Democrats Could Promise $100 Grand, a Stairway to Heaven, and Still Lose
“We have a country that is pickled in right-wing misinformation and rage.” Angelo Carusone at Media Matters
I’ve seen enough finger pointing.
Democrats went too far left. Harris shouldn't have campaigned with Cheney. Inflation… Immigration… Crime… Transgender kids… More…
Correctly» Democrats lost the working class. That’s the why. This post is about the how. Both matter.
How about this? The reason many people voted for a convicted felon and grifter is because they were told the alternative was worse. They didn’t see the slick TV ads, or read the New York Times op eds, and they didn’t hear the Call Her Daddy podcast.
They did see regular coverage of Trump rallies on cable/streaming outlets I don’t even know how to find. And if the candidate wandered a bit, the Right Side Broadcasting color commentator was there for some positive energy. Amid it all came the same basic message about migrants, crime and Biden’s inflation. Over and over and over again.
The overall shift to Trump (2020 vs 2024) in the general election is working out to about 6.7 points to the right in the 43 non-swing states and Washington DC. It’s where it was a year ago, according to David Wasserman.
In the seven states where the Democrats actually campaigned, the shift was 3.1 percentage points. That’s what the opposition to Trump got for one billion dollars in advertising and a good ground game.
Now, after the fact, we’re learning about the headwinds incumbent parties in industrialized countries have faced in this year’s elections. Democrats actually beat the downgrade numbers versus what parties did in other countries.
Ballot measures based on issues that should be carried by Democrats mostly did well, even as their top of the ticket went down in flames. Two measures in Florida that should have passed went down because Republicans changed the rules to require 60% voter approval.
North Carolina voters gave the nod to Donald Trump by 3 points even as Democrats won nearly every other statewide race on the ballot. The scandal surrounding the Black Nazi/Porn lovin’ GOP gubernatorial candidate didn’t hurt, and the local tradition of electing Democrats to state offices while sending Republicans to DC was also a factor. Still, lots of other states saw seats disproportionately flip from Blue to Red.
I’m sure there’s no single answer for the Democrat’s failure to communicate. Campaign messaging has lots of moving parts, with things from door-knocking to podcast guesting having some impact.
Kos at Daily Kos is on to something in his analysis about core messaging, namely that security trumps (intended) freedom. His use of El Salvador as an example is frightening, though I don’t think we’ve sunk that far into lawlessness.
Certainly the shift in the Harris/Walz campaign after the debate away from populist themes can be considered a mistake. After it’s all said and done, post election interviews say non-hardcore Trump voters were influenced by inflation and crime/immigration.
I ‘ve seen interviews where women who voted for Trump said it was because he would protect abortion. One key to Trump’s victory is that he won 40% of the voters who said the procedure should be legal in most cases, an Associated Press survey found. A TV network exit poll found an even higher share — 49%.
Latino (who definitely are not a solid voting block) families told reporters they weren’t worried about being deported (regardless of legal status) because they weren’t criminals.
Every single crypto industry-backed candidate won their race this election. Mo’ money rolling the dice is apparently better than child tax credits.
The Dems' failure to go with climate change measures being really good for the economy is another point of contention. And let’s not forget the racial and gender elements of VP Kamala Harris as a candidate.
But Democrats’ messages, good or bad, weren’t getting through. They may as well have been hawking gold watches. Or bibles.
Our understanding of the world is shaped by the information we receive. I’ll grant that lots of people don’t give a rat’s ass about most things beyond their driveway, but even then they will have a sense of things based on what they’ve seen and heard.
And if they haven’t seen or heard the facts at all or enough times to make them think twice, what happens? They go with what they know; things aren’t great for them economically and somebody else who they’ve heard of says he can do a better job.
At The New Republic, Michael Tomasky wrote up an interview with Matthew Gertz of Media Matters about media and the campaigns:
Back to the campaign. I asked Gertz what I call my “Ulan Bator question.” If someone moved to America from Ulan Bator, Mongolia in the summer and watched only Fox News, what would that person learn about Kamala Harris? “You would know that she is a very stupid person,” Gertz said. “You’d know that she orchestrated a coup against Joe Biden. That she’s a crazed extremist. And that she very much does not care about you.”
Same Ulan Bator question about Trump? That he’s been “the target of a vicious witch-hunt for years and years,” that he is under constant assault; and most importantly, that he is “doing it all for you.”
To much of America, by the way, this is not understood as one side’s view of things. It’s simply “the news.” This is what people—white people, chiefly—watch in about two-thirds of the country. I trust that you’ve seen in your travels, as I have in mine, that in red or even some purple parts of the country, when you walk into a hotel lobby or a hospital waiting room or even a bar, where the TVs ought to be offering us some peace and just showing ESPN, at least one television is tuned to Fox. That’s reach, and that’s power. And then people get in their cars to drive home and listen to an iHeart, right-wing talk radio station. And then they get home and watch their local news and it’s owned by Sinclair, and it, too, has a clear right-wing slant. And then they pick up their local paper, if it still exists, and the oped page features Cal Thomas and Ben Shapiro.
