If you have the time, I highly recommend this interview between Ezra Klein and Democrat strategist David Shor (https://youtu.be/Sx0J7dIlL7c?si=VCLdHs48Tsk63GqP). He goes into a lot of the details around the question you imply. Long story short, Republicans have done that, but also on the issues people actually care about. This has given them a large trust lead in topics like the economy, crime, immigration, the border, etc. If Democrats had also hyperfocused on kitchen table issues, they might have won. By the time Kamala was campaigning, it was far too late to convince everyone that she actually cared about important issues. She had four years to prove she did not.