’s the most commonsensical solution to this pay-to-play aspect. But that solution hasn’t gained any traction in D.C. for obvious reasons—D.C. politicians get rich from fundraising and have no incentive to harm their own bottom line. 

Donations translate into access because candidates—or their staffers—make sure to pick up the phone if a significant donor calls. And sometimes the politician might even take the initiative and reach out to you if you’ve made a significant donation. 

Those lines of communication can turn into in-person meetings. 

And politicians will also host dinners at which donors are sorted into tiers—these donors gain behind-closed-doors access through donating. You may recall the infamous incident where Mitt Romney made some damaging comments at a behind-closed-doors event and a member of the wait staff secretly recorded it: 

Anyone can reach out to an elected official—or to their staffers—and manage to talk to the elected official.

But lobbyists have relationships. And those relationships can arise thanks to donations from companies or even from the lobbyist themselves—the more you donate to the politician, the more you get that special access that others lack. 

People who lack money have to build connections through showing up to as many events—and fundraisers—as possible. The more connections you build, the more you’ll get access to lawmakers. 

And corporations have a lot of resources and will donate to numerous candidates through PACs and Super PACs. And corporations have—like you indicate—the resources to hire the best lobbying talent on the Hill. 

The system is designed to give more power to wealthy people. But there are methods that people can use to offset wealthy donors’ influence. 

One method is that you can generate enough grassroots outrage that they see no choice but to vote the way their constituents want—grassroots engagement can defeat corporate special interests. There was an example of this in Seattle where Amazon outspent the grassroots and still lost the battle—Amazon had unlimited money and yet the grassroots still won. 

And another method is soft power. To give you a story from my career, we somehow managed to defeat a coalition of special-interest groups once thanks to my colleague’s ability to cultivate superior relationships with the relevant elected officials—there was a lot of money on the other side and there were a lot of groups on the other side, so it amazed me when I learned about that victory.

So it’s possible to defeat wealthy interests if you use the right tactics and strategies.

5) What do you think about Lee Drutman’s 2015 book The Business of America Is Lobbying? Look at the description for the book: 

Corporate lobbyists are everywhere in Washington. Of the 100 organizations that spend the most on lobbying, 95 represent business. The largest companies now have upwards of 100 lobbyists representing them. How did American businesses become so invested in politics? And what does all their money buy? Drawing on extensive data and original interviews with corporate lobbyists, this book provides a picture of what corporations do in Washington, why they do it, and why it matters. Prior to the 1970s, very few corporations had Washington offices, but changing political conditions mobilized business leaders. Ever since, corporate lobbying has become increasingly pervasive, proactive, and particularistic. The book argues that lobbyists drove this development, helping managers to see why politics mattered, and how proactive and aggressive engagement could help companies’ bottom lines. All this lobbying doesn’t guarantee influence. Politics is a messy and unpredictable bazaar, and it is more competitive than ever. But the growth of lobbying has driven several important changes that make business more powerful. Among these include that the status quo is harder to dislodge; policy is more complex; and, as Congress increasingly becomes a farm league for K Street, more and more of Washington’s policy expertise now resides in the private sector.

So it’s amazing to think about how many corporate lobbyists are swarming around. 

I actually haven’t read this book yet. But I should read it—people have recommended it to me. 

Corporations lobby aggressively and proactively and strategically in order to boost their bottom lines—Drutman seems to have a good understanding of the issues that the US faces regarding lobbying. 

6) A couple years ago I heard that business forces outspend labor 34:1 on the lobbying front but only 7:1 on the PAC front—34:1 and 7:1 are very different ratios, so do business forces view lobbying as the better investment? 

Corporations understand that policy battles aren’t actually won at the ballot box and that the more important battles happen between elections—it’s one thing to promise voters something and a totally different thing to deliver. 

Primaries are important and elections are important. 

