What's your first recollection of hearing the (valid) charge that Democrats are shitty at messaging?

[Stinky The Clown]

At least shitty by comparison to the Republicans.

Was George Lakoff your first inkling?

I hope no one will ask who is George Lakoff.

Before then?

[bottomofthehill]

1. Walter Mondale

Correctly claiming he will raise your taxes

No matter how well you try to do it, he said we are raising taxes no matter what both D’Souza and R’s, then the R’s go out and say oh no we won’t, and then they do.

https://m.

[gay texan]

2. Dukakis

That campaign had zero idea how to fight back. Lee Atwater never had it so easy.

[Champp]

6. Always thought Dukakis should have gone to the Statue of Liberty

Given a big speech while standing beside her, and thereby claimed Liberty for liberal Democrats.

Instead he talked endlessly about his solid technocratic approach to national problems. OK, great, but he thereby let the Repukes have the mudpit all to themselves so they could slather the word "liberal," with their maliciously distorted definition of liberal, all over him.

RW media never let up on how "liberal" was somehow, in their warped minds, a condemnation. The Repuke disinfo messaging on "liberal" became an insult that persists in RW minds, rather than the compliment it actually is for US politics.

So I like The Duke OK, voted for him, but I fault him for not standing up strongly enough for what liberal really means, and can mean.

[tenderfoot]

3. I think the media ignores Democrats - hence, shitty messaging.

I'm still bewildered as to why a scream from Howard Dean upended his campaign. Or why Chuck Todd never has Democrats on Meet the Press.

[Stinky The Clown]

7. You are most correct about the media. They treat Biden as a perpetual loser. They hailed TFG 1. . .

. . . . fresh air and strength. It is maddening.

Yes, "the scream" is a PRIME example of who the media supports, or not.






Okay, I GOTTA ask: The Horse avatar and your name. An admirer or more?

[tenderfoot]

11. The avatar and name

The avatar is the "Media Horse" from the dearly departed 'Media Whores Online' site from the early 2000s. The name... because I'm new at everything. lol.

[Stinky The Clown]

25. MWO was my wife and my home long before DU started.

We came here from there and were never able to figure out who ran. Rumor was it was a woman from Florida but I'm sure there were other rumors as well.

Yeah, MWO and BartCop (Terry Coppage's site) sustained us in the early days.

[ShazamIam]

8. Yes, the media owners decide who gets to do any messaging. No Democratic allowed, they get cut off

interrupted and shouted over, then called weak.

[sanatanadharma]

4. Will Rogers

“I am not a member of any organized political party — I am a Democrat. ”

[Arazi]

5. Al Gore's "loss". Then doubly confirmed with the inability to counter the attacks on Max Cleland

The Swift Boat Vets attack on John Kerry brought it all out in the open about how catastrophic Dems are at messaging and counter-messaging

[Mad_Machine76]

9. I hear it here all the time

I've heard it so much that by this point it's practically become a truism. The frustrating thing is that- for all of the money Democrats seem to raise and spend on campaigning, things haven't seemed to get any better. But I don't really completely fault Democrats because part of the problem is that candidates are frequently forced to respond to wild accusations and smears and claims that I, frankly, don't blame them for sometimes having difficulties coming up with a good immediate response to. Like, how DO you respond to lunatics like MTG or Trump for that matter?

[pwb]

10. I prefer they think before talking.

I have not heard that.

[Brainfodder]

12. I just hear instead: Democrats are too nice?

Stuck sticking to old norms and the rules to the letter?

Those are my thoughts then and now.

Gloves off people, they have been too brazen and left behind ah yes, EVIDENCE!

[justgamma]

13. Years ago

I suggested to a Democratic Senator that they should stop saying SS was an entitlement and he literally snapped at me and said that's what they call it. Meaning the cons.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

14. There's too much nuance for simple messaging.

So the black-and-white, us-versus-them messages from Republicans will naturally be more sound-bite friendly.

Many people lack the basic curiosity to even sit through an entire episode of Frontline (PBS).

[CozyMystery]

20. I invited the parents of one of my sons' best friends for dinner

I had never met them. They turned out to be far right folks. The odd thing was they kept talking about their views, and they were all soundbites or faux news headlines. So, I asked them to tell me about their various views in more detail. They had no details!

Later my sons told me that they watched a documentary on TV about mermaids. It was a spoof or something, not a serious documentary. But this couple watched, and determined that mermaids actually exist.

