Democrats ended up not performing as hoped in this election, and there are two big reasons why.

[UCmeNdc]

First, Republicans and the high-powered, right-wing media infrastructure are beating us badly on social media. This is a long-term problem, which most Democratic Party strategists only became aware of after the Trump campaign killed us on Facebook in 2016. There were some improvements over the last four years, one key one which I’ll talk about below, but mostly they are still overwhelming us here.

Just to be clear, because too many Dem campaign people don’t get this at all: I am not talking primarily about digital advertising. Digital advertising is important in campaigns, and thankfully Democrats are finally beginning to do more of it. But where the Republicans are beating us badly is organic social media: the content that moves from one Facebook page to the next without an ad being bought. This is where the disinformation campaigns, the crazy conspiracies, the ugly racist memes live. Research has shown that content that moves organically from friend to friend is far more credible than ads or mail or calls from strangers or any of the other ways campaigns communicate.

The Republicans don’t just have the meme factories and the bot farms that everybody’s heard about, although they certainly traffic in such things. Their real power is that they have millions of grassroots true believers who spread the crap they are getting from those right-wing pages to all their friends, and few people believe that their friend or family member would send them something untrue. Those grassroots Republicans move out so much more content on social media than our side does, and that imbalance gives the Republicans enthusiasm and determination, especially in the closing days of a campaign. Their surge at the end of this election and in 2016 was fundamentally tied to their dominance in social media.

We need a long-term solution to this, a solution that includes creating more pages and content that appeals to working-class folks, including people living in rural areas and small/medium sized towns; and organizing a widely distributed network of credible activists willing to share social media content with their friends.

https://crooksandliars.com/2020/11/election-smoke-clears-what-are-we-learning

[mr_lebowski]

1. Well for my part, pretty much all I ever do on FB is post pro-democratic articles, memes, tweets ...

And I have an ad-blocker on when visiting, and I never, ever click on the ads that slip through.

Doing my part ...

[cilla4progress]

2. Put me to work!

Whats an old white lady in NW US to do to help?

Been donating to Stacy Abrams' fairfight.org.

Don't have my own FB.

Other ideas?

[The Roux Comes First]

18. Good for You!

Excellent of you to donate to Abrams' cause.

If you have the wherewithal, I'm sure that like us you can track down with a browser straightforward ways to donate to Ossoff and Warnock campaigns, often with matching funds.

It's getting a little late, but if you push it I suspect there is still time to help with GOTV mailings to Georgia as well.

But you are an addition to the positivity simply by being the upbeat influence you seem to be, not indulging in any of Murdoch's anti-news and dodging conspiracy theories and probably raising the average IQ and political savvy of your personal community.

[judesedit]

3. With soundbytes and short phrases that stick with you

We have to hire some marketers, comedians, progressive talking heads, artists, musicians, etc, to debunk right wing bs and put stuff out there continually. Create some bs of our own. Bombard the public. That's what the other side does. We have to get with the program asap! It's only going to get worse now that the Hump lost.

[CrispyQ]

5. The dems were asleep when marketing was taught.

I've never seen such a big organization so unable or unwilling to work on messaging. You can't just direct people to your platform page & tell them, this is what we stand for. You have to pound it into their heads. Lack of any clear narrative on our side, the repubs win every time. They have been killing us on messaging for 40 years now.

[judesedit]

8. Unfortunately, I couldn't agree with you more. Thank goodness for the Lincoln Project

I'm sure their ads got through to some. After all, they are/were Repubs. Now to get dems to speak up loudly and clearly. What's it gonna take?

[ProfessorGAC]

19. My Pet Peeve

Where is the truth telling analog to Frank Luntz?
Dems have good ideas, well constructed plans to execute them and we can't sell them.
But, the Rs can sell small temporary tax cuts so super rich people & corporations get big cuts that don't expire?
The ACA was a substantial improvement to health coverage, imperfect as it may be. But, Rs sold it's awfulness, tagged it as "Obamacare", and got people believing it was a bad thing. Some people flat out admitted they liked the policy they got through ACA, but didn't like Obamacare!
They sold a lie, we couldn't sell the benefits of a really good idea.
Everybody in charge of branding & marketing at DNC needs to be replaced.

[judesedit]

28. Yes, and they project all of their negative qualities onto the dems

and the dems just sit back and take it. That's why we need TLP. They know how to play the rw game. In the many short ads they've made they hit the target every time. We need lessons on how to do that. AOC is the closest we have of someone who's not afraid to fight back and speaks quite directly, clearly defining the lies and injustices being carried out by the GOP. Instead of embracing her, the dems are afraid she's rocking their comfortable boat. Nancy Pelosi is also formidable. We need more people like her.

[Cary]

4. The people whom I know who buy into the cult

... are lost. They're gone and will never return to reality. They're irredeemable and every scholarly source that I have found confirm that conclusion.

It is all about turnout so the Democrat bashing will only suppress our turnout.

This was always true. If we turn out we win. So if you want Democrats to win stay positive about Democrats. If you want Democrats to lose keep publishing articles about how badly we performed.

[Chicago1980]

6. That "defund the police" BS didn't help the situation.

Democrats have always been bad at messaging.

It's all about the wording and phrasing.

[Politicub]

12. There isn't a central democratic messaging clearinghouse.

Nor can there be. The defund-the-police idea came about for good (though tragic) reasons. We can’t control what message the gop is going to use to mobilize against us.

