Once again?—?IT DOES NOT MATTER IF WE ARE NONVIOLENT. Focusing on that, rather than on what we want our message to be in moral and values terms, is entirely counter productive. The fascists are going to cut to footage from another country, and claim we are violent, regardless of our actual behavior. It should go without saying, that of course, we should protect ourselves, and not start shit. Don’t be the one. But you have you know, ultimately, it doesn’t matter how peaceful we are?—?they don’t want peace. They ARE going to start violence. ICE is already violent?—?it’s already started. They ARE ALREADY claiming WE are violent, despite all the evidence to the contrary. Our behavior does not factor in to their plans.
This meme does kind of sort of, in an extremely weak way, get around to something like a message?—?but it’s a counter message, stated at the end, when it’s already too late to frame anything. A proactive statement— would be “Constitution or bust”?—?a better phrase, which the weak as shit Democrats would caution against might be New Hampshire’s state motto, “Live Free or Die”?—?the lawyers?—?100% of the Democratic Party, and 90% of the problem?—?would probably caution against using language like that, basically, the reason we’ve already lost.
I can think of a few other slogans:
Trump, go fuck yourself
Republicans are Fascists, and so are (centrist) Democrats
The problem is, this is all so reactive. They have a simple, describable plan to fix the problems real people are feeling. Their plan is abhorrent, but they have one. We have a reaction against their plan, and little else. The right wing has already rigged all 3 branches of government. They have already grabbed power?—?they aren’t grabbing power, it’s done. The “not right wing” (that’s everyone else, all dozen other sides, generally arranged in a circular firing squad) has no social contract on offer, so it’s hard to even come up with slogans to promote whatever the fuck we want.
We end up just defending the status quo, like shutting down the entire government to defend a Medical Insurance subsidies?—?read that again. It’s literally what Democrats are defending. You can’t make this level of utter incompetence.
The status quo is broken. It’s not breaking down?—?it has already broken down. Until someone other than the right-wing has a social contract to offer?—?which yes, includes a defined model of authority, and defined set of rules for civil order?—?then we literally just lose by default. But whatever, keep singing Kumbaya in the street. That’ll work.
Your Behavior Doesn’t Matter. The Republican Right Wing will Escalate Anyway.
This photo is from 2017?—?Can you tell? Alex Radelich
I keep hearing the dumbest take from the “not-right-wing” imaginable. They keep saying stuff like, “Don’t get violent, cause they’ll use it against us,” or “Don’t show up in black, cause it’ll look like the armed resistance they need.” “Don’t give them what they need.” Truly stupid crap like that.
Of course we should not start any violence?—?absolutely that’s true, and it almost goes without saying. But the rest?—?why is it stupid? It literally could not matter less what you do, or how you look, or what you say. It’s the “because”?—?the expressed consequence of bad behavior. No. It does not matter if you behave “badly” or wear the wrong color or style of clothes, but numbers do matter. Stop dis-inviting people because they wear the wrong clothes. Understand what is happening.
The Right Wing has an entire media ecosystem, a messaging strategy, and an echo chamber, and nowhere in any of that is there a concern for reality. They will simply say you did something, they will say you said something, they will say you looked a certain way, or that you dressed funny, and then repeat it over and over again. They’ll show stock footage of unrelated events from foreign countries, or from 20 years ago. They’ll use AI to fake the footage they want. YOUR BEHAVIOR CANNOT IMPACT THEIR DECISIONS.
You have to understand the game. Understand the media landscape. Understand social media algorithms. Understand how the messaging works to persuade and mislead. This is the dumbest take I keep hearing from the “not-right-wing.” It’s pervasive, reinforcing ignorance. It’s a doubling down on willful weakness.
Your behavior cannot impact Republican decisions here. It could not matter less how peaceful your protests are, they are going to claim it isn’t anyway. Fox News, and Breitbart, and the 200 other right-wing media talking point factories they call “think tanks” they’ve built up over the last 50 years, are going to claim it’s an insurrection regardless of the truth. The truth does. Not. Matter. Not to them. Facts don’t matter. Your civil behavior?—?DOES NOT MATTER.
I hope you are ready, because they are going to escalate, not matter what we do. Don’t wear black? Get serious. It simply, does not matter.
