The Language of Politics | Messaging Matters

Democratic debate exposes everything that’s wrong with TV

Written on October 16, 2019 by Messaging Matters in Democratic Messaging, Media Watch

Sign of unity outside 2019 Democratic debate

Are you reading or hearing about the “fireworks” or “clashes” at last night’s Democratic presidential debate aired on CNN? If so, that’s part of the problem. This year, the televised Democratic debates have shown more about the failure of the TV debate format than about the success or substance of the candidates.

First, CNN (along with the New York Times, which co-sponsored the debate) brought together the 12 qualifying candidates on one stage, on one night, instead of splitting the event into two debates with six candidates each. Right off the bat, this caused the candidates to be given inadequate time to answer most questions, and to be cut off just when getting to the substance of most of their answers.

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Tags: 2020 Elections, ABC, Anderson Cooper, Barack Obama, CNN, debate, Democrats, New York Times, television, town hall, TV

Unplugging from Republican-leaning Facebook

Written on October 14, 2019 by Messaging Matters in Democratic Messaging, Media Watch, Republican Messaging

Turning off Facebook

In the very first Messaging Matters post, nearly nine years ago, we wrote: “Republicans have placed a ‘matrix’ over this country” with the help of “news media [that] are largely controlled by giant corporations,” as well as an organized Republican “messaging machine.” Based on recent revelations, it turns out that Facebook is part of this Republican machine too. As a result, we’re unplugging from the Facebook matrix.

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Tags: 2016 Elections, 2020 Elections, Democrats, Donald Trump, Elizabeth Warren, Facebook, Hillary Clinton, impeachment, Instagram, Joe Biden, Mark Zuckerberg, Republicans, Rudy Giuliani, Russia, Twitter, Ukraine

House impeachment hearing galvanizes media and public attention

Written on September 27, 2019 by Messaging Matters in Democratic Messaging, Democratic vs. Republican Presidents, Media Watch

U.S. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff

The U.S. House of Representatives has wasted no time after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced a formal impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump on Tuesday. Yesterday, the House Intelligence Committee held a public hearing featuring Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire. The subject of the hearing, which was carried on virtually all of the cable TV news channels plus C-SPAN, was the just-released Whistleblower complaint against Trump, his attorney Rudolph Giuliani, U.S. Attorney General William Barr, and possibly others.

The Whistleblower complaint alleges that Trump pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zolensky to investigate activities of Joe Biden and his son Hunter, in return for U.S. military aid to Ukraine, and then sought to hide the record of Trump’s phone call, as well as Trump’s calls with other foreign leaders, on a separate, secret electronic server. The complaint contains other related allegations as well, and, for some members of Congress, was apparently the last straw that influenced them to support the House formal impeachment inquiry. Just this week, the slowly building stream of House members supporting the impeachment inquiry became a waterfall, jumping by some 75 to reach 218, the majority number needed to vote to impeach Trump or other federal officials.

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Tags: Adam Schiff, Congress, DNI, Donald Trump, House Intelligence Committee, House of Representatives, Hunter Biden, impeachment, Joe Biden, Joseph Maguire, Justin Amash, Nancy Pelosi, Rudy Giuliani, Ukraine, William Barr

Is the tide finally turning on gun violence?

Written on September 20, 2019 by Messaging Matters in Democratic Messaging

Vigil for shooting victims (Dayton, OH)

Colt Firearms recently announced that it will suspend production and civilian sales of its AR-15 semiautomatic assault rifle. Due to their design enabling shooters to kill so many people in so little time, the AR-15 (the most popular rifle in America) and similar assault weapons, such as the AK-47, are the top choices in a large number of America’s deadliest mass shootings, and the vast majority of mass shooting deaths, including:

Aurora, CO; Sandy Hook Elementary School (CT); Poway, California synagogue; New Zealand mosques; El Paso, TX; Dayton, OH (9 people killed in 30 seconds); Las Vegas, NV concert; Sutherland Springs, TX church; Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School (Parkland, FL); Santa Monica, CA; San Bernardino, CA; Albuquerque, NM; Geneva County, AL; Chattanooga, TN; Carson City, NV; and more.

In addition to Colt’s discontinuation of the AR-15, moreover, several other actions might be considered early signals that the tide of public opinion, and legislative action, may be starting to turn against gun violence. These actions include:

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Tags: AR-15, assault weapons, Beto O'Rourke, Congress, Democrats, El Paso, gun control, gun safety, gun violence, guns, mass shootings, National Rifle Association, NRA, Republicans, U.S. House, U.S. Senate

Top Democratic presidential candidates debate each other for first time

Written on September 13, 2019 by Messaging Matters in Democratic Messaging, Democratic vs. Republican Presidents

Aspen Times article on Democratic presidential debate

Last night, the top 10 candidates for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination debated each other for the first time at Texas Southern University, a historically black university in Houston, TX. The debate was hosted jointly by ABC and Univision television networks, and featured Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar, Andrew Yang, Beto O’Rourke, Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg and Julian Castro. In their two previous debates, up to 20 Democratic candidates were included, but that was over two separate nights for each debate, so that the top candidates according to the polls (especially Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren) had not faced each other directly. The debate also had a couple of very notable moments, not coincidentally from candidates who are quite far down in the polls:

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Tags: 2020 Elections, Andrew Yang, Democrats, Donald Trump, Joe Biden, Julián Castro

Democrats go on offense at CNN “Climate Crisis” town hall

Written on September 5, 2019 by Messaging Matters in Democratic Messaging, Democratic vs. Republican Presidents

Earth on fire

CNN aired a seven-hour marathon town hall on the “Climate Crisis” yesterday evening. The event featured the top 10 presidential candidates for the Democratic Party nomination, chosen using the Democratic Party’s criteria for its presidential debates.

