Terrific write up. The reason Trump is able to get away with all the shit he does is because of his ability to speak plainly. And the Dem establishment is afraid to do so.
As it's been said many times: Democrats act like the school teacher while republicans sit in the back of the class and make fart noises.
Grayson was spot on. Don't focus group this shit. Just say it. Scare the fuck out of Meemaw and Peepaw. Put republicans on their heels.
I found out a long time ago that it’s not just knowing your audience, but knowing you. I know how I sound when I police myself too much, to the point of sounding like I’m trying to do mental math. That has always ruined my persuasion more than most other elements: I am smart enough to talk good, and when I do that with my own affect, it tends to give people permission to listen because I’m not treating the audience with kids gloves and I’m comfortable enough in body language etc that you can read that I’m good for it.
And when I feel like being colloquial is more persuasive, I’m still me, not trying to sound like I grew up on a farm when I didn’t, but otherwise being pretty okay with slang and swearing (age appropriate slang; I don’t want the kids to make fun of me.) This is still me, but probably with more swearing.
Excellent essay Brian, to leave us waiting for your arrival back! In my round about way I will make a point. Yesterday learning that my mower was not worth resussitation I went to the shop to make amends for time and parts trying to save the machine and purchased a battery powered push mower. ( To Wednesdays note. This will be my new gym) I've been going to this local shop for 15 years and watched them grow. The person I know best confided that she had needed surgery so I asked if she had used Access Health CT Health, our healthcare here in CT which allows one to purchase healthcare. The cost is based on your plan choice and annual income. She had and had used for 12 months but having gotten a thumbs up after her medical emergency, she discontinued healthcare. This person works 40 hours a week, most trusting, raising her family, but no healthcare from the company which she has worked for 15+ years. She thought the cost of healthcare even through Access Health CT was too high.
Of course being yesterday I made a comment about the Budget Bill as loosely as I could so as not to effect our relationship, but she was not even aware of what I implied. No indication of awareness that the big ugly monster had started its way to the Senate.
This is the problem. She is not listening to Joe Rogan, She doesn't have time to listen to anyone. When coming home, she has children and a home.
I used Access Health CT myself it's a wonderful offering and after paying for COBRA it was a relief, cost wise. I have Medicare now, it does cost money but all things are relevant and it is a relief to have Part B and a good Advantage Plan.
Brian you are correct. It's not the spokesman we are looking for. Personally I wish we could have a coalition rather than a President at this point.
One reason I love reading your writing is that it often brings me relief. It's as if a bulb that has been flickering or buzzing has been screwed in correctly, and the vague environmental irritant that has been bothering me has now been resolved. That's exactly how I felt when you opened a can of whoop-ass on the consultant kayfabe "working families." Ahh, yes. That's it. Correct.
It's the deadly Budget Busting Bill - It's busts your budget, It busts America's budget, and more people will die sooner if it passes. The name happens to match the BBB shorthand MAGA is using for it.
A slightly folksy pol could do a lot with an intro that went something like "Have you heard about the BBB? No I'm not talking about the 'Better Business Bureau' that you complain to about the car dealer that tried to rip you off, I mean this new MAGA law. They're calling it the 'Big, Beautiful, Bill' but I call it [whatever] because it [whatever]"
There are grown-ups (off-screen) in the TV specials, and when they speak it's just "Wa wa waaa wa wa wa". Which has pretty much the same effect as saying "working families", "kitchen table issues", and "safety net" — phrases so cliched and overused that they've become little more than persistent background noise.
This may be the most obvious point imaginable, but I wonder how many of the people who put this kind of language together actually talk to voters. I am as guilty as anyone of choosing "rend their garments"—type crap over "panties in a wad" (see comment below), especially in writing. But over many many cycles "at the doors," talking to voters, I have learned that there's a huge difference between my "grad school speak" and my actual relatability when speaking with an actual human being. I don't speak like a Master's thesis when I talk to people. I sound like me. And that builds TRUST.
I agree that the language doesn't need to be so wildly creative (like murder bill)—that kind of stuff is compelling, but distancing. it just needs to be human, to land in the heart and stay there. The whole idea of messaging has gotten completely out of control. Thanks, Edward Bernays.
Personally I think that over the last few decades Dems have become increasingly afraid of engaging in code-switching, what you're talking about... maybe it's consultant-brain, maybe it's the ubiquity of phones and social media and collapsing of the discourse, but it comes off particularly unnatural because it is. All people do this even if they don't realize it. You speak in a different way to your boss than you do to the person at the sandwich store where you get lunch to your friends when you hang out with them.
One million percent. I do think it's part of the infrastructure of campaigns - layers and layers of sediment around the candidate. Probably started out with good reasons, which have since metastasized into their own self-perpetuating industry.