But these things constitute more of a gamble for wealthy interests, whereas unelected lobbyists are a constant—lobbyists will always be 100% focused on the mission and will do their best with whatever cards they’ve been dealt electorally. Funding a candidate means that the candidate might lose or fail to follow through for you, but lobbyists are—in contrast—a reliable constant in Washington. 

7) What do you think about the 19 June 2019 article about how D.C.’s “revolving door” works? Here’s an excerpt: 

“What we’re talking about here is hiring someone not just for their expertise but also their network and knowledge of how the process works and what levers to pull—their knowledge of what has occurred and what debates have happened,” said Dan Auble, senior researcher at OpenSecrets (which published its own report on members of Congress who recently joined law and lobbying firms).

I think that that’s an interesting comment from Auble. 

The comment is 100% correct.

Money is important when it comes to accessing elected officials, but relationships seal the deal. The most effective lobbyists have accumulated a lot of D.C. social capital—this accumulation often happens through working for an elected official at some point, since that means that you get introduced to a lot of people. Will a person be more inclined to listen to (1) a former coworker they play golf with and feel comfortable texting or calling any time with questions or (2) some random stranger who left a message with a staffer? 

And a lobbyist can definitely leverage insider knowledge about the history of an issue and about the past debates around an issue—that knowledge allows you to fight back against your adversaries’ talking points more effectively, identify which lawmakers are being squirrely so that you can apply pressure to those lawmakers, get a lawmaker to support a bill through telling them about another lawmaker’s undisclosed support for that bill, and so on and so forth. 

8) How do unelected lobbyists gain control over politicians? 

Lobbyists strongly influence members of Congress, but only a rare few lobbyists actually have control over politicians. 

Lawmakers can feel beholden to a lobbyist if they know that the lobbyist can: 

• raise tons of money for the lawmaker

• secure vital endorsements that will land the lawmaker massive donations

• hook the lawmaker up with a lucrative job that the lawmaker can enjoy after leaving office

So you can see how an element of control can creep into things. 

When it comes to influencing lawmakers, good lobbyists know when to bring in grassroots efforts that can: 

• offer fresh perspectives 

• offer human perspectives

• get away from the tired old talking points that a lawmaker has heard over and over and that the lawmaker disagrees with 

• put additional pressure on the lawmaker—the more the lawmaker trusts the grassroots people, the better 

• make the lawmaker worry about going against their constituents

• make the lawmaker worry about getting primaried 

But you have to be careful about using the grassroots—you don’t want someone to give the lawmaker the wrong message and you don’t want someone to discredit your cause with bad optics. 

And when it comes to influencing lawmakers, the best lobbyists know how to: 

• portray a policy proposal as commonsensical

• advocate for a policy proposal using simple terms

• advocate for a policy proposal using human terms

• take all of the facts and data and talking points and boil it all down to a simple 30-second or 60-second explanation, since elected officials are constantly bombarded with all sorts of messaging—the more concise, the better

• get a sense of what the hesitations are regarding a bill and how to exploit—or alleviate—those hesitations

• explain how a bill could negatively or positively affect the elected official’s reputation—reputation is everything in D.C. 

• show the elected official why they’re correct on an issue—they don’t necessarily know why they’re correct on an issue—and lay out a path to victory on the legislative front

• show the elected official why they were wrong to vote for a bill—sometimes they already know that they messed up—and give them an “exit strategy” that allows them to kill or neuter the bill without having to publicly admit that they messed up

And I should mention that emotional intelligence is important in lobbying—D.C. is a very status-driven place. 

9) Do the lobbyists who have more power to influence politicians charge more? I assume that you get what you pay for in terms of influence.

Yes. 

The best lobbyists will charge their clients a fortune, are swamped—pun intended—with requests from various potential clients, typically have more than 75 different clients, and could easily have more than 250 different clients. Many corporations have more money than God and will pay whatever it takes to get the job done—some lobbyists will charge $15,000 or more for a retainer and will charge $50,000 a month for their work. Top-tier lobbyists who work for a firm—instead of doing contracts—will typically receive strong six-figure salaries.

