I just realized it’s been a while since I posted part one of my manifesto, so this continues the idea of messaging, and is there anything we can learn from the left?
I listen often to Scott Adams’s podcast and one thing he is an expert on is the topic of persuasion, and I’ve mirrored a lot of his logic in this essay. If we’re going to successfully attack the agenda of the far left, we have to persuade the middle. Right wing echo chambers are far less common than those of the left, but just as treacherous. Call a bad policy out for what it is. Show and tell. Explain the policy and back it up with words from the horse’s mouth. Don’t just apply labels to it. The left assumes any government service is socialism and the right seems to assume that any left-wing policy is a sign of socialism. So to simply say that “The Democrats are turning socialist” doesn’t have any persuasive power because the person you’re talking to might have the incorrect definition, that being of social services, or simply as millennials believe, “just being social and sharing.” Let me finish with a few illustrative examples:
Example #1:
Q: Why do you oppose the economic policies of Bernie Sanders and AOC?
A: “Because they’re socialists trying to turn us into Venezuela.”
Yeah… a few problems here. First, socialist is a label as I said, and there are many people with a misconception of the word, and who assume that Venezuela’s problem is simply that of corrupt government (it is, but that doesn’t tell the whole picture.” Don’t use labels or attacking, as tempting and cathartic as that might be. Lay it out in terms that easily resonate with everyone. Let’s try that again:
Q: Why do you oppose the economic policies of Bernie Sanders and AOC?
A: Look at their speeches: They are expressing the belief that wealth itself is wrong. How would you feel if the government told you that you make too much money? What is “rich” and what is a “fair” share of taxes? Who gets to make that decision? Why do you think that simply giving more to the government is going to solve any problem (Okay this one is a bit more wordy. But follow up with what capitalism really is and point out how all of us are really capitalists in that we express consumer choice, we all seek to earn more, etc. See how this avoids labels, doesn’t attack the subject of the question, yet expresses in real, easily-relatable terms that people know, understand, and live every day.
Example #2: Critical Race Theory:
Q: What’s wrong with CRT?
A: “It’s a Marxist takeover of our education system.”
Maybe that’s true in some level, that it comes from Critical Theory which has Marxist underpinnings. But it’s not persuasive; it’s only going to come off as partisan labeling, even if the listener understands what Marxism is (most don’t). If you want to persuade the other side of the evils of CRT, this is a very bad choice of words. To educate people about certain policies we need to use more precise “kitchen table” language for things like this. So let’s try this again:
Q: What’s wrong with CRT?
A: It says that racism is hopelessly ingrained in our country, implies that your white children are complicit in racism only because of their skin color, and it openly rejects the efforts of Dr. King and the Civil Rights Movement by promoting the focus on skin color over character.
See? It’s right to the point, it says exactly what CRT is, and avoids labels and rhetoric. It’s also important, I might point out, to be ready to point out in the CRT’s own words, where these tenets are written so it can be backed up. Describe the policy simply, to the point, and be ready to demonstrate it.
One last example, this one of turning their language against them: We often get caught defending things that there is no need for us to defend. Let’s take the line, “There is no proof of widespread fraud in the 2020 election, and Donald Trump continues to tell the big lie about election fraud.” The first part of that statement is technically true but the devil’s in the details. I don’t know of anyone on the right who used the word “widespread.” 45,000 votes in three states would create a 269-269 electoral college. This amounts to 0.03% of 150 million votes cast. If you break it down to just the questionable precincts, it’s likely far less even than that. Maybe 500,000 mysterious Biden votes came in. But nothing near that number was even necessary. Fraud need not be widespread in our electoral college system. The second part about Trump’s alleged “big lie” is even easier to counter. What is a lie? It’s an intentional telling of mistruth. Incidentally, I recently went on E-Bay to order a hard-copy dictionary from 2002 as a defense against all this definition changing. If you have an old dictionary or can get a free one from a library that’s throwing theirs out, it’s GOLD! But I digress… Whether Donald Trump is right or wrong is irrelevant, it’s his opinion and an opinion cannot by definition be a lie. P.S., when someone accuses me of being a “climate denier” for not believing in catastrophic global warming, I calmly reply that they mistake me. I will stipulate once and for all that we, on planet Earth, are in fact in possession of a climate – a changing one nonetheless.
While facts are important, if they alone won elections, the Libertarian Party would have elected three Presidents by now. The messaging game needs to be simplified. Avoid labels, both on our side (i.e. “RINO”) and avoid labeling the other side’s policies, because it’s too easy to get into the “that’s not what I really mean” defense.
Bottom line: We need to learn to use messaging against them and don’t get caught up in labeling, because that’s too easily countered with the “that’s not what we mean” argument. Yes I know you’re not accusing me of literally denying the existence of science, but, well, your side is always saying words matter, right? So you use such inflammatory language for a reason, eh? The MAGA crowd is not enough to win an election by itself, or at least not enough for a cheat-proof majority. I continue to hammer this, but there is a gaping hole in the middle 60-70% of the political spectrum who are not committed conservatives but are ready to abandon the Democrats. I say we go after them as aggressively as possible. They want solutions to their problems and don’t want to hear about how evil the left is. They want to know what the problem is and what we’re going to do about that.
One reply on “A Manifesto for Republicans and Conservatives Going Forward – Part 2”
CRT assumes that any infant born today comes already loaded with a pre-packaged set of grievances against other infants born the same day. Moreover, while it claims that such sins are built-in and cannot be overcome, it nonetheless demands that such an infant spend its entire existence trying.
Finally, the basis of such grievances are simply… race. Nothing else. White people are irredeemably evil because they are white. Racist bigotry, by definition.
To accept it is like paying top dollar for the latest smartphone… even when you know it is loaded down with bloatware and malware that you cannot remove.