Democrats are from Academia. Republicans are from Marketing.
Why Democrats struggle with messaging and how we can fix it.
For 100 years, the psychology of human behavior has taught us how to persuade, how to change people’s attitudes and influence people’s actions. Most of us Democrats didn’t learn this in college because we were studying political science, policy, and statistics, in which we were taught to communicate for scientific publication, not persuasion. We have to unlearn what was drilled into us, embrace the science of human behavior, and learn new rules for the “right” way to communicate.
Why Democrats Struggle with Messaging
I wrote this in response to a recent post by David Roberts in his newsletter, Volts.
In it he asks:
What exactly is the problem with Democratic messaging? That is where the agreement breaks down.
Is it too liberal or not liberal enough? Has a young vanguard distorted the party's perspective and alienated it from swing voters or is an old guard holding back a diverse new coalition? Is Democratic messaging using the wrong words and phrases, or is the problem that it simply doesn't control enough media to ensure its messages are heard?
I felt compelled to write this, because there is a very simple answer and it doesn’t have anything to do with internal squabbles or policy positions.
We Democrats were taught to communicate according to rigorous standards for publishing scientific research and applying for government and foundation grants. The rules we were taught work in that context, but are the opposite of what we need to do to win the public debate.
Democrats love to learn. We are smart and we like science. With a little time and effort, we can learn a new set of rules based on 100 years of behavioral science research and recent advancements in linguistics and neuroscience.
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What We Were Taught
Here are a few of the things we were taught in college and graduate school and how they differ from what we need to do to win the public debate.
Who are we trying to convince?
ACADEMIA:
You are addressing the person you need to convince: professors, journal editors or grant managers. You are the applicant and they are the judge. Your goal is to make the most convincing rational argument to them.
THE PUBLIC DEBATE:
In the court of public opinion, persuadable voters are the jury. You’re not trying to convince the prosecutors (Republicans) to drop the case. They never will. They have a vested interest in beating you. Your mission is to get the jury to like you more than they like the prosecutor.
What are the terms of the debate?
ACADEMIA:
We operate on the assumption that everyone is arguing in good faith. We agree on the definition of terms and expect to be judged rationally, on the merits.
THE PUBLIC DEBATE:
Republicans are not arguing in good faith. We can’t win by arguing that our policy positions are the best based on the facts if Republicans get to define what the facts mean and even what our language means. In the public debate, we have to persuade the public to adopt our framing – our interpretation of reality and meaning of words – over that of Republicans.
Bias and Emotion
ACADEMIA:
We are taught to rid our writing of emotions, lest we appear “biased” to reviewers. In scientific experimentation, we are not even supposed to have a preference for which way an experiment turns out because we might subconsciously influence the results.
THE PUBLIC DEBATE:
Voting and consumer behavior is driven by emotions. Swing voters make decisions based on how they “feel” about the Party and the candidate. Our goal is to get them to like us more than they like Republicans, by appealing to their emotions and their sense of right and wrong.
Competing Values
ACADEMIA:
We talk about how to solve problems. We were taught how to make the rational case for a policy recommendation, to argue that our solution is effective, that our results are valid and our research is conclusive.
We were taught how to make the case for how starving people should be fed. We weren’t taught how to make the case for why starving people should be fed. We didn’t think we had to.
THE PUBLIC DEBATE:
Republicans were taught how to make the case that starving people don’t deserve to be fed.
The public debate is a long-term battle between two competing value systems, competing versions of right and wrong. Republicans have been working hard for decades to make the case for their values. We think that our values are self-evident, which is why we just point to Republican behavior and expect everyone to be as outraged as we are.
Oliver Willis “explains” it here:
But what needs to be understood is that the wrongness of conservatism is not self-evident. That is the mistake that liberalism makes far too often. We assume because it is clearly wrong and because it has failed in the past that it will just fail and collapse under its own weight...
A war of ideology has to be fought and to sit on the sidelines, assuming victory, is to provide aid and comfort to the darkest forces in society.
We must study and confront the case Republicans are making for their version of right and wrong. We must learn how to verbalize our own version of right and wrong, so we can make an effective, overt case for our values.
Caveats versus Conviction
ACADEMIA:
If we wish to be believed, we communicate only what we can actually prove and not one bit more. We qualify everything we say with a laundry list of caveats to show that we understand the limited application of our findings.
THE PUBLIC DEBATE:
People only believe what you say if you say it with conviction. Every time we hesitate to make a definitive statement, or draw a conclusion and then qualify it with caveats, we sound less certain of the rightness of our own position. We have to get comfortable with making bold statements about right and wrong and using broad generalizations to communicate the larger themes about what we believe.
The Bottom Line
Stop doing this:
Letting Republicans be the judge: making our case to Republicans on their terms, hoping they will admit that we are right.
Trying to make a fact-based case on the merits in a debate where our opponents are not operating in good faith, where they try to change the meaning of the facts and of our words.
Assuming that what we believe to be right and wrong is obvious and shouldn’t need to be expressed.
Sounding uncertain by making limited and hesitant statements and adding too many caveats.
Do this:
Focus on winning over the jury of persuadable voters: getting them to like us by appealing to their emotions and their sense of right and wrong.
Persuade the public to adopt our framing – our interpretation of reality and meaning of words – over that of Republicans.
Make the moral case, not just for what needs to be done or how it should be done, but why it ought to be done.
Overtly articulate the case for the rightness of our values.
Speak with conviction: Make definitive statements and broad generalizations without apology.
The rules of scientific communication we learned in college are hurting us in the public debate. We need to become aware of how we have internalized those rules and work to break the habit of using them. Then we can learn from behavioral psychology and cognitive linguistics about the real rules of engagement in the political public debate.
Thanks, as always, for reading and subscribing! I hope you are able to use this in your work and your activism!
In solidarity,
Antonia
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