When I cannot reason with people, even a little bit, I think they unable to be reached. Covid-19 vaccine wars have proven that to me many times over. One person told me that she will not believe the vaccine itself hasn't killed many people, because she has not seen the autopsy reports or medical records of those who have died from Covid.

So I asked what a reliable statistical sample size would be, in order to satisfy her. This was a trick question, because of course someone with her beliefs has no clue about statistics. Or logic. Or science.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

21. Good grief.

I've likewise had those kinds of experiences with people, mostly my coworkers over the years.

It's sometimes difficult to ascertain their degree of ignorance through typical chit-chat, but then one of them will suddenly express disgust that they learned yogurt has "little unseen creatures" living inside it... so they'll never eat yogurt again! Then they get even more upset if you point out that there's microbial yeast and bacteria pretty much EVERYWHERE (at least where there's water), but that only makes them more upset and angry.

That's just one example of many.

Many of them attended rural schools in my area, and I've had serious doubts that those schools offered any science coursework at all, after those folks finally revealed just how little they knew about the world.

Some of them made flat-Earthers seem more educated and reasonable than them!

One guy was a machinist who was actually decent at his job, generally making logical choices while doing it, and he asked me one day (during lunch break) why our feet don't suddenly get heavy after we eat!

I laughed because I was sure that he was kidding, but he kept saying that he was serious. Then I asked him if he thought we were hollow inside? That gravity would just make the food go "plop" down our legs, or what?!

Then I asked him if he'd ever heard about the stomach and intestines, and he replied, "Oh, yeah. I remember now! I just got confused for a moment."

Edit: The last example is probably the worst one that I can recall.

[CozyMystery]

22. I live in a small town surrounded by rural areas...

The first thing we saw was the sign on the front door of the high school. It said the sophomores will be reading at grade level in 4 years! I don't know if that lofty goal ever came to pass.

Then there was the biology class. The teacher announced that she didn't believe in evolution, it was not Christian. But, she was forced to teach it anyway! Too many of the students agreed with her.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

26. Yeah, I think the lack of basic education in rural...

... areas is one of the explanations for the political divide between urban and rural areas.

Most scientists are Democrats now, with only 6% of them identifying as Republicans in this 2009 Pew Research poll:
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2009/07/09/section-4-scientists-politics-and-religion/

It was not always that way, such as during the 1960's. (In the meantime, the GOP embraced white evangelical Christians as a voting base and they sided with several anti-science positions.)

And some blue-collar guys, like my past "hollow legs" coworker, might've actually voted for Democrats in the past. (In the meantime, Republicans have ruled the airwaves with inaccurate and overly-simplistic "explanations" for them.)

[jalan48]

15. Sometime during the Reagan years. I think too many Dems fell for the "we have to be more

like Republicans to win"-which made messaging really difficult.

[JHB]

16. Not sure if it was the late 70s or early 80s, but when I noticed Republicans would constantly...

...pitch their views and spin, consistently and every chance they got, whereas Democrats seemed to think that if they said something the press would take it and run with it, doing the nuts and bolts work of promotion for them. Maybe once upon a time it had worked like that, but by the early 80s that time was definitely past.

Meanwhile, conservatives started building several media empires to push and promote their views and agenda. They made sure everyone knew about every bit of "shitty messaging" by a Democrat, while both conservative and mainstream media left any good messaging that surfaces to twist in the wind.

[pecosbob]

17. The New York Times has been telling us this for forty years

If the town crier decides how the messages are read then they create the common perception of reality.

[uponit7771]

18. Only 64% of democrats believe Voter Suppression is a problem (link)

[kairos12]

19. McGovern

Somehow a decorated B-17 Pilot was an appeaser and traitor. Accusations by Tricky Dick who spent the WW2 years playing poker.

[msfiddlestix]

23. I always felt this way. long before Lakoff came on the scene. though he articulated it better than I

could manage.

I remember during the time of Poppy Bush, CNN had this stupid program where he had a "liberal" and a "republican" "debating" liberalism vs conservatism. it made me want yell at the tv, which I never experienced before then.

That was the genesis of my impression that Dems/libs did not get the messaging. just wasn't happening.

With the exception of Ann Richards, Molly Ivans and a few others.

[LeftInTX]

24. In the 70s. There seemed to be no clear message