I agree the Dems need to leave the cliches and mealy-mouthed, bland phrases in the past. People stop even hearing them after a while, and they become utterly meaningless. What we need is AUTHENTICITY! Speak like real people (and this can be done without being needlessly vulgar)!
Other cliches: "hard-working." "productive member of society." "people who follow the rules." (Bill Clinton used to say that all the time and I wanted to strangle him. The heroes of every movie ever made were and are people who don't follow the rules.)
What Dems shy away from--well, most of them--is class conflict. As a sign at a march once said, "They only call it class warfare when we fight back." Truer words were never painted. If Dems are afraid to use such language because it offends or frightens donors, then we are well and truly fucked. It's long past time for liberals to proclaim, endlessly, that conservatism itself is, and always has been, a fraud; that every Republican alive will lie about literally everything; and that the wealth this country produces is more than sufficient to afford everyone a decent life. Whoever votes against that is your enemy. Period.
When both Biden and Harris pronounced that “we’re in an inflection point, “ I knew that it was a terrible mistake to use language that regular people don’t understand. And the “working families”is a miserable phrase as well.
I fast forward all elected Dems on podcasts and on TV so I don’t have to sit there and cringe & grimace in my chair listening to them. It’s gotten way too painful listening to their mindless pablum.
I recall recently Molly Jong Fast on her pod “Fast Politics” pushing back on Dem electeds for not speaking like human beings. It was invigorating to see someone else like you Brian that are sick and tired of the state of affairs with the Democratic Party.
The pitch is: all the republicans want to do is take your money and give it to their friends. Don't care about no budget deficit. Don't care about your kids - or even theirs. don't care about the country. You and your family are only 'suckers' to them. They'll never give you an even break. It's true. Just say so.
Democrats spend all our time fighting about the best message, when the bigger problem is that our message, or any news favorable to Dems and unfavorable to Republicans, is never seen by millions of voters who get their information in the rightwing media bubble. Remember how Mitch McConnell would smirk when a reporter caught him in a hallway to ask about the latest scandal? Mitch knew that news would never reach his voters. This spread to the newer social media like TikTok and Instagram that apparently was flooded with rightwing messaging but little Democratic messaging last year. That's where younger and low information voters get their worldview. Why are we surprised that Harris wasn't able to hold onto Biden or Obama's margins with them?
Second, persuasion like brand building in the commercial world, takes a long time. Republicans know this and have daily messaging supporting their main themes and undermining Democrats. Surprised that the Democratic party has such a low favorable rating in the polls? That's what happens when you get constant unrelenting attacks from the right for years without effective counter attacks. Two months of a Democratic ad blitz just before the general election can't change many minds stewed in years of rightwing propaganda.
Democrats need a long term media strategy that doesn't go away between elections, that effectively builds support for our values and our brand in all the media not just on cable tv.
1. As you note, Anat Shenker-Osorio argues that Dems cooked their testing of "Murder Budget." But part of the cooking was not using "MAGA Murder Budget." Alliteration counts! And as she argues, it's accurate on multiple fronts.
2. "Working families" may be overused in various contexts, but in the fight over Medicaid it has a very specific connation: ACA Medicaid expansion enrollees. In the runup to the bill, Republicans who were eager or willing to defund the expansion promised to "protect" Medicaid for the "most vulnerable" -- and the would enumerate "the disabled, children, the elderly" and pointedly leave out the expansion population, which they denigrate as "able-bodied." Those who probably pushed against killing the expansion's 90% FMAP would include "working families" or "low-income families" when listing groups that depend on Medicaid. https://www.nj.com/opinion/2025/05/did-your-nj-congressman-just-abandon-his-promise-not-to-cut-medicaid-opinion.html?gift=34030c4c-7c34-49c5-845f-8e42deb117c2
Understood. But in the Medicaid context, it's code. Even on the Dem/progressive side, it's reflex to defend Medicaid by foregrounding the most sympathetic recipients -- medically fragile kids, the disabled, the frail elderly. Since the main R. assault is trained on low-income adults, it's essential to include them -- and since no one likes to refer to "adults" alone, that means defending "working families" or "low-income families."
Terrific write up. The reason Trump is able to get away with all the shit he does is because of his ability to speak plainly. And the Dem establishment is afraid to do so.
As it's been said many times: Democrats act like the school teacher while republicans sit in the back of the class and make fart noises.
Grayson was spot on. Don't focus group this shit. Just say it. Scare the fuck out of Meemaw and Peepaw. Put republicans on their heels.
I found out a long time ago that it’s not just knowing your audience, but knowing you. I know how I sound when I police myself too much, to the point of sounding like I’m trying to do mental math. That has always ruined my persuasion more than most other elements: I am smart enough to talk good, and when I do that with my own affect, it tends to give people permission to listen because I’m not treating the audience with kids gloves and I’m comfortable enough in body language etc that you can read that I’m good for it.
