Why it’s not a smart strategy to say “Corporate America won’t like me”

I have an opinion on *strategy* that I’d like to put out there re: how the Democratic party deals with business/capitalism.

A decade ago I was fairly involved with local party politics, to the degree that I was my assembly district’s representative to the California State Democratic Party’s executive board. This was around the same time I had left corporate America and was first consulting, then co-founded BlogHer. Both pursuits from which I was trying to make my living, because volunteering for your local political party isn’t going to help you pay the bills.

During that time I was repeatedly struck by a certain tone-deafness I saw in party messaging, and I was struck by how little interest there was in listening to my views about it, or at the least in doing anything about it.

1. The slogan for at least one of the years I was involved (invoked on big banners at the state conventions and other materials where one prints slogans) was “Protecting Real People”.

I always thought this was an idiotic slogan because if you want to bring folks over to your side who aren’t currently there, you don’t dismiss them as not real. It’s much the same issue as non-curvy women have with the slogan “Real women have curves”, because in trying to be body positive, it’s actually body negative about their particular body type. I hated this slogan, thought it was patronizing, paternalistic, but most importantly…it wasn’t appealing to anyone outside the “choir”.

2. The visual accompaniment to this slogan (show on the banners and in slide shows on the main stage between speakers) showed only a very specific kind of constituency. Firefighters, teachers, nurses (not doctors), and if women weren’t there as the token firefighter or a teacher, they’d be shown as a mom with their kids. The images were diverse, racially, but not diverse as far as life pursuit or interests. And quite clearly *I*, as a then-single, ever-childless woman in business, was not represented. Not once. In any image that was shown. No business people were represented. Not even any of the “professional” class, i.e. doctors, lawyers, etc.

And there I was representing a district deep in Silicon Valley, knowing that much of Silicon Valley was true blue, but that the party did not know what to do with that.

This all came back to me after hearing a bit about how last night’s Democratic presidential debate went. There were a few soundbites that bubbled up to my attention from the debate. The Star Wars reference, the database breach “let’s move on” moment, the empty podium as HRC made her way back from the bathroom. And as far as actual closer-to-substantive soundbites a significant one I saw shared was that Hillary said everyone should “like her” in response to a question about whether corporate America should like her, and Bernie said …trying to draw a clear distinction between them, since they actually share the same positions overall…that CEOs weren’t going to like him, and Wall Street was going to like him even less.

I get it. I do. In fact, as far as personal positions go: I’m a strong believer in regulation. And higher corporate taxes. I believe that otherwise corporations are not adequately motivated to behave in ways that do anything except line their pockets (in some extreme cases) and build their bottom lines (in all cases). I am a big fan of the concept of B Corps, because I think the concept that a public company’s primary fiduciary duty is to bolster (typically short term) shareholder value over any other value long terms hurts us all. I think the delta between CEO pay and average worker pay is obscene. And so on and so on and so on. I believe the average American doesn’t realize how rarefied their opportunities to improve their financial standing are when it comes to investing and climbing the corporate ladder.

But.

I also have observed since my activities more than a decade ago that it is not a winning strategy to make sweeping statements about you (or your party) being the bane of corporate America and Wall Street’s existence. That they shouldn’t like you. (Not least because I hate the stupid QUESTION…should corporations “like them”, really?!?!)

But also because big businesses are fewer in number (or a smaller percentage of employers) than small businesses, but they employ a disproportionate number of employees vs. the percentage of businesses they represent.

Most people either work for such companies or know someone who does or dream of actually creating or investing in one (no matter how realistic or not the goal is…we know that people vote based on their fantasy about their own mobility and class, not their reality).

Here’s a two-year old article that nonetheless provides a great nuanced explanation of small vs. big business and their respective impact on our economy/employment rate, etc:

I think the Democratic party may not harm itself during the primary season to come across as anti-business, because each party plays to their more extreme base during primary season, but it does harm them in the final elections (national and otherwise). And I’m not really talking just about the Presidency I’m talking about the pipeline from local on up.

I could even go on, and sound even more cynical, and point out that the very nature of our national government (and the requisite compromise built into the system) means that all the bluster in the world about massive overhaul of our systems never changes hat our actual progress is typically in incremental steps (or, of course, total backsliding when the right is in power).

But to me it’s just frustrating that DESPITE the *record* of the last 40–50 years showing that our economy does better when a Dem is in the White House, the *perception* remains that Dems are bad for business.

But there’s a pretty understandable reason why.

Last night’s soundbite gives me flashbacks to not feeling like I had a place at the table of the California Democratic Party, because I was engaged in shamelessly capitalistic behaviors.

There’s a difference between advocating for fairness, equity, reasonable policy changes, etc. vs. acting like you don’t *like* a whole group of Americans (who by and large just think of themselves as trying to get by like the rest of us) or you don’t think they’re as American as the rest of us.

Blame the stupid question, sure, I do. But I also recommend having more discipline about messaging in response to stupid questions. You don’t have to use their language…bring it back to YOUR message about fairness and equity and reasonableness etc.

That’s what it will take to bridge to the full Democratic Party, bring the Independents on board, and even appeal to Republicans who are disappointed in their choices right now.