The way to fight back is broader than reactive-protesting. Have a strategy, mindfully promote an alternative point of view?—?win the persuasive arguments, don’t just react to whatever hateful crap the Right Wing is doing. Yes, we are hopelessly behind in building a media landscape to match a vast right wing media machine, but there are paths forward. Start a youtube channel, write on Medium, start a sub-stack, all of that?—?build on strategy, not just reactive tactics. It starts from understanding the game.
It’s not just tone-deaf communication?—?Democrats have a structural dependence on our opposition’s discourse machinery. We’re operating inside a Republican semantic field?—?the mental map their media ecosystem built?—?and we don’t even notice the walls. We chase the data led by Republicans, and pat each other on the back over it. It’s not just that we are the nerds who love to cite data points. It’s that we don’t bother to understand how that data is filtered and skewed by the worldview promoted by our opposition. It’s that we don’t do the work to sell our own better worldview. So we are constantly losing ground.
Think about how that works in practice?—?Democrats, rather than building our own frames, invoked by our own language, poll-test Republican key phrases which invoke a Republican worldview, to find safe linguistic footholds within that worldview.It’s the weak behavior of the bullied.
It’s not rational politics?—?it’s reactive branding. Democrats aren’t even attempting to take ground in the war the Right is waging; we’re running focus groups in enemy territory.
The Fatal Mistake: Thinking “Big Tent” Means “No Values”
The Democratic “big tent” ideal isn’t some empty kumbaya about letting everyone in. It’s a values-based worldview?—?openness, fairness, pluralism?—?but party leaders keep acting like those aren’t real political weapons. They treat values as window dressing instead of the foundation of persuasion.
When DNC chair Ken Martin told Jon Stewart that Republicans have “an easier time” because they’re “more consistent ideologically,” he revealed his ignorance.
Conservatives have little in common in libertarians. Republicans aren’t more consistent than Democrats.They’re more strategic. They know the war they’re waging?—?and it isn’t policy trivia.
The Right’s Strategy Is So Simple It Hurts
Republicans don’t sell policy.They sell a worldview?—?a moral frame through which every policy they want becomes obvious. They change the culture first, then the votes follow.
They don’t start with “How do we win this election?” They begin with, “How do we make people see the world our way?” Then, everything else falls into place.
For fifty years, they’ve invested in media, think tanks, megachurches, and campus organizations?—?institutions built to propagate values, not just win news cycles.
And it worked. It keeps working.
The Democrats’ Delusion: Rationalism as a Moral Escape Hatch
Democrats cling to Enlightenment rationalism like it’s a moral get-out-of-jail-free card.
They think data, facts, and “moving to the center” are proof of virtue. But rationalism is itself a moral worldview?—?one to defend, assertively, emotionally, and institutionally, not to treat like neutral math.
Republicans play chess; Democrats are still arguing about whether the rules are “fair.”
The Playbook to Steal (Because It Works)
It’s maddeningly simple:
Build institutions that promote values, not just policies. Two a year for 50 years?—?like the Right did?—?and we’ll have our own moral ecosystem.
Name and own OUR values.
Empathy, empiricism, justice, individual expression, loyalty to the spirit of the law?—?these are righteous frames. Say them out loud. Repeat them often.
Stop assuming good faith.
Republican operatives aren’t debating. They’re evangelizing. Treat them as missionaries for a worldview?—?because that’s precisely what they are.
If you are in media?—?this applies doubly to you. Don’t treat this like good faith discourse on your TV panels?—?it’s not good faith.
The Elephant in the Room
Lakoff warned us not to think of the elephant. Stop helping them build their circus?—?we must develop our own Serengeti. When you repeat their talking points, even to refute them, you’re already inside their frame, and you’re helping reinforce it. Some Democrats understand that part and go out of their way to avoid trigger phrases, but they miss the bigger, more critical part.
Republicans don’t sell the elephant;they sell the circus?—?the context in which the elephant is to be understood.
The circus isn’t a policy; it’s the worldview. The policy, the elephant?—?that comes later.
To win, to even mount a fight?—?Democrats must build our own moral frames, not fumble around in the big tent of the Republican circus. We must own and promote a different frame?—?the policy, the kind of elephant we prefer, doesn’t work in the circus, but it does work in the Serengeti. The frame is the important part, and it’s the part Democrats seem pathologically incapable of understanding. It’s maddening.
So how do Democrats fight back? Sell the Serengeti, then the elephant. Sell the worldview, then the policy. It’s how we make our policy feel obvious.
