I heard a familiar idea at the end of the Chris Hayes show on MSNBC last night. The organizer of the Women's March and a reporter for the New Yorker both say they were ignored by Democratic legislators fighting for Dreamers. It's true, they were ignored. I didn't notice it until they said so. Why didn't the Dems use the fact that there were over a million people marching in America and more in other countries? The New Yorker writer says it's because they are women, to which I say two things: 1. I doubt it. 2. If it is, why not broaden the movement to be more inclusive? Can't we just have People's Marches? Why are women's issues the only ones that matter?#- Earlier on the Ari Melber show, another woman whose name I didn't catch, made a similar powerful statement. Why is everything politicos talk about procedural? The Dreamers make an incredibly compelling story. How about some ads, you know the president is still campaigning, that show how the Dreamers are Americans! The stupid fucking Repubs want to deport Americans. But this idea if it's mentioned at all is only mentioned in passing. There's a powerful emotional story here, yet it is largely invisible. It's up to the Democrats, the opposition, to speak up for them. Not just procedurally, but personally. #
- In other words before you make it about the Repubs, make it about the dream. I keep pointing back to the incredibly emotional Bernie Sanders America ad from 2016. An ad like that showing a day in the life of dreamers across America would, as Lakoff says, frame the debate in terms that make sense, not the procedural ones that to most people, including me, don't.#
- But the big problem is even bigger. Only a certain kind of person is given a voice. I think that's why the marchers were ignored. They don't work for Harvard or write for the New Yorker (sorry, but you get a lot of attention for your ideas there, I don't feel sorry for you). Unless you're a billionaire, or on the payroll of billionaires, your ideas and dreams don't mean shit. #
- That's what Trump sold, and he's right. I feel it. I feel left out of the conversation. I read a piece by an excellent writer in New York magazine, who says we have to do more, well the biggest thing he could do is figure out how to empower people who don't have columns in his publication, people who want to do anything they can to help but feel sidelined. #