"For right now, if a total stranger asked me to sum up this week, I’d say something like this:
"'There’s a guy named Daniel Rodriguez. On January 5th, 2020, he texted his friends ‘There will be blood.’ On January 6th, when he stormed the Capitol, he grabbed a police officer and shocked him repeatedly in the neck with a stun gun. A jury of peers sentenced him to twelve years in prison for his violent crime. And less than 24 hours after taking office, Trump let Daniel Rodriguez back out on the street.'
"I could say more, of course. But that’s the most important thing: a story about one person, who isn’t Donald Trump – and one action Trump took which just about everyone can agree makes us less safe."
BRILLIANT!!! Thank you for this advice!! I really need it.
And that police officer has now been told by the Trump DoJ that since there was no crime, he was no longer a victim. The man suffered traumatic brain injury and a heart attack. His elderly mother has had a bag of feces thrown at her as she worked in her yard & a brick thrown at her house in the middle of the night. *They* are being called traitors. This is outrageous and unamerican! We need to be ANGRY about what that monster and his thugs are doing and funnel that into action. At very least we should be pressuring our respective representatives to act like an opposition or step aside.
I nearly cried watching his mother trying to hold back tears. Heinous barely covers these actions and the man who not only perpetrates them but encourages others to do so. Roget ran out of fitting words for this guy and his ilk long ago.
Too little, too late. As soon as FOTUS gives police total immunity for their actions (just adding to his private militia), they’ll be back singing his praises.
We've seen this plenty of times, used by the other side. Remember the "welfare queen" and Willie Horton?
As I learned from Heather Cox Richardson, the right-wing playbook of telling stories instead of presenting the facts dates back to at least W. F. Buckley Jr.'s book, "God and Man at Yale," in which he argued that, since people who knew the facts voted the "wrong" way, the way to bring them into the fold was to ignore the facts and push a narrative. That's been their main and most effective tactic ever since.
So now, why don't *we* tell some stories - which are also supported by facts!
This would include large signs around plants that were opened during the Biden Administration's investment in red states.
"This solar panel plant provides good-paying jobs to [number] members of our community, and increases our energy independence. [no need to mention climate change] Your Representative voted against it, and now your President wants to close it! They're not working for you!"
"W. F. Buckley Jr.... argued that, since people who knew the facts voted the 'wrong' way, the way to bring them into the fold was to ignore the facts and push a narrative." You are saying that we should do the opposite? Push a narrative AND include the facts? P.S. My Dad went to Yale as a scholarship student. He always heartily detested Buckley. Dads waited tables in the cafeteria to make money. He said that whenever he went to clear Buckley's (& fellow rich creeps) table, Buckley would sneer and say, "I don't understand why they let that class of people into our university." Do you remember how he used to flick lizard tongue? Super, super creepy.
It would be useful if a compilation of these short stories could be assembled and published where there would be ready access. Even with the pardons, there are probably thirty or forty that could be chronicled that demonstrate a truly dangerous person being let loose on society or, in one instance that has gotten a little publicity, on a son who turned in a father and now fears for his life.
Thanks for some great perspective and advice. I really needed that. However I have a bone to pick with the kind author regarding the statement of folks wanting to see things getting done. What more could Biden have gotten done during his term? I'd wager a lot of money he got more done than any other president possibly could have.
If the author is watching the comments could you explain to me how Biden didn't get anything done?
I think Biden got a ton of stuff done! He also prevented a lot of bad stuff, for which he deserves credit. I think that - particularly in the final two years of his presidency - he wasn’t able to seem effective to voters less tuned into politics, which is different than being effective. And structural forces hamstring Dems and make it hard for them to do stuff. (I wrote about this in more detail on my newsletter last week if you’re interested.)
Biden got a lot of things done but Trump still dominated the news almost every day with whatever outrageous thing he was doing, court cases, bible flogging etc. He stole the narrative as they say.
Debra Booth: Yes--some of the press said they had been following all the shiny stories which they knew were really red herrings, . . . vowed to not do that, and then kept doing it. But I know people right now who have no idea what's going on and did not vote--staring at their phones and taking walks. We can blame lots of people and reasons, but "the people" have not thought it necessary to step up to the plate--and that's both a cultural and an educational problem.
But in the short run, call or write your Congressperson, especially if you are GOP, and ask them if they are being either bribed or intimidated out of doing what is right for their constituents -- you and me and probably everyone who is not a billionaire or a theo-fascist. . . . as we speak.