[CrispyQ]

14. Why can't there be a central democratic messaging clearinghouse?

Why can't the DNC respond when the GOP takes a social meme like Defund the Police & attaches it to our party & our candidates? Instead, as a party, we're mute & we let the right's associations stick. It's just stupid, IMO. The party needs to hire a top notch marketing firm. We are so far behind the 8-ball in messaging it's pathetic. It's why adult men living in rural America wear tee shirts that read "I'd rather be a Russian than a Democrat." We've let the right define us. Like I said in a post above, it's not enough to say, "Here's our platform page. Check out what we stand for."

[Politicub]

22. There is not one single message that will resonate across all groups of people.

You message to audiences, and they’re all a little or a lot different. As a coalition party, the democrats needs to reach people in the coalition and those who could be attracted to our coalition. There are liberal dems and those who are in the middle or even conservative.

And, you don’t know if defund the police cost net votes. It could be that people were attracted to the Democratic Party who might not have voted otherwise.

It would take a study to know.

IMHO, all politics are local. I think local resources and messaging are what’s called for as opposed to finding a single message. We have the party platform, which could be used as a guide.

[tulipsandroses]

26. I agree that we cannot control what the GOP will use to weaponize, especially when their followers

are fed a steady diet of hateful rhetoric by Hannity, Tucker, Limbaugh and the rest. The republicans are to blame for propaganda.

In 2004, Max Cleland was leading Saxby Chambliss in his senate race, then Chambliss started demonizing him. The audacity of accusing a Vietnam vet, a triple amputee of not being committed to safety of the troops and against's Bush's war against terrorism. Those folks were already getting the scorched earth against dems and against Muslims from Fox and Talk Radio. Democrats were being accused of emboldening the enemy. People believed a. Vietnam vet, triple amputee was against the troops? against protecting America? They bought that from a fucking draft dodger. Chambliss never went to Vietnam because of a " football injury".


Even posters here get a nod in the propaganda world. This is an opinion piece

Democratic Party bottom-feeders – like the odd and unpleasant people who inhabit the comments sections on Web sites like dailykos.com and democraticunderground.com – have already long since started spewing their bile at our soldiers, sailors and Marines.
[link:https://nypost.com/2004/12/28/a-new-divide-dems-vs-the-military-on-iraq/


There will never be a time that the republicans will play fair. They will find something, anything to demonize democrats. They have perfected this style of politics.

[Kitchari]

16. Instead of "defund" we need a word like

"Augment resources," as in adding social workers and others in professional mental health to ASSIST the police with disturbances that are caused by medical issues

[Mariana]

24. I don't know how the Democratic party can control the slogans that protesters use. nt.

[RainCaster]

7. The organic crap isn't credible, but it is effective

They got many of the basics right, but we still have a lot of research to do to improve our influence by the 2022 elections.

[tulipsandroses]

9. I do think there has to be a mass campaign on battling disinformation. First thing- Bring Facebook,

Youtube, Twitter and other tech companies to heel.

They are operating under old rules that allow them to become the richest people in the world, with no responsibility for the content found on their platforms.

We need more of what Lebron did. Year round. Not just for an election cycle.

Lebron James started a campaign to battle disinformation targeted at black voters during the runup to the election


Over the next two weeks, “Shot Clock” content from comedy duo Desus & Mero, podcast host Jemele Hill and "Breakfast Club" radio host Charlamagne tha God will teach young Black voters how to spot bots and trolls and push back against false or misleading narratives seeking to depress turnout.

[link:https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2020/10/21/lebron-james-black-activists-voter-suppression-trump-facebook-instagram/3714869001/|

There has to be more of this. As well as History and Civics lessons done cleverly

[abqtommy]

10. Just what I need today is somebody telling me/us what a loser/losers we are! Since the

reTHUGS are such good ratfuckers it doesn't mean we didn't kick their collective asses
in our recent election. And we can keep on doing it, too!

[Politicub]

11. It could be that hate-content performs better on social media.

I don’t want to believe this, because it’s depressing. But it seems like the right-wing groups are propelled by content to heighten their anger.

[Yeehah]

13. Shumer and Pelosi are true patriots

But the Democratic Party needs new leadership at the highest levels.

[RANDYWILDMAN]

15. If you said they were Lying on social media, then your right

They sell propaganda and they sell it well and true believers AKA the brainwashed cultists buy it and sell it, then your RIGHT. No we can't compete with that and we SHOULD not try. Lets regulate that crap, fine the media companies for not having and following regulations, they are currently sludge pools that allow those lies to just grow and grow. The companies could stop it but they Don't want too.

Social media can be be used for good and evil, Let's be the people who use it for good.

[DeminPennswoods]

17. I'm with the theory that posits

there are a lot of apolitical Americans with grievances who only occassionally come out to vote. In 2016 and 2020 they were galvanized by Trump and voted in droves. Without Trump, they will go back to being apolitical and non-voting.

[DarthDem]

20. Article Raises Fair Points

But I buy the second argument, that we need to make our economic case persuasively, more than the first, that we were somehow overwhelmed on social media. We do need to hold ongoing town halls - not just at election time and just in Florida, Iowa and Ohio - and speak directly to voters there, hear their concerns, and point out that GOPers have never helped anyone in rural areas economically and never will.

[msongs]

21. it was an anti-trump election NOT a pro-dems election nt

[uponit7771]

23. No ... hell no, why didn't DNC polling tell us this? Because there's something wrong with the pollin

... polling in the US or there's something wrong with the voting.

No other country has polling this far off down ballot

[Mariana]

25. The churches that preach support for one candidate or party

have to be dealt with as well. Millions of Christians were told by their preachers that God wanted them to vote for Trump. Support for Trump has become essentially a tenet of the Christian faith in churches all over the country.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

27. Vlad's minions and programmers love facebook, too.