I'm disgusted with DU calls for constructing a message machine based on the GOP

On ideological grounds there's no question that it runs directly against nearly all of our common values. Dropping nuance and rational debate in favor of dissembling simplification is offensive on a basic level to any progressive; downplaying pluralism and party diversity for a monolithic message focused on illusory cultural bromides should likewise be anathema to any reasonable liberal or leftist.

But rather than make an idealistic argument against constructing a GOP message machine, let's consider it in practical terms. The GOP's dissembling talking points system has been custom fitted to their specific base; it is not at all compatible with the Democratic base. Why is this?

GOP party identification is uniquely based on cultural demagoguery. It promotes and deifies the "common man," defined as those who possess an -unlearned- loyalty to "small town values," "family," and other indefinite cultural symbols. Those who possess such loyalty are presented as having superior judgment (or "common sense"), even over those who are well-educated and speak intelligently on the issue in question. This ingratiating tactic flatters the uneducated or incurious, and allows them to identify strongly with the rich elitist leaders of their party, so long as they claim to stand for those values.

Once that flattery earns the base's trust, they are safe from reasoned, logical arguments. Hypocrisy charges don't stick. Possession of these non-existent and elastic "values" becomes the primary concern--any argument is colored by whether or not the speaker is identified with those values. This gives enormous power to symbolic pageantry over rational discourse.

This will not work with the Democratic base. We are nowhere near as monolithic as the GOP in cultural terms. Our base is primarily urban, diverse, educated and otherwise pluralistic. There is no ready simplification of our base's identity that will be seen as positive--in fact, attempts to engage in such simplification cause division and anger amongst Democrats.

To effect something similar to the GOP, we'd have to engage in exactly what they did--several decades of heavy image marketing, costing billions of dollars and requiring an enormously authoritarian system of command and control on the message level. Yet it still wouldn't be successful, because large sectors of our voting population would be turned off and disgusted by being left out, or being asked to pledge loyalty to a lie. The GOP doesn't have that problem, because the extent of their moral mission as a party is staying in office and promoting right-wing economics. Because of this, the so-called moral wedge issues they uphold shift readily with the times, following what's popular and hitting Democrats where they are weak.

We don't have it so easy. At our party's best we actually -do- seek to represent women, gays, labor, and a whole galaxy of other demographics. We can't maintain those commitments if we create an authoritarian message system based on manufacturing a simplistic cultural identity for ourselves. We'd have to develop a near-total uneducated loyalty from party supporters, and to gain such we'd have to kick out or silence too many demographics that are in desperate need of representation. We'd have to rely on feelings of intolerance, ignorance and fear. We'd have to become, well, the GOP.

:)

i hope they're trolls. or teenagers.....

While the ends of unshakable support might be envied, the means that generate it are utterly disgusting.

as a woman, i can relate to having bear this crap spewed in the workplace. it ain;t as rare as we'd all like to believe.
do these posters actually think they are making any sort of contribution with sexist taunts like it;s junior high? This mocking childish bullshit- Lenny Bruce they ain;t .

:P

You're confusing tactical ethics (the op's argument) with tactical effectiveness.

Actually, I don't think anyone is going to vote for Palin because they feel sorry for her about the bikini photoshop. On the other hand, there are doubtless tens of thousands who believe it to be the real thing.

The question is whether those who believe it to be real will be more or less likely to vote for her.

is a problem, believe you me. just because she's a republican doesn;t make the porn refernces okay. it remains juvenile, disgusting and totally pointless. there ain;t an audience for it except for other immature assholes who already hate her, the photoshops are merely a sexist exprsession of hatred. they aren;t going to sway a single voter. but they do manage to aliente a good portion of women here- and create a hostile enviornment. very sad to see here.
all i can say is: thanks, assholes fo making me ashamed to be here.

If not, then who is or is not offended by it is not germane to the topic.

If a GOP candidate attacks Hillary Clinton in a sexist way, the GOP base will not care. Why? Because they identify her as an enemy on an unlearned, illogical basis of "values," and therefore even the nastiest sexism seems justified. If a Democratic candidate attacks Sarah Palin with sexism, the GOP -will- care, because they identify Palin as personifying those values. There are no right and wrong attacks when your loyalty is based on cultural identity, only right and wrong attackers. The GOP is thus free to use sexism against its enemies, yet a month later decry marginally sexist attacks on its own candidates. The key is that their support is not grounded on logic, but rather exalts those with illogical loyalty. We can't play the same game; at least, not in the same way.

that's what they are. they are on some high horse of "all means neccesary", okaaay, right... but their means are like Beevis + Butthead style goofy cationing and giggling over tits! oh yeah that'll take down the right wing esablishment.
:hi:

u think that the party isn't suffering over this? the loss of $$ and volunteer hours is staggering.

