Politico reported that when Trump announced a rally in Florida with Rubio — but not DeSantis— the “apparent snub” angered some people within DeSantis’ orbit, who complained that it mean fewer people would pay attention to DeSantis.
This tells us that even with everything we know about Trump’s lawbreaking and attempted coup, he is still hailed as the leader of the Republican Party and the Republican leaders still line up to kiss his ring.
A cherished theory has been circulating on social media since 2016, which goes like this: Trump keeps breaking laws because the Democrats are not doing enough to expose his lawbreaking or stop him.
Another theory is that the Democrats are not good enough at messaging.
Advantage #1: A Liar Can Create Great Soundbites
The truth is always more complex. According to the “messaging has to be simple” theory, if you have to explain, you lose.
For example, Ted Cruz asked,
The truth: More Democrats vote by mail and mail-in ballots take longer to count because
-
-
- with in-person voting, the curing and checking happen when the voter votes. With mail-in ballots, the process happens after the ballot arrives which delays the counting,
- most states look at postmarks and therefore accept ballots that arrive late, if the ballot was postmarked on time,
- Republican-controlled state legislatures like Pennsylvania passed laws forbidding the early ballots to be counted before election night, enabling people like Ted Cruz to spread that lie,
- etc.
-
The truthteller must also explain that Ted Cruz is setting up the Republicans to accuse the Democrats in blue cities of cheating when it takes longer to vote, thereby repeating what happened in 2020 and deliberately undermining the integrity of elections.
See the problem? Lying is easy. The liar has the freedom to make the lie super interesting and to play to the audience’s fears and biases.
The truth is always more complex and nuanced–and boring.
Advantage #2: Destroying is easier than building
As I mentioned last week:
You can either roll back federal power slowly through systematic deregulation, as the Republicans have been doing for decades, or you can bring in a wrecking ball.
Trump is a wrecking ball. Trump supporters are on board with his wrecking ball tactics because they don’t believe that the federal government represents them. They think the federal government is helping “others” replace them. (This is the “white replacement theory“)
The Confederates were opposed to the federal government because the federal government wanted to end slavery. The segregationalists were opposed to the federal government because the federal government wanted to end racial segregation. People who want to cheat and steal are opposed to the federal government because of the regulations put in place since the New Deal that outlaw things like money laundering and price fixing.
Confederate sympathizers and segregationalists are still with us. Now they call themselves Republicans.
In 2018, I wrote an article for Slate Magazine entitled, “Why Trump Supporters Will Believe Any Lie He Tells.” Drawing on research from psychologists, I argued that Republicans are lying on purpose because they know the lies destroy. It’s another way of being an insurrectionist.
This brings me to the next advantage: Their audience, authoritarians, need simple messaging.
Advantage #3: Authoritarians Need Simple Messaging
After World War II, political psychologists like Theodor Adorno asked whether there were authoritarian character traits in. In his book, The Authoritarian Personality (1950) Adorno described the traits of the authoritarian personality (also known as the “anti-democratic” personality). Today’s political psychologists have continued the work and have defined the authoritarian personality as, among other things, having a low tolerance for complexity, which includes diversity and globalization). Political psychologist Karen Stenner calls them “Simpleminded avoiders of complexity.”
Should be clear that if you are speaking to an audience of “simpleminded avoiders of complexity,” the message: “DEMOCRATS BAD, REPUBLICANS GOOD” can work. It also seems clear to me that a more sophisticated audience, one that not only embraces complexity but understands that the truth is naturally complex, will reject this kind of simple messaging.
America has a history of authoritarianism. Slavery was autocratic. Racial segregation was autocratic. The idea that women belong in the home and are basically baby-making and men-serving machines is autocratic.
One thing that has happened as the political parties have realigned is that the authoritarians have tended to congregate in the Republican Party. This gives Republicans yet another advantage: their audience needs simple messaging.
Okay, you might ask. What about the moderate Republicans, those who are not racist and who do not cheer violence? This brings us to another Republican advantage: The Truth Cannot Penetrate The Right-Wing Hermetically Sealed Disinformation Universe.
Advantage #4: The Republicans Control a Hermetically Sealed Disinformation Universe
During the first televised hearing of the House select committee investigating the January 6 attack, Bennie Thompson said:
“Donald Trump oversaw and directed a coordinated, multi-step effort to overturn an election.”
Liz Cheney said:
“Trump knew his effort to overturn the election was illegal & unconstitutional. He did it anyway.”
