Yup, this is another story about the lack of effective messaging by Democrats. This one is about playing offense.
My strong impression is that our side is always playing defense: defending CRT, explaining why only black lives matter, saying “I am not a socialist” or “No, I don’t support defunding the police”. When do we ever get them on the defensive side, having to defend a position? We always seem to go with policy over emotions, and way too often we get destroyed on phony but effective messaging by the Repubs, as we just saw in Virginia.
We also seem to have an extreme reticence to go negative. I know that some voters on our side can be put off by it, but sometimes you must go there. And this is such a time.
Political scientist Rachel Bitecofer supports the thesis is that modern elections are not decided merely by the swing vote, but rather, what she calls "coalitional turnout" for each party. Negative partisanship, which argues voters are increasingly motivated by dislike, hate, and fear of the other party prioritizes defeating the other side over any specific policy objective. Sound familiar? It sure as shit should, as the Repubs have no policies but beat us way too often with hate and fear. Maybe we ought to generate a good amount of hate and fear to direct back at them. Yeah, we have better policies and policies that polling shows is quite popular and that is great but not sufficient. If they call you a socialist or a commie, call them fascist and unAmerican dictator lovers.
And we have an issue that is clear, present, and should make the middle ground voters both hate and fear the Republicans: they have been radicalized and turned into an anti-democracy and therefore anti-American force.
We should cut some commercials that are strong and stern. Use video from the Jan 6th insurrection and other statements and audio, demonstrate that these folks are coming to take over and destroy the nation. I would even cut in video of various strongmen being saluted and paraded, even Hitler then flashing to Trump. Finish up with a strong voice saying something like “In this election, you have a critical choice: do you want this nation to survive, or will you let the Republicans kill it?”
Do you think this is too strong? While this is a different time and age, I would ask you to watch Lyndon Johnson’s daisy ad against Goldwater: Daisy ad
Talk about over the top and sensational. But it worked. Johnson won in a landslide.