And when I feel like being colloquial is more persuasive, I’m still me, not trying to sound like I grew up on a farm when I didn’t, but otherwise being pretty okay with slang and swearing (age appropriate slang; I don’t want the kids to make fun of me.) This is still me, but probably with more swearing.
Excellent essay Brian, to leave us waiting for your arrival back! In my round about way I will make a point. Yesterday learning that my mower was not worth resussitation I went to the shop to make amends for time and parts trying to save the machine and purchased a battery powered push mower. ( To Wednesdays note. This will be my new gym) I've been going to this local shop for 15 years and watched them grow. The person I know best confided that she had needed surgery so I asked if she had used Access Health CT Health, our healthcare here in CT which allows one to purchase healthcare. The cost is based on your plan choice and annual income. She had and had used for 12 months but having gotten a thumbs up after her medical emergency, she discontinued healthcare. This person works 40 hours a week, most trusting, raising her family, but no healthcare from the company which she has worked for 15+ years. She thought the cost of healthcare even through Access Health CT was too high.
Of course being yesterday I made a comment about the Budget Bill as loosely as I could so as not to effect our relationship, but she was not even aware of what I implied. No indication of awareness that the big ugly monster had started its way to the Senate.
This is the problem. She is not listening to Joe Rogan, She doesn't have time to listen to anyone. When coming home, she has children and a home.
I used Access Health CT myself it's a wonderful offering and after paying for COBRA it was a relief, cost wise. I have Medicare now, it does cost money but all things are relevant and it is a relief to have Part B and a good Advantage Plan.
Brian you are correct. It's not the spokesman we are looking for. Personally I wish we could have a coalition rather than a President at this point.
One reason I love reading your writing is that it often brings me relief. It's as if a bulb that has been flickering or buzzing has been screwed in correctly, and the vague environmental irritant that has been bothering me has now been resolved. That's exactly how I felt when you opened a can of whoop-ass on the consultant kayfabe "working families." Ahh, yes. That's it. Correct.
It's the deadly Budget Busting Bill - It's busts your budget, It busts America's budget, and more people will die sooner if it passes. The name happens to match the BBB shorthand MAGA is using for it.
A slightly folksy pol could do a lot with an intro that went something like "Have you heard about the BBB? No I'm not talking about the 'Better Business Bureau' that you complain to about the car dealer that tried to rip you off, I mean this new MAGA law. They're calling it the 'Big, Beautiful, Bill' but I call it [whatever] because it [whatever]"
Persuasive post for me.
There are no grown-ups in Peanuts.
There are grown-ups (off-screen) in the TV specials, and when they speak it's just "Wa wa waaa wa wa wa". Which has pretty much the same effect as saying "working families", "kitchen table issues", and "safety net" — phrases so cliched and overused that they've become little more than persistent background noise.
Oops, I forgot to include "essential benefits".
This may be the most obvious point imaginable, but I wonder how many of the people who put this kind of language together actually talk to voters. I am as guilty as anyone of choosing "rend their garments"—type crap over "panties in a wad" (see comment below), especially in writing. But over many many cycles "at the doors," talking to voters, I have learned that there's a huge difference between my "grad school speak" and my actual relatability when speaking with an actual human being. I don't speak like a Master's thesis when I talk to people. I sound like me. And that builds TRUST.
I agree that the language doesn't need to be so wildly creative (like murder bill)—that kind of stuff is compelling, but distancing. it just needs to be human, to land in the heart and stay there. The whole idea of messaging has gotten completely out of control. Thanks, Edward Bernays.
Personally I think that over the last few decades Dems have become increasingly afraid of engaging in code-switching, what you're talking about... maybe it's consultant-brain, maybe it's the ubiquity of phones and social media and collapsing of the discourse, but it comes off particularly unnatural because it is. All people do this even if they don't realize it. You speak in a different way to your boss than you do to the person at the sandwich store where you get lunch to your friends when you hang out with them.
One million percent. I do think it's part of the infrastructure of campaigns - layers and layers of sediment around the candidate. Probably started out with good reasons, which have since metastasized into their own self-perpetuating industry.
“ Democrats rend their garments over the difficulties they’ve had appealing to single young men,”
Good example right here of why we have problems appealing to the bro crowd. Rend their garments? Wtf!. Try “get their panties in a wad”.
I agree the Dems need to leave the cliches and mealy-mouthed, bland phrases in the past. People stop even hearing them after a while, and they become utterly meaningless. What we need is AUTHENTICITY! Speak like real people (and this can be done without being needlessly vulgar)!
Excellent points made.
