GordonGekko
Footballguy
Direct Headline: Do Democrats Have a Messaging Problem?
After the elections last week, in which Democrats across the country lost races they expected to win or narrowly escaped defeat, some are asking whether the Democratic Party is suffering from a similar problem of insularity in its messaging. Critics and some prominent liberals .... have argued that Democrats are trying to explain major issues — such as inflation, crime and school curriculum — with answers that satisfy the party’s progressive base but are unpersuasive and off-putting to most other voters....calls the Democrats’ problem with critical race theory and other galvanizing issues the “Fox News Fallacy.”...These issues are ripe for distortions and exaggeration by Republican politicians and their allies in the news media. But Mr. Teixeira says Democrats should not dismiss voters’ concerns as simply right-wing misinformation....“An issue is not necessarily completely invalid just because Fox News mentions it,” he said....In an interview, Mr. Teixeira said his logic applied to questions far beyond critical race theory. “I can’t tell you how many times I analyze a particular issue, saying this is a real concern,” he said. “And the first thing I hear is, ‘Hey, this is a right-wing talking point. You’re playing into the hands of the enemy.’”...
By Jeremy W. Peters Nov. 9, 2021
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/09/us/politics/democrats-schools-voters.html
Direct Headline: Democrats need to get back to a simple dichotomy
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has a sharper message. “Democrats, Ms. Pelosi told Mr. Biden and a group of his aides, need a more succinct and consistent message,” the New York Times reports. “The speaker, who has long been fond of pithy, made-for-bumper-sticker mantras, offered a suggestion she had heard from members: Democrats deliver.”...So what can Biden do? At its most basic, Democrats must convince voters they are on the side of regular Americans — making progress and solving real problems (e.g., jobs, covid). They need to remind voters that Democrats are on the right side of the middle class, democracy and law and order....Democrats need to get back to a fundamental message: When in power, they make government work for ordinary people and defend American values (democracy, opportunity, fairness, playing by the rules). They solve real problems.....
By Jennifer Rubin March 14, 2022 at 7:45 a.m. EDT
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/03/14/democrats-messaging-problem/
Direct Headline: Democrats Are Losing the Culture War. A Messaging Shift Won’t Save Them.
The party must point to deeds, not words, to show they understand voters’ concerns....As Republicans seize on crime and schools and Covid to win in Virginia and beyond, President Joe Biden’s approval ratings are falling into a Trump-like trough. And with signs of further erosion among working-class voters who were once the core of the Democratic Party, notable voices from the center to the left are offering an assortment of rhetorical tools to staunch the bleeding....All sides of the debate agree that Democrats are currently losing the culture war to the GOP. But the harsh reality is that a simple shift in messaging — either to rebutting Republican attacks or shifting the ground to economic issues — won’t be enough to save Democrats come November. Democrats are the ones in power, and people need to feel their lives are improved. It will take deeds, not words — along with a generous dose of good fortune — to stave off a midterm disaster....More extensive — and more eyebrow-raising — is the analysis from prominent Democratic pollster and strategist Stan Greenberg, who has for decades been focusing his energies on working-class voters. His essay in The American Prospect has tough things to say about the last three Democratic presidential candidates....“The Obama years,” he writes, “were the critical juncture when Democratic leaders stopped seeing the working class and feeling its despair and anger. … The result is that the Democratic Party has lost touch with all working people, including its own base.”...About his client Hillary Clinton, he writes: “Clinton’s general approach on the economy was to say she would ‘build on the progress’ Obama had made, which said to voters she was not going to change much. … Her description of some Trump supporters as ‘deplorables’ just baked in the perception that she did not respect working people.”...And looking at 2020, Greenberg pushes back against the notion that racial attitudes predominantly explain the flight of the working class to the GOP. While Trump “defied the demographic trends” by boosting white working-class turnout, he also increased his vote with Black men and Hispanics....What to do? Based on his work with focus groups, Greenberg says Democrats must present themselves as agents of change, particularly on the economy and who holds power: “If Democrats are to stop hemorrhaging their working-class support and achieve the kinds of gains that they did in 2018, they have to embrace a message of change.”...
