This post was inspired by a comment from Nate Silver from a Slack Chat: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/should-trump-or-the-democrats-be-more-worried-about-the-economy/. Despite the poor name and starting topic, it turned into one of the better slack chats, and delved into some interesting areas and is highly recommended reading. But I want to focus on one comment Nate Silver made in the chat, and expand on it alot.
That last line is pretty key, and speaks to what I see as poor messaging on the part of democrats and others opposed to Trump. It seems we have not learned from 2016, and keep repeating the exact same mistakes. In this blog post I am going to go back to 2016, talk about the mistakes in messaging, and talk about how we are still making those mistakes, and how I think we can fix it to create a better, more effective message.
Through almost all of 2016, right up until the election results, the assumption by most of us was that Trump was going to fail any day now. First in the primaries, and then in the general. He was a terrible candidate. And yet he kept on winning. There are a ****load of reasons why(any one who tells you that this or that reason was the reason he kept winning is full of it, numerous choices could have changed the results. 3 states where decided in the general by less than 1 %, and if those 3 states had went to Clinton, she would have won), but I am going to focus on just the one. I do think this one could have swung the general election, and maybe even the primaries. The problem was that while Trump had a generally positive message(Make America Great Again), the elections kept bogging down for the other candidates into "That Trump is a poopiehead". Trump did a brilliant job of drawing candidates into it, into an arena where he was strong, and away from where the other candidates where much stronger, which is specific issues. The republican debates would always devolve into namecalling once Trump got involved. However, Trump had this simple, positive motto that was always his centerpiece, Make America Great Again. Nice and vague, allowing people to insert their own ideas as to what it meant, easy to remember, and hard to argue against. So while Trump was drawing people into insult battles, by simple virtue of having that slogan, and pushing it hard at other times, he won. Every one else was running against Trump, while Trump was running for America, or at least in the eyes of alot of voters.
Along came the general election, and Clinton, a "policy wonk", spent most of her time, and almost all of her advertising budget, repeating the same mistake republicans made. She spent little to nothing on adds telling America what she was going to do, and most if not all of her adds telling America what a poopiehead Trump was. This failed for a few reasons. First, people did not need to have her point out Trump was a poopiehead, it was clear as day. Secondly, she lost sight of the first and most important thing a candidate for president has to do, which is explain how America would be better with her as president. Now, I think America would have been better off with her as president, but it is the job of the candidate to explain why. Trump did, he was going to make America great again. For Clinton to win, she had to make voters not just dislike Trump(mostly, they already did), but convince them that she would do a good enough job that it was worth them getting out and voting for her. And in that, she totally failed.
Flash forward to today. The topics people are talking about: the FBI and Trump investigation. The Duckworth/Trump feud. The stock market. Trump's hair. Trump wanting a parade. Not a single one of those is going to get many people out to vote, nor convince any one that they should vote against Trump or democrats. While Obama was president, republicans, conservatives and libertarians where telling people that the world was going to end because of Obama, and they consistently failed to deliver. Obama won re-election fairly easily. And now democrats, liberals, some republicans are doing it all again. War with Korea, war with China, there is a recession coming any day now, fascism and totalitarianism. Impeachment and constitutional crisis. And it keeps not happening.
And the important thing to remember is that important things, things that can and should be used against Trump, they are lost in the shrieking and hysteria. Did you here about the Labor Department no longer tracking data that could undermine a policy decision? I didn't, but it happened: https://bnanews.bna.com/daily-labor-report/labor-dept-ditches-data-on-worker-tips-retained-by-businesses. Now there is something that actually affects many Americans, in a concrete way, and it barely gets a mention. Not much on the growing trade war with Canada. The list could go on and on, but I got to go run an errand really soon.
So, to summarize: if you want to win, if you want to actually see some one other than Trump in the Whitehouse, talk about things that really matter, that affect the economy, that affect, with some immediacy, Americans. Let the Russia investigation play out, the results will be along when they happen. Don't worry about a ****ing parade, or Trump's vacations, or Trump playing golf. For god's sake, shut up about impeachment that is not going to happen(and shouldn't) And talk about what we can do to help America and the people in America. Make the case not that Trump is a poopiehead, but that whoever is running for office, this year or in 2020, will do a good job of making America better by their work. That is a message that works.
natesilver: I have another theory too. Do you want to hear it?
clare.malone: No.
micah: lol
clare.malone: Kidding. Nate, spout.
natesilver: I’ll warn you in advance that it’s completely unprovable.
clare.malone: LOVE THOSE
natesilver: Or not unprovable, but unproven.
julia_azari: Perfect!
natesilver: My hunch is that one reason why Trump’s approval has risen lately is that people are responding to a “sky is falling” mentality from the media and Democrats.
