Dems Rebuild

[RedDenver]

My argument to you from the get go has been on the existence (or not) of policy within the Democratic Party, and the high contrast with the GOP in this area.

 

And, yeah, this does seem to be a basic acceptance of the Trump camp's insistence that they were the ones running a policy-focused campaign. Is putting stock in that outright fabrication a "strategy forward" for opposition to the GOP agenda? It seems like unwittingly playing into their hand to me.

 

When I say the Republicans have effective messaging, I absolutely do not mean this to say they have policies. "Your world is being taken away from you by the [bad people] and you need to take it back" is effective messaging.

When you say that Trump wasn't running a policy-focused campaign, do you mean that the policies were BS or otherwise a fabrication? Because the tv ads data I showed before is the only evidence I've seen about messaging and policy, and it favors Trump over Clinton, so calling it a fabrication isn't supported by the evidence I've seen.

 

Maybe the difference here is along the lines of "if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around, does it make a sound?" You're saying the Dem policies exist, while I'm saying that if I haven't heard of them they may as well not exist.

 

I agree that messaging and policy are separate things. My criticism of both parties is that the messaging should be more focused on the policies. So in the context of this thread, I'd say that's a place for the Dems to rebuild - talk about their policies - because in their absence the Repubs policies (regardless of how good or bad they are) are the only solutions being considered in the public debate.

[zoogs]

You're a smart guy. You're capable of looking things up! Campaign ad strategies should not obscure the underlying realities for you. And I don't think they actually do.

 

Trump is a policy lightweight, as you know. I don’t mean they were disagreeable policies, I mean they were empty rhetoric. As an example, saying “I’ll make healthcare great” isn’t a policy and neither is the clarification of “Something something STATE LINES”. His claims about being the policy guy in the race are farcical and that should be plain.

 

I don’t want to litigate the 2016 election over again. The Dem platform was put out there and analyzed at length. What was in it, how they got there, and what sorts of people were on the team to implement it should not have escaped even a superficially interested but educated voter.

 

I won’t deny that the pitch was primarily #NeverTrump. It just shouldn’t confuse us about the vast expertise difference underpinning the two competing planks. And really, I don’t think anti-Donald was particularly wrong outside of misreading the electorate. In any sane world I feel like shining a great big light on Trump and screaming OMG, REALLY GUYS, THIS GUY??!? should have enough. How much more basic can a decision get? To reduce the entire election to merely a difference of a few political opinions would have been inappropriate on some level, I think. We should be a little careful about how much we let the electoral result totally transform our narratives about the campaigns as a whole, but it's hard to help that (just like in sports). #NeverTrump was carrying the day by considerable margin deep into October -- until the Comey revelations hit.

 

But that election’s over, and going forward, the Democrats need to construct a compelling and competing narrative. There’s some tension right now in the party about whether that message is purely economic, purely multicultural, or some mix of the two. I think these rifts are part of the reason why they struggle to come up with a single, unifying story. "How to storytell" is a good conversation to have. Please don’t mistake that as an indictment on whether or not they actually have policy ideas, though. I hope that makes sense.

[Landlord]

The biggest disadvantage of the Democratic messaging and narrative is that it isn't nearly tribal enough. You have to give the Republican party credit for understanding and capitalizing on how powerful our primate brains can be when stimulated - making an enemy out of "them" and turning their base into self-preservation mode of "us" is intoxicating, and leaves little room to be refuted going forward.

[zoogs]

The biggest disadvantage of the Democratic messaging and narrative is that it isn't nearly tribal enough. You have to give the Republican party credit for understanding and capitalizing on how powerful our primate brains can be when stimulated - making an enemy out of "them" and turning their base into self-preservation mode of "us" is intoxicating, and leaves little room to be refuted going forward.

I agree with this. I also worry that there isn't a way to "get tribal" without suffering the same ill effects the GOP did. Existential fear is no way to cobble together a base that produces reasoned and grounded ideas. Can reason survive in a democracy, ultimately?

[Landlord]

Only in an informed and educated one, which is why it is counter-intuitive to many Democrats in Washington to play the game they're up to. They seem to want to have the cake of an uninformed electorate leaving them relatively unchecked in terms of the sh#t they self-servingly try to pull, while also eating it in the sense of wanting the votes for a more reasonable platform without having encouraged reasonable thought in the first place.

