Thread by @SimonWDC

So, a thread about digging out of our current hole and making the 2022 elections competitive again.

Our most important job now is to lead America through the end of COVID and into a sustained recovery. That is why Biden was elected, and it is work that is still not finished. 1/

COVID has an extraordinary trauma for everyone.

There may not be a singular event this disruptive to our basic lives again in many of our lifetimes.

Getting us through it, ending it, putting it behind us remains job #1 for Democrats. 2/

ndn.org/3-reasons-why-…

Using @NavigatorSurvey data I modeled out the top issues for what would be typical Dem swing district right now:

COVID 64%
Econ/Jobs 60%
Climate/Extreme Weather 40%
Health Care 39%

This is our map, our guide for where we have to spend our time these next six months. 3/

@NavigatorSurvey The lesson of 2010 is that Dems have to not just do good things, we have to GET CREDIT FOR DOING THEM.

The thing that is and will be most important in 2022 will be whether we can say we defeated COVID, got the economy on track, life back to normal. 4/

ndn.org/time-for-dems-…

@NavigatorSurvey With vaccines for kids, new therapeutics arriving, rapid at home tests about to become ubiquitous, the ACA sign up period Dems have a clear opportunity to spend time at home educating the public, doing events about the new tools we have to defeat COVID. 5/

@NavigatorSurvey We should be doing events abt the recovery, about firms hiring, people returning to work, finding new paths in their lives, making more money, signing up for ACA.

We need to go where people are now, and this is where they are. Particularly as most of US heads back indoors. 6/

We need to spend the winter and spring getting the country past COVID. And then we can spend the summer/fall talking about the rest of the Biden agenda, the parts which haven't happened yet, may not happen until after the election.

We need to talk about what is, not will be. 7/

It's our belief Biden and the Democrats have been punished for taking our eye off the COVID/recovery ball.

BBB has been sold as something stand alone, not connected to COVID/recovery. That was a mistake, and as a political project it has failed 👇 8/

ndn.org/time-for-dems-…

So, our plan for Dem success in 2022:

focus on defeating COVID, securing the recovery, getting back to normal

Then sell the rest of the agenda, particularly the climate provisions

Define GOP/MAGA as extreme/unfit

Use new tools to drive turnout 9/

ndn.org/3-reasons-why-…

We can, should view activism around schools as part of what may be years of unsettled post-COVID politics.

Everyday we read about people rethinking their lives. Many have been home w/kids, been thinking a lot about them, their schools. Front of mind. 10/

As my parents lives - their entire lives - were shaped by their experience of the Great Depression, we should expect our lives, our politics to be shaped for years/decades by COVID.

It was/is a collective trauma, one which isn't over, one we are still processing. 11/

Democrats have to get connected to this trauma, go into the trauma, go where people are, and lead them out of it successfully. That is why we were elected, and what we must do now.

"Big bold progressive" got us out of position.

It is all about leading us out of COVID. 12/

The reason BBB has tanked politically is it'has come across as something we're doing for ourselves, our politics, Washington - and not something about them, their lives, getting thru the trauma of COVID.

This is particularly true for working class folks who couldn't Zoom. 13/

Which is why my core argument is that we have to restitch the entire Biden agenda back together and sell it all through the lens of COVID/recovery - Build Back Better. Keeping it separate weakened it all.

More on this below: 14/

ndn.org/3-reasons-why-…

FWIW here is the text of an email I sent widely around DC in late July warning that back to school, MAGA, COVID, CRT was going to be a huge mess and we needed to be ready.

Some took action on it. Others didn't. 15/

ndn.org/my-warning-dem…