Meghan Hays: Democrats Have Forgotten That ‘Maybe We Should Just Talk to People Like People’

JANSING: “With the midterms fast approaching and the full six months after November’s electoral drubbing, the Democratic Party appears to still be in fact-finding mode. The New York Times reports that party donors and strategists have been gathering at luxury hotels to discuss how to win back working class voters. And they’re spending $20 million on an effort to try to figure out how to speak to young men. ‘It is codenamed Sam, short for Speaking with American Men: a Strategic Plan, and promises investment to study the syntax, language and content that gains attention and virality in these spaces.’ I want to bring in Meghan Hays, a former special assistant to President Biden, and Basil Smikle is back with me. You’re both smiling. Donors and strategists, Meghan, have been gathering at luxury hotels to discuss how to win back working class voters. The Time says these news projects can read like anthropological studies of people from far away places. What do you see in here?”

HAYS: “Well, it’s great that we’re being a little bit more introspective. That’s always helpful. But I think that the Democrats have forgot that maybe we should just talk to people, like people. We don’t need to do studies on it. We don’t need to meet at hotels. How about we just go to community meetings and meet people where they are on social media and their different forms and platforms that they are. But I think that we just, the Democrats have forgot how to talk to normal people about things that are really important to them, like the economy. So it’s, I think, a really good lesson to learn, but I also think we just need to get back to basics.”