We, the lukewarm Democrats, get it. You didn’t have the seats in Congress to stop whatever horrible tax bill is about to descend upon us. Let’s hope the numbers will never be this stacked against the Democrats again. There are some actions you, as champions of the middle and lower classes, can take right now, before the 2017 tax preparation season, to win back seats in November. You read that correctly, I said before the 2017 tax season. Mobilization in six to eight weeks.
You see we lukewarm Democrats and even people who (gasp!) don’t usually vote can be inspired to go to the polls and vote in our own self-interest, but, sometimes we have to be bludgeoned over the head to get the message. Once we get the message, it is helpful if you take us by the hand and lead us to our polling places. Don’t assume we will be motivated enough to find the places on our own. We need you to seize this rare opportunity to demonstrate, in a very concrete way, how the Republican economic polices harm us. We need you to tell us that the people presently representing us are to blame (if they are). We need you to tell us when and where we can go to vote the guilty out of office. And we need you to do it before we go to the polls in November.
The plan I lay out below will call for you to shake off your old routines and ways of doing things. You will have to be flexible, nimble, and results driven. You will not have time to put out a call for bids or Requests for Proposals. No time to be wined and dined by potential vendors. Let it be known that you are looking to hire some teams of people, interview them via Skype if you have to, then make some decisions via gut instinct. Whatever you do, do NOT form a committee. You have to move quickly to jump on this chance to speak directly to the American masses.
THE PLAN
1) Assemble a team of ad-targeting experts who can identify people who are about to prepare, or, who have recently prepared, their taxes. Target people who have purchased TurboTax or made an appointment with H&R Block, for instance. Better still if this targeting can target middle to lower incomes and not the upper incomes that stand to benefit from the tax changes.
2) Assemble another team. This one will be comprised of lawyers or tax accountants who can interpret how the new laws will impact individual tax filers.
3) Assemble a team of tech developers who can engineer a program that allows a recalculation of what a person’s 2018 tax will be given very simple inputs. For instance, by simply inserting the amounts found on line 7a and 18 of Form 1040A of a 2017 tax return the program will calculate a person’s 2018 tax. This program can also calculate or make an educated guess about the user’s address, i.e. congressional district and polling location.
4) Test this program again and again to get this right. We don’t need another Obamacare debacle.
5) Get politicos and User Experience experts together in the same room to design a very simple interface. The interface should allow for the input of a few numbers from the 2017 tax forms; a screen that shows the tragic changes that will befall the taxpayer the next year; and the names and unflattering pictures of the Republicans specific to that taxpayer who voted for the tax bill. Of course, if that person’s Congress person or Senator is a Democrat, you would spin the message the other way and use a flattering picture. The user interface should encourage the taxpayer to take action-either go to her specific polling place to vote the bums out in November, or donate to the underdog champions who will keep fighting to right this wrong.
6) This is perhaps the most important part of the plan. Push ads for this software to average Americans all through the tax season, especially those whose online activities indicate recent tax preparation. If they utilize the program, keep sending emails or texts or keep placing ads in their feeds reminding them about the location of their polling places until the election in November.
In other words, show us how bad it’s going to be. Show us who is to blame. Keep reminding us how to do something about it.
This isn’t as socially redeeming as recruiting Democrats on the principles of gender equity and racial justice, but, I think you will find it is more effective.
