Democratic strategists suppose the occasion has a messaging downside. Publish-election autopsies overflowed with numerous cross-tabs of how Democrats “underperformed” with demographic after demographic. There are limitless debates about which phrases ballot higher (ought to Democrats cease utilizing “microaggression”?) — as if anyone had been even listening.
Third Means’s “Sign Challenge” exemplifies this paralysis. The middle-left suppose tank launched an 18-month undertaking to determine which Trump actions are “most related to key voters.” Their profound discovery? “Shuttering USAID, utilizing authorities energy to assault political opponents, firing indiscriminately, degrading the civil service, releasing J6ers, or blaming Ukraine for the Russian invasion all are a mixture of unwise, unethical, unlawful, or unconstitutional,” in accordance with Axios. “However none resonate a lot with key voters.” Who knew?
Ought to we are saying “working households” or “working folks”? Body ourselves as “Group Regular” versus “Group Excessive”? Who notices? Home Democrats check “America is just too costly” versus “Folks Over Politics.” Say “poor,” or say “economically deprived”? “Habit” or “substance use dysfunction”? Who cares?
But, main Democrats appear to suppose that if solely they spend one other $50 million to determine the proper message for misplaced working-class voters, they will “win them again” (tellingly, the “them” within the “Win Them Again Fund” offers away the flawed premise of the undertaking).
Definitely, polling and focus-group testing have their place. Polling, when finished nicely, presents a snapshot of public opinion to see what’s resonating (although even polling outcomes are extremely delicate to query wording). Focus teams, when finished nicely, can higher seize the advanced and infrequently contradictory methods through which residents suppose by politics, and might choose up on issues that ballot writers would possibly miss or battle to distill into easy questions (although moderators can very simply direct the outcomes, usually with out realizing it).
They’ve accepted a shedding political battle they by no means selected with out even realizing it.
However each are reactive to present information, virtually by definition. They will by no means form the dominant battle. Solely political leaders taking decisive actions can do this.
The Democrats don’t have a messaging downside. They’ve a a lot larger downside: They’ve accepted a shedding political battle they by no means selected with out even realizing it.
Messaging is how you discuss in regards to the battle as soon as the battle has been chosen. It’s the ways, slogans, and speaking factors deployed inside an accepted body. The battle defines the potential frames. The frames — the larger story — form the precise messages.
Democrats have a framing downside — when you’ve accepted a shedding political gambit, it’s laborious to regain your place with language alone, regardless of what number of focus teams and polls you fee. The traces will not be at all times clear, but when politics had been a pop tune, consider battle because the temper, instrumentation, and beat; body because the melody, chords, and bubble-gum lyrics; and messaging because the vocal thrives.
Because the opposition occasion in Congress, Democrats’ capability to shift the battle in Washington is depressingly restricted. However America is a giant nation, with many Democratic governors and much more Democratic mayors. Think about the gerrymandering wars. Democratic governors have responded to Texas’s new gerrymander by promising to redraw their very own traces, thus accepting the brutal actuality. However why not use this focusing second to as an alternative name for proportional illustration as an finish to single-member districts that allow gerrymandering altogether and an finish to the two-party system that single-member districts create, thus reshaping the battle fully?
Think about this: What was Kamala Harris’s 2024 slogan?
Most individuals can’t even keep in mind, as a result of the marketing campaign by no means settled on one. The closest factor — “We’re Not Going Again” — outlined the occasion in purely defensive phrases. Marketing campaign slogans could also be foolish. However they’re the one alternative to distill a marketing campaign and outline a battle. And all profitable political actions perceive, whether or not by design or accident, that the aspect that defines what the dominant battle is about normally wins.
Take the just lately handed One Massive Lovely Invoice: After some message testing, Democrats settled on calling it “One Massive, Ugly Invoice.” (How a lot did that message-testing value?) Democrats tried to emphasise the cuts to Medicaid, which had been usually unpopular, as had been most items of the invoice. However that is laborious to message: In lots of states, Medicaid operates below a unique title, and its funding flows by completely different packages, so it’s laborious to see it as a direct profit. Plus, these cuts will go into impact after the 2026 midterm elections.
