John Pavlovitz: No, the Democratic Party Can't "Message Better" to Racism, Misogyny, and Ignorance

[Dennis Donovan]

John Pavlovitz - No, the Democratic Party Can't "Message Better" to Racism, Misogyny, and Ignorance

John Pavlovitz
Nov 18, 2024



In the wake of the election results, one of the most common media postmortems has been the Democratic Party’s supposed failure to reach those Americans who they were unable to persuade over the course of the campaign; rural and working class voters, especially. The airways have been filled with politicians and talking heads offer their critiques and suggestions on how Democrats need to rethink how they are messaging.

I’m sorry, but that’s largely nonsense.

This election result isn't about Dem messaging.

Their messaging during the campaign was pitch-perfect in any other iteration of America. It was about helping the middle class, lowering taxes for the average American, continuing with sound economic policies to cut rising grocery prices, preserving democracy, taxing the wealthy, affordable healthcare and education, the rights of women, strengthening the border, unity, opportunity.

Kamala Harris and Tim Walz formed a balanced ticket filled with character, intellect, and genuine love for this country, and they delivered their vision beautifully and eloquently. Their respective resumes contained exemplary histories of their work on behalf of the working people of this nation. They were experienced, mature, and competent.

And none of these realities could overcome the America that we’ve become—or at least a sizable portion of it has.

This election result isn’t about policy or platform, it’s about racism, misogyny, lack of education—and a Right-wing media machine that caters to those realities.

/snip

[Irish_Dem]

1. 100% correct article.

[spooky3]

2. I agree. The last quoted paragraph sums it up. Nt

[Irish_Dem]

4. The most perfect summation of the election possible.

[Docreed2003]

3. K&R

[SnoopDog]

5. Sorry, but it is indeed the lack of Dem Party messaging...

The Dem Party does not have a messaging system. That's why we lose.

For instance, when voters think our economy sucks - its because of lack of Dem messaging.

[SomedayKindaLove]

9. This

Plus I don’t get it. He says Dems can’t message better but also lost because the Rs can message better.

[Moostache]

12. NO, that's just not true...

People think the economy sucks because its all they HEAR and SEE and are TOLD.
The objective facts are that the American economy is in better shape than anyone else in the world, BUT...because we did not somehow follow up runaway inflation from the collapse of supply chains and the pandemic impacts with an equally massive and MORE destructive DEPRESSION and economic CONTRACTION that really would have been catastrophic, people believe nonsense and propaganda instead.

Elon Musk and others like Peter Thiel and the P2025 zealots have gained exactly what they wanted - a foolish, easily manipulated titular head of a neutered and mean government. To keep people's minds off of how bad things will get for them, they will parade around a host of "others" to blame and to promise that despite their own pain, the pain dealt to those 'others' is greater.

And people fucking BOUGHT it. Hook. Line. Sinker.

If you believe 'messaging' = lie to and manipulate, then I might accept your conclusion. But I have watched in horror as he media has continued to normalize Trump for 10 years and eviscerated two of the most accomplished and qualified women candidates ANYWHERE in the FUCKING WORLD at the same time - first with "her emails" and then with "her interviews".

The cold hard truth is obvious - Trump gets a free pass and women get beat down. It is not a fucking secret that in three elections Trump won twice while being abetted by allies attacking and denigrating women and lost to the only male candidate he faced. If Hillary Clinton or Kamala Harris EVER said "They're eating the dogs. They're eating the cats. They're eating the pets of the people that live there." their candidacies would have ended before the clips finished airing the first day... instead, Trump is normalized as he did more and more and more outlandish shit.

If the media and the pundits and the intelligentsia all conspire to give one person a pass and the other the riot act, I'm sorry, but that is NOT a 'messaging' problem, its a media problem and there must be consequences for it. I truly hope that every single network, newspaper, magazine and reporter involved in the last 10 years of politics and news coverage work for outlets that go bankrupt in the next 4 years. I hope they all lose their cushy jobs, expensive NYC apartments and cocktail party lifestyles and end up bankrupt and unemployed as a result of this catastrophe they co-authored with Thiel and Musk and the crazies.

Who knows, maybe one of them with have hidden writing talents and can write a modern retelling of Steinbeck's "Grapes of Wrath" in the new depression United States of the 2020's that is coming like a freight train. But blame the messaging if you wish...its not like we haven't heard THAT before either in 2016...