I agree totally—the press wasn’t doing their job but I also think the Biden team were not out there enough. They needed to step it up and they didn’t — this was a new battle and they didn’t adjust enough.
Since he’s been around in politics, media attention has always focused on him because of the crazy things he says. He’s like a child looking for attention, it would have been much better not to put always is name on the front page. But media and late shows have gained attention and money and this is where we are now. I wrote several times in the past years to the NewYork Times and to other publications of the dangers in doing so. Free publicity to a deranged narcissist who’s playing with the whole world wasn’t the right thing to do.
I agree with you. We heard more of what Trump was doing/saying than what Biden was doing. Why is that? Everyday there were stories out there about Trump and his shenanigans. It was hard to find out what President Biden was doing in the Oval Office. His accomplishments were reported far less than Trump’s ravings and antics. Also, I’m still not entirely convinced that Trump won the election and his crosiers didn’t alter voting results in some States.
I read a quote from him something along the lines of “I did a lot of policy things but not a lot of politics”. I’d say that’s right. He isn’t a showman and Americans want to be entertained. It’s a shame.
Make that 'some' Americans want to be entertained, and have they brought a circus to town to do it. The rest of us are happy to see performance without noise and fireworks.
President Joe Biden is a reflective person, a wise doer who prepares carefully, and once he has completed an accomplishment, he is modest about it, feeling good about it yet knowing it is impolite to brag. Other people needed to hold and to focus more of interviews with him and promoting his accomplishments, the problem each one solved, and the realm of positive outcomes because of his work. I expect that if many of the people, who think he did nothing, were to examine the favorable facts in those ways and more, their perspectives would have been more positive about President Biden all along. Our election results would have been quite different.
Biden’s administration achieved a LOT! MAGA Republicans are not the only “low information” citizens. The mainstream media did and still does highlight events that make the loudest, most vivid splash. The rest of the news is out there, but it should be easier to find! WE have to be vigilant and consistent in finding out what is happening and SHARE it. I really appreciate the SubStack journalists who are emphasizing the absolute necessity of ALL of us doing something in our own spheres of influence. It’s the way to stand up against water from this administration’s firehose. AND all of us need to seek all possible information about events, statements, and decisions at all levels of government! It’s inexcusable for anyone to be a low-information citizen, no matter the political party.
And we know why now, right? He was hidden because he looked and sounded frail, was in no state to sell a message. Maybe he could've used his VP more effectively.
Your point is well taken. Biden did get a lot of needed legislation passed and projects underway. What he did NOT do is make most people like him. Had he told clear, short stories with a point, he would have reached a lot more people, in my view.
It was his failure to communicate. None wanted to hear from Karine Jeanpierre, sadly.
As much as joes speech issues harm him, and a hostile press wanted to mock his age, I think that might have backfired. Instead Biden's crew hid and protected him. And he shouldn't have tried to run again, if that's the way his staff felt. He would be miles above the orange cocksplat even in a wheelchair with a stroke, but if the staff was so concerned about how he presented, he should have bowed out last December.
I agree. Biden was so busy getting things done he didn't have time to advertise, and the newspapers didn't report accomplishments that should have been front-page news on the front page. I generally found them on the back. We have to work on this, but people also have to pay attention and wake up. Biden won by a majority of votes, but the amount of time that could have been spent reporting on his policies rather than either the bluster and blather of TRUMP/MAGA or comments about Biden's age was lost in the shuffle. I never understood why.
Really useful article. I hope you will keep writing and sharing examples that the rest of us can use and build upon. What galls me most when speaking with Trump voters is when you offer such an example and they try to hand-wave it away. I never let them. I stay on the topic, asking direct black and white questions and refuse to move on in the conversation until they answer. If they won't answer in any honest or meaningful way, I disengage from the conversation. This is my way of holding people accountable for the consequences of their vote. I am done giving grace to people who put a felonious, incompetent wrecking ball in the White House.
I like your spirit, but I avoid arguing at length. I just state my view as clearly as possible and move on. In this way I hope to get things across without making others' hackles stand up. No one listens when they're defending their turf.
Don't waste your time on people that have been convinced reality is not what they see & hear, but what Trump & his media mouthpieces say. In this environment they are not movable. Focus on ways to move people that might make a difference.
