Democratic strategists think the party has a messaging problem. Post-election autopsies overflowed with countless cross-tabs of how Democrats “underperformed” with demographic after demographic. There are endless debates about which words poll better (should Democrats stop using “microaggression”?) — as if anybody were even listening.

Third Way’s “Signal Project” exemplifies this paralysis. The center-left think tank launched an 18-month project to identify which Trump actions are “most relevant to key voters.” Their profound discovery? “Shuttering USAID, using government power to attack political opponents, firing indiscriminately, degrading the civil service, releasing J6ers, or blaming Ukraine for the Russian invasion all are a combination of unwise, unethical, illegal, or unconstitutional,” according to Axios. “But none resonate much with key voters.” Who knew?

Should we say “working families” or “working people”? Frame ourselves as “Team Normal” versus “Team Extreme”? Who notices? House Democrats test “America is too expensive” versus “People Over Politics.” Say “poor,” or say “economically disadvantaged”? “Addiction” or “substance use disorder”? Who cares?

Yet, leading Democrats seem to think that if only they spend another $50 million to identify the right message for lost working-class voters, they can “win them back” (tellingly, the “them” in the “Win Them Back Fund” gives away the flawed premise of the project).

Certainly, polling and focus-group testing have their place. Polling, when done well, offers a snapshot of public opinion to see what is resonating (though even polling results are highly sensitive to question wording). Focus groups, when done well, can better capture the complex and often contradictory ways in which citizens think through politics, and can pick up on concerns that poll writers might miss or struggle to distill into simple questions (though moderators can very easily direct the results, often without realizing it).

They have accepted a losing political battle they never chose without even realizing it.

But both are reactive to current news, almost by definition. They can never shape the dominant conflict. Only political leaders taking decisive actions can do that.

The Democrats don’t have a messaging problem. They have a much bigger problem: They have accepted a losing political battle they never chose without even realizing it.

Messaging is how you talk about the fight once the battle has been chosen. It’s the tactics, slogans, and talking points deployed within an accepted frame. The conflict defines the possible frames. The frames — the greater story — shape the specific messages.

Democrats have a framing problem — once you’ve accepted a losing political gambit, it’s hard to regain your position with language alone, no matter how many focus groups and polls you commission. The lines are not always clear, but if politics were a pop song, think of conflict as the mood, instrumentation, and beat; frame as the melody, chords, and bubble-gum lyrics; and messaging as the vocal flourishes.

As the opposition party in Congress, Democrats’ ability to shift the conflict in Washington is depressingly limited. But America is a big country, with many Democratic governors and even more Democratic mayors. Consider the gerrymandering wars. Democratic governors have responded to Texas’s new gerrymander by promising to redraw their own lines, thus accepting the brutal reality. But why not use this focusing........

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