Economic Patriotism

Billmon has a good post up titled Patriot Games, in which he explores the current Republican coalition, and its tendency toward regarding any disagreement with its policies as treason. More importantly, thought, he also explores how Democrats could use issues such as jobs and trade to pull support from the Republicans in key midwestern states, by framing the issues as "Economic Patriotism". Go read it, it's good.

Whiskey Bar: Patriot Games:

To really crack the GOP coalition, though, economic populism has to be wrapped in something larger -- like the flag. I'm coming around to the view that the winning theme for the Democrats in this election -- the one that could really tear the bark off Bush (to borrow somebody else's phrase) is 'economic patriotism.' The Dems need a rhetorical and substantive program that ties the job/trade issue into a broader set of arguments about the privileges and obligations of citizenship, the relationship between fiscal stewardship and national strength, and the enduring worth of basic American principles like opportunity, community and fairness. And they have to contrast those priorities with the increasingly warped values of the corporate crony capitalists and their Republican water boys in Washington.

In other words, the Democrats need to make the case that the GOP has been selling ordinary hard-working, middle-class Americans down the river - and thus selling the country down the river.

Combine that populist stance with a strong - but sensible - strategy for fighting terrorism (one that doesn't actually try to turn it into World War IV) plus a full-court press against the Bush adminstration's fuzzy foreign policy objectives and raging managerial incompetence, and I think the Democrats could create a message that would peel away a lot of the GOP's 'soft support' -- isolating the social conservatives and driving them back on their Deep South/Plains States base. It's a strategy that should play particularly well in the Rust Belt states - Ohio and Pennsylvania in particular - and in the Midwest heartland - Minnesota, Iowa and Missouri. And if the Dems are going to win this election, those are the places where they're going to have to win it.