How We Win the Messaging Game

And if you have listened to my other podcasts, Democracy Ish, then you may be familiar with a Knot, but Anat shankar Osario is the host of Words to Win by and she'll tell us in this jam packed two part episode, because folks, you know that I talk about messaging all the time. I talk about how Democrats are fucking terrible at messaging. We are headed into the stretch for the midterm elections and with a handful of weeks to go. My conversation with a NOD is like, do we have

what it takes to win? Do people understand the gravity of the situation that we're in. What works? We know that fear and lies work with the far right, but what works to get democrats, progressives and these quote unquote mythical unicorn independence to the polls right for midterms. She tells us that we will need historic turnout the way that we had for Biden. Well, we know that that

ain't going to happen. Just historically speaking, midterm elections usually do not have the same type of turnout that a presidential election does. And so if we're hoping for those numbers in order to win, then have we already lost. So this conversation with a Not we went really deep and into the nitty gritty. So it is broken up into our first two part episode. So you will hear a piece of our conversation today and then you will

hear the follow up to that conversation on Tuesday. Folks, what I want people to recognize is that the political climate that we're in and how people are feeling has so much to do with policy as it has to do with personality and what it has to do with psychology. You know, I often talk to you all about the fact that there are times there were days where I find myself in tears. Nothing anymore catastrophic will have happened that will signal this shift and emotion, but it is

just this ever present feeling of overwhelm. I mentioned this because like me. You all have no doubt spent the last several days watching the news and seeing the catastrophic devastation that has happened in Florida because of Hurricane Ian. Well, I want to share with you one of the stories that I don't think gets enough attention. You see, what the networks do, dear friends, is that they will go and do the same storm coverage, look at the devastation.

They'll talk to somebody, usually a white person, not usually ninety percent of the time, a white person that has lost everything, and you know, they're thanking God and we could have been worse. And meanwhile, you know they've lost their homes, they've lost you know, their livelihoods. Look, I'll be honest that a lot of the places in Florida are you know, you're showing us coral gables. Well, those are multimillion dollar homes, and those are not people's first

homes right in a lot of ways. But there are a lot of folks in Florida who live in mobile homes, who are the actual working class. And you know, can't just chalk up their loss to you know, somebody's tax right off, right, But I then look at the coverage and again, we only empathize and are trained to empathize with white people and white grief. And I think to myself about the people of Puerto Rico, the island being

devastated by a hurricane as well loss of power, you know, infrastructure. Again, we look at Puerto Rico and we're like, oh, well, that's a nice island. Do you know it's part of the United States? And why they don't have fucking infrastructure that allows them to be able to deal with the impacts and the increasing impacts of these hurricanes and are treated as second class citizens in more ways than one.

Why weren't they given wald to wall coverage. Why didn't we look at their suffering and their grief in the same way that we once again are treating Florida, will treat South Carolina and other places. I just don't understand why we can't have shared empathy for everyone, and why white people are the only people that the media wants to empathize with. Look, and guys, I'm asking this question. I know the answer. I know who's in the newsrooms, I know who's in the c suites, Right, I know

the answer to these questions. But if we don't ask them, then we allow this just to continue to be normalized, and it shouldn't be. Why did we have Walde Wall coverage of the colonizer that died in the UK at the same time when brown people in Puerto Rico are desperate and like hanging on for dear life. Why was it okay that Donald Trump went there during Hurricane Maria and throughout fucking paper towels and that was acceptable and the media covered it as if it was a joke

as opposed to it being fucking cruel. Words matter, And that's why we have this supersized two part episode with the Natschenko Osadio because I want us to understand that it isn't about just getting into the psychology again like the media loves to do with regard to white supremacy,

and we need to understand white grievance. No, I actually don't give a fuck, but I do want to understand why these same people, what gets them to the poles and what doesn't, What has them wake up to the fact that climate change is a real thing, right is it? When the water is up to their necks? You know, I don't know, but what I will say and what I want to share with regard to the hurricanes. Is this pulled up This article in Axios says Hurricane end's

climate warning, and this is what it says. And I want to read to you a piece of this, because again, the news is not covering this. What they are covering is the damage. What they are covering is how people are going to pick up their lives and then they will move on to the next story by the middle of this week. But what we're not talking about is why these storms are intensifying and how this storm jumped from you know, a category three to a category five.