Make no mistake about it, Trump just set in motion his Reichstag Fire strategy for American facism at the southern border. He wants the US military, under his and DefSec Hegseth direction aurthorized to use lethal force in the US, against US citizens who oppose his agenda. Then he can then declare marshall law, suspend Congress and do as he likes to "save" (destroy) America. this is bascially what he has been messaging to his MAGA base for 4 years.
This is scary and quite possibly true. But remember the Resistance in Vichy France and other countries where fascism took over. People just kept communicating with one another, and kept it up for however long it took to undermine the regime until it crumbled all at once. I think of myself as a small creatures just gnawing and gnawing away, soon to be joined by millions of others...
David, what you say is so true, and also very helpful. To build on what at least one other person suggested, is there a way to put together some kind of running "knowledge base" of these stories in some easily accessible place? Bonus points if it could be categorized based on which topic/circle of hell each story relates to (e.g., J6, immigration, environment, women's health, etc.). The easier it can be to find these nuggets, the more likely we will all be able to use them and get them out there. You know, start a whole bunch of our own firehoses.
This would have the added advantage of repetition of the same truths over and over and being shared on lots of social media platforms to counter at least some of the disinformation out there. Especially as people become disenchanted as things go south/start to affect them personally.
I would add one pertinent fact to your example of focusing on "one thing" at a time in order to defeat Trump and deflate his message. When you write, "There’s a guy named Daniel Rodriguez. On January 5th, 2020, he texted his friends ‘There will be blood.’ On January 6th, when he stormed the Capitol, he grabbed a police officer and shocked him repeatedly in the neck with a stun gun. A jury of peers sentenced him to twelve years in prison for his violent crime. And less than 24 hours after taking office, Trump let Daniel Rodriguez back out on the street.” I would add, "and as a result of being shocked repeatedly in the neck with a stun gun that young Capitol Hill police officer suffered a heart attack". We must continually emphasize the harmful consequences to our fellow human beings victimized by Trumpian atrocities.
I believe trump won 49.8 percent of the popular vote and yet you write in your piece that "Like it or not (I don’t like it) Donald Trump won the popular vote." So more people voted for someone else than for him. Be precise please and stop perpetuating the idea that he "won the popular vote." He won the electoral vote which we all know allows candidates to win without a majority of Americans supporting them.
Saying that he won the popular vote just means he had more votes than any other individual candidate. If those who voted for a candidate other than the Harris or Trump would have voted for Kamala Harris (not to mention those who did not vote at all) we would not be in this situation. The fact is he had the most votes overall as well as the electoral college votes.
Appreciate that great detailed insight. I got a call from an employee of a very important cancer research organization that is deciding how to proceed after all grant applications were stopped. Lots of dialogue opportunities there. Then there’s CDC going dark during a bird flu epidemic, which will spike those egg prices even if you don’t think the CDC is on the level.
Excellent advice. When I taught high school English, I often talked about using the "representative specific" to make your point more memorable. That's what your example of Daniel Rodriguez is.
This is NOT the same as saying one what one representative says or does applies to a whole group. That's like saying "one BLM protestor threw a rock, so the protests were really riots." Or "one J6r just walked through the Capitol and looked and so J6 were just a bunch of tourists." Bravo to the one who refused a pardon because she knew damn well that she was wrong to be there (in the first place) and it would be wrong to whitewash the whole thing.
It means pulling out one example that actually supports your point without claiming anything about the example OTHER THAN it supports your point. Certainly not that it supports overgeneralization--if your point is overgeneralization then you are plumb in the middle of a thought error. I see this overgeneralizing a whole LOT in the arguments about support for Palestinians. One tenured law school professor is actually in danger of being FIRED because she dared to say that "some" Jewish students harassed those supporting Palestinians. SHE would have been better off had she given a representative specific--one instance where someone DID do that harassing.
What works in a freshman English essay can work for everything we do.
Recently a post has been going around with a long list of things about how "we will not cooperate with the Republicans. Things like "•I will not "work together" to privatize Medicare, cut Social Security and Medicaid." My response is that this puts the fight in the GOPs terms. What we need to say is "I WILL work together to be sure Social Security is adequately funded for the millions who paid into in and earned their benefits."
Say what you WILL do, not what you won't. Make resistance a positive force.
YES! YES! YES! Short, clear, relatable stories are EXACTLY what the Democratic Party for several decades did NOT do. And this is absolutely how to reach people, in my experience. And, people remember a story.