The first CNN host of the evening, Wolf Blitzer, mentioned Hurricane Dorian in the first sixty seconds of the town hall, and he and the subsequent hosts returned to current reports about the hurricane during the program. Most questions came from the audience, both those in the room and others via satellite from various locations. Many of the questioners were environmental activists, students, or academics, and most such questions were very specific and pointed.

Here are some of the highlights of what each candidate, in order of appearance, had to say:

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Tags: Amy Klobuchar, Andrew Yang, Barack Obama, Bernie Sanders, Beto O'Rourke, climate change, CNN, Cory Booker, Donald Trump, Elizabeth Warren, Green New Deal, Hurricane Dorian, Joe Biden, Julián Castro, Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg

When it comes to gaffes, Donald Trump lowers the bar to the ground

Written on August 20, 2019 by Messaging Matters in Democratic Messaging, Democratic vs. Republican Presidents, Media Watch, Republican Messaging

Cartoon of Donald Trump clashing with Megyn Kelly at August 2015 debate

Republicans, as expected, are attacking the leading 2020 Democratic presidential candidates. Given that Joe Biden has been the Democratic front-runner essentially since the day he announced his candidacy, and indeed, beats Donald Trump in head-to-head match-up polls, Biden naturally is a target for many of these Republican assaults. The current line of GOP attack against Biden is that he makes “gaffes,” i.e. honest statements that politicians don’t always make, or misstatements using a wrong word, phrase or information. However, there are two big problems with this Republican attack on Biden: first, Biden has had the reputation of making gaffes for many years, and to a lot of voters, it adds to his likeability and authenticity. Second, and even more problematic for Republicans, Donald Trump has so lowered the bar with his own horrible history of misstatements, shocking statements, and outright lies, that he has negated any “gaffe” issue for Biden.

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Tags: 2020 Election, Affordable Care Act, Barack Obama, border wall, Charlottesville, Democrats, Donald Trump, gaffes, Heather Heyer, immigration, Joe Biden, Mexico, Nazi, Republicans

Responding to right wing talking points on guns

Written on August 6, 2019 by Messaging Matters in Democratic Messaging, Republican Messaging

Right wing New York Post now calls for Assault Weapons Ban

In the wake of last weekend’s back-to-back deadly mass shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio, the arguments are flying from pro-gun right wingers who don’t want to take any action to reduce gun violence, and many Democrats (joined by others) who say that America needs common-sense gun laws. The right wing talking points have been around for years, and typically emanate from the top, meaning the National Rifle Association (NRA), which is now reduced to a pro-terrorist gun manufacturers’ trade group, as well as Republican Party professional phrase makers. So now, let’s go through some of these Republican pro-gun violence talking points, and come up with good, short responses to them. In some cases, responses have been given in recent days, and are cited here:

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Tags: ACA, Affordable Care Act, assault rifle, assault weapons, Dayton, Democrats, Donald Trump, El Paso, gun control, gun safety, gun violence, guns, mental health, NRA, Republicans, right wing

Democratic labeling finally gets under a Republican’s skin

Written on July 31, 2019 by Messaging Matters in Democratic Messaging

Mitch McConnell, whose feelings are now hurt

It’s fair to say that Republicans are much better at going on offense against Democrats than vice-versa. Therefore, it’s quite refreshing to see Democrats turning the tables on Republicans for once. This time, it’s Republican U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell who has fallen prey to Democratic tarring and feathering efforts. By most accounts, these efforts are working, and McConnell’s feelings are hurt.

The Democratic efforts to frame McConnell as unpatriotic, and even a tool of a foreign power, stem from McConnell’s refusal to act on bills introduced in the Senate to protect the U.S. election system from further Russian interference. Recall that Russia’s interference in the 2016 elections is undisputed by the U.S. intelligence community, as well as by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle with access to the relevant information. Just a few days ago, Special Counsel Robert Mueller, specifically tasked with investigating such Russian wrongdoing, confirmed again that Russia interfered in our 2016 elections and “they’re doing it as we sit here.” As a result, lawmakers have introduced bills to protect our elections and voting system against the type of cyber warfare and hacking that Russia committed against America. But McConnell keeps blocking the bills.

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Tags: 2016 Elections, Amy McGrath, Chuck Schumer, Congress, Dana Milbank, Democrats, Joe Scarborough, Mitch McConnell, MSNBC, Republicans, Russia, Senate, Twitter, Washington Post

Watch what Trump and the Republicans do, not just what they say

Written on July 17, 2019 by Messaging Matters in Democratic Messaging, Media Watch

Everyone is in a tizzy this week because Donald Trump wrote racist tweets. The story is all over every type of media, from TV news to Twitter to Facebook to news media websites, and more. However, this has to be one of the biggest non-news events of the year. Trump already has a well-known history of public racism dating back at least to the 1970s with housing discrimination, continuing through the 1980s and beyond with the Central Park Five case, and which was on full display in Trump’s 2015 presidential campaign announcement speech, where he came out of the gate attacking immigrants from Mexico and Central America.

If you’re still wondering why Trump deliberately creates distractions with shiny objects regarding immigration and race, here are a few things that Trump has been distracting us from while the whole country obsesses over his racist tweets:

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Tags: abortion, ACLU, Alex Acosta, asylum, Central Park Five, culture war, Democrats, Donald Trump, Facebook, immigration, Jeffrey Epstein, Mexico, Mitch McConnell, news, Planned Parenthood, racism, Republicans, Statue of Liberty, Twitter