The democrats always seem to act as if this is their first election. Refusing to use the tried and true messaging of mud-slinging. I say let's get dirty. The Lincoln project has got it right.
Let's start hammering the front pages with Trumps' abuses and threats. People have short memories, preferring to focus on what they've recently heard.
The media and the dems need to go on the offensive and keep control of the headlines. Keep lambasting Trump and extreme republican policies daily. Put Project 2025 front and center in the political discussion.
Truly nothing less than our democracy is at stake this November, and the democrats need to operate as such.
But, but Chuck Schumer is friends with these people. They’re jovial. They dine together. They ask after each other’s children. He couldn’t possibly take off the (kid) gloves and step into the ring. And you’re right. Republicans know that because Chuck and his pals are going to follow the rules of civility, they don’t have to.
I would submit to you that Democrats simply haven't given themselves time or mental space to 'work the refs' on this. From October till now, Dems' chief concern has been having an earnest internal debate among themselves over Israel, in part sparked by the genuine horror of the October 7 attacks, the brutality of the war it sparked, and the mutual revulsion that pro-Hamas and pro-Israel camps have toward each other.
They simply haven't had time to think about pinning Republicans to the wall on anything. They're too consumed with their own shit.
Whatever clubby crap's been happening in the Senate, there are Democrat campaign professionals thinking along exactly the lines you lay out. But free time is a finite resource, and right now, corrupt connivers like Stefanik are the only ones with plenty of it, for those reasons.
Democrats could have saved a buttload of time by humiliating people who intentionally conflated anti-Semitism (in the sense of “racist”) with “not placing the interests of Likud over the US’s interests.” Schumer was perfectly placed to shut that down early.
Perhaps he likes being able to call opponents of our Israel policy racists. Or perhaps he is keeping his powder dry.
Labour is doing this in the UK. A few weeks ago they joined a beat-up on Nike for changing the colour of the English flag on the national football team shirt. Data showing the UK was exiting recession came out this week and Labour came out in advance to say the Tories were going to try to "gaslight" the country into equating "not in recession" with economic success.
There was a poll last week in which they were up 30 points on the Tories. I think 3 Tory MPs have now crossed the aisle to join Labour, while many of the rest are more focused on what they'll do after they lose than contesting the election.
Sticky for Democrats; Republicans choose perceived "elite" institutions as objects of their contrived scorn. If Democrats defend Columbia or Harvard, or students who can afford their exorbitant tuitions, Republicans are poised to present any such solidarity as evidence of society's elite arraying against the common folk who are the objects of Republicans' cynical grift - Donate Now If You Hate George Soros! Also, Donate Now If You Hate Anti-Semitism - by which we mean any effort to stop Israel from vaporizing babies.
It's been shocking how ill-prepared have been the fancy-pants college administrators stuttering and equivocating and transparently evading Congressional grilling. The questions aren't tough yet the answers have spanned the spectrum of rhetorical incompetence.
College presidents these days are fundraisers, especially at major universities. They are not intellectual leading lights. They don’t have the metal horsepower to be able to contend with people even as dumb as Elise Stefanik.
Plus, some of their written policies are genuine travesties, only salvaged by selective enforcement. Over the last century, tenured faculty delegated their traditional administrative duties owed their university community to a managerial class (and the majority of teaching to adjuncts). And as time passes, it becomes clear you’re right: admin responsibilities have dwindled to fundraising and donor relations. If you don’t really know very much about effective policy-making, it’s easy enough to adopt the policies of the loudest pressure groups, particularly if they can play off your guilt or a pop-up issue.
Witness the abandonment of due process in cases of sexual assault accusations: there’s no organized pressure group writing up white papers saying “students should be treated with fairness” but there are Take Back The Night marches weekly — and because of asymmetries in sexual assault as we understand it, only the male members of the march have to worry about being banned from campus while an accusation is being considered.
It’s been a long time since I’ve been in that march; things have improved some in the culture. And I’ve become more skeptical that the scrutiny and importance of sexual assault should be any different based on whether the victim can afford to be in college.
Perry Bacon at WaPo has written numerous times that leadership with as dismal a record of winning elections as the Dems would have turned over completely after an election like 2010.
