Aim Small, Miss Small, Lose Big

There’s a culturally significant and riveting scene in The Patriot, the 2000 Mel Gibson movie, where he plays an American colonist and father pulled into the Revolutionary War. In the scene, Gibson frantically coaches his young boys on how to use their rifles to kill the British soldiers who are about to surround them. “What did I tell you fellas about shooting?” Gibson asks. “Aim small, miss small,” the trembling boys respond.

I think those frightened boys are a metaphor for too many Democrats. Like them, we’ve been scared into the necessity of narrow focus and excessive carefulness for what we think are existential reasons. Those boys did ok, but our result is that we’ve lost big.

“Aim small, miss small,” a concept which I employ when hunting, is very practical for shooting. It’s the idea that you should avoid the big picture by narrowly focusing on a very small detail, like a button on a British soldier's uniform. The result is supposed to be that if you miss, it won’t be by much. This concept is now also regularly coached in sports like tennis and golf, and is part of our American vernacular.

If you are afraid of screwing up in shooting or golf this is attractive advice but applying it to politics is proving disastrous; voters have made that clear. They are ready for much larger changes, and candidates who see the big picture and care enough to take the risk of being unscripted and “real.” Young voters are especially distrustful of aiming and missing small in politics. My 20-year-old son, Lander, recently wrote this powerful piece that explains why, and here is an excerpt from his article:

“For too many of us, it seems like Democrats operate in a world where small tweaks to the status quo are enough, but we are a generation that has lived through a steady stream of massive world-changing mega-events devoid of any smallness… when Democrats clumsily speak of small adjustments or ignore realities, we are certain they are fraudsters at worst or untrustworthy at best.”

If we want to win, and I think saving our democracy makes Democratic winning essential, we must demand that our party change to become the party of boldness, change, big ideas, and people who care enough to sell them. We either do it or we will get more 2024 elections, and it’s not hyperbolic to say that would be a real existential crisis for our nation.

If it’s that serious, then why are we still on defense and making minor adjustments? Let’s start with the big ideas we are for:

1. Fix, Reform, and strengthen public education. Stop with the tweaks, don’t just defend or lazily fund, but admit we have problems and commit to making them better. Educational opportunity is the single most significant leveling device we have. We must empower brave visionary leaders like my friend Jeff Wright in Wisconsin, an incredible and widely-loved Superintendent who told me that his award-winning schools are focused on the big idea that every year, every single kid, regardless of demographic, has a real opportunity to advance one year in his Sauk Prairie schools. Jeff puts his money where his mouth is. He’ll challenge conventional thinking, refuse to accept substandard results, push back on diversionary culture distractions, and try new things. He takes risks because he cares more about educating kids than he does about protecting institutions. Democrats across the nation should take a lesson.

   

   Jeff Wright (left) accepts award for his work in the Sauk Prairie school district

2. It’s time to ADD MORE public land and increase access to what we have. We lose a lot each year, or pat ourselves on the back when we lose just a little. I’m tired of playing losing defense against people like Ryan Zinke, who votes to mine the Boundary Waters, industrialize the Arctic, pollute our rivers, and give his big corporate bosses license to bulldoze every other acre we own. We have far more people in the country than 100 years ago, and that pressure will only increase. It’s time to add strategic parcels that open up access. Our public lands equalize all Americans, and we need a lot more of that, not less.

3. Reverse the dangerous and widening income disparity and start it now. A thriving nation requires that all people have access to real opportunity. That’s not what’s happening in our country, and it's not because we have too little; It’s because we have too little of it in too few hands. I mean, c’mon, we now have tech bros who rig the system so that they pay almost no taxes, then fly rockets into space for fun while entire hard-working populations can’t afford an apartment or healthcare. We are here because Republicans were dedicated to making it happen, and too many Democrats helped them. It’s obscene. Democrats should loudly demand a fair system and dedicate themselves to deploying every tool to make it happen. They should promise that not a single vote will be cast or a bill proposed that makes it worse. As an example, this disaster of a budget bill being proposed by House and Senate Republicans will dramatically worsen the wealth gap. Working people will lose more services, healthcare, and economic opportunity so that Billionaires can have another estate or weekend rocket ride.

   

4. Get big money the hell out of politics. Let’s do this and take a lesson from Trump on how to overcome what looks to be difficult. By that, I mean we should urgently demand what we want, make it clear we mean it, and then press every single button we can find to make it happen. Forget polite norms. Pass laws that demand public funding for elections. Force constitutional questions to be answered and clarified, take creative approaches, break some china. The idea that a person like Elon Musk can exert $300 million worth of influence on an election while a school teacher, mechanic, or nurse can only afford $20 or $50 worth of speech is undemocratic, un-American, dangerous, and corrosive. If we really believe this (and I do), then we must commit to acting like it when we have the power to change it. Stop with the words and the minor adjustments and the handwringing. It’s time for aggressive, creative action.

   

   Does this really need a caption?

The last part of aiming big involves seeing broad enough to admit and act on obvious truths in the moment, instead of letting vocal factions frighten us into being too careful. Here are a few recent examples: An uncontrolled or chaotic border is a disaster that only leads to electoral and inhumane backlash. We should not just defend our government but constantly improve and question its function. The alternative is that we get a Musky Chainsawing madman doing it at the nation’s significant loss (while he is high). Public health is really important, but so are open schools and businesses; all of those things must be weighed when decisions are made, not just one. I sense that many Democrats in power over the past decade knew all of these things but were often forced into the “aim small, miss small” mindset. Again, good for kids shooting redcoats in the Revolutionary War, bad for politics.

I think the things we all care about are worth the risk of aiming much bigger, and I think we ought to start doing it yesterday if not sooner.