I have been arguing forEVER that the Dems suck at creating a narrative. A lot of studies have shown that we remember facts far better when they are part of a story, not just a bare fact.
I've been thinking a lot about the "silence is complicity" idea and I think it is being viewed too literally. When we invaded Iraq in a week and were declaring mission accomplished, it was easy to assume the Iraqis were silently complying with our invasion. They weren't, and our military heard from them almost daily. Not through vocal protests, but through violence. That violence is called an insurgency, and it has proven incredibly effective over time at getting rid of invaders.
I'm not suggesting we use violence as our voice here. I am suggesting we have been invaded though. Our invaders did not use violence to take over, they used propaganda and financial leverage. The political insurgency should undermine our invaders in ways that irritate them, enrage them, and make them regret invading in the first place.
All of this will require being silent, or at least invisible. But that certainly will not equal complicity.
Also, focus on the words you use. Don't say trump is repealing the Infratstructure Act. Say trump is canceling road and bridge repairs (add "in red states" if you want). Don't say: trump is lowering taxes on billionaires. Say: trump is taking away the child tax credit. Etc.
"For right now, if a total stranger asked me to sum up this week, I’d say something like this:
"'There’s a guy named Daniel Rodriguez. On January 5th, 2020, he texted his friends ‘There will be blood.’ On January 6th, when he stormed the Capitol, he grabbed a police officer and shocked him repeatedly in the neck with a stun gun. A jury of peers sentenced him to twelve years in prison for his violent crime. And less than 24 hours after taking office, Trump let Daniel Rodriguez back out on the street.'
"I could say more, of course. But that’s the most important thing: a story about one person, who isn’t Donald Trump – and one action Trump took which just about everyone can agree makes us less safe."
BRILLIANT!!! Thank you for this advice!! I really need it.
And that police officer has now been told by the Trump DoJ that since there was no crime, he was no longer a victim. The man suffered traumatic brain injury and a heart attack. His elderly mother has had a bag of feces thrown at her as she worked in her yard & a brick thrown at her house in the middle of the night. *They* are being called traitors. This is outrageous and unamerican! We need to be ANGRY about what that monster and his thugs are doing and funnel that into action. At very least we should be pressuring our respective representatives to act like an opposition or step aside.
I nearly cried watching his mother trying to hold back tears. Heinous barely covers these actions and the man who not only perpetrates them but encourages others to do so. Roget ran out of fitting words for this guy and his ilk long ago.
And all for the crime of having just existed as a police officer in a specific place at a certain time, and done his job.
Apparently at least some of the police unions that endorsed that guy are showing some buyer's remorse.
God I hope so. We need more buyers remorse.
Too little, too late. As soon as FOTUS gives police total immunity for their actions (just adding to his private militia), they’ll be back singing his praises.
We've seen this plenty of times, used by the other side. Remember the "welfare queen" and Willie Horton?
As I learned from Heather Cox Richardson, the right-wing playbook of telling stories instead of presenting the facts dates back to at least W. F. Buckley Jr.'s book, "God and Man at Yale," in which he argued that, since people who knew the facts voted the "wrong" way, the way to bring them into the fold was to ignore the facts and push a narrative. That's been their main and most effective tactic ever since.
So now, why don't *we* tell some stories - which are also supported by facts!
This would include large signs around plants that were opened during the Biden Administration's investment in red states.
"This solar panel plant provides good-paying jobs to [number] members of our community, and increases our energy independence. [no need to mention climate change] Your Representative voted against it, and now your President wants to close it! They're not working for you!"
"W. F. Buckley Jr.... argued that, since people who knew the facts voted the 'wrong' way, the way to bring them into the fold was to ignore the facts and push a narrative." You are saying that we should do the opposite? Push a narrative AND include the facts? P.S. My Dad went to Yale as a scholarship student. He always heartily detested Buckley. Dads waited tables in the cafeteria to make money. He said that whenever he went to clear Buckley's (& fellow rich creeps) table, Buckley would sneer and say, "I don't understand why they let that class of people into our university." Do you remember how he used to flick lizard tongue? Super, super creepy.
Agree. Absolutely brilliant. That’s why I am here to comment too.
I agree the advice is brilliant.
It would be useful if a compilation of these short stories could be assembled and published where there would be ready access. Even with the pardons, there are probably thirty or forty that could be chronicled that demonstrate a truly dangerous person being let loose on society or, in one instance that has gotten a little publicity, on a son who turned in a father and now fears for his life.