Other cliches: "hard-working." "productive member of society." "people who follow the rules." (Bill Clinton used to say that all the time and I wanted to strangle him. The heroes of every movie ever made were and are people who don't follow the rules.)
What Dems shy away from--well, most of them--is class conflict. As a sign at a march once said, "They only call it class warfare when we fight back." Truer words were never painted. If Dems are afraid to use such language because it offends or frightens donors, then we are well and truly fucked. It's long past time for liberals to proclaim, endlessly, that conservatism itself is, and always has been, a fraud; that every Republican alive will lie about literally everything; and that the wealth this country produces is more than sufficient to afford everyone a decent life. Whoever votes against that is your enemy. Period.
When both Biden and Harris pronounced that “we’re in an inflection point, “ I knew that it was a terrible mistake to use language that regular people don’t understand. And the “working families”is a miserable phrase as well.
I'll be honest, as a conservative never trumper, I have more respect for the guy giving the nuanced message over the guy doing the exaggeration.
Maybe I'm an outlier, but I think the overselling by Democrats in the pre-Trump era helped Trump achieve his current stranglehold on the GOP.
This. It’s the boy who cried wolf
I fast forward all elected Dems on podcasts and on TV so I don’t have to sit there and cringe & grimace in my chair listening to them. It’s gotten way too painful listening to their mindless pablum.
I recall recently Molly Jong Fast on her pod “Fast Politics” pushing back on Dem electeds for not speaking like human beings. It was invigorating to see someone else like you Brian that are sick and tired of the state of affairs with the Democratic Party.
The pitch is: all the republicans want to do is take your money and give it to their friends. Don't care about no budget deficit. Don't care about your kids - or even theirs. don't care about the country. You and your family are only 'suckers' to them. They'll never give you an even break. It's true. Just say so.
Democrats spend all our time fighting about the best message, when the bigger problem is that our message, or any news favorable to Dems and unfavorable to Republicans, is never seen by millions of voters who get their information in the rightwing media bubble. Remember how Mitch McConnell would smirk when a reporter caught him in a hallway to ask about the latest scandal? Mitch knew that news would never reach his voters. This spread to the newer social media like TikTok and Instagram that apparently was flooded with rightwing messaging but little Democratic messaging last year. That's where younger and low information voters get their worldview. Why are we surprised that Harris wasn't able to hold onto Biden or Obama's margins with them?
Second, persuasion like brand building in the commercial world, takes a long time. Republicans know this and have daily messaging supporting their main themes and undermining Democrats. Surprised that the Democratic party has such a low favorable rating in the polls? That's what happens when you get constant unrelenting attacks from the right for years without effective counter attacks. Two months of a Democratic ad blitz just before the general election can't change many minds stewed in years of rightwing propaganda.
Democrats need a long term media strategy that doesn't go away between elections, that effectively builds support for our values and our brand in all the media not just on cable tv.
I think jimmy kimmel does a great job every night highlighting (with humor) the awful corrupt actions of the MAGATs.
DON'T: Disambiguate!
That idiotic chart's DON'T column says DON'T Avoid (twice). DON'T Refrain, DON'T Don't Generalize.
Nonetheless, I'm going to not not generalize when I say that Democratic leadership has their heads up their asses.
Was some intern given ten minutes to whip-up a chart so that their boss could pretend to give a rat's ass between donor calls?
Two notes:
1. As you note, Anat Shenker-Osorio argues that Dems cooked their testing of "Murder Budget." But part of the cooking was not using "MAGA Murder Budget." Alliteration counts! And as she argues, it's accurate on multiple fronts.
2. "Working families" may be overused in various contexts, but in the fight over Medicaid it has a very specific connation: ACA Medicaid expansion enrollees. In the runup to the bill, Republicans who were eager or willing to defund the expansion promised to "protect" Medicaid for the "most vulnerable" -- and the would enumerate "the disabled, children, the elderly" and pointedly leave out the expansion population, which they denigrate as "able-bodied." Those who probably pushed against killing the expansion's 90% FMAP would include "working families" or "low-income families" when listing groups that depend on Medicaid. https://www.nj.com/opinion/2025/05/did-your-nj-congressman-just-abandon-his-promise-not-to-cut-medicaid-opinion.html?gift=34030c4c-7c34-49c5-845f-8e42deb117c2
Of course. I don’t mean that “working families” is an esoteric concept. It’s just not a conventional term people use, let alone over and over again.
We could also do well to dump "kitchen table," ASAP.
Understood. But in the Medicaid context, it's code. Even on the Dem/progressive side, it's reflex to defend Medicaid by foregrounding the most sympathetic recipients -- medically fragile kids, the disabled, the frail elderly. Since the main R. assault is trained on low-income adults, it's essential to include them -- and since no one likes to refer to "adults" alone, that means defending "working families" or "low-income families."