We cannot unilaterally set the groundrules for how politics functions. We must instead speak the language of the people. The base, if it worthy of the name base, should understand that policy and ideology are how one should govern, not necessarily how one should campaign.

I'm simply arguing that aping the GOP's talking points system won't be effective for our party. We just aren't reducible enough in our demographics to a few dominant cultural symbols. The Republicans are.

The points are aimed at the swing-voters. The base can just tune out and do what they were doing.

I see what you're saying about appealing to our own base (although I think a good argument could be made that we really don't have a base, but rather we have leftovers from what the Republicans took the first portion of) still, our base is not the only variable in the election.

Our base would be offended by a comment like McCain's "Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly?" joke. Anything remotely sexist directed at Palin is going to be offensive to large swaths of our base. The GOP's base, by and large, was not and would not be offended by these nasty types of attacks. Why? Because their support depends primarily on cultural identification. The primary thing with the GOP base is adherence to cultural symbols. Every statement is viewed through that subjective prism--it's why they could have freely ridiculed an inexperienced pick from Obama, but at the same time can see an inexperienced pick from their own side in a completely different light.

I also disagree with your notion that allegiance to the Republican party is based on cultural identification, but the same cannot be said for Democratic alignment. As the primaries demonstrated, Identity politics plays a huge role in our party. I would say that the fundamental difference is that the Republican party is neither afraid nor unwilling to draw strict delineation between in-group and out-group. Our party is not for the most part able to do this. I think this is in large part because our party collects the leftover subgroups of society after the Republicans have cut themselves its choice of bits. Thus we have no coherent language for the base. The advantage that the Republicans get from this is that they are able to attack outsiders. We worry about launching an attack because we don't have a single ideology to work from.

GOP: A white male right-wing economist, sympathetic to evangelicals and possessed of a hawkish/opportunistic approach to foreign policy.

Democrats: A black pro-labor pro-choice woman, vaguely christian, who supports welfare, gay rights, and diplomatic approaches to foreign conflict.

The GOP can safely run the synthesis of their party's major demographics and still identify with the majority of this country on a superficial basis. We -can- identify with the majority, I believe, but not on the same superficial basis. For that reason, we cannot use the same style of talking points to the same effect. Can our message system be improved? Absolutely. But we are incapable of reducing our base down to a caricature. Even if we could, it would not be a caricature that the majority of Americans would identify with on a purely "is that just like me?" basis.

In my view, that kind of identification is necessary if you want to engage in the dishonest attack strategies of the GOP.

point is.

First of all, I think we might have a greater propensity to do identity politics than the republicans. In fact, you seem to have demographics as the deterministic factor of your political model in this thread rather than ideology.
In fact if we had an ideology, it would be easier to engage in demonizing the enemy because we'd have a common value system to condemn them by.
Why does this mean that smearing is not a tactic we should use though?

In terms of sexist or seemingly sexist attacks, the GOP is freer to make them. Why? Because their female supporters identify primarily on this illusory cultural basis. For this reason, sexist attacks on Hillary are cheered while sexist attacks on Palin are deplored. It's not the same with our base--sexist attacks on either candidate make supporters of equal rights for women uncomfortable. While nasty jokes about homosexuals are cheered from the right when they target the Democratic party, Larry Craig's dalliance is viewed by them as "personal" and irrelevant. Nasty jokes about homosexuality directed at Craig are -not- cheered on by our base simply because they are directed at a Republican.

This double standard, based on cultural identification, is at the core of the GOP's ability to make nasty, simplistic and dissembling personal attacks. If we engage in similar attacks based for example on gender with regard to a political foe, our base will be uncomfortable in a way the GOP's would not be.

Of course we can "unilaterally set the groundrules for how politics functions." In fact, I believe that it is imperative that we do exactly that and that nothing should be a higher priority.

The right wingers "unilaterally set the groundrules for how politics functions." We play by their rules, we lose, because the game they set up will always favor them. The designed it to be that way. We need to stop operating on their playing field by their rules.

We have gone to far down the path already of disassociating how we run campaigns from how we govern. It would be fatal to go any farther in the direction.

Politics has to deal with people as they are, not how we wish they would be. To win this election, he has to get the swing states, period. That's not going to happen without a focused, and rather simple minded approach. Most people who appreciate rational debate also understand this, and put up with it.

