I think if you talked to a bunch of Democratic politicians and their campaign consultants, they would tell you that they are ALREADY running on these issues.
The problem is that the message does not get through to the demographics that would need to be persuaded in order to win elections.
The difference is that the Democratic Party does not have a 24/7/365 rage & resentment-generating infrastructure, from Fox News to all the right wing blowhards on the radio, to all the think tanks pumping out specious academic BS, to the troll farms — whether based in Russia or elsewhere — seeding the clouds of the Internet with right-wing propaganda.
Pending on what year you start counting, it has been a 20 to 40 year multi generational propaganda infrastructure building effort that has paid off very handsomely for the fossil fuel industry, the Koch brothers, the Republican party, and all of the corporate interests that benefit by pulling the wool over the eyes of people like the citizens of McPherson County, Nebraska.
Republicans operate on the idea that their voters don't understand the issues but do understand constant name calling and insults. Nothing is too terrible to say about Democrats and the more terrible the less likely that anyone will be able to touch it. I agree with Lucian's idea of running on what the party does for voters. Much better idea than trying to disprove the names and insults, which only spreads them around.
I just posted up-thread a link to Michael A. Cohen's MSNBC column, which offers a somewhat different -- and IMO more productive -- take on it: more or less, that hardcore Republican voters don't feel a need to "understand the issues" because their identity as Republicans is more important. What Republican legislators (and tfg) do is good because Republicans do it. What Democratic legislators (and President Biden) do is bad because Democrats do it -- even if they'd support the exact same thing if Republicans were doing it. The whole column is worth reading: https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/house-censure-vote-paul-gosar-shows-how-rarely-gop-breaks-n1284070
What a pleasure to come home six weeks later and find one of your excellent columns on my incoming mail. It's like you're writing a textbook for the practical left. Thank you, Lucian.
If I were a Democrat looking to start a business at this very moment, I think my first choice would be to print and sell lawn signs, and signs on sticks that parading demonstrators can waive bystanders. Something to the effect of "Joe Biden just gave you a job!", or "Joe Biden just put food on your table!" Something akin to labor union members picketing a generation or two ago. Round up a bunch of school kids, give them signs to waive, and take the bunch of them into a public park or playground so they can wave their signs and tell people how good things are going to be economically come next year. If you are walking a toddler in a stroller, there is room for campaign sign. Call it 'infrastructure woke'. Pass out leaflets of what projects are on the menu for the coming year. Go bang on the doors of the area planning agencies and find out how many projects they have backlogged over the past four years while former administration did its chicken dance, two steps sideways, and two steps back, or marching in place. No progress being made, but a lot of noise and motion accompanying getting nowhere fast. This is where even shy people have to get out there and pretend that they are in a Mardi Gras parade in New Orleans. That's the only way Democrats are going to be able to break through the fog of disinformation that Republicans have generated. We have only one year, so use our time well.
And billboards. We still have them. And do you remember those signs that once ran along highways for a couple of miles? They were small and about at eye level and each one carried only a phrase, a word or two, that ended up being a complete message after you had passed the last one. They intrigued me. I think they would still work: (1) Joe Biden (2) just put (3) food on (4) your table!
I don’t know what your current circulation is, Lucian, but it ought to include every Democrat in the country, because every one of us needs to read pieces like this.
Way to go Lucian ! Let the Right own the Negative. Competing with the Right there is like that old saw about wrestling a pig: You will only get you dirty, and the pig likes it.
And just what you said: go for the positive and sell it at every opportunity. On this same subject though, why does Biden and everyone else on his team get so little airtime from major media for their accomplishments? The most coverage I saw of Biden recently was of him dozing off in the bleachers somewhere. They played that one over and over.
For far too long, American voters have been handed a can of ugly worms-false platforms by Republicans, who fear that their voters, once they discover they've been had on all of the platforms the Republicans have stood on, will vote for their own interests and beat the living crap out of the GOP for the lies and fake 'culture wars' they propagated.
Voters need to believe in a better country-that's why they vote.
The Republicans don't want that-they want to keep the voters stupid and angry over fake outrage so they can con them so more to give the billionaires more money, and keep the rest of us poor, hungry and homeless.
The Democrats need to realize this-that they don't need to play into the Republican hands of fake outrage and 'causes celebre' that don't do anything for the voters.
They need to provide the improvements we desperately need in our lives-healthcare, childcare, housing, education, and more power to change our lives. I believe they're trying to.