We have to sell our worldview?—?the one we already have and already operate from. We must surface that, and NEVER be afraid to assert our better values. Our worldview holds that empathy is strength, that protecting the vulnerable is patriotic, that economic and political equity is justice, and that individual expression and identity is liberty. THAT sets an understanding of policy. Once people accept the worldview?—?the Serengeti, not the circus?—?our policies feel obvious. Until then, Democrats chase the elephant that the Republican Right Wing defines, and wonder why we end up at the circus.
TL;DR
Republicans win because they sell a moral worldview, not policies. Democrats lose because we think reason alone can persuade. That is just not how our brains work?—?at all.
If the Left wants to fight back, we must build cultural institutions, speak in values, and frame the world before the Right does.
Democrats don’t even know how to think about fighting back, let alone know how to fight.
A clue: a desire for a “big tent” party is based on values, which suit a world view. It’s not some vacuous, “let everyone in” kind of position. It’s not some rational point of view. The desire is based on a world view, based on values.
I recently listened to Jon Stewart interview clueless DNC chair, Ken Martin. A truly frustrating hour, where Martin hinted at a bunch of values, express a few, but then claimed that it’s easier for Republicans to have values, because they have a consistent ideology, and Democrats don’t. I’m so sick of explaining this. He’s wrong on both sides. Republicans don’t have a consistent ideology, any more than Democrats do, and Democrats are probably more consistent than Republicans. That’s not what’s happening, you unmitigated disaster of a politician.
The actual difference its that Republicans know what they are doing. That’s the entire truth. And what they are doing is breathtakingly simple, and well documented, and also, completely reproducible. The Democrats are simply too arrogant, or too ignorant, or just paid too much by their donors, to adequately replicate what the Republicans are doing. Okay, that last part is just a dig at the biggest objective fact that undermines all Democratic legitimacy. The truth is, even if they think there is some way they can take legalized bribe money legitimately, there would be a world view to allow for that too—and they’d be able to describe it. But they don’t even bother justifying what they actually do. This to me is the clearest indication, that they just don’t know what they are doing.
Let’s start with what they do—they promote specific policies, rationally, and they promote specific candidates, in specific races. All the money they funnel from their donors goes in to one of these 2 causes (and occasionally in to opposing anyone who has actual value, and expresses actual values, like Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Zohran Mamdani, because their donors say so.)
Okay, so you want to promote policies, but how specifically? Let’s just do something crazy, and look at the way Republicans do it. First of all—they don’t start there—at all. They understand a concept known as *strategy*. Not just having a goal (win), but specifically how are you going to win? What specific method will you use?
Again, it’s breathtakingly simple—I’ll describe it here, in just a few sentences. That’s how simple it is—the simple thing Democrats seem pathologically incapable of understanding. Republicans sell a world view—a set of values—they do this without tying the effort to any specific policy, or specific election. The method, or the strategy is simple to describe. Change the culture, change the minds of voters by selling them a set of values they’ll use to understand the world, and then the policy will seem obvious. Republicans don’t sell policy. They sell a world view, and then just drift the policy in. I told you it was simple. So simple, that Democrats can’t seem to accept that it works, despite being utterly crushed by this simple strategy for more than half a fucking century.
Democrats, think they are “outside of world views.” 17th Century Enlightenment Reasoning, is a moral world view—do you hear me, Jonathan Haidt? You aren’t “outside” of anything… So Democrats tie everything they do to one specific outcome, usually a policy or a specific election, and they do it after rationally chasing Republican lead data, and they call it clever sounding things like “moving to the center.” So delusional.
Okay, so how do we replicate the very, excruciatingly simple thing the Republicans have been demonstrating works for more than half a century? I mean, I’m repeating myself here, since it’s so frustratingly simple. Have institutions that promote (or—wait for it—propagate) a world view, a set of values, that make it easier to sell your policies. This would work for “centrism” by the way—but it would also work for a genuine kind of progressive, integrating society too. But, it’s hard to justify taking legalized bribes, if you care about any of this stuff. What values—here are a few, but do the damned work, and figure this out—it’s not hard. Empathy, empiricism and reason as righteous, specific definitions of fairness and justice based not flat, but system maintaining notions of wealth distribution, the sanctity of science, loyalty to the spirit of the law, not just the letter, the sanctity of individual expression, not the protection of sacred victim groups, but of individual expression, etc. We have better values, so promote them.