Maybe it's kind of a self-fulfilling circular thing. They don't think trying to work the media refs will give these stories "legs" with audiences or scare the media refs with consequences of cancelled subscriptions, lost audiences, or whatever, or even volume of angry letters and bots the right generates. They may think there's nobody on the Venn diagram between anti-Trump and will forgive Trump anything. Maybe effectively putting your shit in the discourse requires a form of kayfabe and and doubt-vanquishing, a lack of self-awareness, and consistency in 'staying in character' and acting like you fully believe the centrality of your charge and will blow up the government over it, for the media to take it seriously - it requires a poker face, and the Democrats just can't hold one, and media editors and Democrats know they can't. Power to the best bullshitter, power to the banisher of self-reflection, ignorance is strength.
Republicans threatening to kill their own Vice Presidents just give them a lot more credibility about believing in whatever they believe.
The NY Times and TV news have pictures and video of shocking physical confrontations on campuses. Neither has a pictures of Trump pocketing a billion dollars. And Trump's quid pro quo with oil titans adds only half a percent to his aggregate corruption. Palestinians and Jews going to face-to-face at Columbia is a much bigger story than a tiny increase in Trump's thoroughly documented horribleness. And if Senate Democrats held hearings on Trump's request for a bribe, who would watch? It's an increment.
As someone who cares about politics, I would definitely watch. But most people wouldn't be interested. Politics in general, and Trump's millionth transgression, is background noise to them.
What's missing from this analysis is that there's a collective action problem. Senator Brian Schatz (just an example) is, as far as I can tell, a well meaning guy who would probably be happy to do whatever he could do to help the Democrats. What, precisely, is an example of something he could do? How would he be rewarded? If the Democrats are supposed to set up organizations to do this stuff, what is a concrete example of an organization they could set up, and how would it sustain itself by rewarding participation?
I don’t know; we could set up a “Dollars For Democratic Action” PAC, which scores Dems on *strategic* action every week — the points are judged by a rainbow-ribbon panel, and the scores do matter, because at the end of the month, the winners in political courage or clever *action* get a check proportional to points.
This works best if the organization is funded as a subscription; it shouldn’t feel obligated to pay out if nobody did anything worthwhile that month. Let individual subscribers buy points for a politician, or let them sponsor matching, as long as most of that money still goes to the general fund.
Are Democratic Party organizations, politicians, and campaigns alone in this communications and media malpractice? I do not think they are. "The groups" share in the failure. The whole non-stupid right of the American political spectra from reasonable center-right, to furthest left. shares in it. Why can't progressive advocacy groups for major issue areas pick up some of the slack and be more effective at media messaging, narrative driving, and public persuasion?
By "the groups" I am talking about usual suspects you would think of, abortion rights and reproductive freedom and women's health groups, unions and the labor movements, voting rights and civil rights groups, anti-corruption and clean government groups, environmental groups, particularly of conservationist or anti-pollution slants and niches, civil liberties groups.
They seem to measure success and failure exclusively by a narrow set of metrics. Donor money raised (which is important but they overrate), and public pledges for their organization's publicly formulated positions, those that poll well and those that poll awfully (which matters but they very much overrate), and legislation passed (which is a *very* valid metric but also requires a careful systemic and appropriate division of credit and blame for legislative failures between the excessive strength of outright opponents, and insufficient willpower/discipline of one's movement's allies/beneficiaries).
But that's all they do. Figure out what they want, and literally ask for it, demand politicians sign up for it to order, denounce those who don't, take court actions, voice their predictable and rehearsed positions when they put spokesmen on, do some peaceful picketing, marching and demonstrating that does not get much media attention. Go back to the donors,and ask for more money. They show little to no creative for narrative shaping narratives, preaching to the non-converted, or creating public spectacle or happenings that media outlets would find unignorable.
State abortion restrictions, while resulting in relatively few prosecutions or imprisonments, are causing enough ugly ones in enough states, about a dozen incidents of those or of stories Dr. or hospital excessive caution or non-treatment induced by fear of the laws, or creepy surveillance, that it easily would justify major civil disobedience actions, or uncivil disobedience actions, or uncivil compliance actions that would create news and bring the focus back to issue terrain unpopular for Republicans.
Hell, abortion rights groups should, in the quest for securing abortion rights at the state level and hurting abortion and contraception opponents at home, the only place it matters - start working on a long term mass movement of "Freedom Nomads" who cannot be personally hurt by existing abortion and contraception restrictions. I am talking about people with committed pro-choice values who likely are no longer planning on having children, who are post-menopausal women or vasectomied men and are reasonably healthy retirees of reasonable means who would be willing to move to the purple and reddest states and congressional districts to tip the local political balance against local antiabortion, anti-women, sex-negative, patriarchal forces.
