Whether or not they vote to shut down the government today, Democrats have proven one thing: They are really bad at messaging.

Laying out their political narrative on funding the government should have begun on Jan. 3, when this session of Congress began. Instead, as of lunch time on Wednesday, the party was still trying to puzzle out what it’s going to say.

That's just not the way to do it. Democrats need to have a consistent, effective message that everyone can understand. This shouldn’t be that hard. In the Trump administration, they’ve been given the fattest, juiciest target in American political history.

As a general rule, I’m not a big fan of populism. But it is certainly one way to build a message, and it seems to be the way Democrats will be heading. Populism, however, has to be popular. Old-school leftist populism tends not to be, especially if the idea is to peel away President Trump's voters.

So let’s try something different: centrist populism.

The message should start with the fact that Trump is taking us for a ride. He ran on a promise to make prices go down quickly. He ran on a promise to stand up for regular people. He’s not doing any of that.

Trump talks a lot about tariffs and slashing government. But the only thing he has to say about rising prices is........

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