I do think this is one of the areas where we need to steal from their playbook. the FACTS may show economic growth, but consumers don’t FEEL that. the right ignores facts by appealing straight to everyone’s (worst) emotions, but the left can’t expect voters to be motivated by abstractions either - ThreadSky

clairewillett.bsky.social • 105 days ago

I do think this is one of the areas where we need to steal from their playbook. the FACTS may show economic growth, but consumers don’t FEEL that. the right ignores facts by appealing straight to everyone’s (worst) emotions, but the left can’t expect voters to be motivated by abstractions either

Reposted from Maggie Tokuda-Hall

Stats about the economy being fine don't make anyone feel better. But I think not feeling like you're being taken advantage of every time you have to buy fucking anything would help a lot. The prices are high for worse products bc we've destroyed the free market with monopsonies and monopolies.

Comments

ashtonlattimore.bsky.social•105 days ago

Absolutely. And it goes beyond consumer goods - I'm convinced housing costs are one of the main reasons the economy FEELS bad to people even if it technically isn't. Being unable to get something you need/want - something as fundamental as a home - feels awful, & it's easy to exploit that feeling.

compulsiveobserver.bsky.social•105 days ago

See to me the cost of housing is a reason why we need to evaluate what we consider a healthy economy because got most folks, their rent or mortgage is their biggest expense. And the cost to buy or rent keeps going out in relation to income.

ashtonlattimore.bsky.social•105 days ago

Absolutely. It's not much use pointing to the stock market or to inflation rates if people are evaluating their economic quality of life by other metrics, i.e. actual costs, and how much of their pay is eaten up by necessities.

ghostyspook.bsky.social•105 days ago

A lot of inflation rates are lower will point to thing like tvs that you buy ever ten years when the problem is stuff you pay every day

ghostyspook.bsky.social•105 days ago

Even stuff like wood prices went up!

Things are more expensive in general even if inflation is finally lower by the metrics…didn’t stop my local restaurant raising prices

bexone.bsky.social•105 days ago

Especially when you’re exploiting that feeling with zero actual intention to fix the problem, since that means you don’t have to have any kind of plan

dwoboyle.bsky.social•105 days ago

Also, the way they measure the economy isn't real. They use that word to mean investments and potential growth of those investments rather than the actual material prices, logistics, and supply. The latter is what normal, non-financial brained people are concerned with.

bexone.bsky.social•105 days ago

If there were enough less corporate capture of Dems that there were more unified messaging of “hey, we know you’re still having to spend more for necessities, that’s called price gouging and here’s what we want to do about it”

radiantlisa.bsky.social•105 days ago

It's long been one of my complaints that the left continues to speak logic to emotion and doesn't seem to understand that they need to apply emotion liberally (pun intended) if they want their message to hit home.

sarahejoyal.bsky.social•105 days ago

It's weird isn't it because the other side is constantly deriding us for being too emotional (facts don't care about your feelings, and all that)

louisathelast.bsky.social•105 days ago

My kingdom for more messaging along the lines of “your kids are hungry because grocery chain bigwigs are raking in the cash, and here’s what we’ll do to stop them.” Harris did do some of that! But it didn’t get enough play

ghostyspook.bsky.social•105 days ago

Yeah I think they did try some of this it just didn’t take off

But lecturing people for being stupid because they get frustrated every time they shop at the prices doesn’t help

redshiftsinger.bsky.social•105 days ago

The real failure of Dem messaging wasn’t too little transphobia, it was expecting “getting good things done quietly” to yield results.

Biden did a LOT to fix the “inflation” (aka price-gouging) problem. But he did it so quietly that not a lot of people know he did anything at all!

redshiftsinger.bsky.social•105 days ago

And yeah, some of the problem is a hostile media landscape that refused to give things like the Inflation Reduction Act the airtime they deserved. But Dems could be a LOT better at self-promotion, too.

k10death.bsky.social•105 days ago

louder for those in the back!

craigmranapia.bsky.social•105 days ago

Hell, even just acknowledge "Sure, the economy is doing great on paper but the benefits aren't going as far around as they should. You're not crazy, and here's what needs to be done differently." Which has the benefit of being undeniably true.

craigmranapia.bsky.social•105 days ago

And KY Governor Andy Beshear made the excellent point that too often Dems are great at policy seminars with slide shows. You win economic arguments on the ground with tangible benefits - breaking ground and cutting ribbons while asking "Did you have this well-paid union job 4 years ago?" Every day.

czrisher.bsky.social•105 days ago

The late Stan Collender, who went by BudgetWonk and was a communications expert, used to say this repeatedly to every Democratic Member of Congress who would listen: People want to know that you're angry about the things they're angry about. Must meet them at emotion before they'll hear your facts.

clairewillett.bsky.social•105 days ago

I think we need to get better at emotional arguments that also happen to have facts behind them

absolutely-not.bsky.social•105 days ago

feel facts are valid

kendrawrites.com•105 days ago

This is a discussion I'm tired of having but there's data to show that at least some people are materially worse off both because of the removal of Covid aid and other factors. I'm bad at searching Bluesky but I was reading a report that said exactly that a few weeks ago.

