At some point in the near future, Democrats will need to begin to craft a post-Trump message on their own. Not being the Party of Trump is only effective so long as the Orange Man-Child is in the Oval Office or hiding out in Mar-a-Lago. Specifically, their deadline for this is January 21. The Democrats will need to hit the ground running because Biden will have a very short honeymoon if he even has one at all. Without Trump to run against, the Democrats will need to tell the public what they are running for very soon.

Detailed Policies Do Not Set the Public on Fire

Democrats have never been very good at the messaging game. They have not yet realized that their detailed policy proposals do not resonate with a general public that seemingly only want to hear three word hashtags. Many people do not have the desire or capacity to wade into the details of policies when they insist on getting their news and viewpoints from Twitter or Facebook meme shares. The hashtags that people associate with the Democrats are the unfortunate words "Defund the Police" that cost votes in November.

Democrats are going to need to find a quick way to explain their vision now that they are in control of the White House. If 2016 taught political operators anything, it is that most people do not have the bandwidth or tolerance to go beyond labels. With that in mind, Democrats are going to need labels of their own to sell to wide swaths of the American public.

While Barack Obama was an effective president, one of the reasons why he did not resonate with as many Americans as he should have was because of the way that he sold his policies. The law professor in him felt that if he just explained them well enough that the American people would see that he was right. At the risk of sounding cynical, this gives too much credit to many Americans. With chants such as "Lock Her Up" and "Stop the Steal" reaching a fever pitch, Democrats are going to have to find a way to reach low information voters who will not be persuaded based on how much a policy makes sense.

Without Trump, Democrats Must Show what they Stand for Quickly

Unfortunately, the Democrats do not have the luxury of time because their biggest current vote driver will either walk or be dragged out of the Oval Office next month. Winning the next decade is going to take messaging chops because policies do not seem to be cutting it right now when social media has made much of the country not intellectually curious in the least.

The message will need to be short, unified and immediately effective. Even when Democrats have been successful, it was because they had an easy to grasp message. For example, Obama's initial message was "Hope and Change," while Bill Clinton won on "Putting People First." Conversely, Al Gore and Hillary Clinton had much more muddled messages that made it impossible for people to quickly understand where they stood.

While Joe Biden has already won the White House, politics these days is a 24-hour campaign. Even if Biden will only serve one term, the Democrats will be on the ballot in less than two years with a closely divided Congress at stake. The messaging will need to be immediate before the Republicans can define Democrats yet again. While they are not much good at governing, Republicans are very adept at defining Democrats. Their messaging machine is quick, ruthless and very well tailored to the voters that they need to reach. With policies, Democrats cannot compete.

It is high time for the Democrats to do the same thing. Biden needs to settle on a message that is easily articulated that he can begin to sell to the American people the moment that he takes office. While you would think that protecting healthcare would be a message that would resonate, people did not even to grasp that voting Republican could cut off their healthcare in the midst of a pandemic. Even that simple campaign point was too nuanced for those addicted to hashtags and memes. Unfortunately for Democrats, catching up to the times means that they need to keep it simple and dumb their message down for the masses. The sooner they can this the better off they are.