There’s an old Hollywood story and it goes like this:
A major movie producer had a reputation for being a tyrannical boss. He was feared and loathed throughout the industry, but when he died, he nevertheless had a lavish funeral and thousands came to pay their respects.
When an observer wondered why, despite the producer’s reputation, so many people attended, a well-known comic quipped:
“Give the people what they want… and they’ll turn out.”
The story is apocryphal, stemming from a joke told by comedian George Jessel in 1941, but the punch line holds as true today as it ever did. And the converse is also true:
If you don’t give people what they want, they won’t turn out.
That’s the story of the 2024 and 2016 elections: pure and simple, Democrats failed to turn out. Period.
Why? Here’s comes the fun part: according to the liberal blogerati, the problem was simply that the right was better at getting their message out via social media. There’s a typical opinion piece on it here. While the writers have some useful observations, they go long on the mechanism (especially the influencers), but nowhere do they talk about the quality of the message.
It’s like trying to analyze why sales of a product are flagging… without saying a word about the product.
Let me explain what I mean. When I say “message” here, it’s probably not what you think. We’re not talking about words. We’re not talking about issues. I’m really talking about the “aura” of a candidate, the impression they leave – not how you think about them, but how you “feel” about them.
This is not an intellectual process. It’s emotional, instinctive… even “anti-intellectual,” if you will. As such, Democrats have a tough time with it. But for Republicans, it’s like mother’s milk.
I choose to use the word “branding,” but you can call it whatever you like. At the end of the day, it’s what makes you choose Coke over Pepsi, 7Up over Sprite – it’s the feeling in your gut that almost always wins out in the end. It’s an unconscious impulse and logical argument has little, if any, effect. In the 2024 presidential election, this was borne out by the fact that polls barely budged, even after Kamala’s stellar debate performance. (See here for my post on branding and the race.)
It’s like trying to analyze why sales of a product are flagging… without saying a word about the product.
I think Kamala did a great job, and when it comes to branding herself, she could not have done much better under the circumstances.
But at the end of the day, her positive campaign was simply not enough to overcome poor party branding. It was Republican branding vs. Democratic branding – and the Republican branding won.
You already know this. We all heard Trump voters using “the economy” or “the border” as reasons why they were voting for Trump. Both fly in the face of facts (the economy was much better under Biden, and Trump scuttled a bipartisan border bill) but both reasons are entirely consistent with Republican branding. In my opinion, the fact that the aura was strong enough to hand the presidency to a convicted felon, sadist, degenerate and idiot is a failure of the Democratic brand much more so than a reflection on the candidate herself.
Years of poor messaging and brand mismanagement by Democratic leadership gave Kamala – and all Democrats, for that matter – a bad hand to play. Without a time machine, there was no way she could have undone the damage to the brand, damage from “tax and spend” in the 70s to the 1980s “welfare queens” to today’s “defund the police” and more.
I’m not suggesting that somebody else should have gotten the nomination, BTW. I do think that she was the best candidate, not to mention that a primary would have been a disaster, even with a longer timeline. But that’s another discussion for another time…
Anyway, so here we are. What to do about it?
The predictable reaction is epitomized by the post I linked above. The Democrats’ approach invariably is: If people don’t agree with you… just yell louder!
Going on The Joe Rogan Show and/or cozying up to influencers is effectively the same thing as just yelling louder. Yes, you’re now getting the message out in more places, but in places where the competition already has a foothold. And if the audience already has preconceived notions (and doesn’t like you very much to start with), well, it’s pretty tough to change hearts and minds.
I worked in a music store for a few years that had a large foreign clientelle. It was interesting to watch the clients who didn’t have a great command of English interact with Americans; when the American would say something that the client didn’t understand, the American would reliably repeat what he had just said, only louder, as if the client hadn’t heard the first time. (Inexplicably, the American would often speak faster, too.)
Of course, this doesn’t work. The point is this: You need to speak to people in language they understand. Otherwise, you’re wasting everybody’s time.
Democrats regularly fail this simple test, often coming off as disconnected, hifalutin or simply, “other.” If people don’t want to buy what you’re selling, all the exposure in the world won’t make them change their minds.
So let’s simplify. First, in order to reliably win, you need over 50%. So the first question to ask is:
Can we get at least 50% of Americans to march under one banner?
Let’s imagine that’s possible. Polls show that over 50% of Americans support civil rights, gay marriage and abortion. So we’ve cleared the major hot-button issues of a generation ago. I’d say that over 50% of Americans support Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other safety-net programs. I’d also guess that over 50% of Americans support fair taxation, a living wage and a sensible immigration policy.
So far, so good.
Conversely, I’d guess that fewer than 50% of Americans would support Defund the Police and transgender students playing on sports teams not of their birth gender. So we can and should discuss these and other issues, but they shouldn’t stand in the way of our larger issue of creating “a more perfect union.”
OK – so now let’s imagine that we’ve identified our audience. How do we speak to them, excite them, motivate them?
Let me be honest. I have no idea. But at least I realize that.
Regardless, you first have to ask. And when I say “you,” I mean probably not you. A lot of people just don’t like Democrats very much and we have difficulty processing that.
Anyway, the only real way to find out what works… is to see what works. It’ll take some difficult-to-define “star power,” and you don’t tell the audience you’ve got it – the audience tells you. There are undoubtedly people out there who can fit the bill. Our job is to find them.
Bill Clinton was one of the “Seven Dwarfs” competing for the Democratic nomination to oppose Bush I in 1992. After Bush “won” the Iraq War, few people gave any Democratic nominee a chance, not least a little-known politician from Arkansas. When Obama first appeared on the national stage at the Democratic convention in 2004, few people thought he’d be elected president just four years later. And when Trump came down the escalator in 2015, most people (including me) thought he was a joke.
In each case, I don’t think much of it was workshopped too deeply – the crowd connected and the world followed. Few saw it coming, and everybody else got out of the way. In Trump’s case, with years of media visibility and a hit TV show, his audience connection was so strong that it ended up swallowing an entire political party… quite possibly taking American democracy with it.
My point is this: Yes, social media, influencers and such are a important elements of a campaign, and they will be for the foreseeable future. But if you don’t have a winning product, it’s all for naught.
So first, we need to write some songs. Then it’s Star Search to find the performers who can bring the house down. I think those are the first steps towards establishing a winning brand – a brand that would easily gain the support of a majority of Americans. That’s the really important part, and it won’t be easy.
Then – and only then – does it make sense to talk about getting the message out there. If we do it right, it’ll be Joe Rogan knocking at the door instead of candidates needing to chase him down.
Because, after all, give the people what they want… and they’ll turn out. Right?
Let’s just hope it’s not too late.