Opinion by Jeff Greenfield 02/23/2022 04:25 PM EST
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/02/23/democrats-losing-culture-war-messaging-shift-00011091
Direct Headline: Democrats think their messaging is bad, but it's actually the product no one wants
When Democrats lose, find themselves on the wrong side of approval polling, or face a likely election loss, the one excuse they cling to like guns and religion is poor messaging. "We're doing great! But we're not conveying that effectively to people!" ...If Democrats could wipe away the sanctimony from their eyes, they might notice that despite positive GDP numbers and low unemployment, people are watching their grocery bills climb every week. Couple that with gas higher gas prices, continuing supply chain snarls, and Calvinball rules over mask and vaccine mandates, people might not be all that thrilled with the party in power....Naturally, instead of recognizing when the facts change, Democrats focus on the messaging. Some go so far as to blame outside forces for that failed messaging. For example, Dan Pfeiffer, a former communications director for Barack Obama, recently appeared on a Vox podcast. The write-up reads: "His main point is that Democrats are struggling to define themselves and get their message to voters because the media environment is stacked against them in fundamental ways."...When you stop laughing, you'll see they're dead serious. People like Pfeiffer have convinced themselves that the media landscape above all else prevents them from getting their winning message through to the public. When they try to go that route, they sound like Scooby-Doo villains: "We'd have a permanent majority if it weren't for those meddling kids like Ben Shapiro!"...Buried beneath all the pomp and lofty talk about "messaging" lies the real problem for Democrats this election cycle, and it is the contempt they have for the very people they want voting for them. To argue about messaging is to assume that voters don't have the cognitive ability to recognize the "wonderfulness" of what Democrats have offered them. Or that voters are like cats who will stop whatever it is they're doing to chase a little red laser light....Unfortunately, contempt often breeds indifference. When that happens, Democrats are the ones no longer paying attention, operating under the assumption that "they just don't get it." Before long, they wake up one day, and they're Terry McAuliffe, losing in a state that Biden won 365 days before by 10 percentage points....
By Jay Caruso February 16, 2022 04:06 PM
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/restoring-america/equality-not-elitism/democrats-think-their-messaging-is-bad-but-its-actually-the-product-no-one-wants
********
Something I've heard quite a bit from the radical leftists here, and from others in the MSM, is that the real problem for the current Democratic Party is the "messaging" That it's not the policy that's bad, but how it's being explained to the masses is ineffective. Or that the message is being distorted by the "disinformation laden right wing"
However this discussion begins to raise some ugly questions, and now even typically left leaning activist complicit outlets and publications are forced to point it out - Is the current Democratic Party really addressing the concerns and making the lives better of every day working class American citizens?
As Jeff Greenfield discusses above, did the Democratic Party stop seeing and understanding the frustration, anger and despair of their large base that is living check to check and hand to mouth and wondering why their current Party, the one in power, has failed to deliver for them?
Or as Jay Caruso mentions, did the Democratic Party simply ignore that it's not about the messaging but that the policy itself is horrific, ill conceived and indefensible? And does blaming "messaging" operate as an unneeded trigger point to incite their own base because of the tone deaf implications of the thinly veiled condescension?
A good example would be the Biden Administrations disastrous handling of the withdrawal from Afghanistan. What exactly could you change about the "message" to make that any less repugnant and unforgivable to the American people at large?
I'll leave this here for others to discuss.
After the elections last week, in which Democrats across the country lost races they expected to win or narrowly escaped defeat, some are asking whether the Democratic Party is suffering from a similar problem of insularity in its messaging. Critics and some prominent liberals .... have argued that Democrats are trying to explain major issues — such as inflation, crime and school curriculum — with answers that satisfy the party’s progressive base but are unpersuasive and off-putting to most other voters....calls the Democrats’ problem with critical race theory and other galvanizing issues the “Fox News Fallacy.”...These issues are ripe for distortions and exaggeration by Republican politicians and their allies in the news media. But Mr. Teixeira says Democrats should not dismiss voters’ concerns as simply right-wing misinformation....“An issue is not necessarily completely invalid just because Fox News mentions it,” he said....In an interview, Mr. Teixeira said his logic applied to questions far beyond critical race theory. “I can’t tell you how many times I analyze a particular issue, saying this is a real concern,” he said. “And the first thing I hear is, ‘Hey, this is a right-wing talking point. You’re playing into the hands of the enemy.’”...
By Jeremy W. Peters Nov. 9, 2021
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/09/us/politics/democrats-schools-voters.html
Direct Headline: Democrats need to get back to a simple dichotomy
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has a sharper message. “Democrats, Ms. Pelosi told Mr. Biden and a group of his aides, need a more succinct and consistent message,” the New York Times reports. “The speaker, who has long been fond of pithy, made-for-bumper-sticker mantras, offered a suggestion she had heard from members: Democrats deliver.”...So what can Biden do? At its most basic, Democrats must convince voters they are on the side of regular Americans — making progress and solving real problems (e.g., jobs, covid). They need to remind voters that Democrats are on the right side of the middle class, democracy and law and order....Democrats need to get back to a fundamental message: When in power, they make government work for ordinary people and defend American values (democracy, opportunity, fairness, playing by the rules). They solve real problems.....
By Jennifer Rubin March 14, 2022 at 7:45 a.m. EDT
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/03/14/democrats-messaging-problem/
Direct Headline: Democrats Are Losing the Culture War. A Messaging Shift Won’t Save Them.