10) Why exactly are the fancy lobbyists more able to influence the politicians than the cheaper lobbyists are? 

The higher-end lobbyists typically bring three things to the table that others don’t have—experience, reputation, and relationships. 

As for experience, it’s advantageous if a lobbyist: 

• has been around for a long time

• knows the ins and outs of how to game the system

• knows which buttons to press with elected officials

• has extremely good knowledge of what the battlefield looks like on any given policy

• can effectively “power map” the groups that they can rally to support their client’s cause 

• knows how to quell opponents who might sabotage the legislation that their client wants to get through Congress

• has enough experience to not waste time meeting with the wrong people

• knows exactly who they need to talk to

• knows which information will resonate

• is always one step ahead 

• has great procedural knowledge

• knows a wide variety of policies inside and out 

• can communicate policies that newer lobbyists can’t

So these things are all important.

As for reputation, it takes many forms in D.C.—some of the best lobbyists are feared and some of the best lobbyists are loved, whereas the fanciest lobbyists walk along a fine line of being simultaneously feared and loved.

Everything changes in D.C. once you reach the stage where nobody feels the need to ask “What do you do?” when you walk into a room—people will move mountains for you once you reach that stage, since they think that doing favors for you and giving you that treatment will cause you to give them an endorsement or a job opportunity or something down the road. 

And as for relationships, you first gain experience and a powerful reputation—those things lead to you having a large network of people you can easily call upon to move the needle on things that you want to accomplish. 

Hopefully I don’t get in trouble for sharing this story. But I was shadowing a colleague of mine and I witnessed some friendly banter where my colleague—who wanted a lawmaker to support some legislation—moved the conversation to the days when the two had worked together. And my colleague then told the lawmaker “Don’t forget your roots and how you got to where you are today”. And my colleague told me afterward that my colleague had—during my colleague’s time on Capitol Hill—helped land that politician a cushy position. So that line was a not-so-subtle reminder that the lawmaker owed my colleague one from a relationship standpoint. 

That’s not a healthy relationship by any means—that’s actually a situation where you’re using a personal relationship as leverage. 

My colleague is very well-liked—lawmakers want to help my colleague out even if they don’t always agree with the clients that my colleague has. 

Sometimes the lawmaker will know nothing about the issue at hand. The lobbyist will—if the lobbyist has established themselves as a trusted messenger in the eyes of the lawmaker or the lawmaker’s staffers—have the upper hand in that situation. 

The more you see the lawmaker around, the more chances you have to explain the issue to the lawmaker. 

So strong relationships allow top-tier lobbyists to develop a strong sense of where lawmakers are on certain issues, gain quick access to the people who are crucial to talk to, and leverage reputation and relationships to accomplish more legislatively.

The Democratic Party

1) How would you break down the basic areas where the Dems might improve? Maybe it should be the following: 

• having young and charismatic and cool politicians—fresh faces

• messaging better—there are ways to avoid the things that GOP loves to seize upon and there are ways to disrupt the normal ideological categories

• allocating resources more intelligently

But I have no idea if these are the right categories.

The Dems do a lot right on certain fronts and then completely drop the ball on other fronts. Let me address what the Dems do right regarding three categories—personality and policy and planning. 

As for personality, you’re seeing some fresh faces at the state and local levels—there’s inspiration on this front from Jared Polis, Gavin Newsom, Josh Shapiro, and Ro Khanna. Khanna has a great personality, has decent charisma, is generally well liked, and has good staffers—he’s not afraid to engage with Republicans, which I think is important, since Republican outlets might have some impressionable viewers.

In terms of The Squad, I don’t hear as much about them now that they’ve been around for a little bit. They’re excellent communicators and campaigners, but I worry about their general appeal should they seek higher office—you also have to look into whether they have the fundraising capabilities to get their progressive messages out on a larger scale. AOC has significantly improved on the fundraising front.

