There are three things that matter in messaging: repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition...
There is an account called LOLGOP, run by Jason Sattler, that I've followed since I first got on to Twitter, though I'd first seen his posts on DailyKos. A lot of it was snarky, funny highlighting of the decay of the Republican party in the Obama era and afterward. He's part of a high quality Michigan contingent including Eclectablog and data scientist Charles Gaba that is very much worth keeping up with.
He has an excellent post over on his The Last Billionaires blog right now about how important repetition has been to Trump's message of grievance. A book club of his is reading George Lakoff's The Political Mind from 2008 and he includes a quote:
Radical conservatives have been fighting a culture war. The main battlefield is the brain. At stake is what America is to be. Their goal is to radically change America to fit the conservative moral worldview. The threat is to democracy and all that goes with it. Not just here, but wherever American influence extends.
That we needed an answer to the Republican culture war was clear to Lakoff in 2008 and Obama's first term put that in neon lights. While Republican lawmakers did everything they could to make Obama look weak and feckless, the communications machine took Rick Santelli's famous rant on February 19th of 2009 and started turning it into the Tea Party movement with a conference call the next day. The result was a nationwide, landslide 2010 election based on the almost entirely fictitious idea that Republicans are better at managing debt and deficits and that the Affordable Care Act is basically communism.
Obama's message of Hope and Change could have, at least theoretically, framed a counter effort, but like every Democrat before him, the Obama message went in to hibernation as soon as the campaign was done. A half-hearted effort to counter conservative talk radio, Air America, shut down in 2010. The proximal cause was financial problems that followed a lot of staffing and management drama. In reality, there was no lefty equivalent of Rupert Murdoch, a deep-pocketed owner with a long term vision to do nothing less than remake the perception of wealth and conservatism and that had the patience to keep trying until something worked.
When it comes to the 2024 election, Jason states the obvious:
We all know “witch hunt” and “Russia, Russia, Russia” and “Make America _________” and “drill, drill, drill,” and “close the border.
What message do you remember from Democrats?
The Republican Party started a culture war decades ago and have built and refined their communications network year after year so they can drive their message over and over and over again.
Democrats, on the other hand, spend 3 1/2 years playing defense on Republican messaging that few people will hear and then 6 months listing legislative accomplishments no one remembers and pushing plans that focus group well.
Jason has the right idea here:
Something like, “Rule by billionaires betrays the American promise of democracy, fairness, and opportunity,” to bastardize Lakoff’s colleague Gil Durán a bit.
If you got better, we need to hear it—a lot.
