Why Issues Don't Matter Anymore
If people don't like you, what you say doesn't matter.
First, two diversions:
On a different, but no-less-important topic, check out Olga Loutman’s Active Measures series launch below. My dear friend Steve Messere (who is brilliant) clued me in about this long-term KGB operation some time back; it explains a lot.
And Valerie Vandepanne just posted how she thinks that Cuomo is positioning himself for 2028. I say she’s right. You heard it here first.
Now to the main point of this post:
I’ve said for a long time that “branding” is the key to consumer choice, and that when it comes to today's Democratic party, the brand is unsalvageable. One person who should be mentioned in this context is the creator of today’s Republican brand, namely Roger Ailes. Roger understood his target audience (namely, resentful, undereducated older White men) and he knew how to cater to them. (See here.)
Ailes first became involved with politics as Richard Nixon’s Executive Producer for Television in 1968 and his casting of Nixon as the “law and order” candidate representing America’s “silent majority” (with its unmistakable racist overtones) was wildly successful, with Nixon winning the presidency in a landslide.
In 1996, Ailes was appointed by Rupert Murdoch to be Chairman and CEO of Fox News and he lost little time in transforming what had at first been a legitimate news network into what now amounts to a propaganda outlet for the GOP. In fact, Ailes’ branding vision was so successful that it ended up swallowing the entire Republican Party.
Trump is merely the end product of that branding. Trump's combination of showmanship (along with millions in free media exposure), aid from Russia, lack of moral scruples, psychopathy and stupidity has exposed the rot in American democracy, which is now collapsing before our very eyes as institution after institution bends its knee to Trump’s will.
(Three good articles on this in yesterday’s NY Times: “The Real Danger Isn’t Trump. It’s Elite Capitulation,” “Columbia’s Leaders are Fooling Themselves” and, as a nice companion piece, “Inside the Rise of the Multiracial Right”.)
Anyway, here’s the point: branding works. It is ALL about apprearances. Issues don’t matter. What matters first and foremost is whether or not people like you.
If people don’t like you, it doesn’t matter what you say.
And most people don’t like Democrats. Period.
Rise of the Progressives?
These days, Democrats are crowing about progressive victories, particularly that of Zohran Momdami’s victory in the NYC Democratic Mayoral Primary. The claim is that Momdami’s victory is an indication of new blood and new energy within the party.
Dream on.
I say that it’s more of a death rattle, an indication of the absolute fury and frustration Democratic voters have with their own party.
Voters don’t like Democrats. But in NYC, they just don’t like Republicans more. Today.
We shall see what the future brings. Michael Bloomberg won the 2001 NYC mayoral race as a Republican, and considering Democrats’ devastating loss of the House and White House in 2024, anything is possible.
I was watching Mark Pocan (D-WI) on Thom Hartmann last week, and Pocan kept going on and on about how Democrats lost the 2024 elections on account of inflation. Pocan was recounting how, at town hall meetings, constituents’ #1 complaint was about prices. So what’s Mark’s solution?
Take a guess: it’s for Democrats to double down on the issues. Pocan predicts that strong positions on the issues will lead to Democrats winning the House in 2026.
What?! I mean, how clueless can you be? Has anyone in Democratic leadership heard about the “Bradley Effect?” In short, it’s the tendency of some voters to lie about their poltical preferences in political polls because they find it too embarassing to acknowledge the real reasons they vote the way they do.
Biden had to deal with the catastrophic economic impact of Trump’s mishandling of COVID epidemic. Yet, despite all the supply-chain disruptions, business failures, political rancor and corporate price-gouging, Biden left office with a soaring stock market and a booming economy that was the envy of the world, with an inflation rate of about 3%, down from a post-COVID high of about 9%.
Still, a bad economy was the #1 issue cited by Trump voters in 2024, even though by a significant margin, voters said that they themselves were doing OK. Why the disconnect? (See Paul Krugman’s March 18, 2024 article here.)
It doesn’t seem to make sense… unless you take the Bradley effect into account. Be aware that it was in Republicans’ best interest to slam the Biden economy as much as possible, and they went to town with all guns blazing. Fox News picked up the gauntlet, and the other media outlets mindlessly followed suit.
