Does The Left Have A Messaging Problem?

wallyj84

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The reaction to defund the police has got me wondering if the Left has a serious issue with its messaging.

Democratic socialism and define the police for example are good ideas, but so much time has to be spent explaining what they are that they never go anywhere.

Does anyone agree? Whay can be done to fix this problem?
 

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I don't think it's a problem with messaging. It's a problem with following through. We (the 'left'/Democrats) are too eager to work with corrupt Republicans. The leaders of both parties take donations from the same corporations.

The issue is that the politicians on the left don't back their supporters the way right wing politicians do. Conservative voters don't like abortion? Campaign *Hard* on it. Progressive voters want anything? Let's see what we can compromise with the Republicans/conservative party.

Fuck the establishment. Defund the fuckin cops. Not abolish. Nuance exists, people.
 

phonehome

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To answer the question directly yes way more often than not Democrats/liberals have always lost the "messaging wars" to right wingers who mastered it decades ago.

With them it is always short and sweet ,direct , if it will not "fit on a bumper sticker" Anything that requires explaining or that dreaded nuance they want absolutely nothing to do with.

With them nothing is or should be complicated

What was one of their biggest complaints about the ACA ?

How it was X 1000 pages long , in their narrow minds it should/could have been no more than 2 or 3, 9 at the most

They never want to hear any "well what about this or that "?

Bothersome little details are just something that wimpy ass liberals worry about

We have heard for decades about their long sought after "1040 that fits on a post card" even have seen proposed mock up's of it from time to time. Any number of times right wingers have proposed laws that would say that no proposed bill should be longer than like 3 pages

What were the "bumper stickers" from 2016 "lock her up" " build the wall"

Anytime Democrats have blundered into "bumper sticker land" it has turned into something they regret

A few examples

"If you like your Dr. you can keep your DR. "

"If you like your insurance you can keep your insurance"

Now we all knew that there were several paragraphs if not pages of nuance that went with those statements but right wingers were having none of that

Somehow some way they did or at least thought that maybe they might not get to "keep their DR> and if that happened why it was ALL the fault of the ACA . Not the fault of that employer who just quit offering Health insurance or changed insurance companies that had a "new network" one your DR.s was not in or just changed the plan they sold your employer that had the same end result.

All practices that had been going on way back when President Obama was still an IL state Senator

Everyone was gong to "like" and "keep" insurance that basically covered NOTHING, cost 100's and more often 1000's of dollars a year, had deductibles up to 10,000 dollars. specifically did not cover anything that did not meet their definition of "catastrophic" or anything that they decided to cal "pre-existing" and of course allowed for "recision" if you ever did get sick with something that was going to cost more than that 10 grand when for the same amount of money possibly less after any subsidy was factored in you could buy insurance that would cover things you might actually have happen, to say nothing of being eligible for "expanded Medicaid"

"Death Panels"

"Pull the plug on Grandma"

Now we have this, the talking points were all but written for them and the bumper stickers are ready to go


The "Democrat party" ants to abolish police

When you call 911 no one will answer
 
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wallyj84

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To answer the question directly yes way more often than not Democrats/liberals have always lost the "messaging wars" to right wingers who mastered it decades ago.

With them it is always short and sweet ,direct , if it will not "fit on a bumper sticker" Anything that requires explaining or that dreaded nuance they want absolutely nothing to do with.

With them nothing is or should be complicated

What was one of their biggest complaints about the ACA ?

How it was X 1000 pages long , in their narrow minds it should/could have been no more than 2 or 3, 9 at the most

They never want to hear any "well what about this or that "?

Bothersome little details are just something that wimpy ass liberals worry about

We have heard for decades about their long sought after "1040 that fits on a post card" even have seen proposed mock up's of it from time to time. Any number of times right wingers have proposed laws that would say that no proposed bill should be longer than like 3 pages

What were the "bumper stickers" from 2016 "lock her up" " build the wall"

Anytime Democrats have blundered into "bumper sticker land" it has turned into something they regret

A few examples

"If you like your Dr. you can keep your DR. "

"If you like your insurance you can keep your insurance"

Now we all knew that there were several paragraphs if not pages of nuance that went with those statements but right wingers were having none of that

Somehow some way they did or at least thought that maybe they might not get to "keep their DR> and if that happened why it was ALL the fault of the ACA . Not the fault of that employer who just quit offering Health insurance or changed insurance companies that had a "new network" one your DR.s was not in or just changed the plan they sold your employer that had the same end result.