As for policy, most Americans tend to agree with Democrats—especially on economic issues—as long as the polling questions avoid loaded terms like “liberal” and “conservative”. Americans support measures to help the downtrodden; Americans appear to support strong unions; Americans worry about climate change; and Americans regard the health care system as broken. 

Obama was so effective because he made most of his campaign about economic issues and about how the Dems were the right party to empower lower- and middle-class families—the GOP’s economic messages don’t resonate with most people. 

And as for planning, ActBlue is an organization that helps progressive groups and organizations and candidates raise money from individual donors—its stated mission is to “empower small-dollar donors” and it’s definitely the best fundraising tool out there. 

Grassroots organizing is down to a science in many areas—many grassroots campaigns will know everything there is to know about voters and will deploy a scary amount of data in order to pander to voters in various ways. 

2) How can the Dems improve in each of these categories? 

As for personality, the biggest issue is that many senators—and House members—in leadership roles are too egotistical to give up the mantle. These leaders don’t want to let the younger generations take the reins in committees and elsewhere—this makes it harder for younger people to build donor connections, build name recognition, and mount serious presidential runs. It’s true that this phenomenon isn’t as bad at the state and local levels, but you see the same faces over and over at the federal level because federal leaders refuse to let others take the spotlight. 

Younger Democrats have to start building better connections—either through the grassroots or through big donors—so that they can build name recognition. Pete Buttigieg has no charisma, but he deserves credit for his ability to build those crucial connections with wealthy LGBTQ+ donors who want to see him succeed. 

And younger Democrats also have to learn how to work the media better—it’s all about earned media and not paid media. 

So any younger Democrat who wants to boost their image has to fight harder to take the important roles away from the old guard and take the screen time away from the old guard. 

And another problem is that some personalities have hypocritical tendencies. You have to practice what you preach and have an internal culture—under the dome and on the campaign trail—that lines up with what your values are supposed to be. 

As for policy, Democrats are letting the GOP dominate the discussion when it comes to the weird “culture war” issues—Democrats get sucked into these battles and allow these battles to define the national discussion. 

The GOP has succeeded in turning education into a “culture war” issue—that’s why the GOP is winning regarding education. The claim is that the Democrats hijacked public schools and turned them into failed entities that brainwash kids with “woke” propaganda. 

To start dominating again, the Democrats need to: 

• bring the discussion back to the economic issues where they have the upper hand—that means infrastructure, union empowerment, and so on

• rework the messaging on the issues that the Democrats are losing on—I’m thinking of immigration and education and inflation

• follow through on their promises better—the Democrats have to achieve more legislatively even if the GOP will try to obstruct everything

These are the big things.

As for planning, the capabilities are all there. But the problem is that too many Democrats are scared to go where the voters are—I’m thinking of swing states specifically. Republicans will talk to anyone anywhere—Democrats need that same fearlessness and that same willingness to venture into the unknown. Too many times I’ve seen Democratic candidates be too scared to talk to the ideologically adversarial press or be too scared to knock doors and host events in rural areas where there might be pushback. 

Showing up is most of the battle—the Democrats fail to show up in a lot of places outside of major urban areas, which is a problem in states where suburban and rural populations drive the state. It’s tragic that Democrats usually win people’s votes when you do choose to show up in swing areas—Democrats are usually successful as long as they aren’t condescending or rude to the people there.

3) What do you think about Anand Giridharadas’s interesting comments about messaging? Giridharadas makes two points in those comments—he mentions flipping the script and he also mentions vivid and specific and personal imagery. 

I could get into the logistical issues of Democratic policy—for example, people need to keep in mind that Medicare for All has to be achieved piecemeal over time. 

As for messaging, Anand is definitely correct that the Democrats need to flip the script more often in response to being accused of being unpatriotic—education and health care and immigration are all excellent examples where the Democrats need to (A) do a better job at showcasing the patriotic nature of their policies and (B) do a better job at messaging in general. 