As long as the issue was out there, dissatisfaction with the economy became a convenient, legitimate-sounding rationale for voters to vote against Democrats. But realize that if it wasn’t inflation, it would have been something else. It would have been Hunter Biden’s laptop. Or it would have been the US withdrawal from Afghanistan (even though it was Trump who made the commitment to pull out). Or it would have been Biden’s mishandling of classified documents (even though what Trump did with classified documents was not only a blatant, criminal violation of law, it was also a real threat to national security.)
Whether voters just didn’t like Biden, thought Biden was too old, were sexist, were racist, simply didn’t like Democrats, or all of the above, the issue of inflation gave voters a reasonable-sounding reason to put a rapist White supremacist insurrectionist narcissistic delusional psycopath in the White House. Again.
It wasn’t inflation. In fact, the issue didn’t really matter. As long as there was some justification - any justification - no matter how overblown, untrue or patently ridiculous, voters who simply don’t like Democrats were going to vote for Trump no matter what. They would find some reason - any reason - not to vote for Democrats, and if they couldn’t come up with reasons of their own, Fox News would happily supply them with a 24/7 fire hose of lies and misinformation.
So by following the rabbit down the hole every time, Democrats simply play right into Republican hands. Nobody likes a “smarty pants,” so when Democrats place the emphasis on issues, they are simply digging themselves even deeper. It’s a battle they can’t win as long as Democrats fail to understand… that people just don’t like them. It’s that simple.
That’s the problem in a nutshell. But just like the skunk at the garden party, Democrats are absolutely clueless about the fact that as far as a huge segment of voters are concerned, well.. Democrats stink. And there isn’t a plan for them to do anything about it.
It’s pathetic. And it would be sad, if it wasn’t so downright terrifying that the Democratic Party is probably the last hope we have to save American democracy.
Or “infuriating” is probably a better word to describe Democrats’ catastrophic failure to see what’s right in front of their eyes.
Yeah, “infuriating.” That’s about right.
Watch What I Do… Not What I Say
Look: you're entitled to vote however you want, for whatever reasons. That’s not the issue here.
Here’s the point:
It’s not about how people say they decide. It’s all about how people actually decide.
Democrats rely on data, but data can only tell you so much. Political instinct is key to winning elections, and this is an area where Democratic Party leadership has failed miserably. Trump reliably leaves Democrats flatfooted, and until Democrats find messengers who can both “get” the elctorate and are able to exhibit the same feral intensity as Trump, they won’t win. Policy arguments won’t cut it.
As long as Democrats claim the solution to winning elections is making promises - promises they likely can’t keep and that people don’t believe them on anyway, they are utterly, utterly hopeless.
I said it before and I’ll say it again:
If people don’t like you, it doesn’t matter what you say.
So if Democrats are to have any hope at all, they need to start by being likable. And step 1 in that process, BTW, is not being “other.” (“Other” is Republicans’ #1 weapon and they use it unmercifully, to great effect.)
This doesn’t mean Democrats can’t or shouldn’t be who they are. Pete Buttigieg is perfectly likable and shouldn’t change a thing. Authenticity is the coin of the realm, and people can spot a phony miles away. On the other hand, Chuck Schumer and the rest of the Democratic old guard are beyond salvation. They need to be gone, and yesterday isn’t soon enough. Wake up.
It is not an accident that Trump is picking TV personalities for his staff, despite (or perhaps because of) their stupidity, malevolence and glaring incompetence. Only two things matter to Trump: loyalty to him and looking good on TV.
The old political rules don’t work anymore. Like it or not, politics is Hollywood and it’s not ever going back to what it was. Media presence is everything and as long as Democrats don’t get that, they are lost, lost, lost and are just wasting our time.
If the Democratic party is even salvagable, it will mean a top-to-bottom reinvention of the party. That means a massive candidate purge, to be replaced with candidates who know how to present themselves in compelling fashion. If any of those who remain fail to successfully complete rigorous media training, they too must go.
And the sooner the better. Learning how to make people like you (if it’s even possible) is a major undertaking.
If Democrats don’t get with the program soon, it’ll be hopeless. Right now, the only program Democrats have is a program that nobody watches, or even wants to watch. It’s just the same old same old, and nobody’s interested.
And why should they be? That’s the question. Unless and until Democrats can learn how to both play the game and put on a good show, they won’t win…
Nor do they deserve to.