With regard to McCain's "$5 million" comment. McCain -explicitly- noted that he wasn't being serious, and in fact ruefully acknowledged that the statement would probably be taken out of context. Indeed it has. But it has zero impact on the GOP base's support, because hypocrisy doesn't matter at all to the GOP's base. Why? Because the GOP doesn't support McCain on anything approaching a logical basis.

We do support our candidates on a more logical basis, and not simply on a level of cultural identification. The GOP-style smears only work when that sort of atmosphere is in place.

I'm not saying that unemotional appeals to robotic rational thought are the answer. I'm just arguing that our base doesn't possess the sort of monolithic, simple-minded loyalty that is necessary for GOP-style smears to be effective.

In the primaries, in people's homes, and small town meetings, and away from cameras or recording equipment. Remember that Gods, Guns and Gays comment he got in trouble for? He was right and being nuanced and look where it got him.

He's not in someone's home, and he's not in the primaries. He's moved to the right, just as he unfortunately had to, and his message now can't be directed at anything but the middle, in easy to understand ways. 'Eight houses', 'I don't want someone delivering 10% change', etc.

There are big structural problems in the Dem party, but they're not going to get answered right now, this country is on the brink.

However, the particular brand of thoughtlessness exemplified by the GOP is not well-designed for use by our own party. We can't duplicate their exact style of message management and expect to have success.

We are for the middle class, they're for the rich.

We are for affordable healthcare, they are bought and paid for by the insurance industry.

We stand with labor unions, they will continue to crush them into powder.

You then show them the reality of the last eight years of their own lives to prove this is true.

And not one ten dollar word in there. Madison Avenue types can come up with appropriate symbols that work. Nuance is for treatises in the New Yorker, not for a pancake house in Scranton.

Our base does have things in common, not all identity politics wise, but in what we all want. And their base is not so unified. There are sharp divisions between economic conservatives and social conservatives. Not to mention Log Cabins- I don't know what the hell they're thinking.

Those politics work on this kind of a basis: "That guy is plainspoken, just like me." "That guy believes in the literal truth of the Bible, just like me." None of what you describe operates on that sort of direct, superficial identification. It's my belief that this championing of ignorant loyalty to cultural symbols is the cornerstone of GOP support--every action is not considered on its merits so much as whether the actor is believed to embody the proper "values."

That's anathema to a party whose base is predicated on diversity in terms of race, religion and culture. You can't reduce gays, minorities, women, and labor down to a few popular and superficial symbols. Not without throwing large aspects of the base under the bus. Those who have tried to simplify the Democratic label down in the manner you suggest have to walk a disgustingly weak "like the GOP, but not so much" line. They are best represented by the DLC.

That's all I hear in this post.

The general public doesn't go for nuanced messages, and that's not going to change anytime soon. The Democrats have lots of platform elements that make good soundbites and catchphrases, like "Reduce dependence on foreign oil" and "Bring back American jobs." All that's needed are some publicists who understand how to craft a leaner, more concise message. If intellectual urbanites don't like it, too bad; they are a small minority that will never be able to swing a Presidential election on their own, and where else are they going to go, anyway? Indeed, the focus on urbanites rather than traditional Democratic voting blocs like laborers is what's cost Democrats a lot of their political capital in the last couple decades.

Anyway, bottom line, complex messages don't work. Live with it or look forward to President McCain.

Why? Because his support is not based on logic. Pointing out that he has failed to support those values in his votes has zero impact. It's an unthinking, unlearned loyalty that makes dissembling GOP-style message politics possible, and we don't have that. It's why Bush's various "against it before he was for it" positions and statements didn't matter, whereas Kerry's did. It's why Bush's blatant lies and misrepresentations on his tax plan in the debates didn't matter, whereas pretending Gore lied about the internet or Love Canal did.

That's the good and bad thing about the "unthinking" part. Love can turn to loathing real fast, a lot more quickly than a position based on logic and reason can shift. And it's not like there haven't been illogical elements in Democratic campaigns -- far from it. Look at Obama's theme of "change," when his stances are hardly any different from the middle-of-the-road Dem party line. If the Democrats can put an emotional edge on logically-grounded platform issues, they can start fighting the GOP on their own terms.

And they were shocking, inarguable mistakes. By any standard, those mistakes have not done anywhere near the damage they should have done to the GOP brand. The problem with the amorphous "change" bit, though it has been largely successful with the press, is that -our- base actually had heated disagreements on whether or not Obama represented change. With the god-guns infusion of Palin, I would wager that McCain's far more absurd pretense of "change" will be widely believed. Solely because Palin is seen as exemplifying those ephemeral "values" that form the bedrock of GOP support.