All practices that had been going on way back when President Obama was still an IL state Senator

Everyone was gong to "like" and "keep" insurance that basically covered NOTHING, cost 100's and more often 1000's of dollars a year, had deductibles up to 10,000 dollars. specifically did not cover anything that did not meet their definition of "catastrophic" or anything that they decided to cal "pre-existing" and of course allowed for "recision" if you ever did get sick with something that was going to cost more than that 10 grand when for the same amount of money possibly less after any subsidy was factored in you could buy insurance that would cover things you might actually have happen, to say nothing of being eligible for "expanded Medicaid"

"Death Panels"

"Pull the plug on Grandma"

Now we have this, the talking points were all but written for them and the bumper stickers are ready to go


The "Democrat party" ants to abolish police

When you call 911 no one will answer

I think it is much easier to be against something than for something. That is the Republican's biggest advantage.
 

wallyj84

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I don't think it's a problem with messaging. It's a problem with following through. We (the 'left'/Democrats) are too eager to work with corrupt Republicans. The leaders of both parties take donations from the same corporations.

The issue is that the politicians on the left don't back their supporters the way right wing politicians do. Conservative voters don't like abortion? Campaign *Hard* on it. Progressive voters want anything? Let's see what we can compromise with the Republicans/conservative party.

Fuck the establishment. Defund the fuckin cops. Not abolish. Nuance exists, people.

To be fair, the Republican base is very good at making the Republicans listen to them. Progressives are either too unorganized or just not strong enough in number to really force the Dems to pay attention to them.
 

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To answer the question directly yes way more often than not Democrats/liberals have always lost the "messaging wars" to right wingers who mastered it decades ago.

With them it is always short and sweet ,direct , if it will not "fit on a bumper sticker" Anything that requires explaining or that dreaded nuance they want absolutely nothing to do with.

With them nothing is or should be complicated

What was one of their biggest complaints about the ACA ?

How it was X 1000 pages long , in their narrow minds it should/could have been no more than 2 or 3, 9 at the most

They never want to hear any "well what about this or that "?

Bothersome little details are just something that wimpy ass liberals worry about

We have heard for decades about their long sought after "1040 that fits on a post card" even have seen proposed mock up's of it from time to time. Any number of times right wingers have proposed laws that would say that no proposed bill should be longer than like 3 pages

What were the "bumper stickers" from 2016 "lock her up" " build the wall"

Anytime Democrats have blundered into "bumper sticker land" it has turned into something they regret

A few examples

"If you like your Dr. you can keep your DR. "

"If you like your insurance you can keep your insurance"

Now we all knew that there were several paragraphs if not pages of nuance that went with those statements but right wingers were having none of that

Somehow some way they did or at least thought that maybe they might not get to "keep their DR> and if that happened why it was ALL the fault of the ACA . Not the fault of that employer who just quit offering Health insurance or changed insurance companies that had a "new network" one your DR.s was not in or just changed the plan they sold your employer that had the same end result.

All practices that had been going on way back when President Obama was still an IL state Senator

Everyone was gong to "like" and "keep" insurance that basically covered NOTHING, cost 100's and more often 1000's of dollars a year, had deductibles up to 10,000 dollars. specifically did not cover anything that did not meet their definition of "catastrophic" or anything that they decided to cal "pre-existing" and of course allowed for "recision" if you ever did get sick with something that was going to cost more than that 10 grand when for the same amount of money possibly less after any subsidy was factored in you could buy insurance that would cover things you might actually have happen, to say nothing of being eligible for "expanded Medicaid"

"Death Panels"

"Pull the plug on Grandma"

Now we have this, the talking points were all but written for them and the bumper stickers are ready to go


The "Democrat party" ants to abolish police

When you call 911 no one will answer

Similar to something I wrote here long ago about how the GOP dumbs down the messaging for an audience who, for whatever reason, can't deal with too much information. Who not only can't or WON'T deal with information but who, by and large, seem to have a deep seated RESENTMENT toward information and anyone trying to INFORM them.

All of which, of course, plays to the GOP's advantage in that they can make up shit on the fly without factual information to support it (facts? FACTS?? we don't need no stinkin FACTS!) and package it all down to three or four word slogans and dog whistle references that THEY know will push the appropriate BUTTONS.

It's all tried and true propaganda 101 - make the lie big, and repeat it often. Straight out of the Nazi playbook.