These could segue into the issue of Court corruption and politicization in general, and picking the right politicians to pick judges responsive to the public interest.
The Unions and labor movement have enjoyed a surge in public legitimacy and popularity, even if not in membership and dues. And bargaining power has increased more in the las couple years that at any other time which did cause more strikes. Biden's been the most openly pro-Union President ever. Deepening or consolidation of the FedSoc corrupted court threatens progress, and court attacks on the administrative state threaten the interests of normal people in general and Union members in particular - They have every incentive to get better, crisper messaging out there about anti-normal people judicial corruption masterminded by the FedSoc cabal, and to create public spectable and action against it - strikes in the Supreme Court dining room anyone?
Environmental groups have every incentive to trumpet the government for sale narrative about Trump.
Let's see them all put their heads down and do the work to crush their enemies, see them flee before them, and hear the lamentation of their church ladies.*
This is the second time I've seen you describe the NV lawsuit as throwing out ballots not "counted" by Midnight. Is that accurate? The reporting I'm seeing says "recieved" - currently there's an assumption that ballots received within 4 days were mailed before the election. I don't think that's good either, but it's not the same thing as throwing out anything election officials didn't get a chance to count.
How to get the Dems to see this. The Republicans win because they lock step and scream it out to anyone who will listen. Democrats are TOO POLITE. Just work together and scream the truth, that’s it!
A metaphor: On Monday night, the Denver Nuggets spent all their energy complaining about no calls from the officials and forgot how to play offense given the officiating.
You have to play the game as it comes to you. Democrats should take the lesson.
The democrats always seem to act as if this is their first election. Refusing to use the tried and true messaging of mud-slinging. I say let's get dirty. The Lincoln project has got it right.
Let's start hammering the front pages with Trumps' abuses and threats. People have short memories, preferring to focus on what they've recently heard.
The media and the dems need to go on the offensive and keep control of the headlines. Keep lambasting Trump and extreme republican policies daily. Put Project 2025 front and center in the political discussion.
Truly nothing less than our democracy is at stake this November, and the democrats need to operate as such.
The way to win elections is to go negative early and often, deny that you are going negative, and accuse your opponent of going negative.
But, but Chuck Schumer is friends with these people. They’re jovial. They dine together. They ask after each other’s children. He couldn’t possibly take off the (kid) gloves and step into the ring. And you’re right. Republicans know that because Chuck and his pals are going to follow the rules of civility, they don’t have to.
Friend of the Pod David Plouffe is launching a podcast with Kellyanne Conway!
These people are friendlier with Republican fascist enablers than with the furthest left of their voting coalition.
Sort of true, but Schumer did attack Netanyahu, for a day.
I would submit to you that Democrats simply haven't given themselves time or mental space to 'work the refs' on this. From October till now, Dems' chief concern has been having an earnest internal debate among themselves over Israel, in part sparked by the genuine horror of the October 7 attacks, the brutality of the war it sparked, and the mutual revulsion that pro-Hamas and pro-Israel camps have toward each other.
They simply haven't had time to think about pinning Republicans to the wall on anything. They're too consumed with their own shit.
Whatever clubby crap's been happening in the Senate, there are Democrat campaign professionals thinking along exactly the lines you lay out. But free time is a finite resource, and right now, corrupt connivers like Stefanik are the only ones with plenty of it, for those reasons.
Democrats could have saved a buttload of time by humiliating people who intentionally conflated anti-Semitism (in the sense of “racist”) with “not placing the interests of Likud over the US’s interests.” Schumer was perfectly placed to shut that down early.
Perhaps he likes being able to call opponents of our Israel policy racists. Or perhaps he is keeping his powder dry.
Labour is doing this in the UK. A few weeks ago they joined a beat-up on Nike for changing the colour of the English flag on the national football team shirt. Data showing the UK was exiting recession came out this week and Labour came out in advance to say the Tories were going to try to "gaslight" the country into equating "not in recession" with economic success.
