Poll-dependence is Holding Back the Democratic Party
How to reverse Democrats’ failure to lead.
You can't lead by following. You can't change public opinion by only telling people what they already think. The Right knows that today's unpopular statement is tomorrow's common knowledge. Our adherence to poll-driven self-censorship is how we got in this hole. It’s time to stop digging.
We have to change.
Voter approval of Democrats in Congress is at a historic low of 21%1 with only 40% of Democrats approving of the way we are doing our job. We’re up against pure evil, but even our most die-hard supporters are expressing their vote of “no confidence” all across social media. They are begging for leadership, but we don’t seem to get what that means.
From Wonkette:
Leadership means driving public opinion. We don’t say anything unless we’ve tested it in polls, and we’ll only use language that doesn’t rub anybody the wrong way. Meanwhile, Trump is using brute force to rewrite the synaptic connections in the brains of the American people, normalizing hideous violations of the social contract and human decency at a stunning pace. He’s driving public opinion to the far-Right and we’re following it there.
If, right now, I could say just one thing to every Democrat in a position of power in America, it would be this:
Message testing is a tool to inform us, not bind us. Stop letting it dictate strategy. Say what you NEED the American people to believe. Say it with all of your heart, and if people push back, say it twice as much. That is how the public debate works. That is how brains work. And that is what is required of leadership.
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The Message Death Spiral
Trump and Musk are taking a hatchet to the federal government, purging staff and slashing funding for programs. Our consultants recommend that we make the emotional case, that we emphasize the personal stories of people whose lives have been impacted and will be impacted if this continues. In this, they are absolutely correct.
However, some are also advising Democratic leaders to NOT use this opportunity to connect those stories to government itself, because message testing tells us that people have negative associations with the term “government.” This is the perfect example of what I call the “message death spiral,” our habit of abandoning words that are critical to our success.
We run from the term Democrat. We have no official entity responsible for telling people what a Democrat is and why they should be one, because our candidates want to continue to run ‘away from the Party.’ We run from the term government, when our entire reason for existing is to use government to protect people and better their lives. We champion programs all the time, but the word government never crosses our lips.
Government is the Product
Message testing is a valuable tool for telling us how best to market the product we need to sell. Here’s the problem: “government” isn’t a term we could use to sell animosity toward Trump and Musk. “Government” is the product we are selling. Emotional stories about individual programs are how we sell it.
The Democratic Party is also the product itself, the thing that we need to sell. How people feel about the party2 is the number one driver of how people vote. Candidates are the salespeople, and when they run ‘away from the Party’ they are only sabotaging themselves.
We can’t sell the product without mentioning the product. When we avoid using words, they don’t go away. We just hand our opponents 100% of the control over their meaning. When we lose control of the meaning of words, we lose control of the people’s comprehension of the thing itself. The price we pay for that loss is incalculable. So why do we adhere so religiously to this failed strategy?
Our opponents are unafraid to say things that will meet with immediate outrage. They know that today's outrageous lie is tomorrow's common knowledge. They understand the neuroscience of communication, that it’s about exposure3 not reason. They know that the negative attention only increases that exposure. They know you can get people to believe anything if you say it with absolute conviction, repeat it relentlessly, and stand your ground when people push back. But the same techniques they use to “normalize” can be used by us to persuade.
They will continue to attach negative associations to our critical concepts. The ONLY way to win is to fight back, to overwrite their negative associations by building twice as many neurological connections4 between our words and the positive things we know them to mean.
In this case, we should connect every single human story to the federal government and the idea of government itself. Government shutdowns always produce a surge of positive feelings toward the federal government. Public opinion also swings toward defending that which is under assault. There has literally never been a better opportunity to make the case for government,5 to generate many new positive associations with the term “government” every day, in the news and social media.
The Churn Rate of Public Opinion
When I gave this advice to senior Democratic advisors, they told me that they agreed with my strategy for the long term, but we had to stick with the messaging that polled the best right now.
