Democrats are lawyering themselves into political oblivion: Time to change that

I am a lawyer. When I look at Democrats Today, I see myself. This is not a good thing.

Let’s look at 2024 the presidential campaign. The Democrats seemed to adopt the tactic of the classic lawyer to say, “My client did nothing.” There is a good reason that this has become clichés: you win the court by showing that your agent followed the law and that the other man did not. For this reason, as a lawyer, you are doing everything you can to make it seem that your customer was outside the kites with his children or staring at the window in the beautiful clouds while the other man was doing more than others.

In other words, you are trying to make your customer look like Kamala Harris And the other man looks like it Donald Trump.

As a lawyer, you can also always focus on the opposition. If you talk a lot about your customer, this may encourage people to look closely and start observing their faults. So, you make the story of your entire customer about the person across the corridor: it is hardly a good “client” and always about “my opponent bad”. This is exactly what Democrats did last year, and they seek to undermine the opposition’s issue (“here all the reasons that make Trump badly”) instead of building their own issue (“here all the reasons that make Harris are good”).

There was a moment in the campaign – immediately after that Joe Biden Introduction from the race – when that dynamic and Democrats in reality remain a focus on themselves. For a short month, wonderful in the summer of 2024, when Harris had attracted the attention of the media and the unification of the delegates and those familiar with the party at the same time, we saw as its clear political embarrassment that suddenly revealed that it was a skill far from being a skill in America, and they were unexpectedly turning. For a single moment, the campaign felt optimistic and exciting – “Make America fun again!” – The story was everything about it.

But like any good lawyer – Harris is undoubtedly a good important – then she re -focused on her opponent. And the vision of the Democrats for the future again has become negative – in other words, all that was not, rather than what it is He was Or what might be. To be fair, this is not a bad strategy in the courtroom against the opponent, which is almost satisfactory to the position of his foot in his mouth.

Here is the funny thing to vote, though: it does not happen in court.

The similarities did not stop there. Democrats seemed determined to avoid policy details, with a series of mysterious progressive policy goals. This was another classic lawyer step: keep your positions specific enough to refer to the defects of the other side, and mysterious enough that it is difficult to attack in court.

When you are a lawyer, you also never want to make it look like you are saying something that is very different from what people have said before, because you win with the judge by showing that what you ask is compatible with the current law. In a campaign, this line of the argument makes itself almost when your candidacy for the president is also the current vice president.

Regardless of what, as a lawyer, you can stick to the facts. Do not say anything unless you have evidence to support it. Because if you cannot refer to this evidence when the judge asks you about it, you lose. Democrats did this at a very professional level, as they almost built their messages about the facts that even Republicans did not ignore (for example, Trump says wild objects, and many of them are incorrect). There was no difference.

Here’s the summary: In 2024, the Democrats managed a campaign from the dream of a wet lawyer, and Kamala Harris seemed to be the perfect agent, as he drew a picture of a future that did not offend anyone. The mind has ever changed. Trump was a customer giving any good lawmakers (and definitely doing it). His vision for the future was messy and offensive. And he won.

The thing in lawyers is that we are wonderful to be attorneys and terrible in almost everything. This is partially by design: Lawyer is a specialized profession that requires a real depth of knowledge. But some are also through conditions, because lawyers often work in environments consisting of about 99 % of other lawyers. While there are definitely benefits for this type of specialization, there are also defects: a narrow view of its nature; Not wanting to take opinions of non -lawyers seriously. And hesitation in admitting that the rhetoric of the law is not the only important thing.

These defects are particularly blatant when it comes to running, winning, a presidential campaign.

As a lawyer, I buy what Democrats sell. But voters, I do not. Because I am a voter, I want to feel my voting has strength. And you do not show strength with dry and technical arguments; You show power by making people Feel. So far, I don’t really know what he will feel to live in the world of Democrats, but it is not Trump. Although the “La Trump” vision has an attractive level, it is difficult to be excited no Go to somewhere.

On the contrary, what Trump did is better in these elections was to draw a positive vision of what the world could be, and made people feel that it was real. That is why I can understand why people voted in favor of him (even if it was a completely separate question if they were getting what they were hoping). Because if you want to feel that your vote has the ability to change the world, you vote for the person who makes you feel that he can do so and it is difficult to get off that Trump makes you feel like changing the world.

Moreover, unlike Biden – which, despite the achievements of important policy, was somewhat faded in making me feel the scope of these achievements – Trump will never allow us to forget what he felt is responsible. The first month of his administration explained this: It is difficult to do anything literally without reminding him. This feeling will be a large part of American life for the next four years – that is exactly the point.

Democrats, who seem to be immersed, seem to be resorting to the facts. In other words, they retreat from the real legal weakness behind much of what has been happening in Washington since January 20. They accurately point out that many Trump’s executive orders constitute a significant transgression of the constitutional authority of the executive authority; The judiciary is already issuing judicial orders against some of its most terrible initiatives; That despite the corrosion that cannot be throughout the political standards over the past decade, there are still checks and remaining balances in the American government that can be used to prevent it.

They are not wrong in any of this. But they also lose this point.

The facts are great when you are a lawyer in court or when you are summarized in the policy of writing and refining the legislative language. But when you try to persuade people to buy in a possible future, the facts do not really concern. What matters is to present a positive story – not an interactive story, and not the story of its climax. “At least we are not for him– And the ability to sell it. The facts and politics can definitely be the proof of this story, but it cannot be the same story. Although Trump’s initiatives are undoubtedly defective from a legal point of view, from the point of view of telling stories, it is not flawed. This is no longer related to the next four years anymore – it is about the years that followed, in this country and other places. It understands it instinctively.

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Good judgment takes good lawyers. But good policy – especially good presidential campaigns – takes bad campaigns. Judgment and campaigns are mainly related skills. Like many lawyers, Democrats seem to believe that the ruling part only matters, and that the types of lawyers that work well in the courts will work well with the public.

In natural litigation, the presence of the courtroom itself is not at stake. The presence of the courtroom is material and non -changeable, and regardless of what happens on any specific day during a lawsuit, lawyers from both sides will have to walk in the courtroom itself the next day and play with the same rules. But in the presidential elections such as those we just held, there is likely to be the following as well, the existence of the system itself is exactly what is at stake. It is not about the side that leaves the courtroom with winning; It relates to what the courtroom will seem next time, or whether the courtroom will remain at all. That is why you are a good lawyer and risk-where, by definition, the law takes an incredibly fraught strategy in a presidential campaign, especially as both sides raised risks to existential levels. Because if you tell people that the future of the courtroom itself is in doubt, then you also need to tell them how the new person should look, or they will vote for the person who does.

Trying to create a new future takes boldness. Take the risk. It is necessary to imagine a world that does not yet exist and makes it feel as it is. In other words, it takes a full set of strange qualities on the lawyer. If Democrats want people to start buying in the future they sell, they will have to become worse lawyers and better stories narrators. If they cannot do that, the lawyer party may not have a future for the future.