It seems to me that Cheney and Thompson can’t be faulted for “bad messaging.” Their messages were direct and simple and powerful.
But Jim Jordan responded with:
“Real America doesn’t care about the January 6th Committee. Gas is over $5 per gallon!
Jim Jordan and his Republican friends then went on to blame Biden for high gas prices.
Truth tellers look at the facts and make sure that their statements reflects the facts. A liar (Jim Jordan in this case) ignored the facts and creates the narrative that he wants to be true. The idea is that it doesn’t matter what the truth is. What matters is what people believe.
For this technique to work in the political arena the liar needs a well-oiled propaganda loop and hermetically-sealed disinformation ecosystem. And guess what? That’s exactly what the Republicans have.
Advantage #5: Authoritarians fall in line. Non-Authoritarians Tend to Splinter.
Authoritarians move in lockstep and like to have sort of uniform or identifying clothing (MAGA hats, anyone?) If you have a smaller group, but they all fall in line and do what they’re told, you have an advantage over a big-tent group of non-authoritarian free-thinkers.
Democratic / anti-Authoritarian Messaging
You may still be thinking, “Yeah but the Democrats can still be bad at messaging.” Okay, let’s look at some examples.
On Thursday, Judge Jackson, warned that “today the dark shadow of tyranny still threatens democracy,” as she issued the second-longest sentence to a Jan. 6 rioter who assaulted Officer Michael Fanone.
The “dark shadow of tyranny still threatens democracy,” coming from a federal judge seems like a strong message, but nobody is talking about the criminal trials of insurrectionists possibly because there are so many that people are overloaded. As of October 17, at least 928 people have been indicted for participating in the attack on the capitol.
But remember when Trump tweeted something outrageous or racist or horrifying, and everyone talked about it for days? That’s because demagoguery works.
Outrageousness is rewarded. Demagogues steal the show and dominate the stage.
Rule of law and the normal functioning of a democracy is boring in comparison. It’s harder for people to pay close attention to boring.
I am not an expert in messaging, but this one seems strong:
We Are Bombarded With Too Much Information
Another problem is that we are undergoing a disruption in how we get our information. In his Youtube video series, Snyder Speaks, Yale history professor Timothy Snyder compares the Internet to the invention of the printing press. These rapid changes in how we get information require a period of adjustment as people learn to separate misinformation and disinformation from facts .
We live in a 24-7 news cycle in which media outlets compete for clicks, and consumers of news are bombarded with a constant stream of headlines, snippets, and opinions.
The result is that droplets of facts are lost in the cascade of irrelevant information and baseless opinions.
The two theories that the problem is that Democrats are bad at messaging and that the Democrats haven’t done enough to stop or draw attention to Republican lawbreaking have something in common: Both blame the Democrats for the Republican lawbreaking.
Now at last we come to Plato.
Plato’s Theory of Democracy
This is from the Stanford Dictionary of Philosophy:
Plato argued that democracy is inferior to monarchy, aristocracy, and even oligarchy because democracy tends to undermine the expertise necessary for the proper governance of societies.
According to Plato, most people do not have the kinds of intellectual talents that enable them to think well about the difficult issues that politics involves. But in order to win office or get a piece of legislation passed in a democracy, politicians must appeal to these people’s sense of what is right or not right.
Hence, Plato concludes that the state will be guided by very poorly worked out ideas that experts in manipulation and mass appeal use to help themselves win office.
In other words, Plato’s theory is that democracy is fragile because the person who is an expert in manipulation and mass appeal will win, not the person best equipped to govern. In the words of Angie Hobbs, a Professor at the University of Sheffield, Plato’s theory of the flaw in democracy “provided a chilling account of how democracy can be subverted into tyranny by an opportunistic demagogue.”
It’s easy to stir people’s emotions. Demagogues have advantages, particularly in the kind of information disruption that we are experiencing now. If we want democracy to succeed, if we want to prove Plato wrong, the task is to educate Americans and teach them to love democracy and rule of law with all of its shortcomings.
I talked about all the Republican advantages. The pro-democracy pro-Truth party has one advantage which, if used, will constantly give the pro-democratic party the upperhand:
There are more of us than them. People who want democracy vastly outnumber the people who don’t, which brings me to this question:
Do you have a plan for voting?
We voted. No, we did not commit Doggie Voter Fraud. We had one ballot between us. It was easy because JJ is a Democrat.
Which mastodon server are you using? I see a bunch that have “Social” in their name.