It has been 5 weeks since Trump took office. He and his people have normalized what was previously unthinkable with blistering speed. The news cycle is now closer to 24 minutes than 24 hours. Public opinion changes on a dime.
Russia has been “the enemy” my whole life. Trump is calling Zelensky a dictator and accusing Ukraine of provoking Russia into attacking, despite ample evidence to the contrary. He knows that you say what you want people to think and keep saying it. You push and you push and you make progress.
We change minds by overwriting their disinformation with our truth. Every single exposure to our messaging is progress, an impact on the minds of real people and a loosening of the grip of those negative associations. The sooner we start, the better.
Sometimes the immediate response will be resistance or even pushback. This is what we might see in the message testing. We have to plant seeds that get people to think, even change their minds, but that can happen in days, or even hours.
We win absolutely nothing from inaction: we simply forfeit the game by walking off the field. Every day we fail to make those positive associations is another total loss, another day that 100% of the associations people have with “government itself” are the negative associations put there by Republicans.
Connect the Dots
What is our current “not-mentioning-government” strategy? Are we trying to increase disapproval of Trump and Musk? Do we think that is going to get the job done?
We can’t successfully fight their actions if we allow the disinformation that justifies their actions6 to stand unchallenged. They are essentially saying that it’s not wrong to destroy the federal government because government is bad: it is hopelessly wasteful, corrupt, “weaponized and woke.” For decades, we have tried to defend individual government programs while allowing Republicans to demonize government itself. We fight the battles but keep losing the war.
We ultimately need people to conclude that these individual cases of programs people depend on are in fact accurate representations of the value of federal government as a whole. Our case against Trump and Musk depends on it.
You’ve met the American people. Why do we assume that they will connect the dots? They are perfectly capable of being moved by the stories of farmers in Minnesota going broke or children whose cancer medication won’t be paid for, and yet still believing that the federal government itself is so hopelessly corrupt that extra-legal destruction is justified. After all, during the election, they believed that we cared more about food and drug prices, but completely failed to extrapolate from that that we are actually better than Republicans at “handling the economy.”
You can talk about the individual instances all you want, but people will tend to see the individual cases as the exceptions, not the rule. We have to make the overt case that those individual cases prove the rule.
We are expecting people to think something that defies the disinformation they have heard their whole lives, and then act on it which might require standing up to their own elected officials, their MAGA neighbors, or even their employers.
We’re asking them to have the courage to do what we are afraid to do. We should be the ones giving them permission to think what we need them to think.
The Right’s demonization of government is gaslighting. We need to call them on their bullshit. Somebody always has to be the first guy to say out loud that the “emperor has no clothes.” That involves risk, but that is what is required of leadership. That is what it means to not comply, and this poll-driven self-censorship is the messaging equivalent of obeying in advance.
Just remember: the unpopular thing we say today, is what people reconsider tonight, and what they believe tomorrow. All we have to do is say it with conviction, repeat it, and not back down in the face of opposition.
Thank you for everything that you do. Thank you for subscribing and making it possible for me to do this work. I could not do this without you.
Take care of yourself and stay connected to the things that bring you joy.
In solidarity, always,
Antonia
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Learn more about the role of party identification.
Learn more about the neuroscience of exposure.
Learn more about the neuroscience of association.
How to make the case for government.
Democratic counter-offensive strategy.
Thank you Antonia for your clarity and insight- you are absolutely right!
Antonia, thanks and a great call out. I believe Democrats could be less "nice," and simply say what they mean. For example, I wrote about the role of anger in climate messaging addressing this. https://skywaterearth.com/2023/08/27/the-role-of-anger-in-climate-activism/ There is tested evidence that anger can be a catalyst for action. We tend to shy away from anger afraid that we will offend, but unless we are pissing off 20% of the electorate our message is too milquetoast. This is what happens when we follow the polls.
There's another benefit of directness and anger. It supports social proof and social pressure. We tend to change our opinions and wiring based on what others around us say. Bernie says what he thinks whether its popular or not. Hillary, not so much.
https://skywaterearthhobie1.substack.com/p/aliens-and-climate-communications
Thanks again.
H