excellent piece -- and it articulates something that enraged me that leaders of her campaign team said soon after the election on a podcast -- that the reason why Harris spent so little time actually attacking Trump's RECORD was because, according to surveys/focus groups, "attitudes toward Trump were baked in".
Now, the reality is that all the campaign had to do was look at public polling to see that Trump's favorability rating was highly volatile -- with a spread of -19.7 points when he left office, which improved to only -5.5 points by April '22, and on Jan 3, 2024, it stood at -14.9 points. When Biden withdrew his candidacy, it was at -10.9 points, and by the time the election was held, it had improved to -7.0 points. (source https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/favorability/donald-trump)
IOW, a significant part of the electorate become more favorably disposed toward Trump during the campaign, largely because people were not being constantly reminded of how awful Trump is. And THAT explains why Harris' focus on Project 2025 fell flat -- that message only resonated with people who already assumed the worst about Trump; to the rest of the electorate, it was just campaign season rhetoric.
The problem is a good proportion of the electorate in 2024 believed that Trump was going to be no worse than he was during his first term. I kept hearing “oh I know what to expect. I can deal with that!” They didn’t think beyond that. But you are 100% correct, Democrats need to better anticipate issues (like the impending cuts to health care) and listen to voters. Polling is dated and controlled by the pollster and in most situations not entirely accurate.
Great article. Reminds me of 2015-16 when all these polls kept showing "people are afraid of/worried about migration/the refugee crisis". So we put out a poll asking whether we should welcome people fleeing war and persecution and guess what: the vast majority agreed!
What an apt, succinct, thoughtful, well-argued piece! The discipline of rhetoric—persuasive discourse—used to comprise one-third of the curriculum in higher education and was widely referred to as "the handmaiden of democracy." In the late 20th century, a scientific (even downright positivistic) fervor took hold in our party, and left us with a very impoverished understanding of political persuasion. This made room for a vast army of consulting firms to enrich themselves on the party and, most recently, enabled crypto-corrupt charlatans like David Shor to waste IMMENSE party resources on fruitless campaigns. Pieces like this do a lot to demonstrate what we lost along the way. Thanks for sharing it!
Thanks for reading it, and calling it succinct. :) I had lots to say about this topic even as I also feel completely absurd and enraged to be talking about this when there is fascism to fight.
Clear and persuasive argument about why Dems are missing the point. Rs are shouting fire alarm level messaging based in intentional lies and thus succeeding in moving the Overton window steadily to the right. Dems keep chasing the mythical “centrist voter” who is being moved rightward by the repeated high intensity language the Reps use to spread fear and hatred of “other” people.
Absolutely brilliant. Running a training next week on defeating the far right online, and one of the points is narrative discipline. Will definitely recommend this reading Anat! Big fan of your work here. - Hannah
Man, I hope people with influence in the DNC, DCCC and DSCC are reading Ms. Shenker-Osorio and will shake off the tyranny of pollingism in the party. It's an abject failure. Exhibit A: Trump 2.0.
There are several issues the vast majority of Americans agree upon (no polls or focus groups needed):
No more wars (especially not eith Venezuela, which no one understands)
Corruption (Democrats have to fall on the sword of their own soft corruption, repudiate donors who demand untenable positions, and stop allowing lobbyists to draft legislation), and then they can point to the wildly unrestrained hard corruption of tge Trump administration.
Choose 4 of the worst Project 2025 objectives, and explain what has already been implemented and what is coming in the next 16 months.
Explain the benefits of a wealth tax, and why it will help the 90%, regardless of whether AI succeeds or melts into a burst bubble.
None of this requires white papers and 7 figure consultants. It just requires Democrats who actually want to hrlp people vs secure a 40-year career.
So f’n true! I agree with your suggestions, and I’d really lean into strengthening workers too. I’m guessing you’ve shared these thoughts with the dem leaders…I know I call and say similar things frequently. I can not comprehend that they remain unwilling to move while the bat is being swung at them. It’s maddening! It makes me wish I had a way to run to replace my house rep. Ugh!
I truly believe that if 75% of Congress was replaced with passionate voters like you:
1) the priorities of the vast majority of Americans would be reflected,
2) such leaders would fan the country, speaking to every precinct, every reasonable podcast and alternative media outlet.
Instead, Democratic leadership stick to "Meet the Press", "CNN", and "MSNBC
My personal belief is that current Dem leaders are gambling that people will sufficiently despise Trumpism that they'll vote Democrats back into office, and be content with a return to a status quo that favors the wealthy, ignores our fragmenting social safety net (and most of all, allows them to retain their megadonors).
This is a monumental miscalculation, but it explains the lackadaisical response by our "leaders".