Build 2 of those institutions a year, for 50 years—like the right wing has done—make sure they are funded—and only, and exclusively, to promote a world view, not just win some Senate seat, or pass some half-assed policy that won’t solve anything (like Obamacare—Democrats literally congratulate each other for having “solved healthcare”—you can’t make up this level of incompetence.) That’s what the right wing does—it’s not magic, and it has a demonstrated track record.
Okay, but we don’t have those institutions now—so what do we do. 1st thing, accept that you have a valid values based word view already, and start to figure out what those values are. Arguing without knowing them, just let’s the right wing operatives all over cable news push you around, because they know theirs, and you don’t know yours. If you’ve ever felt like you are arguing against a wall, that’s why—it is like arguing against a wall. They are just hitting you with values statements, and then changing the values, when the argument moves against them. And you just chase. It’s reactive, and yes, stupid. Get smarter.
Another thing—stop pretending they are arguing in good faith with your highly rational statements—they aren’t. Republican/Conservative operatives are there to propagate a world view, and to secondarily, argue in favor of a candidate or policy. They will not meet you half way—ever. Not fucking ever. They are hard line extremists, on a mission. If you want values other than theirs, values based on good faith agreement, on balanced policy, on values that have merit as you define them—if you want a society based on enlightenment reasoning, and not strict father dogma—then you have to understand the game that’s being played, and win it. Otherwise, they’ll just keep pulling and pulling, until you don’t recognize the landscape any longer. Sound familiar?
An example, in non-political terms—think about clowns. Think about high wire balancing acts, and tigers balancing on balls under big tents. Think about trapeze artists flying through the air, being caught by their partners. Now, don’t think of an Elephant. I bet you couldn’t. In fact, I bet you thought of a specific cartoon elephant with big ears. Do you understand? The elephant represents the policy, or the candidate. The circus represents the world view, the features are the values. If I had described the features of a the Serengeti, the sand, the sparse vegetation, the dry air and open skies. Then asked you not to think of an elephant, you would have pictured something entirely different.
Why “Don’t Think of an Elephant”? It’s the title of a book by George Lakoff which explains all this in a lot more detail than I have done here, and it’s main lesson—what I’ve described above, seems often missed, for the simpler lesson. That simpler lesson is useful, but that main point was that they are selling a larger world view, and the elephant invokes that whole world view. Even if I tell you not to think of an Elephant, you still thought of it, which is why it’s so destructive to repeat right-wing talking points, even if you are going to refute them. It’s not good enough. You have to have your own strategy, your own talking points, and your goals in mind. Otherwise, we lose by default. It’s that simple, and we have been losing. Do you hear me, Ken Martin?
How to fight back—understand what we need to do, then act from understanding. We need to sell a political world view—OUR world view, not their horrible one, one which includes notions of empathy, neighborly responsibility, the protection of the vulnerable—all that. Then the policy just seems obvious. We need to sell the Serengeti. If we do that we win. If we keep reactively, ignorantly, chasing the data the Republicans lead, we lose—everything. It’s that simple.
We need responsible gun protection regulation, which is right there in the constitution. An extreme in either direction is irresponsible, and protects no one. Unfettered gun access is an intentional misread of the constitution, it’s dangerous and completely irresponsible. Totalitarian “gun control” is also an intentional misread of the constitution, and is also irresponsible. Both fail to protect both school children and the cause of freedom itself.
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
What we need is responsible gun protection regulation, to keep the guns out of the hands of lunatics and criminals, and to protect the right of American citizens to own and operate dangerous things?—?of many kinds. We can do both, responsibly, if we start talking about these issues responsibly, with the aim of protecting our people and our rights. We CAN do both. The public already supports just about every measure we already have on the table that can be described as “responsible protections”?—?universal background checks— at a rate of about 90%.
We don’t have to accept that our public spaces and school campuses are dangerous, as conservatives want us to do. We don’t have to accept absolute government “control” as Democrats want us to do. How we talk about this issue (or any issue) matters. I really wish Democrats in particular, as both the more compassionate party, and the more reasonable party, would finally understand how this works…
The gun issue is about protection, responsibility and accountability, and the constitution provides for that. Make it about responsible protection measures and we’ll solve this problem with surprising speed, because the right wing cannot respond righteously to these better values. But if Democrats keep reacting to and repeating right wing talking points, like “gun control” (just an other way to say “oppression”) we’ll continue to get nothing done.
How we talk about things matters.
Responsible gun protection regulation is how we prevent gun violence, not control, not bans. Responsible gun regulation.