The party must point to deeds, not words, to show they understand voters’ concerns....As Republicans seize on crime and schools and Covid to win in Virginia and beyond, President Joe Biden’s approval ratings are falling into a Trump-like trough. And with signs of further erosion among working-class voters who were once the core of the Democratic Party, notable voices from the center to the left are offering an assortment of rhetorical tools to staunch the bleeding....All sides of the debate agree that Democrats are currently losing the culture war to the GOP. But the harsh reality is that a simple shift in messaging — either to rebutting Republican attacks or shifting the ground to economic issues — won’t be enough to save Democrats come November. Democrats are the ones in power, and people need to feel their lives are improved. It will take deeds, not words — along with a generous dose of good fortune — to stave off a midterm disaster....More extensive — and more eyebrow-raising — is the analysis from prominent Democratic pollster and strategist Stan Greenberg, who has for decades been focusing his energies on working-class voters. His essay in The American Prospect has tough things to say about the last three Democratic presidential candidates....“The Obama years,” he writes, “were the critical juncture when Democratic leaders stopped seeing the working class and feeling its despair and anger. … The result is that the Democratic Party has lost touch with all working people, including its own base.”...About his client Hillary Clinton, he writes: “Clinton’s general approach on the economy was to say she would ‘build on the progress’ Obama had made, which said to voters she was not going to change much. … Her description of some Trump supporters as ‘deplorables’ just baked in the perception that she did not respect working people.”...And looking at 2020, Greenberg pushes back against the notion that racial attitudes predominantly explain the flight of the working class to the GOP. While Trump “defied the demographic trends” by boosting white working-class turnout, he also increased his vote with Black men and Hispanics....What to do? Based on his work with focus groups, Greenberg says Democrats must present themselves as agents of change, particularly on the economy and who holds power: “If Democrats are to stop hemorrhaging their working-class support and achieve the kinds of gains that they did in 2018, they have to embrace a message of change.”...
Opinion by Jeff Greenfield 02/23/2022 04:25 PM EST
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/02/23/democrats-losing-culture-war-messaging-shift-00011091
Direct Headline: Democrats think their messaging is bad, but it's actually the product no one wants
When Democrats lose, find themselves on the wrong side of approval polling, or face a likely election loss, the one excuse they cling to like guns and religion is poor messaging. "We're doing great! But we're not conveying that effectively to people!" ...If Democrats could wipe away the sanctimony from their eyes, they might notice that despite positive GDP numbers and low unemployment, people are watching their grocery bills climb every week. Couple that with gas higher gas prices, continuing supply chain snarls, and Calvinball rules over mask and vaccine mandates, people might not be all that thrilled with the party in power....Naturally, instead of recognizing when the facts change, Democrats focus on the messaging. Some go so far as to blame outside forces for that failed messaging. For example, Dan Pfeiffer, a former communications director for Barack Obama, recently appeared on a Vox podcast. The write-up reads: "His main point is that Democrats are struggling to define themselves and get their message to voters because the media environment is stacked against them in fundamental ways."...When you stop laughing, you'll see they're dead serious. People like Pfeiffer have convinced themselves that the media landscape above all else prevents them from getting their winning message through to the public. When they try to go that route, they sound like Scooby-Doo villains: "We'd have a permanent majority if it weren't for those meddling kids like Ben Shapiro!"...Buried beneath all the pomp and lofty talk about "messaging" lies the real problem for Democrats this election cycle, and it is the contempt they have for the very people they want voting for them. To argue about messaging is to assume that voters don't have the cognitive ability to recognize the "wonderfulness" of what Democrats have offered them. Or that voters are like cats who will stop whatever it is they're doing to chase a little red laser light....Unfortunately, contempt often breeds indifference. When that happens, Democrats are the ones no longer paying attention, operating under the assumption that "they just don't get it." Before long, they wake up one day, and they're Terry McAuliffe, losing in a state that Biden won 365 days before by 10 percentage points....
By Jay Caruso February 16, 2022 04:06 PM
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/restoring-america/equality-not-elitism/democrats-think-their-messaging-is-bad-but-its-actually-the-product-no-one-wants
********
Something I've heard quite a bit from the radical leftists here, and from others in the MSM, is that the real problem for the current Democratic Party is the "messaging" That it's not the policy that's bad, but how it's being explained to the masses is ineffective. Or that the message is being distorted by the "disinformation laden right wing"
However this discussion begins to raise some ugly questions, and now even typically left leaning activist complicit outlets and publications are forced to point it out - Is the current Democratic Party really addressing the concerns and making the lives better of every day working class American citizens?
As Jeff Greenfield discusses above, did the Democratic Party stop seeing and understanding the frustration, anger and despair of their large base that is living check to check and hand to mouth and wondering why their current Party, the one in power, has failed to deliver for them?
Or as Jay Caruso mentions, did the Democratic Party simply ignore that it's not about the messaging but that the policy itself is horrific, ill conceived and indefensible? And does blaming "messaging" operate as an unneeded trigger point to incite their own base because of the tone deaf implications of the thinly veiled condescension?
A good example would be the Biden Administrations disastrous handling of the withdrawal from Afghanistan. What exactly could you change about the "message" to make that any less repugnant and unforgivable to the American people at large?
I'll leave this here for others to discuss.