Thanks for articulating something -- that highlights a dilemma I feel. On the one hand, I want to support the resistance to MAGA and the election of Democrats, and I have some wherewithal to do so. On the other hand, deluged with a daily dose of paper push polls, out of the blue texts, and endless junk mail driven by what I now know is pollingism, I find myself convinced that sending money to the traditional central Democratic actors is basically like pouring water into the sand... it will just be wasted (at least in part by keeping the consultants that run the endless polls well employed). I do what seems to make sense in other ways, but really: here I sit, ready to send a check, but the people I would normally send it to sound unconvincing, stale, and appear to be wasting what I send on mailing me more fat paper letters from Chuck Schumer every day.
Please look into an organization called the state project and consider sending your check there. The states project focuses on electing state legislators. Our current focus is on the legislative race is coming up in the state of Virginia. We have an opportunity to pull up a trifecta in that state. Doing so good be extremely helpful, particularly for women and women’s health in that part of the country.
Look into Oath.vote. They claim that they identify candidates and races where your contribution can have the most impact. They seem to operate somewhat outside of the standard party fundraising machine.
Excellent article! Rather than polls, I suggest that Democrats look at and take to heart the millions of signs that have appeared at rallies. People express their passionate stances in the signs they hold - they will vote based on these issues.
Every week for the past 20 weeks or so I attend a gathering at the ICE Field office. Every week the organizer asks "How many people are here for the first time?" and usually around 50 people raise their hands. Standing with immigrants is important and is a message that spreads.
Some polling records online show that the majority of Americans were against Martin Luther King Jr. and the protests in the early and mid-60s. If the politicians followed “pollingism”, the US would never have achieved such progresses in the civil rights.
THIS IS A MUST READ by ALL DEMOCRATS AND INDEPENDENT VOTERS
This IS the BEST analysis and explanation of the Democratic election strategy - please share this with everyone you know- and restack
Democrats are practicing the definition of insanity
this article explains that in detail
People say that the definition of insanity is "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results" because it highlights the irrationality of repeating a failed strategy with the hope that the outcome will somehow change without any adjustment to the method.
Anat the fact that they don’t listen to you and all the power players are STILL stuck in the Clinton years shows that they are mainly a self-perpetuating machine — jobs for them, crypto scams for the rest of us.
excellent piece -- and it articulates something that enraged me that leaders of her campaign team said soon after the election on a podcast -- that the reason why Harris spent so little time actually attacking Trump's RECORD was because, according to surveys/focus groups, "attitudes toward Trump were baked in".
Now, the reality is that all the campaign had to do was look at public polling to see that Trump's favorability rating was highly volatile -- with a spread of -19.7 points when he left office, which improved to only -5.5 points by April '22, and on Jan 3, 2024, it stood at -14.9 points. When Biden withdrew his candidacy, it was at -10.9 points, and by the time the election was held, it had improved to -7.0 points. (source https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/favorability/donald-trump)
IOW, a significant part of the electorate become more favorably disposed toward Trump during the campaign, largely because people were not being constantly reminded of how awful Trump is. And THAT explains why Harris' focus on Project 2025 fell flat -- that message only resonated with people who already assumed the worst about Trump; to the rest of the electorate, it was just campaign season rhetoric.
Thanks! Totally agree. The task was (1) here are the evils to come (2) yes they will occur (3) yes it all has to do with Trump.
The problem is a good proportion of the electorate in 2024 believed that Trump was going to be no worse than he was during his first term. I kept hearing “oh I know what to expect. I can deal with that!” They didn’t think beyond that. But you are 100% correct, Democrats need to better anticipate issues (like the impending cuts to health care) and listen to voters. Polling is dated and controlled by the pollster and in most situations not entirely accurate.
Great article. Reminds me of 2015-16 when all these polls kept showing "people are afraid of/worried about migration/the refugee crisis". So we put out a poll asking whether we should welcome people fleeing war and persecution and guess what: the vast majority agreed!
What an apt, succinct, thoughtful, well-argued piece! The discipline of rhetoric—persuasive discourse—used to comprise one-third of the curriculum in higher education and was widely referred to as "the handmaiden of democracy." In the late 20th century, a scientific (even downright positivistic) fervor took hold in our party, and left us with a very impoverished understanding of political persuasion. This made room for a vast army of consulting firms to enrich themselves on the party and, most recently, enabled crypto-corrupt charlatans like David Shor to waste IMMENSE party resources on fruitless campaigns. Pieces like this do a lot to demonstrate what we lost along the way. Thanks for sharing it!
Thanks for reading it, and calling it succinct. :) I had lots to say about this topic even as I also feel completely absurd and enraged to be talking about this when there is fascism to fight.
“What convinces masses are not facts, and not even invented facts, but only the consistency of the system of which they are presumably part.”
—Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism
Clear and persuasive argument about why Dems are missing the point. Rs are shouting fire alarm level messaging based in intentional lies and thus succeeding in moving the Overton window steadily to the right. Dems keep chasing the mythical “centrist voter” who is being moved rightward by the repeated high intensity language the Reps use to spread fear and hatred of “other” people.