In contrast, Vice President JD Vance telegraphed Republicans’ technique clearly on X: “Every little thing else—the CBO rating, the right baseline, the trivia of the Medicaid coverage—is immaterial in comparison with the ICE cash and immigration enforcement provisions.”
Come the midterms, which battle — Medicaid coverage or border safety — will resonate extra? Which battle has been extra central to American politics for a decade? If you’re unsure, you might not perceive how battle works in politics; the extra emotional, high-intensity battle dominates.
Battle defines politics. And in the event you don’t have a concept of battle, it doesn’t matter what your concept of messaging or mobilization or issue-speak seems to be like.
So what does a concept of battle appear like? The very best information stays E.E. Schattschneider’s 1960 basic The Semi-Sovereign Folks. He writes:
What occurs in politics will depend on the best way through which persons are divided into factions, events, teams, courses. The end result of the sport of politics will depend on which of a large number of potential conflicts positive aspects the dominant place.
His insights are deceptively easy: Battle organizes politics as a result of battle is fascinating, and an important political battle is at all times the battle over which battle issues most. Coalitions and majorities comply with from the battle traces.
“The definition of the options is the supreme instrument of energy,” Schattschneider argues. “He who determines what politics is about runs the nation, as a result of the definition of the options is the selection of conflicts.”
One other instance is President Donald Trump’s tariffs. Trump has framed tariffs as a recipe for American greatness and energy. Trump defines the battle as between those that see the long-term advantage of an American manufacturing renaissance (a promise in regards to the future), in opposition to those that would possibly complain about having to pay somewhat extra.
By specializing in costs, Democrats are accepting this body, and thus, the battle about American greatness. They’re ignoring that the bigger story is in regards to the standing and would possibly of America. Even calling it a “tax” accepts this premise. Folks could grumble about taxes, however they are often keen to pay increased taxes in the event that they suppose they’re getting one thing in return.
So why not title the tax extra on to make its unpopularity stick somewhat extra? ? Naming issues offers them a specificity that makes them extra memorable.
May Democrats outline the battle round tariffs not as a generic tax, however as an “isolation tax” — a premium we’re paying to isolate ourselves from the world? This substitutes a unique battle: whether or not America desires to chop itself off from the world. Or: a “nostalgia tax” — a premium we’re paying to recreate the previous. This substitutes in a brand new battle — previous vs. future.
Such conflicts solely work, nevertheless, in the event that they match with a bigger set of coverage fights that reinforce the battle. They will’t simply be floating messages. The essential factor right here is to grasp how conflicts outline the options. And most significantly how constant actions reinforce the conflicts, even when they’re stunts; so long as they’re fascinating stunts. Trump displaying as much as work at McDonald’s or dressing up as a rubbish collector throughout the marketing campaign was an apparent stunt. Nevertheless it was fascinating and memorable.
This works in mundane contexts too. Once I need my children to wash up, I don’t ask whether or not they need to clear or not — I ask whether or not they need to clear now or in 5 minutes. They at all times select 5 minutes, having failed to acknowledge my displacement of the true battle by my strategic definition of options. They’d make glorious Democratic marketing campaign managers.
How battle definition works
For a grasp class in political battle definition, take into account how Franklin D. Roosevelt framed the 1936 election. Fairly than defending New Deal insurance policies on technical deserves, he redefined your entire battle as a battle between strange Individuals and corrupt elites. His October 31 speech at Madison Sq. Backyard demonstrated this technique completely:
We needed to battle with the outdated enemies of peace—enterprise and monetary monopoly, hypothesis, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, conflict profiteering. That they had begun to think about the federal government of the US as a mere appendage to their very own affairs. … By no means earlier than in all our historical past have these forces been so united in opposition to one candidate as they stand right now. They’re unanimous of their hate for me—and I welcome their hatred.
The MAGA-infused Republican Occasion’s body has in some ways echoed the broad strokes of the FDR-led Democratic Occasion. Mitt Romney’s Republicans fought on conventional conservative terrain: “job creators vs. job takers,” with immigration as a technocratic downside requiring “self-deportation.” Trump torched this framework fully. His battle: Corrupt elites betrayed strange Individuals. Immigration turned invasion. Republicans reworked from the occasion of capital positive aspects tax cuts and H-1B visas into the occasion of working-class rage in opposition to globalist elites who shipped jobs abroad.
