President Obama seems to think that you win by demonstrating that you're a more reasonable person than your opponents. It didn't work too badly, I'll grant, as an electoral strategy in the 2012 election.
When the topic is growing income inequality, it's hard to prettify an imbalance between the rich and everybody else, so instead, conservatives try to argue that it doesn't exist.
There's a growing consensus that the best way to defeat communism in Cuba is to get its citizens hooked on American goods.