There was a poll last week in which they were up 30 points on the Tories. I think 3 Tory MPs have now crossed the aisle to join Labour, while many of the rest are more focused on what they'll do after they lose than contesting the election.
https://news.sky.com/story/sir-keir-starmer-backs-calls-for-nike-to-scrap-new-england-football-kit-over-redesigned-st-george-cross-13099453
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68965212
https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uks-labour-holds-30-point-poll-lead-over-sunaks-conservatives-2024-05-09/
The Dem messaging problem isnt new. Starting to wonder if there's a reason why they haven't improved it yet🤔
Sticky for Democrats; Republicans choose perceived "elite" institutions as objects of their contrived scorn. If Democrats defend Columbia or Harvard, or students who can afford their exorbitant tuitions, Republicans are poised to present any such solidarity as evidence of society's elite arraying against the common folk who are the objects of Republicans' cynical grift - Donate Now If You Hate George Soros! Also, Donate Now If You Hate Anti-Semitism - by which we mean any effort to stop Israel from vaporizing babies.
It's been shocking how ill-prepared have been the fancy-pants college administrators stuttering and equivocating and transparently evading Congressional grilling. The questions aren't tough yet the answers have spanned the spectrum of rhetorical incompetence.
College presidents these days are fundraisers, especially at major universities. They are not intellectual leading lights. They don’t have the metal horsepower to be able to contend with people even as dumb as Elise Stefanik.
Plus, some of their written policies are genuine travesties, only salvaged by selective enforcement. Over the last century, tenured faculty delegated their traditional administrative duties owed their university community to a managerial class (and the majority of teaching to adjuncts). And as time passes, it becomes clear you’re right: admin responsibilities have dwindled to fundraising and donor relations. If you don’t really know very much about effective policy-making, it’s easy enough to adopt the policies of the loudest pressure groups, particularly if they can play off your guilt or a pop-up issue.
Witness the abandonment of due process in cases of sexual assault accusations: there’s no organized pressure group writing up white papers saying “students should be treated with fairness” but there are Take Back The Night marches weekly — and because of asymmetries in sexual assault as we understand it, only the male members of the march have to worry about being banned from campus while an accusation is being considered.
It’s been a long time since I’ve been in that march; things have improved some in the culture. And I’ve become more skeptical that the scrutiny and importance of sexual assault should be any different based on whether the victim can afford to be in college.
Shorter version: Democratic leadership is about 20 years or so out of date.
Perry Bacon at WaPo has written numerous times that leadership with as dismal a record of winning elections as the Dems would have turned over completely after an election like 2010.
if only
Around the time Bibi took power, and Israel shifted right?
Maybe it's kind of a self-fulfilling circular thing. They don't think trying to work the media refs will give these stories "legs" with audiences or scare the media refs with consequences of cancelled subscriptions, lost audiences, or whatever, or even volume of angry letters and bots the right generates. They may think there's nobody on the Venn diagram between anti-Trump and will forgive Trump anything. Maybe effectively putting your shit in the discourse requires a form of kayfabe and and doubt-vanquishing, a lack of self-awareness, and consistency in 'staying in character' and acting like you fully believe the centrality of your charge and will blow up the government over it, for the media to take it seriously - it requires a poker face, and the Democrats just can't hold one, and media editors and Democrats know they can't. Power to the best bullshitter, power to the banisher of self-reflection, ignorance is strength.
Republicans threatening to kill their own Vice Presidents just give them a lot more credibility about believing in whatever they believe.
The NY Times and TV news have pictures and video of shocking physical confrontations on campuses. Neither has a pictures of Trump pocketing a billion dollars. And Trump's quid pro quo with oil titans adds only half a percent to his aggregate corruption. Palestinians and Jews going to face-to-face at Columbia is a much bigger story than a tiny increase in Trump's thoroughly documented horribleness. And if Senate Democrats held hearings on Trump's request for a bribe, who would watch? It's an increment.
You don't want to watch oil executives explain how they were asked for a bribe? That sounds like good TV to me.
As someone who cares about politics, I would definitely watch. But most people wouldn't be interested. Politics in general, and Trump's millionth transgression, is background noise to them.
What's missing from this analysis is that there's a collective action problem. Senator Brian Schatz (just an example) is, as far as I can tell, a well meaning guy who would probably be happy to do whatever he could do to help the Democrats. What, precisely, is an example of something he could do? How would he be rewarded? If the Democrats are supposed to set up organizations to do this stuff, what is a concrete example of an organization they could set up, and how would it sustain itself by rewarding participation?
This, this, this.
I don’t know; we could set up a “Dollars For Democratic Action” PAC, which scores Dems on *strategic* action every week — the points are judged by a rainbow-ribbon panel, and the scores do matter, because at the end of the month, the winners in political courage or clever *action* get a check proportional to points.
This works best if the organization is funded as a subscription; it shouldn’t feel obligated to pay out if nobody did anything worthwhile that month. Let individual subscribers buy points for a politician, or let them sponsor matching, as long as most of that money still goes to the general fund.
