Ok, you’ve made it through nearly the entire holiday season addressing right-wingers and their Fox talking points at the dinner table. There’s only one holiday left — New Year’s. The popping of champagne corks might lead your conservative friends to pop off once again against liberals, Democrats, President Obama and their biggest target of the year: the Affordable Care Act. In anticipation of these bubbly-filled blowhards, here are some of this year’s effective pro-Affordable Care Act talking points for your New Year’s Eve:
The very first post at Messaging Matters noted that many issues in the news seem to skew Republican. That was nearly three years ago, and it’s still the case. Many of the so-called major news stories of 2013 were ginned up by Republicans: Obamacare website glitches, Benghazi, IRS “scandal,” etc. Even the New York Times, supposedly the bastion of liberal media, fell for these Republican-created news memes. And how about the lineups of the Sunday morning talk shows? This year, only the GOP Shutdown seemed to favor the Democrats.
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:
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.
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.
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.
Chuck Todd of NBC News created a media firestorm last week when he blamed President Barack Obama “for not selling” the Affordable Care Act (“ACA“) a/k/a “Obamacare,” and said that media figures like himself had no responsibility to counter Republican lies about the ACA. Well, President Obama answered Chuck Todd and the Republican lie machine yesterday with a blazing speech at Prince George’s Community College in Largo, Maryland (see video above). Some of the highlights from President Obama’s speech were as follows:
Chuck Todd of NBC News caused a media firestorm yesterday when he stated on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program that the Republicans’ false talking points about the Affordable Care Act a/k/a “Obamacare” were “more importantly, … stuff that the Republicans have successfully messaged.” Todd went on to say that that it’s not the fault of “folks in the media” like Todd that Republicans are getting away with their Affordable Care Act lies, but rather, “it’s the President of the United States’ fault for not selling it.”
On Twitter, users expressed their anger at Chuck Todd, starting a hashtag called #chucktoddexcuses and posting messages such as “If people like me called out politicians on lies, we wouldn’t have had all that fun in Iraq.” Sites like politicsusa.com also pointed out the flaws in Todd’s thinking:
Todd’s logic falls apart, because he is missing the point of what people are trying to tell him. People aren’t saying to the mainstream media that they want them to support Democrats. The message is that the media should be interested first and only in facts. People get frustrated with the media, because they give lies the same weight as facts.
The run-up to the 2014 Congressional elections is in full swing. You can be sure that Republicans are sharpening their talking points for the upcoming campaigns. We’ll likely be hearing all about a supposed lackluster economy, tepid employment picture, and that demonic “Obamacare.” Now is the time, therefore, for Democrats and progressives to hone their arguments and talking points to counter those of the Republicans and, better yet, to drive the conversation from the get-go. Here are the three words to use against the Republicans:
During the 2009-2010 debate over the Affordable Care Act, Messaging Matters called for the Obama administration and the Democrats in Congress to put forth a procession of people who could tell their personal stories about being denied healthcare insurance or coverage. That did not happen, at least until very late in the process, and the ACA’s reputation never quite recovered from unanswered or poorly answered Republican attacks. What we were calling for can now be termed Messaging Maxim #5: Make it Personal.
