The Daily Escape:
Sunrise, Motif #1, Rockport MA – 2020 photo by Kristen Wilkinson. Motif #1 is among the most painted fishing shacks in the world. It was originally constructed in 1840, and reconstructed in 1978.
Dr. Rachel Bitecofer is a political scientist who became famous 2018 and 2020 by predicting the midterm and presidential election results of those years nearly perfectly. By doing that, she was way ahead of most pollsters. Bitecofer has now declared her true colors by forming a Democratic PAC called StrikePAC, designed to show Democrats how to fight todayâs Trumpy GOP.
Bitecofer is warning Democrats that they could face a wipe out in 2022 if they continue to focus on policy and âkitchen table issuesâ to the exclusion of the toxic effort by Republicans to brand them, because those issues will not resonate against the GOPâs messaging of cultural issues and the Big Lie.
In a sense, Republicans are branding experts. They fuel the grievances of their supporters every day by waving the cultural wedge issues (abortion, LBGTQ, Critical Race Theory, voter fraud and BLM) in the faces of their followers, while simultaneously demonizing Democrats as against freedom, and for socialism.
Paul Rosenberg at Salon interviewed Bitecofer, and her analysis seems intuitively correct to Wrongo. She argues that the 2018 midterms were more a referendum on Trumpâs presidency than on individual candidates and individual races. She foresees that the Republicans will be similarly motivated in 2022: (brackets by Wrongo)
“Look, the GOP doesn’t really run anything except a marketing/branding op [operation] and it’s predominantly a branding offensive against the left.”
More:
âThey don’t spend a lot of time on their own brand, but they do spend a lot of time in their messaging on discounting, discrediting, and debasing our brand…..so it’s always about showing us as unattractively to voters as possible. We’ve never answered that.â
Bitecofer says that the Dems have been told by their consultants that they shouldnât push back on the âsocialismâ or âdefund the policeâ, or âdestroy democracyâ messaging, but some of those stones are starting to land, just like they did in the 2020 down ballot elections in which the Democrats badly under-performed. More from Bitecofer:
“…you can’t just stand there and pretend it’s not hitting….The GOP is saying, âWe’re going to have a debate about these topics,â and when you enter…that field, you are basically on the defense the whole time because you’re having a conversation that’s been structured by the opposition party.â
Bitecofer thinks it’s time to flip the script on the GOPâs tactics by making the 2022 election a conversation about their anti-democratic power grab, including contesting the results of 2020, their Jan. 6 insurrection, that Trump tried to use the Justice Department to stage a coup, and the Republican Party’s embrace of all of the above.
Republicans have normalized anti-democratic behavior by going into state legislative sessions to try and restrict voter access, even trying to take the vote certification process away from nonpartisan actors and placing it into partisan hands.
So, her basic point is that Democrats need to make the electorate realize that American democracy is on the ballot in 2022. A final quote from Bitecofer:
âTo me, âbringing a brand offensiveâ pretty much describes how Republicans have run the vast majority of their national campaigns at least since Ronald Reagan….Democrats have virtually never done soânot even when Trump first ran in 2016…. we are not engaged in a campaign technique that matches the moment.â
The collective decision by Republicans to stay on the anti-democratic, racist trajectory that the GOP had been on, even before Trump, is perhaps the most important story in American politics right now. The modern GOP messaging tries to turn out their side using the wedge cultural issues, but they also try hard to nationalize politics by making local races be largely about the differences in the two Parties.
Bitecofer says that started with the 2010 midterms which they made a referendum on Obamacare and Nancy Pelosi. They tied every candidate to that as tightly as they could. So candidates didn’t stand for re-election on their own performance and voting record, things that people traditionally thought mattered most. Instead, it was all about whether they were Democrats. And it worked.
Democrats noticed the strategy, but never adjusted to it. In some ways, it seems like Democrats fail to recognize how distinctly different voter behavior is inside the two Parties, and how hyper-partisanship has changed branding and messaging.
The GOP is running a strategic, intentional branding campaign. And Democrats are still talking policies and whether the filibuster should be dumped. Are we making a huge mistake by focusing solely on the issues when the opponent is focusing on killing democracy?
You bet. We need to find and deliver messaging that creates both persuasion and mobilization for our 2022 midterm candidates.
Make it a referendum on Republicans.
The dilemma is that Democrats are a coalition of folks who want government to help solve problems, so some Dems are especially worried about climate – and have proposals; some are especially worried about issues of civil rights and equality and they have their pet proposals. You can survey the collection of politicians and finds many different concerns that rise to the top for different legislators.
For Republicans there is no similar interest in solving problems.
For Democrats, getting them all on board with a single message is impossible. It changes continually, not because Dems are flighty but because issues emerge over time. For example, Liz Warrenâs special interest in financial reforms had traction 13 years ago, but it grabs less attention now. Similarly BLM is new (as a matter of widespread concern).
If we look at Republican talking points, they have been saying much the same thing for 30 years with only slight variation. And then there is right wing media which sell a lie to the gullible. Sadly, the gullible are now armed and dangerous.
It would be great if Democrats could craft a genuine and overriding message about how the lock step actions of Republicans are a genuine threat to self government. If they did, it really might work – but to stay on message, it just wonât happen.