Good idea! We all should also probably research and have ready several of our own.
Good idea. I'm not good at talking extemporaneously. Having stories written down would be a great help.
Thanks for some great perspective and advice. I really needed that. However I have a bone to pick with the kind author regarding the statement of folks wanting to see things getting done. What more could Biden have gotten done during his term? I'd wager a lot of money he got more done than any other president possibly could have.
If the author is watching the comments could you explain to me how Biden didn't get anything done?
I think Biden got a ton of stuff done! He also prevented a lot of bad stuff, for which he deserves credit. I think that - particularly in the final two years of his presidency - he wasn’t able to seem effective to voters less tuned into politics, which is different than being effective. And structural forces hamstring Dems and make it hard for them to do stuff. (I wrote about this in more detail on my newsletter last week if you’re interested.)
Biden got a lot of things done but Trump still dominated the news almost every day with whatever outrageous thing he was doing, court cases, bible flogging etc. He stole the narrative as they say.
This perspective is great and a way in.
He stole the narrative because the corporate media let him. It was sickening.
Debra Booth: Yes--some of the press said they had been following all the shiny stories which they knew were really red herrings, . . . vowed to not do that, and then kept doing it. But I know people right now who have no idea what's going on and did not vote--staring at their phones and taking walks. We can blame lots of people and reasons, but "the people" have not thought it necessary to step up to the plate--and that's both a cultural and an educational problem.
But in the short run, call or write your Congressperson, especially if you are GOP, and ask them if they are being either bribed or intimidated out of doing what is right for their constituents -- you and me and probably everyone who is not a billionaire or a theo-fascist. . . . as we speak.
The jackal press saw fit to give Teump airtime.
And they're still doing it. Even NPR played a clip of him whining without saying anything of importance. I had to change the station.
I agree totally—the press wasn’t doing their job but I also think the Biden team were not out there enough. They needed to step it up and they didn’t — this was a new battle and they didn’t adjust enough.
Bingo!
Since he’s been around in politics, media attention has always focused on him because of the crazy things he says. He’s like a child looking for attention, it would have been much better not to put always is name on the front page. But media and late shows have gained attention and money and this is where we are now. I wrote several times in the past years to the NewYork Times and to other publications of the dangers in doing so. Free publicity to a deranged narcissist who’s playing with the whole world wasn’t the right thing to do.
I agree with you. We heard more of what Trump was doing/saying than what Biden was doing. Why is that? Everyday there were stories out there about Trump and his shenanigans. It was hard to find out what President Biden was doing in the Oval Office. His accomplishments were reported far less than Trump’s ravings and antics. Also, I’m still not entirely convinced that Trump won the election and his crosiers didn’t alter voting results in some States.
Biden got a lot done but he did it quietly. However, many people didn't notice what he was doing. He just did not grab the media's attention.
I read a quote from him something along the lines of “I did a lot of policy things but not a lot of politics”. I’d say that’s right. He isn’t a showman and Americans want to be entertained. It’s a shame.
Make that 'some' Americans want to be entertained, and have they brought a circus to town to do it. The rest of us are happy to see performance without noise and fireworks.
Totally agree. A lot of people do not have the time or inclination to find out what is really going on.
It's also extremely shallow and dangerous.
President Joe Biden is a reflective person, a wise doer who prepares carefully, and once he has completed an accomplishment, he is modest about it, feeling good about it yet knowing it is impolite to brag. Other people needed to hold and to focus more of interviews with him and promoting his accomplishments, the problem each one solved, and the realm of positive outcomes because of his work. I expect that if many of the people, who think he did nothing, were to examine the favorable facts in those ways and more, their perspectives would have been more positive about President Biden all along. Our election results would have been quite different.
Maybe Trump's undoing of Biden's achievements will finally bring attention to them.
And the orange sadist did, and made fortunes for the corporate media -- damn them.
Biden’s administration achieved a LOT! MAGA Republicans are not the only “low information” citizens. The mainstream media did and still does highlight events that make the loudest, most vivid splash. The rest of the news is out there, but it should be easier to find! WE have to be vigilant and consistent in finding out what is happening and SHARE it. I really appreciate the SubStack journalists who are emphasizing the absolute necessity of ALL of us doing something in our own spheres of influence. It’s the way to stand up against water from this administration’s firehose. AND all of us need to seek all possible information about events, statements, and decisions at all levels of government! It’s inexcusable for anyone to be a low-information citizen, no matter the political party.