They just indeed need "to run on it" because I think the majority of voters are finally ready to get rid of the hate and division the GOP thrives on.
This pandemic has shown that denying reality costs lives, and the GOP loves it-but they shouldn't because the virus is killing their voters, not the Democrats-who take the virus and everything to do with it as seriously as possible.
I have the feeling the midterms might be surprising. People are tired of being sick, tired, homeless and broke all the time. Biden has delivered on it, and the Democrats just need to continue.
I think it would be helpful if you and James Carville would teach a seminar. Stop competing about what might make someone angry in your favor (lose/lose) - it's the messaging about what actually effects lives in a good way that matters.
Why do people vote against their own interests? Reagan’s “Great Communicator” people deliberately set about weaponizing rhetoric—oh, yes—using semiotics, creating “code words” and associations that last to this day. Essentially, they linked emotion with trigger words, repeated them endlessly until people no longer had to THINK at the meaning—they became cliche. “Liberal” is an example. They do it to people, too, drumming emotional context into associated people, demonizing them. “Swift boater” and “Hillary.”
People who don’t think critically are most susceptible to this. Those same types want to IDENTIFY with certain traits: being rich, religious or patriotic. They are easily influenced and they place their own egos on the line. Hence, they cannot admit to being duped. They’d much rather lie to themselves to the point of adopting conspiracy theory over reality. Repugs, by definition, are NOT “good” people because they lack an inner moral compass.
Dawna: Excellent explanation of the political corruption of language. Here is another example: "Liberal" was once a label that people used proudly to self-identity. By the time the Right got finished corrupting "Liberal" though it was toxic. So now we are "Progressives", and will be, until they ruin that one too.
It’s grown worse than this. Read “The Rise of Weaponized Flak in the New Media Era” by Brian Michael Goss. The Mercers are still doing their thing via Cambridge Analytica aka Emeridata…while holed up on their yacht outside of London, dodging US taxes. WHERE IS THE FBI?????
As you say, Democrats would be well advised to fix their messaging system and fast. You can bet your bottom dollar that every time a piece of rebar is indeed slapped on a bridge, the local Republicans, township level upwards, will be on site for the ribbon cutting and the photo-op, even if they voted against the bill or had nothing to do with it. All politics is local, and I hope the Democrats cultivate local new outlets, because it’s there that the impact is mightiest.
Lucian explains so well the cunning and the hypocrisy of the GOP character. A good example if his quote from the Frank book "...he speculated that conservative Republicans pick culture war fights they know they can’t win so they can keep their voters in a constant state of anger and resentment while behind their backs they line the pockets of billionaires and give tax breaks to golf clubs and fly around the country on Gulfstreams." I wonder if Trump was playing golf when he thought of the big tax break he gave them while shafting the hard working blue collar little guy with higher taxes. That's the one Sinema was against reversing. Apparently she took in a few million of corporate donations including from the drug companies so that explains that so not all the bad guys are Republicans, although these days they sure have plenty. The GOP world is a topsy turvy world these days for sure, the good guys (Cheney/Kinsinger, etc.) are the bad guys, and the bad guys like the ones mentioned by Lucian, are the good guys; at least they are never censured in any way, but the ones with integrity like Raffensberger who voted for Trump but wouldn't bow to his wishes to make him a winner instead of a loser.
Then there are the evangelicals and other so-called Christians; at least the ones who listen to the sermons on Sunday about how Jesus spoke of love and kindness and compassion and tolerance, but then the rest of the week they behave in the complete opposite way. Even Trump calls himself a Christian but the words kind, compassionate and tolerant are attributes that are completely foreign to his nature.
I think Christians forget that Jesus was a Jew as were his disciples and all his followers, not only during his lifetime but for a couple of hundred years after. He was obviously a very good man and if we lived by just one of his commandments. do unto others as you would have them do unto you, the world would indeed be a wonderful place.
Beto is running for governor in Texas but I'm afraid it's going to be an uphill battle unless he can come out strong with real solutions for our problems here. He needs to "run on it" for sure.
Yes! I just sent this in a tweet to Jaime Harrison with a message asking him not only to READ this, but to SHARE it. Hope someone in that office is paying attention today.
I think if you talked to a bunch of Democratic politicians and their campaign consultants, they would tell you that they are ALREADY running on these issues.
The problem is that the message does not get through to the demographics that would need to be persuaded in order to win elections.
