New Language (Memes) for Democrats: re the "package," not the policy...

[Sparkly]

http://nathanpiazza.blogspot.com/2004/11/applied-memetics-for-disillusioned.html

I don't know whether you've all already seen this, but I highly recommend this blog essay, "Applied Memetics for Disillusioned Dems: EMBRACE MEMES NOW."

This is a great start on how we need to change the packaging, the terminology, the framing of the "message."

I'm one who doesn't believe the Democratic message itself is the "problem," I don't believe our values are out of the mainstream, I don't believe evangelicals rule the vote. Time and again, when policy proposals are polled in dry terms, most people agree with the Democratic position (it was huge in 2000 by the way); but when it's wrapped up in Gingrich and Rove wrapping paper, the Republicans gain.

So I think we need a debate about the wrapping paper, and I think this article is food for thought on that. (It looks long, but reads fast and is worth the time, imho.)

[ibegurpard]

1. The "wrapping paper" is not the problem either

We have no mechanism for the DELIVERY of the message. We don't have the media and we don't have the built-in social networks of the fundie churches.

[Sparkly]

2. I agree that's a problem as well

and I think that's the next step -- a very important one.

But I think there are some valid points and suggestions here, also.

[lawladyprof]

3. Posted this earlier but it is salient here

So our ads should be single issue ads. No more shotgun (multiple issue) ads. They should tell a story--note these can archetypes and use actors. James who lost his job and his health insurance and then had a car accident and who is now facing bankruptcy, Phil whose super-smart 13 year is in trouble because he is bored by teaching to the test, a rural Nepalese woman whose baby died because of the defunding of family planning agencies who would have provided clean birth kits, Meredith in college but now has to drop out because state funding cut, Sally who found that Bush's drug cards didn't help her a bit, Tom and his wife, a retired couple, who learned that their former employers were dropping their medical insurance because they could do so and throw them onto Medicare only), Ben and Joan putting off retirement so they can help their kids because their son's job was outsourced, Mary and Phil whose marriage is strained because Phil's mom is asking if she can come and live with them because she doesn't think she'll have enough social security to live on when she retires in a few years,
I thought that for the most part our ads were bland and superficial. We are dealing with people who respond to emotional appeals (recall commentary about the girl whose mother was killed on 9-11 and that the focus groups were so moved by it--one commentator said men were crying). Well, that ad made me mad but in a more cerebral, intellectual way. "If Gore had been president, she wouldn't have lost her mom" and "Any president would have hugged her (let no photo-op go by)" and when she said she said she felt safe because Bush was president, I said, "Idiot." But it illuminate one fact. People responded to it emotionally. And then I remembered the ads used so effectively against Clinton's health care plan. Those, too, were emotion driven vignettes.

So our ads should be single issue ads. No more shotgun (multiple issue) ads. They should tell a story--note these can archtypes and use actors. James who lost his job and his health insurance and then had a car accident and who is now faciing bankruptcy, Phil whose super-smart 13 year is in trouble because he is bored by teaching to the test, a rural Nepalese woman whose baby died because of the defunding of family planning agencies who would have provided clean birth kits, Meredith in college but now has to drop out because state funding cut, Sally who found that Bush's drug cards didn't help her a bit, Tom and his wife, a retired couple, who learned that their former employers were dropping their medical insurance because they could do so and throw them onto Medicare only), Ben and Joan putting off retirement so they can help their kids because their son's job was outsourced, Mary and Phil whose marriage is strained because Phil's mom is asking if she can come and live with them because she doesn't think she'll have enough social security to live on when she retires in a few years, Sonia who needed a "partial birth abortion" (I know that is not a medical term and is an invention of the right) for medical reasons and now can't have another child--her baby lived a minute or two, now we see her in the nursery taking a teddy bear out to put with attic sale stuff--she'll never need it. There's thousands of pathos-filled stories-results of Bush/Republican policies that tug at the heartstrings and also (sadly) play the fear card ("that could happen to me").

The point is to draw the viewer in to a story he or she can identify with. The protagonist should not talk to the viewer (well, maybe a quick one or two lines). The ads should be a slice of life, a mini soap opera. These ads do not change our message but they bring our values to life. It is not abandoning our principles but repackaging them and making them vivid.

There is benefit from analyzing what went wrong (picking over the bones), but I had the uncomfortable feeling that the campaign was too cerebral, too rationale. I didn't see the danger because that approach resonated with me. But even if I had I didn't/don't know anyone of influence to suggest this idea to. Finally, the fault lay in not analyzing Republican success and co-opting it.

[Stinky The Clown]

4. I largely agree with your views, but not with the last line.

We shouldn't have to "co-opt" a damned thing. We're smart. We need to develop our "strategery".

I love the idea of a series of ads running for the enxt four years ..... your soap opera idea.

Calling Mr. Soros ........

[sangh0]

6. I think you misunderstood the "co-opt" thing

I didn't see it as a suggestion to adopt repuke language or policy. Instead, I think it meant we should look at repuke tactics, figure out the reasons why their lies work, and then see how we can use that info to craft better "wrapping paper" for our policies.

One of the ideas being discussed on DU lately is the idea that repukes are doing a better job of using their policy positions to promote the idea that they are motivated by "moral values". The results indicate that it works.

So why shouldn't we try to use OUR policy positions to promote OUR values. After all, we should be able to do a better job at it because we actually have values. We won't have to lie in order to do this. The repukes have to lie, and that gives us the opportunity to point out how their lies undermine their claim to being moral people.

[Stinky The Clown]

7. We're on the same page!

I now understand better what you meant and I agree.

[NorthernSpy]

5. another language issue: it's 'ELECTION fraud', not "voter fraud"

"Voter fraud" makes it sound as though the voters themselves are committing the fraud; in nearly all incidents, the questionable stuff appears to have occurred in the administration of the election and registration processes.

And yes, I think that making "voter fraud" the term of convention was a deliberate, propagandistic choice on the part of the corporate-owned media.


:tinfoilhat:

[Stinky The Clown]

8. Bingo!

Give this man a Kewpie Doll!

Well said.