I get this weird twitching sensation in my neck every time I hear some Republican voter or official or Trump sycophant talk about, “How much we accomplished.” It’s a thing with them. They’re conditioned to say it every time someone sticks a microphone in their face … and fails to ask the natural follow-up, which is, “What the [bleep] are you talking about?”

These days most post-Trump attention is being paid to The Big Lie and inciting a violent attack the Capitol. Important stuff. But every so often some wonk points out how astonishingly little Trump and Trump kow-towing Republicans accomplished during his four year dumpster fire. Other than the long sought after deficit-doubling Paul Ryan/Mitch McConnell tax cut, (mine went up $900, FWIW), I am not aware of any … any … significant legslation Trump and crew passed in four years. Put another way, as we know all to well, today’s Republicans are not in the policy business.

And yet … and yet … they have successfully sold the message, to their base, that they have delivered for them. Which they have as long as you count culture war attacks and grievance-mongery as “accomplisments.” (Which I believe they do.)

This all by way of contrasting the modern GOP and their entertainment echo chamber with the gross, borderline criminal ineptitude of Democrats selling their accomplishments to the general public.

Want an example? Try this on for size.

Allow me to excerpt a couple key takeaways.

“The bipartisan infrastructure deal (BIF) was a historic achievement that few thought possible. But since its passage in November, the law has done little to move voter opinion in Democrats’ favor. To find out why and what to do, Third Way and Impact Research conducted a survey of 2000 likely 2022 voters to investigate voter opinion on the BIF and its messaging.“

“Quite simply, voters do not know the bill was passed. While voters express high levels of support for the deal once they hear about it, only 24% of voters think the bill is law. Meanwhile, a plurality (37%) says they “don’t know” the status of the bill, 30% say “it is still being worked on in Congress but isn’t law yet,” and 9% believe it is not being worked on in Congress and will not be passed. Given that a large share believes the deal is still being worked on in Congress, it is clear that voters are confusing the BIF with BBB, which, of course, has not passed. In selling this legislation, the first order of business is to remind, inform, and convince voters that it is now law.“

The sound you hear is me bashing my head against a wall. An unprecedented trillion dollar bill to, you know, actually accomplish stuff. Repair roads. Rebuild bridges. Expand and improve airports. A trillion dollars worth of work for blue-collar worker-voters. And three-fourths of the public doesn’t even know it’s happening.

Jesus [bleeping] christ.

To paraphrase Joe Biden, “Here’s the deal, kids.” In modern America there is no reality unless it’s on TV. (I believe it was ex-George W. speechwriter David Frum who first said this.) All those “hard working Americans” we’re always valorizing? They’re not paying attention to legislation. They’re far more interested in who was on “The Masked Singer” and if the Vikings can win a play-off game this year.

You have to tell them …, over and over and over … what you’ve done for them. And you have to tell it to them where they are, which is watching cheesy primetime TV and sporting events. You have to rub their faces in what you accomplished for them.

Like the legendary Mayor of Chicago, Dick Daley, always did. No road or bridge in the city was ever repaired i.e. accomplished without a sign next to it saying that he, His Honor Dick Daley, made this happen … for you … much-loved fellow citizen of The Windy City.

I vividly remember back in 2010, sitting in my local roadhouse bar in Wisconsin, listening to a couple neighboring yobs piss and moan about Obama screwing things up and what a loser “that guy” was. Meanwhile, at that very moment, out the window not forty yards away a crew of a dozen guys was trenching in fiber optic cable next to the highway. A vital piece of work done by blue-collar guys a lot like the boys at the bar, and paid for by Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

I also remember someone asking Obama at one point why more people weren’t aware that this was something he signed off on, and maybe wasn’t the eye-glazing name, “The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act” kind of obscuring the identity of who made these jobs and improvements possible? To which Obama — a Chicago guy, mind you — said something to the effect, “What do you want me to do? Put my name on it?”

To which I screamed at the time, “Yes! Damn it! And a big picture of you pointing at it saying, ‘I did this’.”

Of course if this kind of thing were left to me not only would I slap my picture on every sign next to every construction site I’d add a line reminding “hard working Americans” that their local Republican congress critter and Senator voted against this “accomplishment.”