The difference is that the Democratic Party does not have a 24/7/365 rage & resentment-generating infrastructure, from Fox News to all the right wing blowhards on the radio, to all the think tanks pumping out specious academic BS, to the troll farms — whether based in Russia or elsewhere — seeding the clouds of the Internet with right-wing propaganda.
Pending on what year you start counting, it has been a 20 to 40 year multi generational propaganda infrastructure building effort that has paid off very handsomely for the fossil fuel industry, the Koch brothers, the Republican party, and all of the corporate interests that benefit by pulling the wool over the eyes of people like the citizens of McPherson County, Nebraska.
Republicans operate on the idea that their voters don't understand the issues but do understand constant name calling and insults. Nothing is too terrible to say about Democrats and the more terrible the less likely that anyone will be able to touch it. I agree with Lucian's idea of running on what the party does for voters. Much better idea than trying to disprove the names and insults, which only spreads them around.
I just posted up-thread a link to Michael A. Cohen's MSNBC column, which offers a somewhat different -- and IMO more productive -- take on it: more or less, that hardcore Republican voters don't feel a need to "understand the issues" because their identity as Republicans is more important. What Republican legislators (and tfg) do is good because Republicans do it. What Democratic legislators (and President Biden) do is bad because Democrats do it -- even if they'd support the exact same thing if Republicans were doing it. The whole column is worth reading: https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/house-censure-vote-paul-gosar-shows-how-rarely-gop-breaks-n1284070
What a pleasure to come home six weeks later and find one of your excellent columns on my incoming mail. It's like you're writing a textbook for the practical left. Thank you, Lucian.
Thanks Tony. My pleasure. Stay tuned. You'll love tonight's column.
Lucian, the Dems could benefit if you would craft their messaging.
If I were a Democrat looking to start a business at this very moment, I think my first choice would be to print and sell lawn signs, and signs on sticks that parading demonstrators can waive bystanders. Something to the effect of "Joe Biden just gave you a job!", or "Joe Biden just put food on your table!" Something akin to labor union members picketing a generation or two ago. Round up a bunch of school kids, give them signs to waive, and take the bunch of them into a public park or playground so they can wave their signs and tell people how good things are going to be economically come next year. If you are walking a toddler in a stroller, there is room for campaign sign. Call it 'infrastructure woke'. Pass out leaflets of what projects are on the menu for the coming year. Go bang on the doors of the area planning agencies and find out how many projects they have backlogged over the past four years while former administration did its chicken dance, two steps sideways, and two steps back, or marching in place. No progress being made, but a lot of noise and motion accompanying getting nowhere fast. This is where even shy people have to get out there and pretend that they are in a Mardi Gras parade in New Orleans. That's the only way Democrats are going to be able to break through the fog of disinformation that Republicans have generated. We have only one year, so use our time well.
And billboards. We still have them. And do you remember those signs that once ran along highways for a couple of miles? They were small and about at eye level and each one carried only a phrase, a word or two, that ended up being a complete message after you had passed the last one. They intrigued me. I think they would still work: (1) Joe Biden (2) just put (3) food on (4) your table!
Oh, to have the ear of the all the Dems
Send money. They will listen!
I don’t know what your current circulation is, Lucian, but it ought to include every Democrat in the country, because every one of us needs to read pieces like this.
Way to go Lucian ! Let the Right own the Negative. Competing with the Right there is like that old saw about wrestling a pig: You will only get you dirty, and the pig likes it.
And just what you said: go for the positive and sell it at every opportunity. On this same subject though, why does Biden and everyone else on his team get so little airtime from major media for their accomplishments? The most coverage I saw of Biden recently was of him dozing off in the bleachers somewhere. They played that one over and over.
For far too long, American voters have been handed a can of ugly worms-false platforms by Republicans, who fear that their voters, once they discover they've been had on all of the platforms the Republicans have stood on, will vote for their own interests and beat the living crap out of the GOP for the lies and fake 'culture wars' they propagated.
Voters need to believe in a better country-that's why they vote.
The Republicans don't want that-they want to keep the voters stupid and angry over fake outrage so they can con them so more to give the billionaires more money, and keep the rest of us poor, hungry and homeless.
The Democrats need to realize this-that they don't need to play into the Republican hands of fake outrage and 'causes celebre' that don't do anything for the voters.
