Democratic Party leaders, national & States’, must change the language of political discourse in several ways.
1. Issues have been reduced to “catch phrases” that the gop has drafted. Ad execs Haldeman [FN1] & Ehrlichman were pivotal to Richard Nixon’s 1968 campaign for Pres. 1/11

Lee Atwater’s work was invasive & substituted abstract terms for racial epithets of the 1950s. [FN2] He perfected use of the “wedge issue” as strategist in George H.W. Bush’s successful 1988 campaign. [FN3] Dems should toss garlic on Atwater’s grave. 2/11

2. Reclaim critical issues from gop’s mere semantics. A “wedge issue” enables candidates who value only victory (no matter collateral deaths) to beat an opponent w/values & actual ideas. The more important the issue, the more shallow the appeal. It's not the gop’s 3/11

"socialized medicine." It’s Medicare for all like members of Congress have. It's not "take away guns." It’s gun control that values kids’ lives over gun industry profits. It's not laws against god fearin' Christians. It's separation of church and State like the Framers believed. 4/11

3. We have to drop vulgarity in our Nation’s discourse. “Disgusting” is the way to describe trump’s calling a female member of the press “piggy.” The ugly name-calling is being aped by those of lesser political standing in maga world [FN4] & lesser intelligence. 5/11

4. DO NOT GIVE ANYONE “TIME TO HEAL.” In the aftermath of Watergate, President Ford gave President Nixon “a full, free, and absolute pardon.” [FN5] Voters didn’t like that course, as reflected in the 1974 and 1976 elections. Today we can see how unwise that was. 6/11

We have to claw back billions, handed as a “thank you” to billionaires. We have to stop illegal attacks on other countries, including Iran. We need to follow the money, especially as it has gone to concealed pockets of black SCOTUS robes. Retribution is wrong, [FN6] 7/11

Tracking public officials’ ill-gotten gains is necessary to declare “void” all “quids” that were obtained by illegal and impermissible “quos.”
The challenge that I issued last week on “Schisms & Rainbows” still is extended, even if gop officials have scorched eyebrows. 8/11

Footnotes:
FN1. “In 1968, we ... followed ‘the Haldeman memo’...” Patrick J Buchanan, “The Greatest Comeback” (2014), pp. 199-200.
FN2. Max Boot, “Reagan” (2024), pp. 400-01. 9/11

FN3. “...the person responsible for the overall concepts and specific tactics of the Bush campaign.” Webster G Tarpley and Anton Chaikin, “George Bush: the Unauthorized Biography,” (2012 ed), p. 484. 10/11

FN4. Chey Smith, “Rokita tells woman ‘Quiet, piggy’ after question at Columbus campaign stop,” npr, 11/3/26, accessed 11/4/26.
FN5. James Cannon, “Time and Chance,” (1994) p. 384.
FN6. See, Ind. Const. Art I, sec 18: “The penal code shall be founded on the principles of reformation, and not of vindictive justice.” 11/11