Here's a parable.
Imagine you're Coca-Cola. After a year with record-breaking sales, you decide on an unusual course of action: You intend to stop advertising your products entirely for four years. No TV ads. No billboards. No online ads. You even take down the Coca-Cola logos that are part of diner signs.
During these four years, Pepsi advertises relentlessly. Pepsi reaches out to new media and finds inventive ways of getting attention. And not only that: Pepsi also promotes every negative story and bad rumor about Coke through all its messaging routes. Did they really find rat poison in a batch of Coke? Are Coke cans radioactive?
Coca-Cola is aware of all these negative stories, but it doesn't respond to them. Its executives conclude that responding to the stories will just draw attention to them. Coke says nothing. It doesn't even find a way to say that Coke is working hard to maintain high standards of quality control. The rumors spread and spread.
At the end of these four years, Coke sales have declined approximately 8%. That's not a lot -- but as a result, Pepsi is now outselling Coke by a small margin.
What conclusion do Coke executives draw?
"People hate Coke."
And that's the wrong conclusion. People don't hate Coke. Coke was the #1 carbonated drink, and now it's slightly less popular, after four years when the public heard almost nothing positive about Coke and a great deal that was negative.
This is where Democrats are now.