12 Comments

True. Repub attacks continue to work, and continue to stop us saying what most America believes in,-almost as if the attacks intimidate or bully us. On economic messaging, I agree if we can come up with language equivalent to the memorable MAGA.

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2 observations: You are persuasive up to a point. You and your readers will need to explain why all the attacks on D's, esp. on progressive D's have been working in many regions. If attacks worked for R's, why not turn the tables? McCarthy started attacked liberals in the 50's; Reagan attacked govt and D's in 1980's; Gingrich and the Freedom Party constantly attacked. A second observation: "This election is about economic fairness" The R's have captured this. If D's trying talking about economic fairness, it does not work, at least with messaging and messengers we have. Talk to 30 year old progressives and economy topics discourages them . Talk to 50 year independents and economy topics alway include blame on Biden.

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I think there's a stylistic difference in attacks of liberal vs. conservative origin. Republicans tend to be forthright and aggressive but not gratuitously mean or snarky. Dems tend toward self-righteous moralizing, contempt and condescension which paints them as elitists and really rubs working people and swing voters wrong.

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Dec 21, 2023·edited Dec 21, 2023Author

1. The purpose of the Republican attacks was always to get us to stop saying what we were saying. Their attacks only worked because we always backed down. If we held our position or doubled down, they would have failed. 2. We are the Party of FDR. We absolutely can and should talk about economic fairness. In fact, properly written economic populist messaging is the absolutely best messaging for us!

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100%! Check out Common Sense Solidarity, Trump's Kryptonite and Winning Jobs Narrative if you don't them already which you probably do:-)

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author

Thanks! Common Sense Solidarity was a new one. Very good!

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Dec 20, 2023Liked by Antonia Scatton

The fact that we've been trouncing Republicans just by focusing on their terrible anti-reproductive justice policies supports your argument.

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Dec 20, 2023Liked by Antonia Scatton

Such as:

"Democrats got $35 insulin for everyone on Medicaid; Republicans blocked extending that to every American. If you’re paying too much for insulin, thank a Republican!"

-or-

"Failed businessman Donald Trump"

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"This election is about economic fairness..." and also personal freedoms? (enumerated depending on the conversation), with overlap between those two categories.

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For many people, economic fairness and freedom are intimately intertwined. Lack of economic self-determination is something people feel every day, as opposed to political self-determination which is more abstract, and bodily self-determination which tends to be situation-dependent, but they are all about freedom!

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The Venn diagram of economic fairness grievances and personal fairness grievances is the overlapping dual rings we shall all display for Festivus.

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Haha!

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