Reluctant Trumpers are responding to it, that is.
Democrats can huff and puff, but as long as nothing breaks, nothing blows up and no one gets fired, it might seem like a lot of hot air.
That last line is pretty key, and speaks to what I see as poor messaging on the part of democrats and others opposed to Trump. It seems we have not learned from 2016, and keep repeating the exact same mistakes. In this blog post I am going to go back to 2016, talk about the mistakes in messaging, and talk about how we are still making those mistakes, and how I think we can fix it to create a better, more effective message.
Through almost all of 2016, right up until the election results, the assumption by most of us was that Trump was going to fail any day now. First in the primaries, and then in the general. He was a terrible candidate. And yet he kept on winning. There are a ****load of reasons why(any one who tells you that this or that reason was the reason he kept winning is full of it, numerous choices could have changed the results. 3 states where decided in the general by less than 1 %, and if those 3 states had went to Clinton, she would have won), but I am going to focus on just the one. I do think this one could have swung the general election, and maybe even the primaries. The problem was that while Trump had a generally positive message(Make America Great Again), the elections kept bogging down for the other candidates into "That Trump is a poopiehead". Trump did a brilliant job of drawing candidates into it, into an arena where he was strong, and away from where the other candidates where much stronger, which is specific issues. The republican debates would always devolve into namecalling once Trump got involved. However, Trump had this simple, positive motto that was always his centerpiece, Make America Great Again. Nice and vague, allowing people to insert their own ideas as to what it meant, easy to remember, and hard to argue against. So while Trump was drawing people into insult battles, by simple virtue of having that slogan, and pushing it hard at other times, he won. Every one else was running against Trump, while Trump was running for America, or at least in the eyes of alot of voters.
Along came the general election, and Clinton, a "policy wonk", spent most of her time, and almost all of her advertising budget, repeating the same mistake republicans made. She spent little to nothing on adds telling America what she was going to do, and most if not all of her adds telling America what a poopiehead Trump was. This failed for a few reasons. First, people did not need to have her point out Trump was a poopiehead, it was clear as day. Secondly, she lost sight of the first and most important thing a candidate for president has to do, which is explain how America would be better with her as president. Now, I think America would have been better off with her as president, but it is the job of the candidate to explain why. Trump did, he was going to make America great again. For Clinton to win, she had to make voters not just dislike Trump(mostly, they already did), but convince them that she would do a good enough job that it was worth them getting out and voting for her. And in that, she totally failed.
Flash forward to today. The topics people are talking about: the FBI and Trump investigation. The Duckworth/Trump feud. The stock market. Trump's hair. Trump wanting a parade. Not a single one of those is going to get many people out to vote, nor convince any one that they should vote against Trump or democrats. While Obama was president, republicans, conservatives and libertarians where telling people that the world was going to end because of Obama, and they consistently failed to deliver. Obama won re-election fairly easily. And now democrats, liberals, some republicans are doing it all again. War with Korea, war with China, there is a recession coming any day now, fascism and totalitarianism. Impeachment and constitutional crisis. And it keeps not happening.
And the important thing to remember is that important things, things that can and should be used against Trump, they are lost in the shrieking and hysteria. Did you here about the Labor Department no longer tracking data that could undermine a policy decision? I didn't, but it happened: https://bnanews.bna.com/daily-labor-report/labor-dept-ditches-data-on-worker-tips-retained-by-businesses. Now there is something that actually affects many Americans, in a concrete way, and it barely gets a mention. Not much on the growing trade war with Canada. The list could go on and on, but I got to go run an errand really soon.
So, to summarize: if you want to win, if you want to actually see some one other than Trump in the Whitehouse, talk about things that really matter, that affect the economy, that affect, with some immediacy, Americans. Let the Russia investigation play out, the results will be along when they happen. Don't worry about a ****ing parade, or Trump's vacations, or Trump playing golf. For god's sake, shut up about impeachment that is not going to happen(and shouldn't) And talk about what we can do to help America and the people in America. Make the case not that Trump is a poopiehead, but that whoever is running for office, this year or in 2020, will do a good job of making America better by their work. That is a message that works.