Most people are short-term and self-centered thinkers. So arguments should be formed to appeal better to short-term self-interest—voters always ask “How does this policy benefit me and how long will it take for me to see the benefit?”. 

4) What do you think about AOC’s interesting comments about policing? I think that AOC’s comment sounds very reasonable, whereas some messaging about policing sounds radical. 

This is good messaging. But I’m a lobbyist, so my issue is that I need to know what this vision requires in terms of: 

• specific statutes and legislation and appropriations

• specific changes at the level of the municipal police department, at the state level, and at the federal level 

I’m sure that the plan of attack would become clearer to me if I worked on this issue.

There’s a study that lays out the limitations of federal reforms when it comes to policing, so this vision could only happen through lobbying state by state and city by city—it would take an incredible amount of resources across the board to bring about this vision.

“Defund the police” was a terrible slogan that put the burden of proof on the Democrats—your messaging should always put your opponents on the defensive. It seems like “Defund the police” achieved nothing and just caused people to dig in their heels in favor of the status quo—it’s important to remember that most people are headline-driven and will take slogans literally. 

5) What are the most egregious ways in which the Democratic Party has been mismanaged? I think that AOC talks a lot about the ways in which the Democratic Party pours money into the wrong things and allocates money toward the wrong things.

I mentioned that many Democratic Party leaders refuse to let the new guard into important leadership roles—this refusal makes the whole party seem tired, creates the perception that no fresh blood exists, and reduces people’s enthusiasm about getting involved.

As for resource allocation, the DNC seems to back the most boring candidates alive—they’d rather fund “centrists” than run the risk of ruffling feathers. This is partly because campaigns rely on corporate funding. 

People today have short attention spans. So you’d better have fresh faces—and exciting ideas—on the campaign trail if you want to generate enthusiasm about getting involved. 

The Democrats have lost a lot of elections due to the extremely lazy practice of spending money on paid ads and paid media instead of bolstering grassroots efforts—that practice only works in obscure races where nobody knows anything about the candidates. Voters want to know that you’re out there in their communities fighting for their interests—you have to go everywhere and at least talk to people or else you won’t get votes. Winning elections is hard work—the days of using paid media to get all of your messaging across are over because there are endless places for people to get information. It disgusts me how much money goes into phony ads that are intended to boost a candidate’s public image—that practice needs to change. 

6) What do you think about the 18 July 2022 piece about John Fetterman? 

Fetterman does the following good things: 

• he’s not afraid to go into the areas that other Democrats hesitate to visit

• his campaign has focused on the issues—like criminal justice reform and union empowerment—where the Democrats have the upper hand

• he doesn’t let the GOP make the election about random cultural issues—that’s how the Democrats lose a lot of elections

• he’s authentic—he’s not your typical scripted candidate

• he has some progressive principles—he’s not a boring moderate candidate

• he brings out the personal side of health care much better than other Democratic candidate do

So Fetterman embodies what Democrats need to do if they want to be more effective on the campaign trail.

The problem isn’t that the Democrats have a “messaging problem”—the problem is that the Democrats fail to make campaigns about the issues that they message well on. 

The media has focused a lot on the fact that Fetterman’s opponent is from New Jersey—that focus diverts attention from the substantive issues that actually affect people’s lives. But Fetterman gives policy-focused speeches to voters, so I encourage people to listen to his speeches. 

7) What do you think about my 16 July 2022 piece about unpopular ideas? 

The piece does a good job at laying out some unpopular policies and where the opposition to those policies comes from. 

Regarding Big Pharma, I recommend that everyone take a look at a 9 June 2021 article that opened my eyes to how much influence that sector has—the article points out that the drug industry will particularly seek to influence the lawmakers who are “on key committees that oversee health care legislation”. 

8) What do you think about my 16 July 2022 piece about corporate taxation? 

I don’t know of any corporation or group that supports this idea. 