Brian,
Are Democratic Party organizations, politicians, and campaigns alone in this communications and media malpractice? I do not think they are. "The groups" share in the failure. The whole non-stupid right of the American political spectra from reasonable center-right, to furthest left. shares in it. Why can't progressive advocacy groups for major issue areas pick up some of the slack and be more effective at media messaging, narrative driving, and public persuasion?
By "the groups" I am talking about usual suspects you would think of, abortion rights and reproductive freedom and women's health groups, unions and the labor movements, voting rights and civil rights groups, anti-corruption and clean government groups, environmental groups, particularly of conservationist or anti-pollution slants and niches, civil liberties groups.
They seem to measure success and failure exclusively by a narrow set of metrics. Donor money raised (which is important but they overrate), and public pledges for their organization's publicly formulated positions, those that poll well and those that poll awfully (which matters but they very much overrate), and legislation passed (which is a *very* valid metric but also requires a careful systemic and appropriate division of credit and blame for legislative failures between the excessive strength of outright opponents, and insufficient willpower/discipline of one's movement's allies/beneficiaries).
But that's all they do. Figure out what they want, and literally ask for it, demand politicians sign up for it to order, denounce those who don't, take court actions, voice their predictable and rehearsed positions when they put spokesmen on, do some peaceful picketing, marching and demonstrating that does not get much media attention. Go back to the donors,and ask for more money. They show little to no creative for narrative shaping narratives, preaching to the non-converted, or creating public spectacle or happenings that media outlets would find unignorable.
State abortion restrictions, while resulting in relatively few prosecutions or imprisonments, are causing enough ugly ones in enough states, about a dozen incidents of those or of stories Dr. or hospital excessive caution or non-treatment induced by fear of the laws, or creepy surveillance, that it easily would justify major civil disobedience actions, or uncivil disobedience actions, or uncivil compliance actions that would create news and bring the focus back to issue terrain unpopular for Republicans.
Hell, abortion rights groups should, in the quest for securing abortion rights at the state level and hurting abortion and contraception opponents at home, the only place it matters - start working on a long term mass movement of "Freedom Nomads" who cannot be personally hurt by existing abortion and contraception restrictions. I am talking about people with committed pro-choice values who likely are no longer planning on having children, who are post-menopausal women or vasectomied men and are reasonably healthy retirees of reasonable means who would be willing to move to the purple and reddest states and congressional districts to tip the local political balance against local antiabortion, anti-women, sex-negative, patriarchal forces.
These could segue into the issue of Court corruption and politicization in general, and picking the right politicians to pick judges responsive to the public interest.
The Unions and labor movement have enjoyed a surge in public legitimacy and popularity, even if not in membership and dues. And bargaining power has increased more in the las couple years that at any other time which did cause more strikes. Biden's been the most openly pro-Union President ever. Deepening or consolidation of the FedSoc corrupted court threatens progress, and court attacks on the administrative state threaten the interests of normal people in general and Union members in particular - They have every incentive to get better, crisper messaging out there about anti-normal people judicial corruption masterminded by the FedSoc cabal, and to create public spectable and action against it - strikes in the Supreme Court dining room anyone?
Environmental groups have every incentive to trumpet the government for sale narrative about Trump.
Let's see them all put their heads down and do the work to crush their enemies, see them flee before them, and hear the lamentation of their church ladies.*
*Conan the Barbarian paraphrase
This is the second time I've seen you describe the NV lawsuit as throwing out ballots not "counted" by Midnight. Is that accurate? The reporting I'm seeing says "recieved" - currently there's an assumption that ballots received within 4 days were mailed before the election. I don't think that's good either, but it's not the same thing as throwing out anything election officials didn't get a chance to count.
And maybe that sort of hairsplitting is what the author is talking about?
They seem like pretty different things to me. Spin is one thing, but you shouldn't make factual errors.
How to get the Dems to see this. The Republicans win because they lock step and scream it out to anyone who will listen. Democrats are TOO POLITE. Just work together and scream the truth, that’s it!
Do you think this is at least partially because so much of the caucus is just old?
Senior citizens aren't known for their agency generally
A metaphor: On Monday night, the Denver Nuggets spent all their energy complaining about no calls from the officials and forgot how to play offense given the officiating.
You have to play the game as it comes to you. Democrats should take the lesson.
When they go low we go high…🤦♂️
Yeah, and look where that got us.