[SnoopDog]

13. "People think the economy sucks because its all they HEAR and SEE and are TOLD."

Exactly. The Dems DID NOT message the great economy.

Know why? Right - the Democratic Party does not have a message media infrastructure.

[Moostache]

18. Propaganda is not messaging.

I will die on that hill.

Messaging is providing a plan and an actual way to improve people's lives. It is giving people a reason to vote FOR something instead of voting to hurt some one else and leave them alone.

The infrastructure of the media is not messaging. It is propagandizing and lying. It is false advertising at best and blatant lying at worst. It is what allows "a concept of a plan" to garner more votes than "securing the rights of a woman to control her own body".

Being able to ween themselves off of the Trump outrage machine and constantly chasing the newest "this is what Trump said today" coverage is the fault of the media... they NEVER have demanded an answer to his original sin - the elevate speech calling Mexicans "rapists and murderers and some, I guess, are good people". THAT was disqualifying in and of itself, yet he was not forced to CONSTANTLY defend it at every single turn.

E-mails.
Interviews.

versus

Blatant insanity and outrage machine...

It was never a fair fight and it was not message but choice of coverage and THAT is on the media as much as on the Democratic Party...

[SnoopDog]

20. The billionaire-owned Media will not message for the Dems...

It's up to the Dem Party to get out our news and message.

The Dem Party does not support any news or messaging entities. That's why we lose...

[happy feet]

31. The dem party does not own or chair any

Of the mass media.

[SnoopDog]

32. Exactly....

And that is the problem.

[iemanja]

72. The media voters consume is alternative media: social media, podcasts, and radio

It's not the newspapers and cable shows (other than Fox) that members here constantly complain about. Most voters would never pick up WaPo or the NYTimes. There is a vast network of alternative RW media that dominates the messaging voters hear and makes it extremely difficult for Democratic messaging to get out. Messaging IS the problem, and we are ages behind in building alternative media networks to spread our messages.

[JoseBalow]

29. Propaganda is literally messaging

[Cha]

42. "Propaganda is not messaging." Prescisely.

Who would ever think it is?!

[harumph]

48. Propaganda is a TYPE of messaging where influencing

takes precedence over facts. propaganda MAY include facts - but there is always an agenda in the framing. It is still a subset of
messaging.

[Cha]

59. Propaganda is Bullshit.. "Haitians eating cats & dogs"

for an Ugly example.

[iemanja]

70. How is it not?

Messaging has nothing to do with truth. It's ideas and talk that circulate and sway the electorate. We are losing that war in a devastating fashion. The voters hear RW messaging from a wide variety of sources, not the media like CNN and newspapers that posters here like to complain about. Those voters don't consume that media. Social media, podcasts, radio, etc. dominates the messaging system, and it's 90% RW. If we don't build up a similar network, we will never get our ideas--messaging--out to voters.

The dictionary definition of messaging is: " the ideas or messages conveyed either explicitly or implicitly by a politician, advertising campaign, etc., or the way in which this is done: "the debate is as much about political messaging as it is about policy" · "we think positive messaging is better than negative."

That definition distinguishes messaging from policy. No where does it say messaging needs to be truthful.

[soldierant]

33. "The Democratic Party does not have a message media infrastructure."

A media infrastructure is money, not messaging.

If you are saying you want the Democratic Party to buy all the newspapers - presuming we had the money, which we won't and never will - we have a few billionaires, but most are somewhere betwwn Republican and Fascist - yeah, I can see that that would work. I can also see how it would corrupt us. If that's what you want to happen I have no answer. But I don't want that.

[cab67]

49. They did.

Really.

The problem is that news outlets too often want to give air time to all "sides." This works if there are multiple legitimate sides, but not if there's one side based on actual data and another that's spewing bullshit.

[ReRe]

21. That's the best reply I have heard in a long long time. Bravo!! Here Here!

Thanks for describing the whole 2024 election bomb. Yours makes more sense than any I've read.

[Cha]

41. Excellent Post, Moostache... Mahalo for

the Reality Check and Explaining it so Well to those who don't see it.