The only thing I remember is that it had the largest number of people – I think more than 100K. When I’m back at my computer I’ll see if I can figure it out. One thing I read is that you can always switch servers and follow and interact with people on any server.
Thank you for the Amy Schumer clip. I was forced* to retweet it.
And thanks also for this blog. It’s excellent.
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* forced by my sense of humor and desire that its punch might affect someone.
I can’t handle Twitter any more, but I’m really glad to have another platform where I can keep up with your writings. Your posts always remind me to get up and keep doing the little things I can.
(And yes, I have a plan for voting! Which involves walking down to the mailbox and mailing in my ballot)
Of course, JJ is a Democrat. I know all MY dogs have been too!
Great summary of the things you’ve been saying for a while. Please continue so we don’t ever forget. Thanks for Amy’s video, epic! And of course the dog, about the cutest thing ever!
I’m here to read what you have to say!
Off topic (apologies) – request to please ignore the Musk whirlwind on Twitter until after Election Day. We all need to focus on GOTV & spreading the truth about the dangers of the MAGA GOP agenda.
Thanks.
Doing democracy requires a fair bit of intellectual input to understand and balance complex inputs. But … Understanding complex arguments is difficult so a lot of people seem to want or can only understand the easy meal deal. Or have never heard of an alternative.
George Orwell understood this in Animal Farm, and 1984. 4 legs good. 2 legs bad. Easily twisted to 4 good 2 better as a pivot. Goebbels too. Master of increasingly harsher discrimination leading to the Nazi’s “solution” of extermination of the Jews.
I see the world at a pivot point. Which way now? I’m afraid the cheeseburger meal deal has the inertia. Upsized even.
I fear the worst but hope for the best.
Plan for the worst but hope for the best.
It’s INTEGRAL that we NEVER give up, regardless of the circumstances, but continue to fight for our democracy.
I learn by reading; not so much with listening. It’s difficult to process so much when someone is speaking and the speaker’s accent, enunciation and flow can cause me problems. Please continue to post a transcript if you change to videos. I look forward to your blogs and enjoy reading them, especially since you tend away from insults and to facts in a very logical flow.
I’ll never change to videos! The addition of videos is because of the very real danger that Musk will ruin Twitter, and that’s where I meet new people.
I know how it is to hate one’s videos! Yer adding em for democracy!
PS… you still have a lot of reader readers.
JJ for potus 🙂
Thank you Teri.
I prefer reading, especially your stuff.
Thank you for sharing.
We shall prove Plato wrong!
🙂
As I read, one old adage kept coming to mind, the one that goes something like; “A Lie can travel around the world while the Truth is tying its shoes.”
We have to get better, and faster, at tying our shoes!
Or running barefooted!
And here I am, hating videos and loving the transcript
I prefer transcripts, myself.
Times change, neh?
Lying is easy and the adrenaline rush from fear and anger is addicting. The press and journalist find covering this is cheap and gives them an instant notoriety. A male lifelong friend phoned Friday and during the conversation made a comment that he didn’t like Trump but he would never vote for Biden because he had lost $200,000 in his stocks. I felt attacked and immediately enraged, my adrenaline rush was so high and all I could do was yell that is bullshit! My husband was embarrassed and quickly made an excuse and got off the phone. That ten second interaction and adrenaline surge was enough to cause extreme anxiety the rest of the day. But for many, that would have energized them.
However, yesterday President Obama proved a message of empowerment could also give an adrenaline rush but of a different kind! A calming surge that could allow us to think that we will be okay.
It isn’t Democrats are bad at messaging, they aren’t! It is the delivery! The media plays such a big part of equal time to both sides, the message gets lost in the defense.
Can Democrats channel President Obama and will the press allow this to happen?
I watched President Obama’s video clips over and over to see what made them so compling. I think he used ridicule to good effect and pivoted to emphatic anger. He also connected Republican fear and hate mongering to their inability to address the actual work that benefits regular people.
Many Dems seem afraid to refer to the stupid/dangerous stuff Republicans do and say. Obama used his voice, facial expression and body language to deride them – then quick pivot to angry advocacy for social security, jobs creation etc.
Of course he is a masterful speaker – unfair to expect that level from everyone. But it’s worth trying.
Agreed. GOP have been training their people on messaging for years, and through this process, they find their best ones and push them into positions of power. We need to do the same.
They also have a history of creating so called “grass roots” organizations that specifically speaks to the predjudice/fear of the day, specifically as a bait and switch to get something they want.