kendrawrites.com•105 days ago

My opinion is that all of this is skirting around the fact that if you really want to talk about elections from a Democrats perspective each election cycle is them trying to pull a few people from the white majority who decided in 1964 to never vote dem again, and making sure enough POC turn up.

mariavictoria.bsky.social•105 days ago

Good point.

kendrawrites.com•105 days ago

(sorry the I'm bad at searching Bluesky bit because I skeeted it)

Economic indicators are just that indicators and if you're looking at the wrong ones there's a lot you will miss.

deepspacefine.bsky.social•105 days ago

Exactly. The majority of people don't notice inflation on groceries stagnant (prices still much higher than 3 years ago) when their rent continues to go up year after year and the white house doesn't acknowledge that or offer up a plan.

kendrawrites.com•105 days ago

https://bsky.app/profile/kendrawrites.bsky.social/post/3layg7bpxns2h

clairewillett.bsky.social•105 days ago

yeah I think that’s the really discouraging piece of it. it’s just trying to find new ways each time to get the white people math to line up. no other block of voters needs that level of personalized catering, you’re right

kendrawrites.com•105 days ago

I think this is why like a lot of Black women are saying they're done. Because we are unwilling to talk about the racism undergirding a lot of people's votes.

clairewillett.bsky.social•105 days ago

absolutely. it really does not feel like there is any conversation to be had about this election that doesn’t begin with “#1: as racist as we thought America was, it is more racist even than that”

it’s all still post-Obama fallout from 16 years ago!

ghostyspook.bsky.social•105 days ago

Yes.

I agree some of these people were never going to vote for the candidate no matter what but also voters who look at their bills and notice how high they are aren’t ‘wrong’ just bc fing will stencil has a chart 📈

kendrawrites.com•105 days ago

https://bsky.app/profile/kendrawrites.bsky.social/post/3lawleyeojt2v

kendrawrites.com•105 days ago

Do you see how quick you were to be yeah some of them are really racist but the economy?

Think on that. Really think on that. What if we thought addressing racism was actually worthy public policy?

ghostyspook.bsky.social•105 days ago

That’s not what I was saying at all

I am agreeing that they were not all motivated by the economy. I absolutely think no amount of ‘messaging’ would have changed votes which is why I said that.

clairewillett.bsky.social•105 days ago

absolutely and you can’t expect them to be like “oh word? this chart that doesn’t affect me says the Dems are winning on the economy? okay then”

it’s the same as like, omitting disability from the conversation about household economics too

kendrawrites.com•105 days ago

Yes but to paraphrase Akeelah Hughes Black people are most impacted when the economy goes to shit and yet...

monsterteatime.bsky.social•105 days ago

100%. Gingrich, whom I -loathe-, nailed this particular tactic. We can't rely on what we wish people were like, we have to address what they -are- like. We can still present facts, but we have to be smart and tactical & appeal emotionally or it just won't matter.

clairewillett.bsky.social•105 days ago

if we had run on “venture capitalism is WHY everything down here on the human level still feels bad EVEN THOUGH all the shiny abstraction charts are booming, here are some examples of what that looks like from Toys R Us to Red Lobster,” and made THAT the central argument, I think that would click

ashtonlattimore.bsky.social•105 days ago

Absolutely this. Because what the right does so well (in the midst of being evil) is offer someone to BLAME. That's emotionally appealing at a fundamental level, and if Democrats could harness that in a way that's both satisfying and true (because someone is, in fact, to blame!) imagine.

debgoldendc.bsky.social•105 days ago

I was trying to explain part of this to my 14 yo this week. When I was 14, I saved up my babysitting money and could buy a few albums. I owned those albums. I still own them. I could listen to them over and over.

If I had a period with less babysitting, or wanted to spend the money on a new

debgoldendc.bsky.social•105 days ago

dress, I still could listen to my music.

Now, there's more access to more music, but in a lean month, you're stuck paying a subscription fee anyway or not listening to your favorite album.

It just feels like it's slipping away.

larsonlee.bsky.social•105 days ago

I think this is correct, but the hitch in this strategy is money in politics. Dems need to blame rich corporate goons for people’s problems, but they also want (need?) donations from many of those same goons. GOP doesn’t have this problem, because the people they blame have no money anyway.

dwoboyle.bsky.social•105 days ago

Yes, this is one of the reasons why electoralism at a national level is a waste of time and only a small short term strategy at the local level.
We need people to be involved in political actions beyond just voting.
We can't win the money game.

purlgurly.bsky.social•105 days ago

This is what Elizabeth Warren has always been so good at, even back in the day when she was “just” an author and academic appearing on The Daily Show.

richellesepulveda.bsky.social•105 days ago

I know people who are one bank overdraft fee from being unable to afford rent, so telling them the economy is objectively good and they are just too unintelligent to understand material conditions comes off very condescending.

Plus many are dealing with LC, too, and can't just add a 2nd-3rd job.

richellesepulveda.bsky.social•105 days ago

Then their boss brags about their new house/car/boat due to the booming economy and that doesn't help with the feeling of economic doom.

mvandiverart.bsky.social•105 days ago

My hot take is that most people will never feel good about the economy during this deep wealth inequality and total degradation of infrastructure that allows people born in the wrong zip code to get ahead. There is no "good" economy while that's true and it's been true for decades.

Comments

Posting Rules

Reply