Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) said on Tuesday that Democrats have a hard time connecting with voters because of how “smart” Democrats are and because Democrats “know so much.”
Hirono made the remarks while answering a question from journalist Dahlia Lithwick at the “Bend Towards Justice” conference in Washington, D.C. about what Democrats need to do to make their voters care more about the judicial system.
“One of the things that we Democrats have a really hard time is connecting to people’s hearts instead of here [points at brain],” Hirono began. “We’re really good at shoving out all the information that touch people here [points to brain] but not here [points to heart].”
“I’ve been saying it all our Senate Democratic retreats we need to speak to the heart, not in a manipulative way, not in a way that brings forth everybody’s fears and resentments, but truly to speak to the hearts so that people know that we’re actually on their side.”
“When you have a really hard time doing that and one of the reasons that was shown to me at one of our retreats was that we Democrats know so much, that is true,” Hirono continued. “We have to kind of tell everyone how smart we are and so we have a tendency to be very left-brain.”
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