The Democrats Got their Mojo Back
I'm late to the party for saying this, but the Democratic Party has really gotten its mojo back the past few weeks. Put this in the category of "better late than never". While none of it may be news to you, if nothing else it's a message in a bottle to my future self.
When Joe Biden folded his reelection campaign just over a month ago the Dems were in the pit of despair. Biden had been lagging in the polls for months, and his uninspiring performance at a debate with Donald Trump June 27 caused a few big-money donors to start expressing doubts about him. The craven mainstream media glommed onto the story and ran articles about it twice a day for weeks, as if his opponent Donald Trump weren't still saying outrageous and dangerous things the whole time, not to mention speaking in increasingly unintelligible fashion- but no, Biden was the one having his mental acuity questioned daily. The Democrats' already sagging campaign dropped into a tailspin.
There was a brief moment following Biden's choice to drop out where the same chattering class of political pundits who talked his campaign into the ground expressed uncertainty about whether his endorsement of Kamala Harris, his former running mate, would improve the party's lot. Much to everyone's surprise, Kamala Harris stepping forward as the presumptive Democratic nominee didn't just improve things, it electrified the base. Democratic voters who'd previously worn hangdog looks suddenly snapped and crackled with new energy.
Was Biden all that bad? Was Harris that much better? The answer is yes-and-no to both. Biden and Harris are close on policy matters, so there's little change there. And Biden's challenges with mental acuity were nowhere near as bad as the dishonest GOP or craven mainstream media might've led the average person to believe. But where Biden failed, and the whole generation of Democratic leaders around him failed, was that they failed to control the message.
Media Matters
The area where Republicans have been absolutely killing the Dems the past 8+ years is messaging. And within the realm of messaging it's not the quality- the GOP routinely claim things that are transparently false and/or contradict things they claimed even moments beforehand- but the quantity.
Republicans have been getting their message out morning, noon, and night, leveraging not just their friendly TV/radio/print media outlets but also social media. Meanwhile Democrats seemed completely out to lunch on the modern media landscape, exhibiting no apparent understanding of the power of social media, let alone even the the "24 hour news cycle" of cable TV- which has been around since the 1990s.
The "old age" problem the Dems have isn't old age per se but that so many of the party leaders- who happen to be old in age- campaign like it's still the 1980s. They've been unable or unwilling to adapt to the times. While GOPs have been pounding their talking points 4 times a day, Dems have remained aloof and refused to engage the issues. They seemed to expect the media to (1) come to them and (2) dig deep to sort fact from fiction for its readers/viewers. Hahaha, that's not how most of the media works anymore.
"Weird"
So, is Kamala Harris really that much better- at media? That's also a yes-and-no situation. Yes, she is more active in providing grist for the media mill than her predecessor, though that's a low bar to cross. But also "no" because it's not just Harris who's different. The party leaders have really woken up around her. With her choice of Tim Walz she picked someone who gets it.
Walz, for example, fired back at Trump's rhetorical technique of branding his opponents with insulting nicknames. It's low-brow but generally has been successful for Trump. Walz didn't even pick a particularly trenchant nickname. He simply called Trump and Vance weird. But that was enough. Just firing back with anything was enough. Weird stuck. It gave supporters something to repeat, and once people were repeating it the guileless media started repeating it, too. It's a simple example of a rallying cry that helps inspire the base and capture the attention of swing voters.
When Joe Biden folded his reelection campaign just over a month ago the Dems were in the pit of despair. Biden had been lagging in the polls for months, and his uninspiring performance at a debate with Donald Trump June 27 caused a few big-money donors to start expressing doubts about him. The craven mainstream media glommed onto the story and ran articles about it twice a day for weeks, as if his opponent Donald Trump weren't still saying outrageous and dangerous things the whole time, not to mention speaking in increasingly unintelligible fashion- but no, Biden was the one having his mental acuity questioned daily. The Democrats' already sagging campaign dropped into a tailspin.
There was a brief moment following Biden's choice to drop out where the same chattering class of political pundits who talked his campaign into the ground expressed uncertainty about whether his endorsement of Kamala Harris, his former running mate, would improve the party's lot. Much to everyone's surprise, Kamala Harris stepping forward as the presumptive Democratic nominee didn't just improve things, it electrified the base. Democratic voters who'd previously worn hangdog looks suddenly snapped and crackled with new energy.
Was Biden all that bad? Was Harris that much better? The answer is yes-and-no to both. Biden and Harris are close on policy matters, so there's little change there. And Biden's challenges with mental acuity were nowhere near as bad as the dishonest GOP or craven mainstream media might've led the average person to believe. But where Biden failed, and the whole generation of Democratic leaders around him failed, was that they failed to control the message.
Media Matters
The area where Republicans have been absolutely killing the Dems the past 8+ years is messaging. And within the realm of messaging it's not the quality- the GOP routinely claim things that are transparently false and/or contradict things they claimed even moments beforehand- but the quantity.
Republicans have been getting their message out morning, noon, and night, leveraging not just their friendly TV/radio/print media outlets but also social media. Meanwhile Democrats seemed completely out to lunch on the modern media landscape, exhibiting no apparent understanding of the power of social media, let alone even the the "24 hour news cycle" of cable TV- which has been around since the 1990s.
The "old age" problem the Dems have isn't old age per se but that so many of the party leaders- who happen to be old in age- campaign like it's still the 1980s. They've been unable or unwilling to adapt to the times. While GOPs have been pounding their talking points 4 times a day, Dems have remained aloof and refused to engage the issues. They seemed to expect the media to (1) come to them and (2) dig deep to sort fact from fiction for its readers/viewers. Hahaha, that's not how most of the media works anymore.
"Weird"
So, is Kamala Harris really that much better- at media? That's also a yes-and-no situation. Yes, she is more active in providing grist for the media mill than her predecessor, though that's a low bar to cross. But also "no" because it's not just Harris who's different. The party leaders have really woken up around her. With her choice of Tim Walz she picked someone who gets it.
Walz, for example, fired back at Trump's rhetorical technique of branding his opponents with insulting nicknames. It's low-brow but generally has been successful for Trump. Walz didn't even pick a particularly trenchant nickname. He simply called Trump and Vance weird. But that was enough. Just firing back with anything was enough. Weird stuck. It gave supporters something to repeat, and once people were repeating it the guileless media started repeating it, too. It's a simple example of a rallying cry that helps inspire the base and capture the attention of swing voters.