The way I see it, to put it in military terms, we need a "force multiplier", whose mere presence on the battlefield is a game changer. All throughout history there has been such force multipliers around. Napoleon's 5'6" presence alone was reputed to be worth about 30,000 troops. The Vickers and Maxim machine guns of WWI forever changed the landscape of Europe. The Russian T-34s, the German Tigers, the panzerfaust, the Sturmgewehr: "Storm Rifle" - the first assault rifles, the M-1, all ruled the battlefields of WWII. The Bradley fighting vehicle's 25mm chain gun, "Puff the magic dragon" minigun, just to name a few force multipliers, ie, game changers.
Our Democratic party needs to learn that whoever defines the terms of the debate, usually wins the debate. And it is absolutely crucial to keep this force multiplier out of repub hands for the remainder of the war.
For example, the repubs have succeeded at nothing and everything because they have framed the debate on tax reform for maximum devastating effect. If I were president, I would ignore the tax cut for the rich false dichotomy altogether, and focus on the real target-the middle class tax breaks for the ones who pay the bills around here: the American middle class!
Whoever wins the middle class, wins the war! So, this is why I say the whole issue of tax breaks for the wealthiest top 1% is a feint, a false choice, and a repub trap. The solution is really this simple. Just let them expire, and die a natural death!
Concentrate our forces on the real target, and the real target--the winning issue for us on which we should be focusing all of our strength on--is sticking to our guns, and fighting for the middle class. The rich will make it just fine without their holier than thou tax largesse. Let them cry poverty while at the same time eating caviar and drinking champagne until the cows come home. The middle class has more than enough bullets(votes)and their millions of votes presence on the battlefield is the force multiplier in this mother of all battles. But they're like Dorothy and her ruby slippers. They never knew they had all the power all along to go home victoriously.
Plan the work and work the plan! Don't get baited into a class war debate that we'll lose because the corporatists come loaded for bear with their own force multiplier, their coffers are flush with unlimited CASH.(Remember Citizens United v. FEC, anyone?) The elite, special moneyed interests have money to burn, but the public image that they're really about creating jobs is a false meme used to keep us all off-balance and in a state of an intra-party civil war. Everybody knows they're selfish, but being the greedy bastards they are, if anybody's going to rub anybody's nose in the crap they want to do the rubbing. This has got to end and end now. So make the rich spend all their money on the repubs proving what everybody already knows.
The solution is really quite simple. We stick to the real target: the middle class voters! If we look out for them, they'll look out for us. They're not stupid. They know who's on their side and who's rubbing their noses in crap.