Political messaging is the process of conveying political information through various public mediums. Speeches, advertisements, both social and public appearances are used to convince voters of a desired policy or to support a specific candidate. Messaging can be tailored as positive, negative, or neutral in order to influence audiences. Campaigns rely on messaging to shape and ultimately control the outcome of elections. Political messaging is currently a strength of the Republican party. Unfortunately, in the case of the Democratic party, messaging isn’t just a deficiency, it’s a huge liability.
There has been a significant impact regarding the issue of messaging since the introduction of digital messaging to traditional platforms. Politicians have gained the capability to reach a much greater audience with greater speed and frequency. Social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, and even Instagram have enabled messaging to reach any and every different demographic to a greater or lesser degree. By use of these outlets party advocates have gained the ability to directly communicate with the public. Traditional media channels can be bypassed while achieving a direct line of discourse and expanding a more diverse audience. Political campaigns now have the potential to target their advertising and messaging. Targeting messages to specific groups (age, ethnicities, etc.) was more easily achievable, increasing the overall effectiveness of campaigning.
Other impacts have included:
- Citizen and grassroots journalism
- Political accountability and transparency
- Increased polarization and echo chambers
- Disinformation and “Fake News”
In my opinion, social media has been a mixed contribution to political messaging with a leaning to the detriment of societal influence. Twitter (now X) is or at least was notorious for its algorithm which invoked political conversation to a toxic level. YouTube gave everyone with an opinion a visual media outlet to express their views on matters. The problem with all of the social mediums is that there is little to no validation of the accuracy of the information being broadcasted, and almost no accountability for providing disinformation.
As previously stated, messaging is a strength of the Republican party. They have mastered techniques that instill short but powerful messages to their base. I would argue that this is easier because they rely on the baser nature of people. They utilize fear, hate and provide justification for people to blame their problems on others. They endear themselves to those who have no interest in politics and lack the insight to evaluate the long-term effects of their decisions. When those effects manage to personal affect them the Republicans are ready to shift blame again, and then their lack of political awareness allows them to continue the cycle.
The effectiveness of maintaining short messages also feeds to their strength, by supplying the uninformed with just enough information to piss them off. Blaming the migrants for lost job opportunities and crime can reduced down to phrasing like “those illegals.” This gives their base a outlet for rage or fear without having to provide any explanation of how or why they should be angry or fearful. An advanced technique of their short messaging was their attack on Hunter Biden. In this case, they projected the impression that Hunter was given an unfair advantage with his plea deal due to being the son of the President. Every Republican repeated the term “Sweetheart deal” as frequently as possible while on air to ingrain this message into the collective mind of the populace. Lawyers and other politically savvy pundits publicly pointed out that he was the one being treated unfairly. Through the use of political optics. Explanations of how he wasn’t being charged for tax evasion until after he paid everything back, that and he was being prosecuted on a gun that no one else gets charged for. Contradicting their messaging requires many more words and a greater attention span on the part of the listener. “Sweetheart deal” is a phrase of two words with no context. The worst part about it is that it is completely false. That is the strength of their strategy: simple but frequent lies.
Conversely, Democrats are left with at least two major problems. First, they are left cleaning up after every lie, and secondly their messages are much less sensational. On the first count, they could do a lot better about cleaning up the lies. This should be done in two parts:
- Instead of focusing on the truth, break apart the lie. Jake Tapper did an excellent job of this in his interview with James Comer. When Comer attempted to minimize Hunter’s charge, Jake interrupted to say that he was facing 17 years, and questioned whether Comer really believed that Hunter was getting off easy.
- Attack the creditability of the liar. When Donald Trump attacked Mike Pence of “not having the courage to do what needed to be done.” Counter it with reports from the White House saying that Trump wasn’t hiding in the bunker. He was inspecting the bunker. A better example, show the clip Trump speaking at the podium when a loud noise went off. Trump shook like a leaf and Mike Pence ran to him and got to him before the secret service. Who’s the coward?
The undereducated are Donald Trump’s strength when they should be his weakness. The trick isn’t to educate them, just to inform them. The message should be that he or most of the other Republicans aren’t their friend either. Ted Cruz wasn’t afraid to fly away during a freak storm (to this day, I don’t blame him). The message to his supporters needs to be: “Why am I not able to fly away too?” “What has done to ensure the rest of us can go to Cancun next time?” “How are you going to prevent us from having to pay $5,000 for our electricity bill when another storm comes?” Show the supporter what their local politicians eat compared to what they eat (steak vs sardines) or the difference in where they eat. Why is their life better than mine, and what did I put them into office to do. Right now, the Democrats are missing a major opportunity by not exploiting Trump’s comment about being a dictator for a day. Show every income level how that can (and probably will) affect them. Give them graphic images. People getting snatched up in Germany vs Portland, Oregon. These are things that are easy to understand and message.
— Citizen Mooney
