By Brigitte L. Nacos
In today’s print edition of the New York Times a full-page column by Ezra Klein is headed by the headline, “Can Democrats Find A Winning Message?” (The online version has a different title). This is a pressing question for those who still hope that Donald Trump’s handiwork in favor of illiberal democracy and authoritarian rule can be stopped. Klein’s opinion piece analyzes the dire predictions of election analyst David Shor, who foresees for the near future massive losses for Democrats in the U.S. Congress, most of all the U.S. Senate. That is not only based on the undemocratic electoral process set up by the U.S. Constitution, but also on the disability of the Democratic Party and its leaders to translate even the most attractive and most publicly supported features of their and President Biden’s agenda into compelling soundbites understood by the American public at large.
These are the terms that Americans hear from Democrats in Washington day-in and day-out—not only in their conversations in the halls of Congress and the White House but also in their appearances in television and radio, in their tweets, and in their coverage by the press: reconciliation bill, filibuster, John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, and so on.
Go out and meet regular people and ask them about the purpose of the voting rights advancement act. Or the filibuster controversy and the content of the reconciliation bill that Democrats are fighting about. Or the filibuster controversy.
Compare that to Trumpian soundbites:
Stop the Steal, Save America, Make America Great Again, America First. These are simple, catchy phrases.
Go out and ask regular Americans what is meant with MAGA and the other slogans above. Most know.
It is not enough for the fighting so-called liberals and progressives within the Democratic camp to get onto the same message. Although that is a precondition at a time, when democracy is under attack from the former president, his supporters, and those who disagree but fear to say so publicly.
Democrats needs to translate their bureaucratic messages into simple words that every American can understand. Soundbites that bite.
Soundbites that speak to the hopes and fears and anger that drives red and blue America further apart yet. At Trump’s rally last night in Iowa, one of his female supporters told a reporter with emphasis that the “civil war” was coming. Must come. Just one illustration of dangerous polarization in our country.
More than two decades ago, Jeffrey Scheuer wrote in his book “Soundbite Society: Television and the American Mind” that TV news was “filtering out complex ideas in favor of blunt emotional messages that appeal to the self and to narrower moral-political impulses.”
According to Scheuer, this obvious bias in favor of simple messages was not the result of intentional slants but rather the nature of the medium—TV with limited air time.
For the Right, there was and still is typically the choice between right or wrong, good or evil. Perfect for short soundbites. For Liberal, these differences were and still are far more complex to press into a meaningful soundbite.
The TV soundbite society of then has long expanded to an overall soundbite society—and not only because of Twitter’s limited text requirement.
In the last decade, but especially since Donald Trump appeared on the political stage in a starring role, aggressive, violent, shocking, insulting, threatening soundbites have become the most-used propaganda weapons of Trump’s Republicans.
Democrats must not copy the viciousness of Trumpian soundbites. But they need to quickly translate the policies they want to enact into simple, effective messages.
That’s not an easy task.
But without making it an urgent effort and succeeding, David Shor’s disheartening predictions may well come true in 2022, 2024 and beyond.
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