[iemanja]

73. The media--largely alternative media--controls messaging

Your post is an affirmation of how messaging is spread and whyit matters. Postcasts, social media, and radio is dominated by the right. That is why voters are so exposed to RW views and Dem messaging gets lost. If we don't build a similar alternative media network, we will continue to have our ideas ignored and overwhelmed by RW views.

[OMGWTF]

23. The problem as I see it is a whore media that normalized all of the weird and dangerous things * has said.

That, coupled with the racism and misogyny made it a tough climb. However, in my heart of hearts, Kamala won.

[SnoopDog]

25. That's why the Dem Party need media messaging outlets.

Otherwise the billionaire media outlets will message for the Dems...which is nonexistence or is negative messaging.

[hadEnuf]

28. The Democratic message was excellent. Harris & Walz hit the nail on the head every time.

However right wing media warped and diluted that message every hour of every day. TV, radio, internet, podcasts, X, Truth Social, to name a few.

Democrats relying on this partisan media field to get their message out is a losing battle. We need to build a media network that will at least be able to compete with this right wing ocean of propaganda.

[Tumbulu]

62. Exactly, I have no idea when this is not obvious to everyone.

[PortTack]

45. Wrong! We lost because of the racist sexist crap in this country that says a woman esp. a WOC shouldn't be president.

The so called economy/ inflation was part of it. But the post election stats don’t show it was the main reason

[Magoo48]

52. What do you suggest? Should we purchase thousands of small radio stations?

Or, should we purchase huge media conglomerates, or…

[SnoopDog]

53. Yes, we need radio stations in every state...

And TV/Cable stations too.

Free Speech TV is a start but much much more is needed.

[Butterflylady]

63. I agree, Joe's accomplishes were not messaged to the people during his 4 years.....

Now Kamala and Tim did wonders with messaging. I read somewhere that during the election that they didn't speak to the needs of the workers in America. That blows me away, because that was total bulls**t. If anything, they made several commits about the fact they totally supported unions. They even walked the picket line with them.

[Number9Dream]

64. In Pennsylvania, the Harris campaign TV ads were "take it easy on Trump"

It didn't require message infrastructure to broadcast TV ads. They just had very few negative, anti-Trump ads to remind the voters what a terrible president Trump was.

There should have been TV ads hammering Trump for the following, but I never saw a one:

Mr. Obama, in a speech two weeks before election day, pointing out that Trump inherited the great Obama economy, then, by botching the Covid pandemic, brought the economy crashing down. This should have been a TV ad starting one day after the Democratic Convention.

The Republicans torpedoing the Bi-partisan Border Bill.

Jan 6th / His inciting an insurrection... dead and injured police;

Botching the Covid pandemic and the resulting negative economic consequences;

Sam Elliot narration - Draft-dodger Donald - his anti-veteran statements.(Sam Elliot did a web ad for Kamala).

Trump's felony and other convictions;

Trump not returning stolen top secret documents;

Trump says "climate change is a Chinese hoax"; Then show wildfires, etc.

Ms. Harris' age vs Trump's age > Dementia?

Sam Elliot narration - Trump: The biggest "Sore-loser, cry-baby" of all time.

Anti-Semitic guests at Mar-A-Lago & Tucker Carlson;

Many others.

I blame and don't understand the "Let's go easy on Trump" strategy???

[SnoopDog]

65. It takes years and years to properly message the people...

Running ads is extremely important but it takes years to ingrain one’s message into the brains of humans.

[Number9Dream]

66. I agree, but they didn't even try. I'm sure there were some undecided independents in PA.

[mcar]

68. Disagree

When the MSM is 24/7 spreading doom and gloom about the economy, despite how well Biden/Harris have done with the economy, it's not the Ds messaging, it's media pushing propaganda.

And I'm not talking about RW media - it was a constant drumbeat for 4 years from "legacy media," CNN, MSNBC, etc. Gas prices, egg prices, recession coming. They never gave Biden one iota of credit for creating the best post-Covid economy in the world. It was always negative.

Then they expressed surprise when polls showed that people thought the economy sucked.

[SnoopDog]

74. Totally agree...

The MSM is indeed corrupt.

So is the Democratic Party leadership just going to throw up their hands and give up?

Well, it seems that is the answer is yes.

After President Clinton signed the Telecommunications Act, the republicans bought up hundreds of media stations.
The Democratic Party Leadership did nothing. And continue to do nothing...

