Democrats are notoriously inferior to Republicans in their communication strategy. Nine times out of ten, when they take some action or policy position, they do not follow up with any kind of media messaging campaign. The Republicans notice this and reflexively and forcefully fill in the gap with disinformation packaged in easily memorable sound bytes, audience tested by Frank Luntz, and circulated in a coordinated manner, en masse across right wing media which are then dutifully re-broadcast across mainstream media and social media without push-back.
Of course, if you are a news junkie and closely follow progressive media, the push-back is there, it just never gets beyond that small audience, leaving people like me to constantly have to correct statements made on various discussion groups and defend their actions.
One of the first examples of this I recall is the Operation Fast and Furious debacle. If you asked the average person who has any slight awareness of politics what it was about, they will probably say it was a lame and reckless attempt by the Holder DOJ to track gun running and then cover it up. The truth of course is nothing like this. In reality it was started under Bush and the reason for it was because the ATF was hamstrung to do anything about gun running to drug cartels from Arizona. The state passed laws that made it impossible for the ATF to track who bought guns in Arizona and where they went. Although they required gun purchases from non-dealers to be for personal use, they left a huge loophole which allowed someone to purchase a bunch of guns, declare they were for personal use, then walk into the parking lot and say "hmm. I think I've just changed my mind and I'm going to sell them to the guy over there with his trunk open". Viewing it in this light gives a much different perspective from that propagated in the media.
Of course you would only know this if you were the type of person who regularly read dozens of online news sites and happened to run across the real explanation. I was hoping maybe the Biden Administration would learn its lesson but it doesn't seem so.
The other day, I was reading an article and the author stated that Biden was already killing American jobs with his executive actions I didn't get what he was talking about thinking it was just some vague narrative about environmental actions costing jobs but then I came across another article and figured out they were talking about the Keystone Pipeline cancellation which will indeed eliminate some jobs.
This unfortunately is the latest example of the Democrats failure to accompany an action with a media campaign to support it and make sure the pros, not just the cons were widely communicated.
What should have happened is that all those activists and environmentalists who fought so hard for this should have had Biden's back. They should have had a press conference pointing out the benefits of cancelling this project and the positive impact it can have on climate change and the environment. The Biden administration should have made sure that these people spoke out and that their comments were circulated to the same media and social networks. They should also have a team of respected people ready to appear on the news channels (including Fox) ready to explain the reasoning and defend the action. In fact, Biden, like Trump, should have been surrounded by the people who fought against the pipeline when he signed the order. Having Biden address the potential job losses and make it clear this was a carefully weighed decision, not a move to stick it to workers would have helped even more. Going even further, the Democratic leaders should anticipate the blowback before they take the action and take steps to mitigate it.
In this particular case it would not have eliminated the negative publicity but it certainly would have blunted it. In other cases, it could completely turn it around.
Please Democratic leaders, wake up!! Don't expect that the average American is going to understand all the thinking that went into these actions. Broadcast it from the mountaintops. Do not allow the Republicans to set the narrative. Nine times out of ten the Democratic leaders are making sound, thoughtful decisions. Share the thinking and motivation with the nation. Don’t just cross your fingers and hope the average person will understand that.