Let me put it this way, to explain why our base presents problems for simplistic, cultural-identity-based messaging: You will never see a media furor over whether a candidate is "too religious." You will see (and have seen) one over whether a candidate is "too black."

than on its own merits, which are beyond the simpleton's comprehension. It's fortunate that this season's GOP is so fucked up.

Traditional Democrats are hard working, beer with the boys after work, family oriented people that not always have the time between job and family to research issues and get past the sound bytes

Wake up

You got 10 seconds get your message across

we could at least pull the same direction for one election though. :shrug:

What direction are you talking about?


I see liberals (the majority) all over this country pulling in Obamas direction.

Thanks for your concern.


Really.

drive a truck for a living and cant get on “DU” as much as I would like. Yes the more liberal will back Senator Obama of which I don’t consider myself in that group; now don’t start bouncing off of the wall, if you check you can see that I have been a dues paying member of DU for quite sometime, not a freeper.

Getting to the gist of your question,I see many middle of the road that don’t buy the whole Democratic, or the Republican, (winger?)stance,I see them everyday,in truck stops eating biscuits and gravy, rather than ham and eggs, because of the policies of the winger in charge.

I could be wrong, but it seems to me that some of the more vocal/prolific posters think that they represent “all” of the people that will vote, news flash they don’t.I don’t think the race would be as close as it is if everyone would be behind Obama instead of all this bullshit about Alaska Governor Plain.

Were playing into the Wingers hands, they threw this Palin smokescreen up and we are playing their game, we have every issue going, economy being the big one, yet all you see is Palin, we need to get more organized, and pull together, get our message out, quit playing into the their game and start playing ours.

Lets do sample marketing with that. I know a winner when I see it!

But, back to reality. We are diverse so we should focus on the concerns we have in common. As Democrats that would be:

A REAL respect for the Constitution
A REAL respect for civil rights
A REAL drive for tamper-free elections
A REAL program of affordable healthcare for all
A REAL program for environmental safeguards
A REAL FDA that will protect you from madcow and ecoli
A REAL program of alternative energies and conservation
A REAL economic policy that promotes employees before CEOs
A REAL tax policy that focuses on people whose income is EARNED

I don't think any one of those items is hard to understand and that they are all extremely unifying regardless of where you live or what your gender is or if you're educated or not. I don't see how appealing to any of these issues would be "anathema" (or a bad thing, either)to any reasonable leftist or liberal.

There are tactics and there are values. Their successful tactics got their immoral values implemented as policy.

Tactics are not a moral question. You don't get to implement your values as policy unless you deploy effective tactics.

I do want to emulate exactly what they did to get ourselves in a position to craft policy. Their tactics win. Your tactics lose. Over and over again.

Here's the thing that makes me most nuts. Progressives often deceive themselves that it's better to lose in a principled fashion than to win - and be in a position to prevent wars, catastrophe and kakistocracy.

I want campaign coordinators who are prepared to completely destroy the enemy, in the service of candidates who will govern progressively.

The right wing message machine is coordinated and effective, because it has one goal: discredit and destroy liberalism. Our message machines are disjointed and have manifold goals such as promotion of civil liberties, environmental causes, womens issues, advocacy for minorities, etc.

The amalgam of the GOP's demographics looks very much like their candidates: A white male sympathetic to evangelical Christianity, possessed of a right-wing view on economics, and hawkish/opportunistic in matters of foreign policy.

Our candidates do not resemble an amalgam of our demographics, in part because of the ascendancy of identity politics. The GOP talking points system relies heavily on superficial "just like me" cultural symbols. "That guy hunts like me." "That guy is plainspoken like me." We -do- have an ability to relate to the majority, but it won't be on the same superficial level, not unless you throw overboard or marginalize whole swaths of our base.

Incidentally I offer no alternative system of talking points tactics in this thread. I'm simply trying to argue that aping the GOP's tactics is not going to be successful, partly because our bases of support are fundamentally different.

Only once in a position to govern, do morals again become an attribute.

But your premise is a ludicrous straw man. We can't win by alienating anyone. All this bullshit DU talk about how "small town values suck" is insanely counterproductive. I'm not the one alienating people. I have as much distrust and disagreement with the rapture-ready crowd as anyone, but if it meant the difference between electing a progressive who will implement rational policy and a conservative who will continue our national cluster-fuck, I'd pander like a son of a bitch.