Republicans win - Democrats lose.

[mcar]

75. Republican billionaires bought them

I'd love for Mark Cuban and Soros and other rich Democrats to buy up media sites.

That's not on elected Democrats, though, that's on them.

[Cha]

6. But for Some it's ALWAYS Blame the Dems

Am I right. Sanders?

Looks to me that way.. That’s what happened after the GE in 2016 when Hillary got Millions More Votes than TSF But in the Swing States Stein’s Hate & Lies about Hillary and The Sick Fuck being the Same Lost Our Chance at Real Democracy. Lost the Supreme Court.

[Lucky Luciano]

17. If you're trying to win the electoral college...

Last edited Tue Nov 19, 2024, 08:51 PM - Edit history (1)

You place your bets to optimize for that and that may not be the same optimization problem as winning the popular vote. Trust me - if Robert Mercer was involved he knew how to optimize to win.

I know many here absolutely loathe Bernie, but he is not wrong and is worth listening to.

My primary takeaway from this shitshow is echo chambers are bad.

[Cha]

35. They are NOT "echo chambares" Just Because

Many Dems have the same Opinion. Are you calling us an "echo chamber"?

We know what we saw and I don't care who doesn't "blame" him. I respect those who don't find him blameless like the ones who REC my Post.

Not everyone likes Sanders... We're not required.. and there are those who do. Again Not an "Echo Chamber".

[Lucky Luciano]

51. Meh...you're right, let's just keep the same approach which has worked so well.

Reread the definition of insanity.

[Cha]

58. Meh.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

38. The control of the Supreme Court was on the ballot in 2016

Last edited Wed Nov 20, 2024, 01:36 AM - Edit history (1)

Link to tweet

[Cha]

40. Mahalo, LMPV.. You Get IT * & Jill Fucking Stein LIED

Link to tweet

her Fucking head Off In the Swing States to Sabotage Democracy. MFS

Vlad Putin was Happy & So was TSF.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

47. Joe Biden apparently wouldn't consider expanding the Extreme Court to 13 justices.

I wonder if Trump would consider such a change.

[mcar]

71. Sure was. And we were told by some on the far left

that SCOTUS wasn't important.

[JohnSJ]

43. +++

[Dem4life1970]

7. This is truth!

Stop with the post mortems. People voted for a racist, rapist, convicted felon. Why anyone would vote for him is beyond me. Had John McCain run the kind of racist campaign that Trump ran against Kamala, he might've beaten Obama. But McCain had morals, a conscience, an actual belief system, honor, integrity, dignity, how long should I go on....(I still voted for Obama of course, but what a difference in how the two Republicans ran their campaigns). The lesson the GOP learned after Romney's defeat was double down on the shrinking white vote before 2042 and entrench a South African style (enter two white South Africans, Peter Theil and Elon Musk) government on the United States through force if necessary.

[radius777]

8. Biden was the most pro white working class president

in decades, in terms of the policies he enacted which heavily helped the red states and rural areas. Did they appreciate this? No, of course not. Most are upset about woke, trans etc - that's what drives them - white identity politics.

We need to confront this idea that somehow we are the identity politics party and they are for 'normal Americans'. No, we are for everyone, and that's what they don't like. They want it to be all about them, like it was before the Civil Rights era.

Harris ran a very generic campaign focused on economics, ran on the Biden platform etc. She rarely spoke about her race or gender, rarely even responded to ugly attacks on her as not to get into that conversation. So this idea (that even comes from some on the left) that she ran on identity is absurd. Her identity mattered - to the racist and misogynists.

[LizBeth]

10. She did everything right. She talk middle/working class. The only thing is man on ticket

because as the post says, can't message better.

[RoeVWade]

11. Reasons? Personally, I think the pandemic gave people an excuse that Trump would have been really great, but for that

That he was just slowed down and wasn't going to be a train wreck. Just my theory why some people at least voted for him.

[albacore]

14. When "The immigrants are eating the cats and dogs."..is a more potent campaign point than...

"I'm going to help you buy your first house", you just gotta know that it WASN't the campaign that lost.

[RoeVWade]

15. Or people believe the "Deep State" which I call sensible people in government trying to derail a sociopath, prevented

him from achieving true greatness, and they are giving him another chance.