As for the left, besides too many picayunes and petty differences that get in the way of the GREATER objective, they(we) don't play dirty enough and don't go for gut OFTEN enough.

And a PERFECT EXAMPLE of that is in comparing the number of hard hitting, go for the gut, ATTACK ADS put out by the left, with those that have been produced BY ANTI-TRUMP REPUBLICANS, like The Lincoln Project and Republican Voters Against Trump.

The only left wing group CONSISTENTLY doing anything similar is Meidas Touch. I mean, WTF?

Where are the DNC's ads? Or those from our civil right's groups, one or two of which wanted to take Biden to task over some stupid bullshit gaff? Why aren't our more vocal and activist celebrities and sports figures not banding together and producing ads and messaging like "Live Aid"?

.
 
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deleted15807

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I don't think it's a problem with messaging. It's a problem with following through. We (the 'left'/Democrats) are too eager to work with corrupt Republicans. The leaders of both parties take donations from the same corporations.

The issue is that the politicians on the left don't back their supporters the way right wing politicians do. Conservative voters don't like abortion? Campaign *Hard* on it. Progressive voters want anything? Let's see what we can compromise with the Republicans/conservative party.

Fuck the establishment. Defund the fuckin cops. Not abolish. Nuance exists, people.

Letist voters don’t show up for midterms. They don’t play the long game like conservatives have done for the last 30 years and don’t have the anger that drives turnouts.
 

wallyj84

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Letist voters don’t show up for midterms. They don’t play the long game like conservatives have done for the last 30 years and don’t have the anger that drives turnouts.

Progressives almost seem to think they're a pretty women in a bar and these politicians need to impress them in order to get their vote. They have a very passive view of politics, IMO.
 

Tight_N_Juicy

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Letist voters don’t show up for midterms. They don’t play the long game like conservatives have done for the last 30 years and don’t have the anger that drives turnouts.

That's part of my point. The left isn't enthused for the primaries because we rarely have a passionate fighter who's willing to actually stand up for the policies we want. We just go with whoever wins because generally, they're all the same candidate, and generally they just serve up platitudes and bullshit which doesn't inspire anyone.
 

keenobserver

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That's part of my point. The left isn't enthused for the primaries because we rarely have a passionate fighter who's willing to actually stand up for the policies we want. We just go with whoever wins because generally, they're all the same candidate, and generally they just serve up platitudes and bullshit which doesn't inspire anyone.

That is really not what I see. Historically candidates who are more left of center do better in primaries because their supporters tend to be more involved with the process and issues. This is why McGovern was nominated in 1972 and part of the reason he lost so big. Bernie in 2016 was another classic case in point. In what was essentially a 2 person race he ran strongly against the establishment candidate Clinton. I remember when he announced his run in an interview with Racheal Maddow and said he did not expect to win, but his goal was to serve notice that the left was not to be ignored and to move Hillary further from being a center right candidate to more of a center left candidate. He did that. However in 2020 many of his ideas had morphed into planks in various campaigns and in a divided filed he quickly was diminished in vote totals.

Extreme candidates always do better in the primaries - look at the Tea Party movement, any anti-war movement and the pattern is always there.

The problem comes when the general election arrives and most voters, however unhappy they might be are not willing to go all in on dramatic (i'm not even saying 'radical' here) change. They want incremental improvements. Yes, everyone wants universal healthcare - but no one wants to be honest about paying for it. Warren tried. She was leading the pack when she released her plan to pay for Medicare-for-all. Her plan was a bit of a stretch - a lot of things had to go exactly her way - but it was not unrealistic. Bernie never really laid out specifics and it killed him with the middle voters who needed to support him to win. The attacks against his ideas went largely unanswered and that is fatal in almost all arguments. He did not broaden his base of trust.

We on the left of center have a hard time educating people to the idea that change is good because the conversation has for decades been dummied down - mainly by the GOP and now more so by social media. There is still among many people an idea that if something is on TV, or God help us, the internet, it must be true. Public education, long the whipping boy of conservative and their long game has produced several generations now of idiots who cannot think or understand what their interests actually are and move towards them.

Wally has laid out one aspect of the problems we face - the pretty girl at a bar is not too far off - but the problems we face are extremely deep and embedded in the system to the point it is our DNA.
 

