The more we learn about what went wrong with the Harris campaign, the more people are realizing that the Democrats have abysmal communications -- yes, Harris is a black woman, a disadvantage hard to overcome in a racist and misogynistic society - but mainly the Democratic brain-trust running her campaign didn't seem to realize that too many Americans had heard four solid years of lies about awful Democrats and Biden-bashing from their media sources, and a few enthusiastic rallys on television were not going to reverse that perception.
Kamala Harris didn't campaign on pronouns or white privilege or defunding the police. So why does it feel like she did?
— DougJBalloon (@nytpitchbot.bsky.social) November 12, 2024 at 9:19 AM
I thought this was a fascinating analysis: On Democracy, FP Wellman A failure to communicate We live in the new age of Mass Diversified Media and better get used to it
First, Wellman discusses the communications problem that Democrats are recognizing now:
...Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez asked her Instagram followers why they voted for her and Donald Trump.The answers probably made her uncomfortable but it’s also fascinating.The overwhelming answers were like these highlighted by MSNBC:“I feel you are both outsiders compared to the rest of DC, and less “establishment”“…wanted change so I went with Trump and blue for the rest of the ballot to put some brakes”“…both of you push boundaries and force growth”“It’s real simple … Trump and you care for the working class”“I feel like Trump and you are both real”“You are focused on the real issues people care about. Similar to Trump populism in some ways”“…you signaled change. Trump signified change. I’ve said lately, Trump sounds more like you.”Notice what you don’t see? I wanted to ban abortion nationwide. I wanted to gut the Department of Defense of “wokeism.” I wanted to replace the dollar with cryptocurrency. I wanted to sell public lands. I wanted to destroy the economy be deporting 11 million hardworking people. I wanted to dismantle the Department of Education.No…they are frustrated with the now…and dreamed of a different then.
Wellman identifies the problem that too many people didn't know what they were voting for pr against. He then discusses why Democrat messaging isn't getting through:
...What I have seen is what I have been calling a Mass Diversified Media landscape.This goes beyond the 24/7 news cycle that dominates cable news or the old ‘win the hour’ philosophy of places like Politico.We live in a time where millions of Americans are simply not watching or reading mass news in any way. They are getting their information from podcasts, video shows, TikTok, Instagram, and other sources....I don’t blame any of the candidates or the elected officials at all. To be perfectly honest, I do blame the culture of the entire public relations and media relations profession in politics.... Aside from a few forward thinking young professionals the overwhelming number of media people simply dismiss the idea of going on a PODCAST! ... Times have changed and public relations and media outreach professionals need to understand that reaching people isn’t a game of home runs. That big hit on Rachel Maddow does nothing to reach average Americans that you need to reach a majority....This is a time in communications of what we baseball fans call ‘small ball.’ It’s singles and doubles that win games not always going for the home run. Too many in the media relations world think every appearance has to be “maximized” to be worth their bosses time. Sure I could do your 100,000 reach podcast but that’s just not as good as 2 minutes on CNN!But it is.Hell, my audience gives money. One Senate candidate I interviewed told me she raised over $13,000 the day after our 10 minute interview posted. That is Return on Investment plus they can use clips and reposts for months.We have got to understand this moment. There isn’t “one place” to get your message out. There are hundreds and thousands and you have to use them all. Together we can fight back but it won’t be from just appearances on MSNBC. It will be working every possible angle…even little podcasts like mine….that reaches hundreds of thousands of motivated people.Onward!
Toronto Star Justin Ling There’s one lesson the Trudeau Liberals must learn from Trump’s victory
If there is one media outlet in Canada that is (mostly) respected nation-wide, it is the CBC. Maybe that's why Poilievre hates it so much. Here is a good-news story:...The president-elect stalked around the country, savaging the institutions which inspire distrust, fairly or not. People are angry at rising homelessness, failing healthcare, the opioid crisis, poor infrastructure, declining state services, a strained education system, and much more. At a time when technological innovation is widening our imagination of what is possible, this kind of decay feels inexcusable.Harris spent the campaign bombarding voters with tightly-messaged scripts about why they should vote against Trump. By election day, Americans had few good reasons to vote for the vice president. And yet it’s this strategy that Trudeau looks set to replicate.... Harris’ loss should be a wake-up call for Trudeau: He needs to actually win people over again. This doesn’t mean that Trudeau ought to start hawking Bitcoin or denigrating transgender people.But it does mean that he needs to figure out how to convince working Canadians that his party is still capable of getting stuff done, instead of merely managing decline....