They need to provide the improvements we desperately need in our lives-healthcare, childcare, housing, education, and more power to change our lives. I believe they're trying to.
They just indeed need "to run on it" because I think the majority of voters are finally ready to get rid of the hate and division the GOP thrives on.
This pandemic has shown that denying reality costs lives, and the GOP loves it-but they shouldn't because the virus is killing their voters, not the Democrats-who take the virus and everything to do with it as seriously as possible.
I have the feeling the midterms might be surprising. People are tired of being sick, tired, homeless and broke all the time. Biden has delivered on it, and the Democrats just need to continue.
I think it would be helpful if you and James Carville would teach a seminar. Stop competing about what might make someone angry in your favor (lose/lose) - it's the messaging about what actually effects lives in a good way that matters.
Preach it Lucian!
Why do people vote against their own interests? Reagan’s “Great Communicator” people deliberately set about weaponizing rhetoric—oh, yes—using semiotics, creating “code words” and associations that last to this day. Essentially, they linked emotion with trigger words, repeated them endlessly until people no longer had to THINK at the meaning—they became cliche. “Liberal” is an example. They do it to people, too, drumming emotional context into associated people, demonizing them. “Swift boater” and “Hillary.”
People who don’t think critically are most susceptible to this. Those same types want to IDENTIFY with certain traits: being rich, religious or patriotic. They are easily influenced and they place their own egos on the line. Hence, they cannot admit to being duped. They’d much rather lie to themselves to the point of adopting conspiracy theory over reality. Repugs, by definition, are NOT “good” people because they lack an inner moral compass.
Dawna: Excellent explanation of the political corruption of language. Here is another example: "Liberal" was once a label that people used proudly to self-identity. By the time the Right got finished corrupting "Liberal" though it was toxic. So now we are "Progressives", and will be, until they ruin that one too.
It’s grown worse than this. Read “The Rise of Weaponized Flak in the New Media Era” by Brian Michael Goss. The Mercers are still doing their thing via Cambridge Analytica aka Emeridata…while holed up on their yacht outside of London, dodging US taxes. WHERE IS THE FBI?????
As you say, Democrats would be well advised to fix their messaging system and fast. You can bet your bottom dollar that every time a piece of rebar is indeed slapped on a bridge, the local Republicans, township level upwards, will be on site for the ribbon cutting and the photo-op, even if they voted against the bill or had nothing to do with it. All politics is local, and I hope the Democrats cultivate local new outlets, because it’s there that the impact is mightiest.
Lucian explains so well the cunning and the hypocrisy of the GOP character. A good example if his quote from the Frank book "...he speculated that conservative Republicans pick culture war fights they know they can’t win so they can keep their voters in a constant state of anger and resentment while behind their backs they line the pockets of billionaires and give tax breaks to golf clubs and fly around the country on Gulfstreams." I wonder if Trump was playing golf when he thought of the big tax break he gave them while shafting the hard working blue collar little guy with higher taxes. That's the one Sinema was against reversing. Apparently she took in a few million of corporate donations including from the drug companies so that explains that so not all the bad guys are Republicans, although these days they sure have plenty. The GOP world is a topsy turvy world these days for sure, the good guys (Cheney/Kinsinger, etc.) are the bad guys, and the bad guys like the ones mentioned by Lucian, are the good guys; at least they are never censured in any way, but the ones with integrity like Raffensberger who voted for Trump but wouldn't bow to his wishes to make him a winner instead of a loser.
Then there are the evangelicals and other so-called Christians; at least the ones who listen to the sermons on Sunday about how Jesus spoke of love and kindness and compassion and tolerance, but then the rest of the week they behave in the complete opposite way. Even Trump calls himself a Christian but the words kind, compassionate and tolerant are attributes that are completely foreign to his nature.
I think Christians forget that Jesus was a Jew as were his disciples and all his followers, not only during his lifetime but for a couple of hundred years after. He was obviously a very good man and if we lived by just one of his commandments. do unto others as you would have them do unto you, the world would indeed be a wonderful place.
In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king
In the land of fucking morons and nazis, the blind man
w/ 1/2 a brain, is king
Beto is running for governor in Texas but I'm afraid it's going to be an uphill battle unless he can come out strong with real solutions for our problems here. He needs to "run on it" for sure.
Yes! I just sent this in a tweet to Jaime Harrison with a message asking him not only to READ this, but to SHARE it. Hope someone in that office is paying attention today.