What we have all learned right in school in earth science. Who the fuck knows what they teach now is that when hurricanes hit land, or they hit certain areas, they lose strength. We're accustomed to hurricanes hitting certain areas losing strength than turning into tropical storms and then dissipating. This is not what's happening, and I will read you this. Hurricane forecaster's worst nightmare came true on Wednesday morning, when what had been a category three storm Tuesday night suddenly

jumped to almost to a category five. Why it matters, It used to be rare for storms to keep strengthening until landfall, let alone do so rapidly. Now it is not, and studies show this is a dangerous sign of climate change. The big picture, such an intensity leap was made possible by warm ocean temperatures and abundant atmospheric moisture, both factors that climate change enhances. During the past several years, there have been multiple storms that rapidly intensified as they neared

the Gulf Coast and did so through landfall. Previously, tropical storms and hurricanes tended to weaken as they neared the northern Gulf Coast, in particular, falling victim to cooler waters or stronger jet stream winds. But that did not happen with Hurricanes Laura or Ida in twenty twenty and in twenty twenty one, or with Hurricane Michael, which ramped up all the way up to a Category five storm in

the Florida Panhandle in twenty eighteen. It's not just the United States that has been suffering the consequences from rapidly intensifying tropical cyclones. Consider an example from halfway around the world, which occurred just as Ian was spinning up in the Caribbean at the same time in the western tropical Pacific Ocean,

a storm named Noru began swirling toward the Philippines. It took forecasters by surprise when it suddenly strengthened from a robust tropical storm with maximum sustained winds of sixty miles per hour to a category five super typhoon with one hundred and sixty mile per hour winds folks, in just twenty four hours. So if you are thinking about this right and news reports and alerts come on and they are warning people going to be having a tropical storm,

it right now has these level winds. This is the difference between you deciding to evacuate and deciding that you can weather the storm. But if what is happening is the intensity is growing and forecaster is because of climate change, do not have the ability to provide the necessary in depth level of warning because the storm is changing so rapidly. What does that mean for people's ability to get to safety? News flash, they can't get to safety and fucking tie,

so more people are going to die. So the threat level, according to Axios, the danger of a rapid intensification shortly before a landfall is that people will be caught off guard by the stronger storm and get stuck in a vulnerable spot for storm surge, flooding, damaging winds, or both. Emergency management officials designed their evacuation plans based on storm intensity and movement. Sudden shifts in either one can render

their planning inadequate. A one hundred and fifty five mile per hour Category four storm, which Hurricane Ian became on Wednesday morning can push a far higher surge inland and bring a catastrophic swath of high winds inland compared to the one hundred and twenty mile per hour Category three storm that Eden was when most Fuloridians went to sleep

Tuesday night. All landfalling storms now contain more dangerous coastal flooding in their arsenals due to human cause sea level rise, and they are urging you in this article to read between the fucking lines. The trend seen in the past several years, together with studies of how hurricanes are changing in a warming world, point to a key role for human caused climate change. We have made the planet unpredictable

and unfucking safe. And right now you have a climate denier, authoritarian piece of trash in Ronda Santis as the governor of Florida, who is too busy walking the line between Republican dictator to recognize that their ignorance around climate change is no longer bliss. It is actually fucking catastrophic and it is up to the media to connect the dots for the people as to why these things are happening. This is not an act of God, It is an

act of greed, folks. Coming up next, part one of my conversation with a Nat Schenker Asorio on how we win the messaging game. It's no secret that the news is horsepill hard to swallow. Thankfully, there's The Bituation Room podcast hosted by comedian and commentator Francesca free Erantini for a lighter take on the heavy stuff. Each week, the Bituation Room brings you progressive comedians, experts, and activists to break down the issues in a way that won't just

leave you crying under a weighted blanket. Get The Bituation Room on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and streaming on YouTube and Twitch. Hey I'm David slates Political gab Fest. As another election season accelerates, it can be tricky to sort through all the noise and the news. Each week on The gap Fest, John Dickerson, Emily Bathlona and I decipher the headlines, break down the races, and tell you what

