> And no matter how diligently they adopt the language of the moment, the furthest left wing of the party is always ready to remind them that they have sinned.
it’s incredible how many of our political pathologies stem from having a two-party system
of course a big-tent party that’s trying to win half the electorate without tapping into ethnic resentment has trouble formulating a coherent message
repete2024 on
> Kamala Harris is currently touring the country to promote her new book 107 Days, which is her attempt to explain why her presidential run failed miserably
One thing that the article doesn’t touch on is nobody in media ever described Trump as having “failed miserably” in 2020
OogieBoogieInnocence on
>Everyone knows this. The criticism has become cliché: Democrats run on nothing more than not being Trump. The accusation is hurled so often that it has lost its bite, but it remains true. The party does not offer a story about what life might look like under its care, only a permanent warning about what horrors await if the other side wins. It is like a restaurant that serves no food but makes a very convincing case that the diner across the street will poison you. People will eventually get hungry.
>But some Democratic loyalists still insist that their candidates do have messages. Look, they say, here are thirty-page documents explaining plans for economic revitalization, for immigration reform, for saving the environment. It is true, these documents exist, but they may as well be written on water. The average person is not browsing campaign websites in their leisure time or cross-referencing footnotes before deciding who to vote for. They are consuming their politics in bursts of color and sound: an Instagram infographic, a TikTok video, a clip of AI-generated Hulk Hogan descending from heaven to tell you that inflation is going up. In a country where 43% percent of people under 30 get their news from TikTok, the Democrats are attempting to sell the Iliad in its original Greek.
“Democrats have policy but don’t have good soundbites” has been a self-criticism since at least 2016 if not further back. Yes Democrats need someone who feels more sincere to the public but the truth is i think most Dem politicians are sincere. Is it shocking that the professional class party of lawyers, doctors, professors and other upper class white collar types are very measured and deliberate? It will never not be frustrating that politics rewards flash over substance. We should be electing policy dorks not people who sound like and have the knowledge of the average truck driver, and yet people keep picking Trump.
ChipKellysShoeStore on
Some variation of this article gets poasted every week.
Maybe Dems have a messaging about messaging problem and they need all these well-meaning substackers to stop manifesting a messaging issue
YimbyStillHere on
No amount of messaging will ever be more powerful than the social media engagement algorithms that are pushing people towards extreme views
Dunter_Mutchings on
Wow, thank god we have another Substack yapper to write the 258,665th version of this same article since November.
creeoer on
How many of these articles do we need before we realize that Americans are just kind of slow
boardatwork1111 on
I’m not sure why they’re concluding Newsom’s messaging strategy isn’t working, his favorability and primary polling numbers have risen substantially since he’s started being more aggressive online.
They also miss the core issue that kneecapped Dem messaging last election, inflation/affordability was the number 1 issue by a mile and voters saw Dems as completely uncredible in addressing that. We can nitpick the messaging strategy of Kamala and the party as a whole all day, but we were the incumbent party and voter blamed us for high prices, there was nothing we could conceivably say to change that fact. That alone was a death sentence, trying to frame it as anything else is just political navel gazing.
eman9416 on
It’s not possible to have good messaging if no one wants to push out the message.
Considering all of the media/internet incentives point to criticizing “democrats” at all times, there is no way to build out good messaging. It’s a fools errand.
It’s also cope for people who just don’t want to acknowledge that the American people aren’t with us on crime, immigration and other social issues. You can’t message your way out of unpopular ideas.
Magic words progressivism exists to avoid those difficult conversations. It’s not that our ideas aren’t popular, it’s just that we didn’t use the magic words. And shocker, that’s the fault of….my factional enemy I’m competing with for power. Who could have seen that coming.
9 Comments
> And no matter how diligently they adopt the language of the moment, the furthest left wing of the party is always ready to remind them that they have sinned.
it’s incredible how many of our political pathologies stem from having a two-party system
of course a big-tent party that’s trying to win half the electorate without tapping into ethnic resentment has trouble formulating a coherent message
> Kamala Harris is currently touring the country to promote her new book 107 Days, which is her attempt to explain why her presidential run failed miserably
One thing that the article doesn’t touch on is nobody in media ever described Trump as having “failed miserably” in 2020
>Everyone knows this. The criticism has become cliché: Democrats run on nothing more than not being Trump. The accusation is hurled so often that it has lost its bite, but it remains true. The party does not offer a story about what life might look like under its care, only a permanent warning about what horrors await if the other side wins. It is like a restaurant that serves no food but makes a very convincing case that the diner across the street will poison you. People will eventually get hungry.
>But some Democratic loyalists still insist that their candidates do have messages. Look, they say, here are thirty-page documents explaining plans for economic revitalization, for immigration reform, for saving the environment. It is true, these documents exist, but they may as well be written on water. The average person is not browsing campaign websites in their leisure time or cross-referencing footnotes before deciding who to vote for. They are consuming their politics in bursts of color and sound: an Instagram infographic, a TikTok video, a clip of AI-generated Hulk Hogan descending from heaven to tell you that inflation is going up. In a country where 43% percent of people under 30 get their news from TikTok, the Democrats are attempting to sell the Iliad in its original Greek.
“Democrats have policy but don’t have good soundbites” has been a self-criticism since at least 2016 if not further back. Yes Democrats need someone who feels more sincere to the public but the truth is i think most Dem politicians are sincere. Is it shocking that the professional class party of lawyers, doctors, professors and other upper class white collar types are very measured and deliberate? It will never not be frustrating that politics rewards flash over substance. We should be electing policy dorks not people who sound like and have the knowledge of the average truck driver, and yet people keep picking Trump.
Some variation of this article gets poasted every week.
Maybe Dems have a messaging about messaging problem and they need all these well-meaning substackers to stop manifesting a messaging issue
No amount of messaging will ever be more powerful than the social media engagement algorithms that are pushing people towards extreme views
Wow, thank god we have another Substack yapper to write the 258,665th version of this same article since November.
How many of these articles do we need before we realize that Americans are just kind of slow
I’m not sure why they’re concluding Newsom’s messaging strategy isn’t working, his favorability and primary polling numbers have risen substantially since he’s started being more aggressive online.
They also miss the core issue that kneecapped Dem messaging last election, inflation/affordability was the number 1 issue by a mile and voters saw Dems as completely uncredible in addressing that. We can nitpick the messaging strategy of Kamala and the party as a whole all day, but we were the incumbent party and voter blamed us for high prices, there was nothing we could conceivably say to change that fact. That alone was a death sentence, trying to frame it as anything else is just political navel gazing.
It’s not possible to have good messaging if no one wants to push out the message.
Considering all of the media/internet incentives point to criticizing “democrats” at all times, there is no way to build out good messaging. It’s a fools errand.
It’s also cope for people who just don’t want to acknowledge that the American people aren’t with us on crime, immigration and other social issues. You can’t message your way out of unpopular ideas.
Magic words progressivism exists to avoid those difficult conversations. It’s not that our ideas aren’t popular, it’s just that we didn’t use the magic words. And shocker, that’s the fault of….my factional enemy I’m competing with for power. Who could have seen that coming.