Where I am, “Timber Unity” encourages followers (who think the big bad government is denying them their right to cut the timber industry already cut 20 years ago) are being told that regs/laws/people are stopping them from having well paying jobs and a future for their kids in the culture of redneck timber cutters.
The corporations (yes, corporations) funding those organizations turn their anger and fear toward pretty much the rest of us or the “feared other” and use that pressure to get whatever it is they are after – usually money or deregulation, but sometimes attacks on others (women, races, religions, democrats, feds…).
These orgs usually have benign sounding names and truly bad underlying goals, and are intended to use surrogates to (sometimes violently) pressure others. Curiously the funders of these orgs will promise things that literally (correct use of the word here!) cannot be done to get people mad. Example: If they cutover their timberlands and get them rezoned for housing in fire prone areas, they aren’t sticking around to ensure future timber harvest jobs. The old forestry term for it is “Cut out and Get out” (and the twist on that is “make sure they blame the other guy).
Unfortunately for them, their donor dollars are very very traceable, but fortunately for them, it’s hard to get folks to do the tedious looking up. Hence investigative journalists (which the GOP has trained us to scorn as “the media” and thereby, ignore and deride.)
Next time ask your friend what he thinks of the climate, social security, Medicare, and women’s reproductive rights.
You are so kind to put this all in perspective and to help us understand why hatred and lies *seem* to be winning. Honestly, this helps me keep my head down and keep fighting for what is right, when I’m sure the liars want us to throw up our hands and say there’s no point.
Had a fascinating conversation with our precinct captain where he explained another part of the Republican echo chamber that we’ll never have: their “news” networks coordinate their political messaging all the way to the top, and vice versa. It would be like NPR coaching candidates on the soundbite of the day, or candidates dictating what NPR should be sharing. Easy to coordinate and reinforce the fear mongering. Dems (and our traditional news sources) will never do this (or have this “advantage”) because we respect journalistic integrity and want to keep that intact. Made me think of Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham texting TFG.
Thanks so much Teri, your clarity amidst the complexity is so appreciated in these dark times. It is so good to see one of our best display both conviction and passionate intensity.
Alas, how to convince the vast middle to pay attention to things other than entertainment?
Brilliant post. A little disturbing about Plato even with his insight about the fragility of democracy.
I’ve been one who has complained about the Dem messaging, so this helps me understand it much better.
I surely hope there is more of us than those who want autocracy.
Going to vote today!
Dear Teri, I live in Arizona. You can imagine how much I am outraged every day by Kari Lake ads, and by the other demagogues that are running on the republican ticket here. Katie Hobbs is running for Gov against Lake. I am still seething after reading a local newspaper pundit who said that the dems made a mistake in picking Hobbs cuz her messaging was ineffective. Hobbs, as Sec of State for our last election, suffered a lot of abuse because she has integrity and did the right thing. Did the so-called press want dems to pick a Kari Lake clone instead?
Your blog is the sanity I crawl back to every week after being assaulted with the prevailing idiocy.
Thanks
I’m running for Indiana state Senate district 15 and I’m for the people and democracy. And my opponent Liz brown or should I say Lizzie Borden is not for the people and democracy. She wants to ban abortions too.
Truth is complex but lies are simpleminded.
Authoritarians have a low tolerance for complexity, so they lie.
Democracy requires truth.
Authoritarians must destroy truth and manipulate the simpleminded.
Fight back by telling the truth, but keep it simple.
Thanks so much Teri. Truthful and uplifting. I really found today’s posting helpful explaining why there is so much lying going on. This is info I can easily share with those that are on the fence.
George W. Bush once said you have to catapult the propaganda. That can happen with the first point “ The Republican Party controls an effective disinformation machine.”
A powerful, brilliant post. There’s so much news coming at you these days. Thanks for refining it and providing a history lesson for us all.
excellent read…thanks Teri!!
I’m glad that you’re making more videos. I enjoy reading your content, but it’s also nice to listen to it/watch it with your emphasis.
The Democrats have a very strong message, but in addition to the GOP having a well-funded propaganda machine, even traditional media has turned toward the sensational over the important and factual too much of the time. We lose a lot when clicks are more important than informative content.
And yes, I voted and my ballot has been received and counted according to BallotTrax.
I hope that you don’t leave Twitter, despite the rise in trolls. If enough people who care about the facts, democracy, science, and the rule of law stay, just maybe we can keep that platform from becoming yet another hard-right casualty.
#VoteBlue!