[madamesilverspurs]

16. Case in point:

Where I live we lost two exemplary public servants -- Mary Young, who served us well in the state house, and Yadira Caraveo, the first congressional rep from our brand new district, who hit the ground running in DC and delivered reliably and well to her constituents. Both were narrowly defeated by men who had no difficulty emulating Trump's slanderous tactics; the ads were sickening in their presentations. What Young and Caraveo "lacked" was any inclination to respond in kind, which is testament to the strength of character that will now be absent in those offices.


.

[Cosmocat]

19. 1,000% CORRECT

What I was saying long before the actual election.

[ancianita]

22. I'd love to say that, from an Independent, the essay was a) fact based high compliment to Harris, Walz and Democrats,

and b) fact based crushing judgment of Trumper mindlessness.

He's right. I know some educated and some uneducated trumpers, and not one of them cares to read or learn or know more about what they don't know. They're right because Trump's right.

When Pavlovitz says...

"How the hell do you “message” against that?"...

"Donald Trump invited people to stop thinking and to let fear lead them, and I’m not sure how we reverse that for those who accepted the invite.

Kamala Harris and the Dems didn't fail America, they just exist in a nation where far too many people don't pay attention or care to understand what's actually happening.

Maybe more of them will now."


He sounded clear in perspective until his last sentence darkened his clarity, suddenly sounding just like a hopeful Independent.

For him to be credible to me, he'd need to do focus groups with fellow Independents who in 2024 split evenly between Harris and Trump, then write about what their Trump vote says about his fellow Independents.

[Cirsium]

24. Electoral success

Electoral success is defined as winning, and nothing else. Electoral success is the entire point, not being right or winning brownie points.

The party leadership has taken the base for granted, marginalized or purged its strongest advocates for the worrking class, surrendered the 24/7 365 ground game to the right wing, lost the battle for social media, endlessly compromised with the opposition, catered to the upper middle class demographic and kowtowed to the wishes of wealthy donors. We see the result, the worst possible outcome imaginable.

What I just wrote should not be cause for controversy among Democrats. But it is.

[cer7711]

26. Umm . . . Seriously?

You've explained why most Trumpers went Trump.
Fine. Point conceded.

What you haven't explained is why a large portion of Democratic voters sat on their hands this last election and refused to pull the lever for their own corporate party candidate. Were these voters just too racist, misogynistic and homophobic to vote for a mixed-race woman? (Forgive me; I should have said "BIPOC birthing-person". I'm old.)

If that's the case, well . . . I guess you're conceding that the Democratic party will remain out of power for decades. Because good luck chiding fundamentally evil bigots into behaving better (electorally speaking), eh?

Or . . .

Could it be that many of the working class, paycheck-to-check people are so fundamentally enraged, despairing and (now) nihilistic at seeing the Democrats serve the same corporate-monied donor class as the Republicans while abandoning the fight for a public option, living wages, family leave and other pressing, pertinent issues that they simply couldn't stomach the thought of participating in the farce of voting for the lesser of two evils again? Like many have been doing for forty+ f--king years now?! While more and more of the country's wealth is transferred upward to a plutocratic few?

Nah... That can't be it. "They're all a bunch of (fill in the blank with the insults of your choice)."

Right?

[JustAnotherGen]

34. I've seen two numbers

9 - 15 million Democrats stayed home/did not vote.

I don't believe it.

We'll see in 2026 if the new Democratic Party can win on a message that erases the base. We'll see.

[dlk]

27. Thank God

Someone addresses the idiocy of blaming Democrats for inadequate messaging.

Seriously, what could possibly ever be said to an racist, woman-hater that might break through their fog of ignorance and change their mind?

We have done the FA part of ignoring the very real threat of right-wing media propaganda, and now we're all going to FO, the hard way.

[Joinfortmill]

30. Yup half the people suck

[biocube]

36. Sorry, have to push back on this.

Lots of people voted for Trump and voted Democratic downballot. Heck Wisconsin, Michigan, and Nevada elected Democratic women to the senate. Those are the people that need better messaging.

