Grassroots Campaigns: Why do Left-Wing Politicians Perform Poorly in Them?

The political left has often struggled in managing grassroots campaigns as well as the right-wingers do.

This increases their difficulty to impress the public in a way that is the easiest one to pursue, and they tend to put their energies in relatively less-proven ways.

Left-Wing Politicians: Their Weak Game of Grassroots Campaigns

Whether it is about the Democratic Party of the United States or other left-wingers scattered all across the globe, this phenomenon stands true, and it is helping the right-wing politicians to have an easy election at various places due to their strong grassroots game.

For most politicians, over-promising before elections is a normal routine which they do to get quick votes by hitting the impulsive nerves of the voters.

They continue doing that every election cycle until the next election is reached, and they start doing that again.

Left-wing politicians believe in a strong federal government, which means that people will have to surrender more rights to the government compared to right-wing governments.

Now, with this ideology comes the weird perception that asking people to surrender their authority would make them look a fool.

Obviously, grassroots workers and volunteers cannot go door to door to ask people to vote because a political leader wants to increase government outreach.

And in the first place, political campaigns need volunteers from the same society to perpetuate this message.

The messaging game works in a different way. For instance, before the presidential elections in the United States, Joe Biden knew the tricks and refused to enact vaccine and mask mandates in the backdrop of the rising COIVD cases. 

How Biden Spun Voters to Let People Vote for His not so Popular Agenda

During his presidential campaign, he even announced that no new taxes on Americans earning less than $400,000 per year would be imposed.

However, the current text of the social spending bill passed from the House has measures that would tax the middle class in various instances while giving leverage to rich people.

In fact, the overall taxation on an average millionaire is likely to take a significant nosedive once the SALT cap is increased from its current limit.

Had he preached it back then, many people would have thought it a conflict with freedom of expression, resulting in him losing a big chunk of voters.

Instead, he emphasized the general strategy of tackling the virus and portrayed that he would not tax the general public.

These sorts of tactics may destroy the reputation of a politician in the long run, considering that political parties often recruit experts to exploit their rivals’ reputations.

This messaging trick is one strategy that can work, although controversially, for left-wing politicians. If they want to increase government overreach without disturbing their terms with the civil society, however, a well-explained strategy to voters can also do wonders.

Left-wing political campaigns need to emphasize the core of their message if they believe that voters cannot understand their views in the raw form.

For example, instead of saying that we would increase taxes, they can spin their campaign around the benefits which these tax hikes would bring for ordinary people.

Nobody dislikes free education or cheaper medical treatment, but these messages must be given to voters if politicians want them to believe this narrative.

This unassertiveness of left-wing political leaders has encouraged the right-wing to campaign on popular slogans. Populism can either be left or right-wing; however, most of the time, it is associated with right-wing political ideology.

Final Thoughts

The role of political surveys and capturing voters’ data increases manifold in this regard.

The Democrats’ Virginia election loss also came down to their poor grassroots campaign, which they need to mend as soon as possible before the 2022 midterm elections.

For instance, after doing sentimental analysis for voters and the way they behave in different situations, left-wing politicians can devise their own strategy in uplifting their grassroots game. Only then can they survive the wave of rising right-wing populism in their respective countries.