I expect the Liberal initiatives like the Canada Periodical Fund and the Canada Media Fund would be on Poilievre's chopping block too. If there is one politician in Canada who doesn't relish opportunities to talk to journalists and explain to the Canadian public what he is doing and why, it is Poilievre.“CBC News is adding up to 25 journalists in more than a dozen communities that are underserved by broadcast news outlets, with a focus on Western Canada.” https://t.co/i8rJvtrQVm
— Greg MacEachern (@gmacofglebe) November 13, 2024
Dale Smith makes an excellent point too: Roundup: “Identity politics” on both sides
As the facile analysis of the Trump victory continues across the political talk shows, there was one particular exchange on Power & Politics last night [Nov 7] that I felt deserves a bit more attention, because I think it’s important to call bullshit on, which is the discourse around “identity politics.”There has been a lot written about, particularly over the past two days, about how the left has been too scoldy about said “identity politics” and pronouns, and it caused the public to turn against it, which is both ridiculous given the broad-based rage-and-resentment campaign underway, but it also excuses the very identity politics that the Trump campaign (and the current far-right) play into themselves, particularly with race....Nevertheless, after this diatribe about identity politics, columnist Emilie Nicolas, who was on that panel, objected and pointed in particular to what is happening right now with young men, who are being raised on a diet of Andrew Tate podcasts and their similar ilk, along with some allusions to the gamer-to-fascism pipeline, who are being taught an absolute load of horseshit about alpha men, male dominance, and rank misogyny. And Nicolas pointed out that this is identity politics, and to insist that it’s only coming from the “left” makes this particular kind of identity politics invisible when that’s exactly what it is.Trying to dismiss anti-racism, anti-misogyny and anti-homophobia/transphobia as “identity politics” that the general population doesn’t care about (as though the general population consists entirely of white men), while racism, misogyny, and white supremacy are given a free pass and not being called “identity politics” when in fact that is at the core of what they are, is actually kind of damning to those who think the “left” needs to cool it.I do get that the whole “scolding” aspect is something that does need to be re-thought as a tactic, but to pretend that “identity politics” is the domain of the left alone is both wrong, and intellectually dishonest in the extreme.
This:
And on a side note, I must also share these funny observations about Trump's so-called cabinet:
Canada searches for new country to compare ourselves to now that U.S. is too sad
— The Beaverton (@thebeaverton.bsky.social) November 13, 2024 at 2:06 PM
[image or embed]
This isn't a cabinet. It is a junk drawer. https://t.co/iN6vjUJHih
— Wilbur Turner 🇨🇦🌈 (@queergranddad) November 14, 2024
If you want to read an excellent article about Trump's cabinet picks, see Ken White Refuge In KakistocracyHow The Worst Of Us May Somewhat Shelter The Rest Of Us.Okay yes a second Trump presidency is terrifying but based on these Trump picks, I think there's a decent chance that stupidity gets in the way of the fascism. I think that's our hope: crippling idiocy.
— April Ajoy (@aprilajoyr) November 13, 2024
3 comments:
I don't buy the idea that Harris lost because she's a black woman. The US elected a black man twice. In 2008, Obama got 96% of the black vote, and a stunning 54% of the young white vote. In 2020, Biden got 91% of the black vote. But in 2024, Harris could only muster 83% of the black vote, with 24% of black men breaking for Trump. And Harris was running against a twice-impeached, dotard, white felon. Harris didn't lose because she's black, she lost because she's a woman.
And the misogyny is rife on both sides. Trumpism and wokeism are two cheeks of the same misogynist ass. Both sides are made up of narcissists who believe men should have ownership of women – whether of their identities and spaces (the wokies and their Dem allies) or their bodies (Trump and the GOP). Both set back women's rights by 50 years and imperil women's safety and opportunities.
I'm not saying other factors didn't play a part in the Dem debacle, they did. But I hate the hypocrisy of liberals pointing at Trump's misogyny, while fostering it in their own house. There's a lesson in that for Canadians too and for our feminist PM. Sex is real, it matters, and everyone knows it, especially the ones trying to erase women.
Liberals and Democrats have a basic problem: The messages that they might like to go with, even the policies they might like to enact, that is the sort of positive messages and policies that would resonate with the public and make solid positive differences to their lives . . . are fundamentally at odds with their sources of funding and media coverage. So they maintain their party in the medium term by not doing those messages and policies, but over time their support erodes because they don't do anything boldly useful.
The NDP tend to actually promote those messages and push for those sorts of policies. The result is that they don't get funding or media coverage and are a third party. Even so, there's definitely a sense that the NDP too don't say or do as much as they would like because they fear the media calling them wingnut communists. The NDP are as good a party as you can kind of almost get away with being in this country.
This shows that the Liberal/Democrat dilemma is not just a cop-out, it is very real--if they went for the good policies and straight talk, the resulting loss of funding and media coverage really would hurt them. But one thing they have failed to really confront is that over the years, both media ownership and big funders have drifted to the right. In the case of funders, it's partly actual change of ideology and partly a greater sense of power and entitlement: Very wealthy people and big corporations used to be OK with politicians talking back to them as long as they didn't do too much about it, and they accepted the idea of compromise with the public interest even if they would fight about it issue by issue. Nowadays, they want politicians who will serve them wholeheartedly and they will not tolerate less, and they've created this whole alt-right socialmediasphere to get exactly that. As a result, being centrist is increasingly an anti-establishment position even though the centrists never imagined it that way.
If the Liberals want to keep on being a party that even nods to the public interest, they are going to need to try to change the terrain to make that viable again. That would involve bringing back public funding of political parties and a whole lot of regulation of the media (including social and other internet-oriented media . . . bots should probably be thoroughly illegal, for instance) and political advertising and use of money for political purposes. Regulation of the media would also include serious anti-trust action; it has been allowed to get way too concentrated.
Do all that stuff, maybe there's a chance for Liberal, and further left, messages to get out.
I am increasingly disheartened about whether our society will ever vote for politicians who don't just lie to us all the time -- listening to Trump and Poilievre lie about things they say they will do (cut taxes) and say they won't do (ban abortion) and then people actually believe them and vote for them and there isn't any reckoning later when they do nothing, its very discouraging.
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