 

 

They could benefit mightily from following past examples from people like, say, Martin Luther King Jr. His activism is probably right up there as one of the most unifying and animating counter-narratives in American history alongside things like Paine's Common Sense.

[RedDenver]

But that election’s over, and going forward, the Democrats need to construct a compelling and competing narrative. There’s some tension right now in the party about whether that message is purely economic, purely multicultural, or some mix of the two. I think these rifts are part of the reason why they struggle to come up with a single, unifying story. "How to storytell" is a good conversation to have. Please don’t mistake that as an indictment on whether or not they actually have policy ideas, though. I hope that makes sense.

I think each candidate needs to have a clear message, and that message needs to be about not just problems but about solutions (policies). So the Dems don't need to choose purely between economic, multicultural, etc. but instead have policies for each, and then how a candidate prioritizes those policies is where the messaging comes in. And you can do the same thing at the party level for a more unified story.

 

I don't think the party has to necessarily have a completely unified message, although I agree that a unified message is stronger. For example, a rural candidate would likely have different priorities than an urban candidate or the national party, and possibly different policies as well.

Edited June 19, 2017 by RedDenver

[zoogs]

I'm actually unsure you can run on a "we have policies and they're more detailed/rigorous than those of others" message. That's not a coherent narrative. Although I'd love to see it work! It seems too weak on the surface to charges of academic elitism and removal from popular will.

 

Within the left right now, the debate over messaging has become fairly acrimonious. There's a camp that is outright disdainful of the "multicultural" camp, for example, who similarly view "labor issues will solve racial disparities" as woefully inadequate. [i think I'm in the latter camp]

 

Strength in messaging lies in how evocative it is, I think. So on the one hand you have "the rich and powerful are crushing us", almost inevitably?...which, though I think it's technically inadequate, I do find it hard to argue that this is more compelling than "Racism and discrimination abound". It also has the distinct advantage of being something (to put it bluntly) white people are more receptive to.

 

Though on another level I'm not a fan of storytelling in general. It's inevitable that it will be rife with imprecision in the name of drumming up support. What I'd really love is just to see "We have technically vetted policies and we're happy to adapt in the face of evidence" really work. Fanciful

[Landlord]

Storytelling is essentially what paved the way for homo sapiens to become the dominant genus over homo neanderthalis, and is the most powerful animating force in the history of humanity. It's all storytelling.

[RedDenver]

I'm actually unsure you can run on a "we have policies and they're more detailed/rigorous than those of others" message. That's not a coherent narrative. Although I'd love to see it work! It seems too weak on the surface to charges of academic elitism and removal from popular will.

Yes, the quality of the message matters. Instead of talking about the word policy talk about the solution the policy provides, I'd say something like "We have problems X, Y, Z in healthcare, and we going to fix them by doing A, B, C"

[zoogs]

Now that's the sort of lousy storytelling that causes one to lose to the Republican Party

[BigRedBuster]

This makes me so sad......NOT!!!!!

 

Nancy Pelosi Faces Heat From Democrats After Georgia Loss

[RedDenver]

 

This makes me so sad......NOT!!!!!

 

Nancy Pelosi Faces Heat From Democrats After Georgia Loss

 

The Dems electing Pelosi to House Minority Leader again was a mistake. She's overseen the biggest loss of Dem seats in something like 100 years.

[ZRod]

Good. Get her out. She hasn't done anything of significance, and is not a good leader.

[RedDenver]

Here's a break down of the early debate after the Ossoff loss: http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/21/politics/democrats-ossoff-loss-georgia/index.html

 

And here's an article about the "Panera bread" strategy: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/6/20/15834898/panera-voters-georgia-election

 

And an opinion piece on why the Panera strategy is flawed: https://medium.com/all-of-us/the-panera-strategy-didnt-work-for-ossoff-it-won-t-work-for-dems-nationally-8ea76ac0a5b9

[TGHusker]

^^^^ Hey RD - I have a class of students doing a case study on Panera Bread next week. Very timely!!