issues really matter. We do not always agree, We definitely do not always agree, but we always deliver thoughtful debate and we always have a good time. So subscribe to Slates Political Gapfest New episodes every Thursday. Folks. I am very excited to welcome to woke f Daily for the

first time, hopefully not the last time. Fellow podcaster and message maker An Shanker o Saudio, who hosts the show Words to win By and Folks, if you also happen to listen to my other podcasts with my friend washahat Ali, you might remember our conversation with a Knot because I said, can you just run everything? Because you make it seem so easy and you make it sound so clear what

it is Democrats should be doing. But but first, before we talk about what they should be doing, I actually want to get your thoughts of Joe Biden's winning summer, the Biden administrations quote unquote winning summer. And you know we had passage of you know, major legislation Joe Biden. You know there were several things that were past. Some you know, have no teeth, but hey, we you know,

we did it. Anyway. We got some debt relief for students, but I don't know if they'll actually see that because Republican governors are fighting against that in our suing the Biden administration to make sure that young people suffer. And then you had Joe Biden kind of cap off his winning with this Soul of the Nation speech that he

gave with the backdrop of Philadelphia. And so I want to get your thoughts on how Democrats how the administration spoke about these wins, and then we can talk more in depth about your thoughts on the Soul of the Nation speech, which again I don't think was given enough air enough time in media and is worth delving into. Yeah for sure. Well, first, thank you for having me. It's hard to know where even to begin, but I'll

start with the accomplishments. So what I will say is that it is general life advice, both in relationships and in politics, that you cannot argue with people's feelings, which is very frustrating if you are a person who watches focus groups, which unfortunately for me I am, so I'm part of a Giant Research collaborative where we do two to four focus groups a week and have done that every single week since twenty twenty, which means watching a

whole lot of different kinds of person people, surge voters meaning folks who were new to us in eighteen or twenty, and we obviously we absolutely need returning out and then swing voters, the definition of which is probably pretty clear to most people what we mean by that. So what we see is that the quote Democrats delivered message A doesn't take us very far, and it doesn't actually matter what is true in the world. What matters to people

is their own lived experience. And for the most part, speaking in broad strokes, people are feeling down and out. They are feeling despondent, they are feeling strapped, They're very very concerned financially, they have more month than check. I'm thinking of all the idiosyncratic ways people describe this to us, depending who they are and what focus group it is.

And so when you try to sort of argue with people and say the economy is better than ever and things are going great, you know their response back is sort of what planet have you emerged from? And why are you talking to me. However, what I will say, and this is really really important, is that when we talk to our voters both surge and swing about the

litany of accomplishments we pass. This, we passed, that, we passed this, and really vitally the fact that we held together and that Trump Republicans and I used that phrase very deliberately, Trump Republicans, Maga Republicans. I'm happy to say, why stood in your way at every turn. They wanted

to block what our families need and Democrats brought it. Anyway, when we talk to our voters about the passage of the bills in the get what that does more than any one bill is it gets at this sort of root idea that voters have that Democrats are do nothing and so interestingly, it's more the act of you know, there's a canard, right, nothing succeeds like success, and so this idea that we can do things, we do do things, we do pass things, we keep moving the ball down

the field. That is as important a part of the narrative to convey as any one of these specific policies. So I want to dig into one of the things that you just said. I want to ask about how Maga Republicans. Trump Republicans are playing right that phrasing, because for me, I will say that making that distinction just seems false because I don't know what the group of

Republicans there are but Trump or Maga Republicans. I don't know what other group of Republicans there are other than the ones that are cheering the rise of fascism in Italy and you know, and and and and wanting to shake hands with authoritarians and dictators like Victor Orbon who's welcomed into Sepack and putin right. So I want to ask the question about the distinction and how that is

playing uh in in these groups. And also, my god, I'm sorry you would send to people all all week long, all of these different groups, Mike, I hope you meditate, um, but uh the you know, the the other question is, too, does it play better to talk about how Republicans are blocking your ability, blocking Americans ability to make their checks go longer than the month too, in fact, act, you know,

be able to keep their head literally above water. Does it help to have that narrative or is it we need that narrative about democrats doing and the narrative about why more can't get done. Yeah, so let me try