And we know why now, right? He was hidden because he looked and sounded frail, was in no state to sell a message. Maybe he could've used his VP more effectively.
Your point is well taken. Biden did get a lot of needed legislation passed and projects underway. What he did NOT do is make most people like him. Had he told clear, short stories with a point, he would have reached a lot more people, in my view.
It was his failure to communicate. None wanted to hear from Karine Jeanpierre, sadly.
As much as joes speech issues harm him, and a hostile press wanted to mock his age, I think that might have backfired. Instead Biden's crew hid and protected him. And he shouldn't have tried to run again, if that's the way his staff felt. He would be miles above the orange cocksplat even in a wheelchair with a stroke, but if the staff was so concerned about how he presented, he should have bowed out last December.
I agree with you completely. He promised to be an "interim president". He broke his promise.
I agree. Biden was so busy getting things done he didn't have time to advertise, and the newspapers didn't report accomplishments that should have been front-page news on the front page. I generally found them on the back. We have to work on this, but people also have to pay attention and wake up. Biden won by a majority of votes, but the amount of time that could have been spent reporting on his policies rather than either the bluster and blather of TRUMP/MAGA or comments about Biden's age was lost in the shuffle. I never understood why.
Really useful article. I hope you will keep writing and sharing examples that the rest of us can use and build upon. What galls me most when speaking with Trump voters is when you offer such an example and they try to hand-wave it away. I never let them. I stay on the topic, asking direct black and white questions and refuse to move on in the conversation until they answer. If they won't answer in any honest or meaningful way, I disengage from the conversation. This is my way of holding people accountable for the consequences of their vote. I am done giving grace to people who put a felonious, incompetent wrecking ball in the White House.
I like your spirit, but I avoid arguing at length. I just state my view as clearly as possible and move on. In this way I hope to get things across without making others' hackles stand up. No one listens when they're defending their turf.
I have no time to waste on hate-filled willfully ignorant people.
A short anecdote, say about a J6er or a citizen misidentified as an immigrant, added to your view cannot hurt.
Don't waste your time on people that have been convinced reality is not what they see & hear, but what Trump & his media mouthpieces say. In this environment they are not movable. Focus on ways to move people that might make a difference.
Make no mistake about it, Trump just set in motion his Reichstag Fire strategy for American facism at the southern border. He wants the US military, under his and DefSec Hegseth direction aurthorized to use lethal force in the US, against US citizens who oppose his agenda. Then he can then declare marshall law, suspend Congress and do as he likes to "save" (destroy) America. this is bascially what he has been messaging to his MAGA base for 4 years.
This is scary and quite possibly true. But remember the Resistance in Vichy France and other countries where fascism took over. People just kept communicating with one another, and kept it up for however long it took to undermine the regime until it crumbled all at once. I think of myself as a small creatures just gnawing and gnawing away, soon to be joined by millions of others...
👍👍
That is true but a lot of people were killed in the mean time both in battle, camps & just trying to get by in an autocratic state.
This may tie in with Trump eliminating the Pentagon office charged with preventing civilian death.
Exactly. Someone around POTUS has a forward thinking strategy.
David, what you say is so true, and also very helpful. To build on what at least one other person suggested, is there a way to put together some kind of running "knowledge base" of these stories in some easily accessible place? Bonus points if it could be categorized based on which topic/circle of hell each story relates to (e.g., J6, immigration, environment, women's health, etc.). The easier it can be to find these nuggets, the more likely we will all be able to use them and get them out there. You know, start a whole bunch of our own firehoses.
This would have the added advantage of repetition of the same truths over and over and being shared on lots of social media platforms to counter at least some of the disinformation out there. Especially as people become disenchanted as things go south/start to affect them personally.
I would add one pertinent fact to your example of focusing on "one thing" at a time in order to defeat Trump and deflate his message. When you write, "There’s a guy named Daniel Rodriguez. On January 5th, 2020, he texted his friends ‘There will be blood.’ On January 6th, when he stormed the Capitol, he grabbed a police officer and shocked him repeatedly in the neck with a stun gun. A jury of peers sentenced him to twelve years in prison for his violent crime. And less than 24 hours after taking office, Trump let Daniel Rodriguez back out on the street.” I would add, "and as a result of being shocked repeatedly in the neck with a stun gun that young Capitol Hill police officer suffered a heart attack". We must continually emphasize the harmful consequences to our fellow human beings victimized by Trumpian atrocities.
