OCCUPY THE DOMINANT NARRATIVE

Zandar brings us news from his neck of the woods:

What happened in Ohio on voters rejecting Issue 2 was a big victory statewide for public workers like firefighters, cops, and teachers. But people are forgetting that Ohio voters also rejected more than half the school levies on the ballot on Tuesday, and that means while public unions aren't busted in Ohio, public schools are in real trouble....

As good as Tuesday's election was for the progressive transformation of [Cincinnati's] City Council, the school levy losing was a major blow as it went down 47-53%....

Add that to the overwhelming support in Ohio for a measure blocking Affordable Care Act-style health care mandates in the state (as The Weekly Standard crowed that measure won in all 88 of Ohio's counties) and you have a very mixed message from the voters.

Or maybe not.

It's easy for people like us to see this in categories of liberalism and conservatism. The voters, in the aggregate, see this differently: they're just hoping to prevent having any more of their money taken away by any interest they see as powerful -- whether we see that interest as left or right, liberal or conservative. They voted against a Republican government taking money of union workers' pockets -- and they voted against what they perceive as a Democratic president taking money for health care. They don't think they should be compelled to pony up more for schools -- and yet they're angry at Republicans.

This makes no sense if you think in poli sci categories, but it makes sense to voters. Wall Street screws them. Pols -- all pols -- screw them, in their eyes. The dominant Republican pols in Ohio made no secret of wanting to screw them, so voters said no to that, but they still think "Obamacare" and increased taxes for schools are part of a vast, across-the-board government conspiracy to piss away everyone's money and stick the public with the bill, then ask for even more so it can happen again.

The way you transform this discontent into widespread progressivism is by (a) getting a narrative into the public's consciousness that challenges the dominant "most government spending is waste" narrative, (b) getting the message out that, if you're looking for a culprit, it's the Republican Party stupid, and (c) making sure that message is true, which means that Democratic politicians actually have to make people's lives better by means of government -- not theoretically, but for real, and not less awful, but better.

It's a tall order, to say the least, but the progressive victories at the polls this week won't mean a thing in the long run unless all three of these things start happening.