But pandering is not really what we're talking about. The OP is about message control and management. The various vertical interests which compose the left wing message machine need to be brought into one unified tune. I think identity politics is has harmed our campaigns significantly. The issues that face us all are the issues with which we can use to win elections.

Progressive politics, as a collection of injustices to be fixed, is good governance. It hasn't proven to be effective campaign messaging.

Ideally, the effect of pandering and message control would result in the fundies voting to reelect our candidates because they like the national health care system they were tricked into.

They're known as the DLC. Their impact on the unity and breadth of our support has not been at all positive, in my estimation. The GOP's identity pandering is largely -to- their base. The sort you describe above would seek to hide or marginalize our base while lionizing the GOP's. I'm not sure why that seems like such an effective strategy to you.

If creating leftist analogues to The Heritage institute and the Cato institute to promote leftist propaganda to discredit and slander conservative values is effective tactics, I'm all for it.

More than this, tactics have to take into account party goals and ideals. The GOP is relatively unencumbered on these grounds--their sole raison d'etre is to push pro-corporate right wing economics. Being an unpopular policy on its face, this has had to be carefully disguised with heavy marketing. I have no problems with the left coming up with -its own- long term marketing strategy to change the tenor the debate. Our current strategy is ludicrously short term, focused on temporary band-aids and ad hoc reactions to the right wing's long term strategy. We agree in that sense, but I fully reject the notion that our strategy will resemble the GOP's in any significant way. We can't simply ape their symbols and cultural marketing and expect to be successful--we have to focus on our own particular strengths and weaknesses as a party, which are very different from those of the GOP.

Repubs say: "small town values".

Obama campaign: "Us too!".

DU: "Repubs consider themselves to hold small town values. Therefore small town values must be bad. Stinkin' small towns. Full of idiots we don't want votin' for us anyway, it would just dilute our innate blessedness."

You can repeat this process with just about every single differentiator that the Repubs attempt (guns, church, marriage, kids, military service, "blue collar folks", immigration, etc.). They place a wedge, and we hammer it home.

Maybe it's simply inherent in the nature of DU. We live for news about the bad guys, which we can then react to.

I wish that the Obama campaign had some more bold, tangible proposals that we could sink our teeth into. If there were, it'd be easier to be proactive with messaging.

You're confusing my admiration for their methods with approval of their message. I fully agree that we can't simply invert (or coopt) their messages and redeploy them using their tools.

The first step is to stop accepting their caricature and embracing their straw men.

When Democrats attempt to squirm out of the losing side that was specifically designed for our party, it doesn't look great. I acknowledge all that, I just don't think our ultimate response to it can resemble the GOP's on any fundamental basis. We lack a few necessary components that allowed them to build up their specific marketing tactics. Not least among the differences is our support of labor over corporations, minorities and women over white males, etc.

John Kerry tried to do that in 2004, and look where it got him. Obama must not make that same mistake.

You want to talk about pluralism, that's fine, but there are certain elements that bind us together as Democrats. Sooner or later, we're going to have to talk about what those elements are. Why not in an ethical robo-call script?

We do need to strengthen our attacks, solidify our spokespeople behind a more united message, etc. What we -can't- do is just copy the GOP system wholly, because on a basic level it wasn't designed for a party like ours.

....to be simplistic....we need to do whatever works with the voters and do it better than the repugs even if it takes 'intolerance, ignorance and fear'.

....our uphill grassroots liberal struggle must win at all cost if we're to remain a democracy (we're on a mission from God!)....the Party's a big-tent only because it's impossible to elect a 3rd, 4th or 5th party candidate in this system....we need fundamental change....

....after the election, we could clean up the Party by ridding it of all corporate money and people....a healthy, friendly purge would do us wonders....

and a lot of people simply aren't involved. Isn't that why only half or so of eligible people who can vote, vote? people don't pay attention to rational arguments, they don't read every article debunking the lies the repubs spread

Once there's a headline trumpeting yet another lie of a repub, when it's debunked, there's no headline, it's shoved back to page 43

repeating things, having talking points, sticking to them for at least one news cycle so people can process it and hear it, I think is effective and the dems need to have more than one person repeating these talking points because otherwise it fizzles and if it's only heard on one news station, then what's the point?

Obama has to be concerned with not looking "too black." McCain need -never- be concerned with appearing "too religious." This fundamental difference in our voter bases has an impact on our freedom to engage in the same sort of simplistic attacks on personality and image.