Tight_N_Juicy

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That is really not what I see. Historically candidates who are more left of center do better in primaries because their supporters tend to be more involved with the process and issues. This is why McGovern was nominated in 1972 and part of the reason he lost so big. Bernie in 2016 was another classic case in point. In what was essentially a 2 person race he ran strongly against the establishment candidate Clinton. I remember when he announced his run in an interview with Racheal Maddow and said he did not expect to win, but his goal was to serve notice that the left was not to be ignored and to move Hillary further from being a center right candidate to more of a center left candidate. He did that. However in 2020 many of his ideas had morphed into planks in various campaigns and in a divided filed he quickly was diminished in vote totals.

Extreme candidates always do better in the primaries - look at the Tea Party movement, any anti-war movement and the pattern is always there.

The problem comes when the general election arrives and most voters, however unhappy they might be are not willing to go all in on dramatic (i'm not even saying 'radical' here) change. They want incremental improvements. Yes, everyone wants universal healthcare - but no one wants to be honest about paying for it. Warren tried. She was leading the pack when she released her plan to pay for Medicare-for-all. Her plan was a bit of a stretch - a lot of things had to go exactly her way - but it was not unrealistic. Bernie never really laid out specifics and it killed him with the middle voters who needed to support him to win. The attacks against his ideas went largely unanswered and that is fatal in almost all arguments. He did not broaden his base of trust.

We on the left of center have a hard time educating people to the idea that change is good because the conversation has for decades been dummied down - mainly by the GOP and now more so by social media. There is still among many people an idea that if something is on TV, or God help us, the internet, it must be true. Public education, long the whipping boy of conservative and their long game has produced several generations now of idiots who cannot think or understand what their interests actually are and move towards them.

Wally has laid out one aspect of the problems we face - the pretty girl at a bar is not too far off - but the problems we face are extremely deep and embedded in the system to the point it is our DNA.

I want radical change. Absolutely. Incremental crap is why we are where we were, imo.
 
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deleted15807

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That's part of my point. The left isn't enthused for the primaries because we rarely have a passionate fighter who's willing to actually stand up for the policies we want. We just go with whoever wins because generally, they're all the same candidate, and generally they just serve up platitudes and bullshit which doesn't inspire anyone.

Well which comes first? A perfect candidate or a determined base? As the saying goes, “Democrats fall in love, Republicans fall in line.” The Republican Party remains a somewhat disciplined group of people focused on winning. We've seen that here many many times. Republicans do not even care about the issues. They just care about winning. They cannot coherently argue a single policy effectively. There is just glee in winning and owning the libtards. Sadly that's where we are and I don't see that changing any time soon. Only this year did we come up with the idea "vote blue no matter who". Well they've been doing it for 30 years!
 
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chrisrobin

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Well which comes first? A perfect candidate or a determined base? As the saying goes, “Democrats fall in love, Republicans fall in line.” The Republican Party remains a somewhat disciplined group of people focused on winning. We've seen that here many many times. Republicans do not even care about the issues. They just care about winning. They cannot coherently argue a single policy effectively. There is just glee in winning and owning the libtards. Sadly that's where we are and I don't see that changing any time soon. Only this year did we come up with the idea "vote blue no matter who". Well they've been doing it for 30 years!
Which is sadly the case in many other countries as well. People and things don't matter its just remaining in power even if it means voting down a good idea.
 
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deleted15807

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I want radical change. Absolutely. Incremental crap is why we are where we were, imo.

Radical change is not going to happen. Look how long it took conservatives to hit pay dirt with Trump. First Reagan, Bush I, Bush II and finally the der Führer Trump. Each president moving further and further to the Reich.
 
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keenobserver

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I want radical change. Absolutely. Incremental crap is why we are where we were, imo.

I don't disagree - but "radical" change occurs mostly in increments. Look on further today than the SCOTUS ruling on LGBTQ rights. It only took the last 50 years to get here.
 

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Radical change is not going to happen. Look how long it took conservatives to hit pay dirt with Trump. First Reagan, Bush I, Bush II and finally the der Führer Trump. Each president moving further and further to the Reich.

I never said I would ever get what I want.
 
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deleted15807

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I don't disagree - but "radical" change occurs mostly in increments. Look on further today than the SCOTUS ruling on LGBTQ rights. It only took the last 50 years to get here.

Exactly. And it points out how important it is to keep the Supreme Court in center/center-left hands. Whatever policy change liberals envision we must expect a legal challenge and as such we must keep the judiciary from being filled with Trump drones as Moscow Mitch is urgently doing as he sees the very dark clouds approaching this fall. It's what both sides do but the center/left tends to forget without the judiciary whatever "wins" you have expect them to have to withstand several legal challenges lasting decades.
 
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