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It’s Super Bowl Sunday, and Republicans are terrified of Taylor Swift

Written on February 8, 2024 by Messaging Matters in Democratic Messaging, Media Watch, Republican Messaging

Latest Republican obsession Taylor Swift

Of all the bizarre, circus-like political outbursts from Republicans in the past eight years or more, one of the silliest has to be the GOP’s explosion of fear over pop music star Taylor Swift. That Republican terror is set to peak this Sunday during the Super Bowl, which features the Kansas City Chiefs versus the San Francisco 49ers, and which is being played, appropriately, in Las Vegas.

For those few who haven’t been exposed to this latest circus, Taylor Swift is a singer-songwriter who has millions of fans, has won multiple Grammy awards, has sold approximately 200 million records worldwide (near the top of the all-time list for musical artists), and encourages her fans to register to vote. Swift also dates Kansas City Chiefs football player Travis Kelce. Swift often attends Kelce’s games, during which the broadcast network airing such games invariably turns the cameras on Swift, wearing a Chiefs jersey and cheering from the skybox, for a few fleeting seconds here and there.

The last two parts are what terrify Republicans, including those at Fox “News.” They have lashed out at Swift, the National Football League (NFL), and even President Joe Biden‘s administration. These Republicans first charged that Swift is part of a Biden administration “Pentagon psy-ops” effort. Okay, that doesn’t even make sense. Now Republicans also say that the NFL rigged the entire 2023-24 season in order to put the Chiefs into the Super Bowl so that Taylor Swift can be featured prominently for political reasons. Okay, that also doesn’t even … you get the idea.

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Tags: Democrats, economy, football, Fox News, GOP, Grammy, Hillary Clinton, Kansas City Chiefs, Las Vegas, Nancy Pelosi, NFL, Nikki Haley, Pentagon, President Joe Biden, Republicans, San Franciso 49ers, Super Bowl, Taylor Swift, Travis Kelce

Coronavirus: what should Las Vegas do?

Written on April 28, 2020 by Messaging Matters in Good Government, Media Watch

The Las Vegas Strip, in many ways a potential Coronavirus petri dish

During and after the 2008 Bush Great Recession, Nevada and its most populous city, Las Vegas, were hit especially hard. Home prices tumbled, foreclosures and home abandonments exploded, unemployment went through the roof, and construction dried up. Now during the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, Las Vegas faces even greater odds. At least during the Great Recession, visitors who had the means to visit Las Vegas could still do so, and workplaces that could stay in business financially weren’t forced to close for outside reasons. This time around, however, even folks who are flush with cash aren’t feeling lucky enough to get on an airplane, fly to Vegas, stay in a hotel, and partake of all of the options there, such as gambling, dining, dancing, etc. Hotels, restaurants, casinos and attractions are almost all closed. Conferences, sports events and concerts have been canceled. That puts many thousands of people in the area out of work, and worried about whether Las Vegas can ever recover from its Coronavirus hit, let alone recover in time to save the economy, their jobs and their homes.

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Tags: Anderson Cooper, Andrew Cuomo, Carolyn Goodman, CNN, Coronavirus, COVID-19, Donald Trump, economy, George W. Bush, Great Recession, jobs, Joe Biden, Las Vegas, Nevada., unemployment

Instead of getting distracted, drive the narrative

Written on October 12, 2017 by Messaging Matters in Democratic Messaging, Democratic vs. Republican Presidents, Media Watch, Messaging Maxims, Republican Messaging

Puerto Rico devastation from Hurricane Maria

Back in February 2011, we published Messaging Maxim #1: Go On Offense. Perhaps some folks need a refresher course. In that post, we wrote, “If you’re fighting a political battle on the other side’s rhetorical turf, you’ve already lost.” At the time, such advice was referring to phony cultural issues like “Ground Zero Mosque” and “is President Obama a Muslim?” that Republicans had ginned up and repeated everywhere they could (see Messaging Maxim #2: Rinse and Repeat). With their herd mentality, the mainstream media then picked up these issues and focused their broadcasts, cablecasts and column space on them.

Fast forward to today. Donald Trump and the Republicans are doing the same thing again, and it’s working. Currently, the phony cultural issues are: “Kneeling NFL Players” and “Harvey Weinstein.” To those, you can add, “NBC and CNN Licenses.” By next week, expect different cultural issues.

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Tags: California fires, climate change, CNN, Colin Kaepernick, culture war, Donald Trump, election, Facebook, gun control, guns, Harvey Weinstein, healthcare, Hillary Clinton, Hurricane Maria, Instagram, jobs, Las Vegas, NBC, NFL, NRA, President Obama, Puerto Rico, Republican Party, Russia, social media, Twitter

Now is not too soon to talk about gun violence

Written on October 3, 2017 by Messaging Matters in Democratic Messaging, Republican Messaging

The Knotted Gun

The shootings by Stephen Paddock in Las Vegas on Sunday night were the deadliest in modern U.S. history. 59 people are now dead, with over 500 injured. And yet, on Monday, Trump White House spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders, asked if Donald Trump was now discussing whether new gun laws are needed, replied that “it would be premature for us to discuss policy” so soon after the killings. Sanders’ reply is similar to what many conservatives and the National Rifle Association say when confronted with mass shootings of civilians involving semiautomatic or, in this case, automatic, weapons. They are wrong for a couple of major reasons:

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Tags: assault weapons, Congress, Democrats, Donald Trump, gun control, guns, Las Vegas, National Rifle Association, Nevada., NRA, Republicans, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Second Amendment, Stephen Paddock

Good government and capitalism meet near Las Vegas

Written on August 12, 2014 by Messaging Matters in Democratic Messaging, Good Government

Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System

Las Vegas, perhaps the ultimate symbol of capitalism, ironically is bookended by two huge examples of business/government partnership. The first one, as we all know from Rachel Maddow‘s MSNBC “Lean Forward” videos, is the Hoover Dam, located about 30 miles from Las Vegas. Hoover Dam is an example of government working with business to create a huge public project that business could not accomplish by itself. In the case of Hoover Dam (the creating legislation for which was signed by conservative Republican President Calvin Coolidge), the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, a division of the Department of the Interior, partnered with a consortium of large corporations known as Six Companies, including familiar capitalist faces Henry J. Kaiser Co. and Bechtel Corporation.

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Tags: Bureau of Land Management, Hoover Dam, Ivanpah, Las Vegas, solar power