Of course I don't want to downplay that our media ecosystem is horrifically bad and only cares about "balance" and "fairness" and wants to pretend the problems with Democrats and Republicans are the same. But there are people that generally only like Trump because he's hated by the rest of the political class. I know people like that, and I worked with all my might to push their votes the other way. Kamala just comes off as "too establishment" for people, and being proud of the endorsement of the Cheney's didn't help at all.

[Henry203]

44. My take on

the 3 ststes yu mention. I think her color was part of her problem.

[Takket]

37. Democratic messaging is fine, people just aren't HEARING it.......

for one the MSM completely ignored Harris (relativity speaking). drumpf's every word was covered breathlessly, which ,even if was sometimes coverage negative of him, it was STILL COVERAGE. He dominated the media

but more than that is we NEED a Joe Rogan equivalent. We need to BURY tik tok and instagram and lift wing policies and facts. We are losing the youth vote because they have the attention span of a gnat which is enough time for them to her "drumpf is a business man" and read a post from their aunt saying she had to sell her house to buy eggs.

Traditional media is dead, and we're getting CRUSHED in its replacement.

[Hekate]

39. THANK YOU, John Pavlovitz -- and Dennis Donovan. This is 100% accurate, imho. nt

[Wounded Bear]

46. K&R...nt

[iluvtennis]

50. John Pavlovitz is spot on! n/t

[Blue_Tires]

54. Thank you

I've been screaming this for two weeks now...

[Hermit-The-Prog]

55. The vast, right-wing, oligarch propaganda system strikes again. Concentration of wealth and media is the root.

[Martin68]

56. I agree 100%.

[praxEs]

57. I enjoy idiosyncratic messaging critiques.

They’re fun to hear because they suggest just how little the critic understands about the always hugely tested message to which they object. What’s even more fun is when the critic pops up with their preferred topic or wording.

It’s just silly to suggest alternative wording or topics if one has not lifted a finger to conduct the necessary research to evaluate it. It’s possible to use social media, perhaps, to get some hints about the effectiveness of one's favorite alternative. One would still need to learn enough about respondents to suggest which audience may be influenced.

[TheKentuckian]

60. It is the stupidity and political narcissism that we struggle more with.

If traitorous morons just had shown up we'd have gotten over the hump.

[mdbl]

61. Perfectly stated.

[mcar]

67. Exactly

This whole "Democrats have to reach out to group x, y, or z more" meme is nonsense. How does one reach out to racists and sexists?

[iemanja]

69. If you think it's all racism and misogyny

You're wrong. We lost voters earning under $50k for the first time in decades (the equivalent, low-income voters).
We burgeoned Latino and Muslim voters. People of color didn't vote for Trump because they hate themselves. They did so because they saw the Democrats as preserving the establishment and status quo that make their lives so difficult. So keep blaming those voters for being racist and misogynist and keep up the recipe for losing. We lost the Obama coalition, and to blame that on racism and misogyny makes no sense. Sure, the hardcore MAGAs are racist and misogynist, but they aren't the voters that cost us the election.

Messaging is very much about alternative media--not the newspapers and CNN that people here blame--sources the Trump supporters and swing voters never consume. The right has a network of radio, podcasts, and social media that overwhelms our messaging. That is also key to the Democratic loss, and it is entirely about messaging.

[Justice matters.]

76. What part of "voting for a Republican is to vote against your own interest"

they don't understand, over and over and over again.

Explain over and over and over again that the Affordable Care Act and "Obamacare" is THE SAME THING?

Explain how the REPUBLICAN PARTY as ALWAYS wanted to get RID of THAT SAME THING TO REPLACE IT WITH "Concepts of a plan" that NEVER EXISTED? In two weeks, in four weeks, in two years or in NINE YEARS??

Now we see ignorant imbeciles searching for a way to change their "mistake" of voting for a Republican who WILL get rid of it!!

"A vote for any Republican is a vote against your own interests!" and they think it's a lie... well, they FA and they're about to FO!

Worst electorate on Earth! (49.XX% OF THEM).

[iemanja]

77. They believe that because they are swayed by RW messaging

and they don't hear ours. You seem to think the truth matters when it comes to messaging. It does not.

[brush]

78. Absolutely. Well stated. What a majority of the nation has become.

And now trump is a dictator...thanks SCOTUS 6.

[LiberalFighter]

79. For the Harris Walz campaign I would had made minor changes

But overall it was right. My changes would not involve the messaging.