Talk politics.

While I'm aware that what I'm about to describe is an ideal that's easier wished than achieved, still, here's what I imagine political rhetoric should be about, and consequently, how it should look like.

We saw from Hillary's problems with connecting with the voters (both during the primaries and in the general election) that a politician should be striving to say things in a simple way, using words and concepts that voters can actually understand, and have an interest in. The purpose of communicating a message shouldn't be to replace sophisticated policy language with buzzwords - it should be to present a policy measure, whatever it may be, which you could then explain how it would work to solve an issue that people care about. To explain how exactly it would solve that issue - in the simplest possible terms.

While communicating with people may not be the easiest job, if a politician has a purpose, a mission, and they have n understanding of the issues they are involved with, people would know. They would appreciate that - and if the message resonates with people's needs and interests, they would respond accordingly. Perhaps this is why populism has been so successful lately - it has simple messages about the important issues of the day. Sure, it tends to offer simplistic solutions that would likely not work in the real world - but the problem of the more reasonable, rational politicians is that they have been unable to explain in clear terms exactly how and why those pseudo-solutions would fail.

People need to know these things. They might not be as stupid as some suspect they are. Just be open and honest with them, instead of throwing a fuss like most mainstream parties have been doing in response to the ascent of populism, or pretending that they would just shut up at some point. As if that would make political opportunists go away. No it won't.

As the brilliant and insightful Jon Stewart said in his final speech on his last show, the best defense against bullshit is vigilance - so if you smell something, say something. But how you say that something, also matters a great deal.