Remember Messaging Maxim #4: Feed the Narrative? Well, before you feed the narrative in your political communications, you have to have a narrative. And sometimes you have to remind your listeners — and yourself — that you have a narrative. In this video, award-winning journalist Tom Junod (Esquire, GQ, etc.) gives a simple, one-sentence trick for journalists that is perfectly adaptable to political communicators of all kinds:
If you’re a progressive and you follow the mainstream media, you might think that all you’re supposed to do lately is play weak defense against the attacks on implementation of the Affordable Care Act. That’s exactly what Republicans want — for progressives and Democrats to cower under the Republican agenda (which includes destroying the ACA), like a boxer pinned in the corner. But Messaging Maxim #1 is Go On Offense. That means to come out of the corner swinging, by pushing the progressive agenda. Here are some items on the progressive agenda, in case you’ve been following mainstream media “news” and have forgotten:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLZPHkYfukA
Last Thursday on CNN‘s “Crossfire,” Louisiana Senator David Vitter took a double shot from Van Jones and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders regarding the Affordable Care Act. It was a clash of Republican messaging versus Democratic messaging, and, for once, the Democrats won the battle.
It’s almost that time of the year again, when every Thanksgiving gathering will have at least one old uncle who’s a right wing blowhard. Old Uncle Ralph, after a few Budweisers, will no doubt spout the latest Fox talking points on “Obamacare,” Benghazi or something else. The good folks at Environmental Working Group have come up with some good talking points of their own regarding one of the conservatives’ pet issues, climate change.
If you watch or listen to the Republicans and much of the mainstream media, you might think that the Affordable Care Act is nothing but a website that is having problems. However, Nicholas Kristof published an op-ed in the New York Times last Saturday that sets the record straight, and shows us how to frame the Affordable Care Act properly.
A road trip from Southern California to San Francisco blows up the conservative myth that “government is bad for business” from Mile 1. First, you’ll likely drive up Interstate 5. That’s one of the highways largely built with taxpayer funds as part of the Interstate Highway System. I-5 runs through California’s Central Valley, where a big portion of America’s fruits and vegetables are grown, and it’s not unusual to see agricultural trucks making up 50 percent or more of the road traffic. Those truckers, growers, store owners and consumers throughout the U.S. depend on I-5 and other federal and state highways to move commerce to market efficiently.
Now that Republicans have failed to stop the Affordable Care Act, their next tactic is to battle the Act in an anecdote war. The mainstream television news media love anecdotes, because they are small shiny objects around which the media folks can get their short attention spans. We saw this anecdote tactic play out, for example, during the recent GOP shutdown, when the media reduced many big, important issues about government to a small sideshow dispute over the World War II Memorial.
The Republican Party is acting a lot like the zombie “walkers” in the tv series “The Walking Dead.” Check out the similarities:
Republicans have already revealed their strategy in the GOP shutdown: take America hostage by shutting down the federal government, and then criticize President Obama and Congressional Democrats for not “negotiating” major concessions, including defunding the Affordable Care Act, in return for Republicans reopening the government. Republicans skillfully repeat this word “negotiate,” but their definition of the term is absurdly narrow. In this context, Republicans only mean that President Obama should negotiate away popular Democratic principles and new laws while he has the GOP shutdown gun pointed at his head.
Republicans just got caught red-handed putting the interests of the Republican party over those of the country during their GOP government shutdown. First, as the video above indicates, Republican Senator Rand Paul was caught on a hot mic telling his colleague, GOP Senator Mitch McConnell:
I just did CNN and I just go over and over again, ‘we’re willing to compromise, we’re willing to negotiate.’ I don’t think they poll tested ‘we won’t negotiate,’ I think it’s awful for them to say that over and over again. … I think if we keep saying, ‘we wanted to defund it, we fought for that, but now we’re willing to compromise on this,’ we’re gonna win.
Then today, Republican Congressman Eric Cantor passed a memo to his colleagues urging a similar strategy to that expressed by Rand Paul, i.e., to say that President Obama and Democrats in Congress are “refusing to negotiate” during the GOP shutdown, and that Republicans are willing to negotiate. Cantor further urges his House colleagues to push for piecemeal bills to fund only parts of the federal government which are popular with the American people, such as reopening our national parks and funding veterans benefits.
Alas, the Republicans’ cynical strategy is now laid bare with evidence on video and on paper: take the United States hostage by shutting down the government, ask for ransom (defunding or delaying the Affordable Care Act that is the law of the land), then criticize Democrats for rightfully refusing to negotiate with the hostage takers. Are there any regular folks left in America who think the Republicans give a damn about them?
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