Absolutely brilliant. Running a training next week on defeating the far right online, and one of the points is narrative discipline. Will definitely recommend this reading Anat! Big fan of your work here. - Hannah
Great piece. Thanks for sharing so much good thinking in one place!
Man, I hope people with influence in the DNC, DCCC and DSCC are reading Ms. Shenker-Osorio and will shake off the tyranny of pollingism in the party. It's an abject failure. Exhibit A: Trump 2.0.
There are several issues the vast majority of Americans agree upon (no polls or focus groups needed):
No more wars (especially not eith Venezuela, which no one understands)
Corruption (Democrats have to fall on the sword of their own soft corruption, repudiate donors who demand untenable positions, and stop allowing lobbyists to draft legislation), and then they can point to the wildly unrestrained hard corruption of tge Trump administration.
Choose 4 of the worst Project 2025 objectives, and explain what has already been implemented and what is coming in the next 16 months.
Explain the benefits of a wealth tax, and why it will help the 90%, regardless of whether AI succeeds or melts into a burst bubble.
None of this requires white papers and 7 figure consultants. It just requires Democrats who actually want to hrlp people vs secure a 40-year career.
So f’n true! I agree with your suggestions, and I’d really lean into strengthening workers too. I’m guessing you’ve shared these thoughts with the dem leaders…I know I call and say similar things frequently. I can not comprehend that they remain unwilling to move while the bat is being swung at them. It’s maddening! It makes me wish I had a way to run to replace my house rep. Ugh!
I truly believe that if 75% of Congress was replaced with passionate voters like you:
1) the priorities of the vast majority of Americans would be reflected,
2) such leaders would fan the country, speaking to every precinct, every reasonable podcast and alternative media outlet.
Instead, Democratic leadership stick to "Meet the Press", "CNN", and "MSNBC
My personal belief is that current Dem leaders are gambling that people will sufficiently despise Trumpism that they'll vote Democrats back into office, and be content with a return to a status quo that favors the wealthy, ignores our fragmenting social safety net (and most of all, allows them to retain their megadonors).
This is a monumental miscalculation, but it explains the lackadaisical response by our "leaders".
Thanks for articulating something -- that highlights a dilemma I feel. On the one hand, I want to support the resistance to MAGA and the election of Democrats, and I have some wherewithal to do so. On the other hand, deluged with a daily dose of paper push polls, out of the blue texts, and endless junk mail driven by what I now know is pollingism, I find myself convinced that sending money to the traditional central Democratic actors is basically like pouring water into the sand... it will just be wasted (at least in part by keeping the consultants that run the endless polls well employed). I do what seems to make sense in other ways, but really: here I sit, ready to send a check, but the people I would normally send it to sound unconvincing, stale, and appear to be wasting what I send on mailing me more fat paper letters from Chuck Schumer every day.
Please look into an organization called the state project and consider sending your check there. The states project focuses on electing state legislators. Our current focus is on the legislative race is coming up in the state of Virginia. We have an opportunity to pull up a trifecta in that state. Doing so good be extremely helpful, particularly for women and women’s health in that part of the country.
Look into Oath.vote. They claim that they identify candidates and races where your contribution can have the most impact. They seem to operate somewhat outside of the standard party fundraising machine.
Excellent article! Rather than polls, I suggest that Democrats look at and take to heart the millions of signs that have appeared at rallies. People express their passionate stances in the signs they hold - they will vote based on these issues.
Every week for the past 20 weeks or so I attend a gathering at the ICE Field office. Every week the organizer asks "How many people are here for the first time?" and usually around 50 people raise their hands. Standing with immigrants is important and is a message that spreads.
Some polling records online show that the majority of Americans were against Martin Luther King Jr. and the protests in the early and mid-60s. If the politicians followed “pollingism”, the US would never have achieved such progresses in the civil rights.
A message that could be effective on a sign at a protest at a Massachusetts ICE facility:
"The only minority destroying America is the billionaires." Though I guess that isn't true since the MAGAs are a minority destroying America.
Just came home from a Visibility Brigade in NJ7. Our job would be easier if our candidates followed your advice.
I totally agree. My latest substack , on the most recent Jon Stewert/Ken Miller interview tries to address at least a bit of this.
THIS IS A MUST READ by ALL DEMOCRATS AND INDEPENDENT VOTERS
This IS the BEST analysis and explanation of the Democratic election strategy - please share this with everyone you know- and restack
Democrats are practicing the definition of insanity
this article explains that in detail
People say that the definition of insanity is "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results" because it highlights the irrationality of repeating a failed strategy with the hope that the outcome will somehow change without any adjustment to the method.
Anat the fact that they don’t listen to you and all the power players are STILL stuck in the Clinton years shows that they are mainly a self-perpetuating machine — jobs for them, crypto scams for the rest of us.