"Want people to be responsible for their own lives"

[lostnfound]

There’s a core American value that runs underneath the attraction that some people have to conservatism, that needs to be woven into democratic thinking and democratic messaging. The right wing doesn’t often express it clearly, but the left wing would do well to capture it as their own. How to do it?

Perhaps some tragi-comic sketches of situations where the “socialism for the rich-rugged free market capitalism for the poor” truism is clear. Fat cats watch their ship go down, people swimming fast to get away from sharks, fat cat congratulating himself on his smarts while collecting his insurance money while saying “swimmers? I just want people to be responsible for their own lives.”

Or trust fund babies (that look like babies in business suits in a boardroom) voting to lay off workers and collecting bags of money as they walk out the door, turn to the camera and say, “just want people to be responsible for their own lives.”

Conversely, show some good natured mom working her third job to buy groceries while saying that she just wants her kids to learn “to be responsible for their own lives”.

Maybe show trump with bankruptcy after bankruptcy and lawsuit after lawsuit, and have any one of his numerous fraud victims (from trump U to the pig farm neighbor whose land was ruined in Scotland to the unpaid workers) say they just wish he’d be held responsible for his own messes.

This is not just about trump. The reason my poor neighborhood neighbors were trump-supporting Republican is because they were convinced that their own economic problems were caused by government helping people.

We Democrats want people to be “responsible for their own lives”. We want them to work one job, take care of their families, make sure their kids get educated or learn some useful skills, take their kid to the doctor when they need it. That’s why we want business owners to be responsible for not creating desperation and poverty. Businesses like insurance companies ripping them off and not protecting them.

“Slavery was abolished in 1865. If we make sure jobs pay a living wage, not slavery, people can be responsible for their own lives.”

Maybe a giant table getting more and more tilted, while the little people on one side are falling off or clinging to the edge, and the big guy on the other side (who is actually lifting the table up) is swooping in to grab everything they left behind, while saying “look at what they left behind! People should be responsible for their own lives!”

It was easier to be responsible for your own life in the 70s and 80s. Jobs paid better, college was way cheaper, decent careers could be built with much less effort or education or luck.

Ideas on how to connect to the fundamental desire to preserve a sense of autonomy and control over your own independent destiny? And to demonstrate that the vision the GOP of such autonomy is a lie?

Every program we propose should be framed as helping people become responsible for their own lives.

[beachbumbob]

1. unfortunately this is way more complex when it comes to "helping" people but I

agree, the messaging MUST be changed by democrats on this as well as ALL other issues that divide conservatives from the rest of use. Lots of the resistance comes from inside the democratic big tent itself as well.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

2. The sentiment is attractive and appealing

After all, nobody likes to be/feel dependent on somebody else and I think that everybody sort of has that ingrained idea about self-sufficiency, however, as with all things, this sentiment can only be taken so far before you start overlooking and neglecting some people whom- for whatever reason- struggle and *need* assistance and need to be cared for.

[angstlessk]

3. Very well thought out.

Now to find someone to produce some short videos using your ideas?

Could also compare to what "being responsible for your own life" looks like under repukes? Homelessness, working multiple jobs, dying from lack of health care, going bankrupt in spite of having 'good' insurance, etc

[lostnfound]

5. Thanks! I like that idea too.

To build on your idea, we could show a person saying “I want to be responsible for taking care of my family.“ at beginning of the commercial but then show them with a foreclosure sign have them say, “but...cancer treatments were more important than the mortgage”

“I wanted to be responsible for taking care of my own life.“ and show someone in rehab after a mass shooting.

[2naSalit]

4. Visuals are especially important

when it comes to promoting a message to a relatively simple-minded audience.

I like all the suggestions and can see how they could be incorporated into an entire ad campaign. I think something, the tag at the end, should be a lot like Bill Clinton's "How're you doin'?" line that went over really well.

[onethatcares]

6. visuals showing

the average guy saying, "I did all the right things, went to college, got a job, began to raise a family, then my daughter got cancer.
I had a choice, eat or pay for her to have treatment. I'm still living in my car because life only begins after birth".

yeah, it's rough but it's visual.

[Caliman73]

7. There was recently a segment on a show where the commentator had Pie.

He had to bribe people with real pie to get the segment to work. He had the people guess how much of the pie rich v middle class v. working class v. poor people had.

Most people were WAY off with the vast majority giving way more to the poor and working class than to the rich. I believe their were 10 pieces of pie and at the end when the host of the segment showed the actual distribution, people were shocked.

This quote from your thread stuck out: The reason my poor neighborhood neighbors were trump-supporting Republican is because they were convinced that their own economic problems were caused by government helping people.

Your neighbors are right though. They are just wrong about WHO those people are that the government is helping. Conservatives, and quite a few of us Liberals have an ingrained (from purposeful teaching) idea that the poor are poor because they made bad choices or haven't worked hard enough. We have been taught that people are where they should be on the economic ladder.

Your neighbors don't realize that much more of the percentage of spending in the US goes to the wealthy in the form of subsidies and tax breaks than to the poor.

It is the pie analogy. The poor have negative pie while the wealthy have 9 of ten slices, and we fight each other for the slice of pie that is left rather than demanding from the 9/10ths of the pie that we helped make.