to answer. I'll answer the second one first. So, the overarching narrative that we have found working, and this is on the basis not just of that aggregated qualitative research the focus groups I reference, but this is part of a giant ad and message testing project in which I've been engaged, where at this point we've tested over two hundred digital ads and randomized controlled trials over the summer

to arrive at an overarching storyline. And that overarching storyline I can encapsulate in three words, it is protect our freedoms freedoms intentionally plural. And so what that does is we talk about Democrats as being here to protect our freedoms and Trump Republicans or mac Republicans, and I will explain why as taking away our freedoms from the freedom to decide whether and when we have kids, to our freedom from gun violence, to our freedom to earn enough

and be able to provide for our families. Republicans want to take away Trump Republicans want to take away our freedoms. By joining together like we did in twenty twenty, we can protect our freedoms. So basically the polarity is actually

number one. The topic is freedoms plural because when we use it in that plural form, it unconsciously activates and people are more progressive understanding of freedom, whereas the singular tips more into kind of your classic right wing guns right freedom of religion, which of course just means being able to shove a certain kind of patriarchal, evangelical white Christianity at you. So freedoms is a really really powerful

and effective kind of overarching concept. And then what we're doing is we're saying that they are taking away your freedoms, because that activates something that we know in psychology called loss aversion. People are much more motivated to act on behalf of retaining something they perceive to have now versus acting on behalf of a predicted future gain. So all of that language taking away freedoms, etc. It's all super deliberate. Now, Trump Republicans are Maca Republicans. What you say is of

course absolutely correct. But when we're thinking about the way that we label our opposition, we want to evaluate any message, any label, anything we're saying along a set of criteria. So the criteria are it feels credible to the voter. It feels true and accurate, It feels mobilizing to our base. It makes them want to take more action at a minimum voting and you know, GoldStar of volunteering, calling, participating, etcetera.

All the things, all the things, and it is persuasive to the broadest number of voters that we can actually get recognizing that there are people we cannot and will

not ever have on our side. And so what happens is if we say Republicans period, Republicans want to take away your freedoms, or Republicans are blocking XYZ, or Republicans are this or that for our base, and this includes I want to be very very clear and explicit Black voters, Latino voters, etc. Which are the predominant part of our base. What they hear in that is, oh, that's just politics as usual. That's where team blue shit talks Team read,

Team Read does the opposite. There's a reason I don't want to listen to any of that, and I'm not interested in it because we have to remember that our task with our disaffected base meaning not activists, so not you, Danielle, not me, but people who if they would participate, if they would vote, would vote for us. It's just that they don't vote all the time, and so they are particularly repulsed by what they perceived to be politics as usual, bickering,

the sort of animosity of it. And right now, especially in our battlegrounds. I just got told today by one of our media consultants that voters in Las Vegas, because Nevada, of course is a battleground state, are seeing eleven political ads an hour on average. So the voters in these battleground states, basically what our canvassers on the doors are telling us is people are like, I don't want to hear negative shit. I do not like, do not with that,

I cannot with that. So what what calling out all Republicans does is it makes people think that we're doing it for the same reason that Domino says crappy things about Pizza Hut, like that's just your job, got it, Okay. So when we say Trump Republicans or Magarepublicans, it increases the credibility, it increases the heat, and people don't feel like that's name calling from us. They feel like, well, that's an accurate label, that's something that they would say

about themselves. With swing voters, what it does is it opens up what we call the permission architecture for people who have formerly voted Republican self identify even as Republican who voted for Joe Biden in twenty twenty, to be able to say I'm still a Republican because my grandpa was, or because you know some sort of whatever. I mean obviously to me total bullshit feeling about Ronald Reagan. But it's there, and I can still come with you and

be in your coalition because you don't mean me. It gives people an now mm. So here's the thing that troubles me. It's the fact that we still need maybe because you know more than I, which is why I invited you on Who is this swing voter or not?

