Hey Harry, did you get the memo?

The Republicans will not triumph in the next election if they can’t get legislation passed and they will not triumph if they can’t commandeer the messaging war. The President laid out the path; do you think you can follow it? Democrats need a strong consistent message that is at once simple, combative, optimistic and ideologically pointed. That is a tall order and can only be developed if the party learns to shed its naivete and play the same tough-minded politics the Republicans have so successfully employed.

Not only did the president stick his proverbial finger in the eye of the Republican hierarchy by signing his executive order granting up to 5 million immigrants some protection from deportation, but he did so while challenging Republicans to put up or shut up on immigration reform. That action was closely mixed with ominous warnings about the Keystone XL pipeline, an environmental policy pact with the Chinese, a robust military response in both Iraq and Afghanistan and nominating a black woman for attorney general. In addition, he has just put the message out that there will be no sign-off on corporate tax legislation without a middle-class component.

So, Harry, while it may be satisfying for you to spend your time demonizing the Koch brothers (well-deserved demonizing, by the way), most Americans don’t know who they are and can’t connect the dots to how the Kochs try to control the vote. What they do understand is a theme that negatively portrays those who can’t produce or don’t or can’t respond to the challenge “put up or shut up.”

{mosads}You have two jobs. First, make sure that the filibuster does as much damage to the Republican agenda as it has to Democrats so they can’t produce the legislation they need. Please do not listen to lame arguments of “finding ways to agree.” Those geniuses are the same ones who screwed up the latest election results relying on the “tried and true” that gives no credence to politics as it is played in the era of not so “fair and balanced” political dialogue.

Add amendments to bills, challenge every one-sided proposal that comes from the House and use your parliamentarian talents to prevent funding legislation from being a vehicle for passing favors to the rich guys. Offer trades every step of the way. If Republicans will not include the president’s agenda — minimum wage increases, equal pay, more support for education, more support for the Earned Income Tax Credit, another round of economic stimulus — well then, very little or nothing is going to get to the president. While the Republicans may score an early round victory with Keystone XL pipeline legislation, the president wielding a veto pen may represent the initial Maginot Line. Going forward however, there better be something in each piece of legislation that fits his agenda or nothing happens.

The second thing you need to do is to discipline your fellow Democrats to understand that they actually need to go back to their ideological roots and articulate the core values of the Democratic Party. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has shown the way. Part of that is messaging and getting everyone on board for the message. That is something you have not been very good at in the past, but something Republicans are. If you need to rerun videos for your fellow Democrats, then do it. Watch the lock-step Republican messaging after each move by the president over the past six years. Recognize also that Republicans weren’t speaking to any thoughtful partisan, but were targeting the “rationally ignorant,” or, as Jonathan Gruber so inelegantly put it, “too stupid to understand.”

An additional part of this second point is getting your fellow party members to understand that most partisans, even the ones who violently disagree, stand in reluctant admiration of the Tea Partyers if for no other reason than their representatives stayed consistent with their election promises and tried to impose them on legislation. That is more than can be said for Democrats. Your legislators have spent most of their careers playing “cover your behind” or “whack-a-mole.” Their true character was ably demonstrated in this last election, where lack of courage was prominently on display.

Politics for the next cycle has to have a component of optimism: for a fair deal on taxes, for rebalancing the playing field for equal opportunity in America, for convincing the 63 percent of eligible voters who ignored this latest election that there is actually a reason to go out to vote. On the other hand, Republicans proved that there was no penalty for legislative stagnation, so it is pretty clear that you won’t get a positive response without demonizing the right while providing hope for the center left.

There is proof in every serious survey of Americans: Democrats promised hope and change and failed to provide it. What is worse, you and your fellow Democrats have this incestuous habit of trying to delude yourselves that half a loaf is better than nothing. Americans actually want you to viscerally understand the economic anxiety they live with; they want you to do something about laws and tax codes that consistently stick it to middle-income Americans; they want you change a system that allows money to have an undue influence on election results, criminal justice and political outcomes; they want you to vigorously expose the fraud that is called trickle-down economics; they want white-collar criminals brought to justice; they want less militarism and more diplomacy; they don’t want their children making student debt a lifelong experience and they want gun violence brought under control.

The Senate gets to play a pivotal role in the next two years. The mission for Democrats is very clear — make sure no legislation reaches the president’s desk without having a progressive element to it and make the message for your party very clear and very simple: “Republicans have lost the ‘put up or shut up’ war. Democrats will fight for a fair deal for everyone.” To fail — and you have failed in the past — to make that your mission is to have missed the memo. Being from Nevada, Harry, you are close enough to the border to know what cojones means.

Russell is managing director of Cove Hill Advisory Services.