There are a handful of recurring themes you’ll see addressed in this corner of the webiverse, and I’m going to take a break from presidential tweet monitoring to expand on one of them. This idea forms the underlying foundation of nearly everything we’ll cover here at DOD, and the remaining concepts we’ll explore in the coming weeks are an outgrowth of this unfortunate reality.
Bedrock Theme #1:
Don Draper famously said “if you don’t like what’s being said, change the conversation.”
Democrats/Progressives/Leftists – by whatever name you choose to label them – are tragically unskilled at political messaging, and have been for decades. Elections are lost to incurious haircuts when your party’s candidate is fighting thirty years of concentrated codswallop without any organized response, to name a recent example. Half the country is convinced Hillary Clinton is a criminal, despite the failure over three decades of any professional investigator to uncover anything that could stick. A strong narrative was developed, shared, and promoted. No comparable communications machine exists on the left. A few more examples:
- History doesn’t definitively indicate when the word ‘liberal’ was first allowed to be considered an insult, but it gained steam in the 80’s under Ronald ‘Government is not the Solution’ Reagan. If Democrats had accepted the label proudly and said ‘yeah, government ought to help people, and we believe you’ve got to spend a little on programs the benefit the common good’ it would have sent a different message. Instead, they’ve consistently cowered and hid from the label.
- Speaking of Reagan…the left offered no counter-punch when the mythologizing of his presidency began to take shape. Could you imagine if Obama had illegally sold weapons to Iran? Or if Bill Clinton had exhibited any clinical signs of Alzheimer’s? Yet Reagan has nearly been canonized by the right (which continues nearly unchecked), while scandal-free presidencies such as Obama’s get tainted with the false stink of reckless spending.
- Speaking of Reagan (again)…we’ve got 40 years of economic data demonstrating that his ‘trickle-down economics’ have accomplished nothing more than stocking the bar in the average executive’s private jet. After World War II, this country saw the largest expansion of middle class wealth in history, which corresponded with an equitable tax plan. But that all began to change in 1980. The concept with trickle-down was essentially to relieve the tax burden of those at the top (the ‘makers’ – Hi, Mittens!), and they would in turn use those extra funds to create jobs. Instead we’ve now got one-percenters who can’t remember where all their beach homes are located and an impoverished population bloc that consistently votes against its own financial interest. Rising tides may lift all yachts, but…..
- The left allowed Bernie Sanders to get painted as some sort of left-wing radical, when his basic platform was not all that different from what the Democrats ran on for decades – social justice issues and equitable economic policies. But how was he presented? As a tousle-haired socialist, running as a ‘long shot.’
This list is by no means comprehensive.
The left allowed the goal posts to move more and more to the right; surrendering to the relentless talk radio communication machine and the barrage of coordinated book-cooking. They never mounted an effective or organized counter-strategy, and the narrative was lost. There is hope, now that President Inevitable has his finger on the feather, that Republicans will start to lose their hold on message-control. If the DNC, who will soon announce a new chair, is smart enough to coordinate it, they can mount a high-grade communications campaign and regain the ear of middle-America.
I’m going to slip down to Roger Sterling’s office while I wait for them to figure that out…