Who is this mythical unicorn that still exists in the center that hasn't been pushed to one side by the insurrection, hasn't been pushed to one side, by the fact that one of the political parties you know, loves their white supremacist oath keeper three percent or Proud Boy Bass and doesn't say anything negatively against them, like who are those people? Yeah, So first I just want to say there aren't a lot of them. They are like they can't be. There

are very very, very very few. But I want to remind folks that politics is a game of millimeters, not even inches. We won Wisconsin by point seven percent in twenty twenty, and we lost it by about one percent in twenty sixteen. So basically, we can't afford to lose anyone. We need all of the people who voted for Joe

Biden to come back out. And the thing about mid terms, and I promise I haven't forgotten your question, is that we need to remember there is a historical pattern at play here, and that pattern, with the exception of the election after nine to eleven, is that the incumbent party takes a shellacking because quite simply, the out of power party, their base voters are much more energized than our base.

And yes, we are doing everything in our power, and I'm a there's no that this false diychotomy between are we doing turnout are we doing persuasion? That that is a bunch of nonsense. And by the way, just to dog whistle about do we give a shit about black voters and are we going to talk to them or will we put all our eggs in the white people basket. That's all that little conversation means. Unpacking the what the

words mean. We have to get everybody back out, and we have to recognize that in states like Pennsylvania, like Wisconsin, like Arizona, like Georgia, like Texas, if we have a prayer there, it means we can't afford to lose any So now your question, there are not a lot of swing voters, but they live in super key places and

who are they? They are people who either historically have identified as Republican because a lot of voting behavior, and in fact, the greatest predictor of adult voting behavior is parental voting behavior. So it's not unlike, you know why you have X y Z brand of yogurt in your face. It's likely because that's what your parents had. Right, So people's decision making about these things actually is imprinted upon us at a really, really really young age. That doesn't

mean nobody changes, that doesn't mean persuasion is impossible. All of those things are also true. I'm speaking in the aggregate. So those swing voters have some of them have some sort of affiliation or identity as Republicans, but are turned off by and find Trump Republicanism, magaism to be repugnant,

and so now they're in this totally conflicted place. And that place of conflict is this is my identity, this is sort of what my parents told me was good and right, this is what my church says, this is what my community believes. But I disagree with those terrible things happening. And so the valuation that they're making in this midterm is is there such a thing as voting for a Republican that is not a vote for maga, that is not a vote for Trump. And so we're

making the case to them that you just made Danielle. No, there's no daylight between the person running the person running, even if it's Brian Camp who wants kudos and plaudits for like nominally, you know, for not being willing to like completely and totally destroy the law and finding votes that didn't existed, like congratulations. The bar is so low you've hit your head on it. I wish you would

pass out, but that doesn't seem to happen. So those swing voters are either folks who are sort of reckoning with their own sense of identity, and we're trying to both make that case that the congressional Republican or the person running for school board, because remember, local races matter two, they matter a lot. And so the person running for school board obviously, the person running for Secretary of State unbelievably important. That the people who actually oversee our elections,

the person running for county commissioner. We want you to understand that, like they're all beyond the pale. So that's one thing that we're trying to do with that voter. And then the other thing that we're trying to do with that voter is recognize that people make midterm decisions on the basis of enthusiasm and on the basis historically

of how they feel about their pocketbooks. And right now, despite the fact that inflation is obviously a global phenomenon and is occurring and existing across the world in super right wing run states, government countries in left wing we're on states like you know, Joe Biden is not in charge of the global economy, newsflash. So people don't understand that, and all they know is that they're having struggles, and

so they're thinking, I'm having struggles. I voted this way last time, or Team Blue is in power and I'm

not feeling great about my life. I'm gonna Gopher team read got it, And so our fundamental task is to change the terms of the election itself away from being a referendum on the party in power, which is normally what a midterm election is, to being an actual choice election, a choice between Trump Republicans who want to take away your freedoms, including your freedom to retire in dignity by stealing your Social Security and Medicare from you, your freedom

to decide for yourself who governs in your name, by taking away your freedom to vote, your freedom to know that when your kids go off to school in the morning, you're going to see them home at the end of the day because some maniac is not going to have massacred them because you're handing out military grade weapons like kanzi bars. So they need to understand this as a choice election and not a referendum on the incumbent party. That's it for part one of my conversation with the

fabulous and brilliantly verbos Anat Schenker oh Saudio. We will be back tomorrow with part two of words that we actually need to win by with our friend Anat. That is it for me, Today, dear friends on Woke a f as always, Power to the people and to all the people power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.