Check this out:
Carlo Versano at Newsweek:
Year after year, Gallup's annual survey of public trust in political and civic institutions came to the same conclusion: the legislative branch, that is the two houses of Congress, set the standard for mistrust, bar none. Nobody in America inspired less confidence than a generic Washington lawmaker.
This year, though, Congress was eclipsed. The mainstream media is now the least trusted institution in the country. When asked by the pollster how much trust and confidence they had in the media, nearly 70 percent of respondents said either "not very much" or "none at all." In the "none at all" category, the press ranked a staggering 17 points lower than Congress.
That collapse in trust was a long time coming. The media has been underwater with the public for two decades, long before Trump started referring to it as the "fake news."
In the run up to this year’s election, there was plenty of commentary about the legacy media role in modern electoral politics, from accusations of “sane-washing” Trump to criticism of publishers obeying a strongman in advance to curry favor.
What wasn’t being discussed was whether the legacy media was relevant at all.
I can see a few wise guys rushing out to copy-cat the right’s media program, and I will say up front that it won’t work. It’s the economics of the business, which in the case of many cable and streaming outlets, involves bedding down with some disreputable characters.
The supplements industry, which desperately needs the government to stay out of their business and is the closest thing to pure profit since printing newspapers in the 19th century, is a big player in this field. So, too, are get-rich-quick investment schemes.
The greatest tribute ever paid to this industry was when Donald Trump started selling branded junk based on the notion that consumers would somehow personally gain from buying gold sneakers or whatever.
We’ve all seen the millionaire gonna nurture new media game, which involves (usually) a trust fund kid funding a startup and making big promises only to lose interest when the next shiny thing comes along.
Why Rachel Maddow or Robert Reich (I no longer have the attention span for either) don’t get through has to do with modern day messaging. Their method of pre-qualifying conclusions might have worked well in FDR’s Fireside chat format. Today, only the faithful have the patience to wait for their conclusions.
Here’s internet documentarian/critic Taylor Lorenz:
In the broadcast model, one person can speak to a large group of people without any intermediary. Their message is unfiltered, spread just as intended—and this is how America has traditionally consumed its political information, whether that’s through radio, print media, or television.
Today, though, a majority of Americans are getting news from social media, as fewer and fewer voters rely on radios or TV. Fireside chats have been replaced with X, Facebook, and TikTok, meaning that politicians have been forced to adapt to a different style of viral communication, which looks like this:
Algorithms are driven by engagement, and smaller, more extreme bites get more attention.
As such, candidates are reshaping their communication to perform better on algorithmic platforms. This means getting more likes, more shares, and more retention—which in turn means exaggerating and hyperbolizing, since less exciting content simply doesn’t go far on those platforms.
***
On the right, startup media have built relationships with retail grifters and (in print) high dollar subscription models. Alex Jones’ had/has his own line of supplements. Streaming coverage of Trump rallies featured split screens offering gold bars, etc. Whack-a-doodle Lyndon LaRouche set the standard for pitching “intelligence analysis” to wealthy businessmen who felt left out.
My self criticism at this point in my analysis is that I run into a brick wall when I think of alternatives that might pull away the MAGA faithful. Their expectation is to be triggered regularly and the closest to honest way I can think of approaching it involves re-creating the Weekly World News for TikTok.
Think Space Creatures kidnapping Elon Musk’s third cousin sandwiched with a story about how tariffs don’t work as told by Sammy the Scammy used car dealer.
Somebody’s gotta have a better idea.
Here’s Kate Riga at Talking Points Memo, taking a run at the problem:
Democrats need well-produced, well-funded, compelling content that can go punch for punch with the Rogans and the Theo Vons. That’ll require creativity, lots and lots of capital and a search for talent. This is, of course, more difficult because billionaires have a symbiotic relationship with right-wing ideology. It’ll be harder to rustle up wealthy backers for an ideology that explicitly wants them to have less money.
The lefty pods and streams already out there — shows in the Young Turks oeuvre — won’t cut it, because most of them despise normie Democrats. This was the heart of the great Bernie-Hillary divide, and the “dirtbag left” that adored Sanders and saw Hillary as a figurehead for the institution of the party, which they abhor.
In that way, things are easier for Republicans and the media that supports them. Under Trump, the party has only become more homogenous. Anti-Trump Republicans have either been run out of the party, or self-selected out. Trump doesn’t have to worry about the institutionalists vs. the radicals; there are no institutionalists left.
The medium won’t make a significant difference if the message doesn’t resonate. To be sure, Democrats needed more than a message promising top down help. When and if they have something to say like “let’s be real Democrats and go for FDR’s second bill of rights,” then they need effective communication.