This idea won’t get any traction until people develop grassroots capability around it. And develop well-financed groups that have the resources—and the appetite—to fight for this and shift the balance of discussion.

9) And what do you think about my 8 August 2022 piece about personal taxation?

The tax-preparation industry definitely has an extremely powerful lobby in D.C.—it’ll take a lot of organizing in order to overcome that lobby’s power. 

10) What do you think about Noam Chomsky’s below comments—from a 7 November 2020 interview—about the Dems?

Some of Trump’s victories are very revealing. A report on NPR discussed his victory in a solid Democratic county on the Texas-Mexico border with many poor Latinos that hadn’t voted Republican for a century, since Harding. The NPR analyst attributes Biden’s loss to his famous “gaffe” in the last debate, in which he said that we have to act to save human society from destruction in the not very distant future. Not his words, of course, but that’s the meaning of his statement: that we have to make moves to transition away from fossil fuels, which are central to the regional economy. Whether that’s the reason for the radical shift, or whether it’s attributable to another of the colossal Democratic organizing failures, the fact that the outcome is attributed to the gaffe is itself indicative of the rot in the dominant culture. In the U.S., it is [considered] a serious “gaffe” to dare to hint that we have to act to avoid a cataclysm.

Poor working people in the border area are not voting for the predictable consequences of Trump’s race toward cataclysm. They may simply be skeptical about what science predicts. Sixty percent of conservative Republicans (35 percent of moderate Republicans) believe that humans are contributing “not too much/not at all” to global warming. A poll reported in Science found that only 20 percent of Republicans trust scientists “a lot…to do what is right for the country.” Why then believe the dire predictions? These, after all, are the messages pounded into their heads daily by the White House and its media echo chamber.

South Texan working people may not be ready to sacrifice their lives and communities today on the basis of claims in elite circles that they are instructed not to trust. These tendencies cannot be blamed solely on Trump’s malevolence. They trace back to the failure of the Democratic Party to bring to the public a serious program to fend off environmental catastrophe while also improving lives and work—not because such programs don’t exist; they do. But because they don’t appeal to the donor-oriented Clintonite neoliberals who run the Democratic Party.

So Chomsky refers to “colossal Democratic organizing failures”. And Chomsky also refers to “the failure of the Democratic Party to bring to the public a serious program to fend off environmental catastrophe while also improving lives and work”.

Two-thirds of Americans believe that more government action needs to be taken on climate change. 

Oil production and oil refining is the main way of life in places like South Texas, so it’s all about focusing on what the alternative to oil is and how that alternative will help people’s pocketbooks right this moment. 

Zapata County saw the largest blue-to-red swing in 2020—that county has a poverty rate of nearly 35% and a median income of around $18,000. People in poverty are looking to survive the week—you have to appeal to their immediate financial interests, since these people can’t afford to think about the climate. 

I used to knock doors a lot in college—in my experience, most voters are more focused on short-term self-interest than anything else and many voters barely consume political media of any kind. 

Keep in mind the following: 

• the South Texas areas that shifted away in 2020 could shift back in future elections—sometimes areas will shift away and then shift back 

• Democrats shouldn’t avoid talking about climate change—messaging well about climate change is a winning strategy overall when you look at the broad electorate

• the key to messaging well about climate is that you need to focus on the alternative and paint a positive a positive picture of the future in voters’ minds 

There are lots of opportunities—everyone should get involved in politics.

11) What do you think about Thomas Ferguson’s interesting observation about the Democratic Party? Ferguson says that a small-money base has emerged in the Democratic Party, that this small-money base will change the Democratic Party if this small-money base can defeat enough incumbents, and that there’s a “ferocious fight” going on between this small-money base and the Democratic establishment.

A small-money base has indeed emerged and is indeed growing its power. 

It remains to be seen whether this development will lead to progressives winning a large string of primaries. I hope that that happens—it would make my job a lot easier.