At occasions, Democrats have steered the battle. Barack Obama’s 2008 marketing campaign outlined a brighter future in opposition to the failed politics of the Bush administration, significantly across the Iraq Warfare. However Obama’s “hope and alter” offensive turned eight years of governing actuality. By 2016, Democrats had reworked from insurgents into incumbents, with Hillary Clinton operating explicitly as Obama’s third time period — defender of Obamacare, guardian of norms, and vendor of the narrative that America already was nice.
Joe Biden doubled down on the defensive, campaigning as democracy’s bodyguard who would restore “normalcy” and “decency.” When Trump redefined politics as “the folks vs. corrupt establishments,” Democrats defended these very establishments in opposition to populist insurgency. Democrats have been struggling on this battlefield ever since. They by no means acknowledged how they received trapped there. In casting themselves because the stewards of democracy in 2024, they supplied solely a meager protection of the unpopular established order.
The right way to create a brand new battle
As Schattschneider understood, “Technique is the center of politics, as it’s of conflict.” When frontal assault produces stalemate, you don’t want higher ways — you want a unique battlefield.
New conflicts can emerge from figuring out actual contradictions that present politics can’t resolve and beginning new fights. These are laborious to search out, and even more durable to decide to, as a result of to succeed they usually require choosing fights with your individual aspect (as Trump did in 2016).
One main contender on the Democratic aspect comes from the Abundance motion. The motion recognized a real downside: America struggles to construct. Housing, clear power, transit — all blocked by rules, lawsuits. Their resolution: Make it simpler to construct.
New conflicts create pleasure — they convey in individuals who had been sitting out the outdated battle. They create new enemies and new allies. They scramble current coalitions.
Sounds good. However the place’s the battle? It’s too well mannered, too technocratic. Who precisely is doing the blocking? The motion gestures vaguely at “NIMBYs” and “rules,” nevertheless it doesn’t title names.
Actual battle transformation requires what FDR understood: You want villains. (As he famously put it: “They’re unanimous of their hate for me — and I welcome their hatred.”)
What in the event you take the Abundance perception, however title the enemy? Name them the Extractors. These are the individuals who hoard their current wealth, be they non-public fairness corporations, the oligarchs, NIMBY owners, monopolists, or Trump and his cronies.
They extract your lease by housing monopolies. They extract your information by tech monopolies. They extract your restore rights by {hardware} monopolies. Trump extracts your wealth by tariffs (a Trump Extraction Tax) — creating synthetic shortage on the border, then promoting exemptions to the best bidder. Extraction with out constructing.
This additionally inverts Romney’s outdated body about “makers” and “takers.” The nurse within the understaffed non-public fairness hospital? She’s a maker. She’s making folks more healthy. The agency that reduce workers to extract charges? They’re the takers. The farmer rising meals? A maker, producing sustenance for the nation. John Deere blocking their proper to restore their very own tractors? Taker.
New conflicts create pleasure — they convey in individuals who had been sitting out the outdated battle. They create new enemies and new allies. They scramble current coalitions. Whenever you redefine the battle from “liberal elites vs. the true Individuals” to “builders vs. extractors,” the farmer who voted Trump due to cultural grievances would possibly be a part of with the younger progressive who can’t afford lease together with the entrepreneur who can’t begin a enterprise and the social media content material creator who finds all her information is now getting used in opposition to her. All are makers and builders, oppressed by present extractors. And the extractor-in-chief, Trump, is getting wealthy whereas creating the final word shortage by government graft and tariffs.
Possibly “builders vs. extractors” isn’t the best battle. Possibly it’s one thing else fully. However the level is that this: You possibly can’t message your means out of combating on unfavorable terrain. You want new terrain. You want a brand new battle in case you are shedding the outdated one.
Schattschneider known as the folks “semi-sovereign” as a result of they will solely select between conflicting options, developed by the key events. The implication: In style sovereignty will depend on leaders keen to open up new conflicts and create new selections. As he understood: “The persons are powerless if the political enterprise will not be aggressive. It’s the competitors of political organizations that gives the folks with the chance to choose. With out this chance in style sovereignty quantities to nothing.”
The persons are ready to be sovereign. They simply want any person to provide them a battle value becoming a member of.