The message I get is: "Concentrate on the message, not the messenger." I can see that would be helpful when talking with Trump voters. Good idea.
I believe trump won 49.8 percent of the popular vote and yet you write in your piece that "Like it or not (I don’t like it) Donald Trump won the popular vote." So more people voted for someone else than for him. Be precise please and stop perpetuating the idea that he "won the popular vote." He won the electoral vote which we all know allows candidates to win without a majority of Americans supporting them.
Saying that he won the popular vote just means he had more votes than any other individual candidate. If those who voted for a candidate other than the Harris or Trump would have voted for Kamala Harris (not to mention those who did not vote at all) we would not be in this situation. The fact is he had the most votes overall as well as the electoral college votes.
Appreciate that great detailed insight. I got a call from an employee of a very important cancer research organization that is deciding how to proceed after all grant applications were stopped. Lots of dialogue opportunities there. Then there’s CDC going dark during a bird flu epidemic, which will spike those egg prices even if you don’t think the CDC is on the level.
Yeah, Sharon and fyi I just read that pet cats and possibly dogs are showing positive for this potential pandemic.
MSNBC covered that yesterday, or at least late last night. I shared it out of concern but the source was not believed.
Totally agree. It’s time to “Willie Horton” these people.
It shouldn't be hard with the likes of some of those Proud Boy types in the news. On a gut level they're repulsive.
Exactly what I was thinking too.
Excellent advice. When I taught high school English, I often talked about using the "representative specific" to make your point more memorable. That's what your example of Daniel Rodriguez is.
This is NOT the same as saying one what one representative says or does applies to a whole group. That's like saying "one BLM protestor threw a rock, so the protests were really riots." Or "one J6r just walked through the Capitol and looked and so J6 were just a bunch of tourists." Bravo to the one who refused a pardon because she knew damn well that she was wrong to be there (in the first place) and it would be wrong to whitewash the whole thing.
It means pulling out one example that actually supports your point without claiming anything about the example OTHER THAN it supports your point. Certainly not that it supports overgeneralization--if your point is overgeneralization then you are plumb in the middle of a thought error. I see this overgeneralizing a whole LOT in the arguments about support for Palestinians. One tenured law school professor is actually in danger of being FIRED because she dared to say that "some" Jewish students harassed those supporting Palestinians. SHE would have been better off had she given a representative specific--one instance where someone DID do that harassing.
What works in a freshman English essay can work for everything we do.
Recently a post has been going around with a long list of things about how "we will not cooperate with the Republicans. Things like "•I will not "work together" to privatize Medicare, cut Social Security and Medicaid." My response is that this puts the fight in the GOPs terms. What we need to say is "I WILL work together to be sure Social Security is adequately funded for the millions who paid into in and earned their benefits."
Say what you WILL do, not what you won't. Make resistance a positive force.
Thank you for helping me refocus my energy on small stories that have a bigger impact.
YES! YES! YES! Short, clear, relatable stories are EXACTLY what the Democratic Party for several decades did NOT do. And this is absolutely how to reach people, in my experience. And, people remember a story.
I have been arguing forEVER that the Dems suck at creating a narrative. A lot of studies have shown that we remember facts far better when they are part of a story, not just a bare fact.
Yes, seems that way to me too.
Thanks! :-)
I've been thinking a lot about the "silence is complicity" idea and I think it is being viewed too literally. When we invaded Iraq in a week and were declaring mission accomplished, it was easy to assume the Iraqis were silently complying with our invasion. They weren't, and our military heard from them almost daily. Not through vocal protests, but through violence. That violence is called an insurgency, and it has proven incredibly effective over time at getting rid of invaders.
I'm not suggesting we use violence as our voice here. I am suggesting we have been invaded though. Our invaders did not use violence to take over, they used propaganda and financial leverage. The political insurgency should undermine our invaders in ways that irritate them, enrage them, and make them regret invading in the first place.
All of this will require being silent, or at least invisible. But that certainly will not equal complicity.
Also, focus on the words you use. Don't say trump is repealing the Infratstructure Act. Say trump is canceling road and bridge repairs (add "in red states" if you want). Don't say: trump is lowering taxes on billionaires. Say: trump is taking away the child tax credit. Etc.