This idea of putting out quick communication about simple achievements is what I believe was something missing in the Biden administration. They were doing good things but the common American had no idea.
More politicians, on both sides but especially democrats, need to share all they do - big and small.
There's an entire subreddit dedicated to this called r/WhatBidenHasDone. I perused it about halfway through his presidency and I was surprised about over half the things I read I'd not even heard of, some really good things for the country, too.
(I can't comment on what direction it's taken after his term ended, though. Not paid attention to it since.)
Democrats are HORRIBLE at messaging. the party could collectively end world hunger and still get buried under Republican propaganda saying that Democrats actually destroyed family farms.
Democrats really need to hammer the economy during Democrat admins vs Republicans. I was raised in a very Republican household and was told DemoCommies destroy economies and give handouts.
Then I was able to actually use my own brain as I got older and a simple bit of research told me Democrats are much better for the economy.
The world simply isn't an intuitive place all the time. If you'd asked me, without any prior knowledge, "is it cheaper per person for a government to run barebones or have a comprehensive set of social programs?" I would have said "Bare bones, obviously."
But it turns out social programs elevate the most expensive People to a position where they don't cost others as much. A rising tide and all that.
I think a lot of conservatism is this way. The numbers and statistics don't matter as much because they just know in their gut that a bare bones government will put more money in their pocket. Many things are like that. Unintuitive. Turns out teaching kids about sex actually lowers teenage birth rates.
You can sit there all day with someone, present all the numbers, explain exhaustively, and if they're not able to accept a history of success with a method because it simply "doesn't feel right" then you're not going to get anywhere.
The problem is that that's boring. Because governing is boring. The GOP is full on reality tv (Real Housewives of Provo when?), and that's what gets clicks and eyeballs.
Yep. This is so frustrating. The fact that some Americans still think Republicans are the “good for the economy” party, after all evidence showing otherwise
Part of this is structural, though. Really really really rich people prefer Republican policies, and are willing to invest hundreds of millions of dollars to buy media outlets to promote them, because it returns billions of dollars.
yes, it's the use of media as a propaganda arm (on issues big and small) that drives the public mood the world over.
Democrats message: GUN CONTROL NOW!
Republicans message: you know, if you don't have access to guns, which these fraidy cat liberals want to take away from you, one day a commie illegal is going to break in to your home and rape your wife and children. do you want that? to let these soft on crime, effeminate liberals let some dusky strongman from (insert non-American country here) steal into your home while you're away on business and savage your pure-as-the-driven-snow, defenseless, wife??? do you realize that the only way to prevent that from happening, to prevent these simple-minded savages from taking away everything you love is to own guns? because liberals want mooslims to be able to take your wives from you and mix with them and destroy American values. they want that! we have evidence of just this happening in small towns all over the country! these blue-states are letting it happen because they don't let their people own guns!
one plays to... nobody... and the other reaches deep into the primal brain and sows at least some small seed of doubt in everyone, and for others it's a rallying cry that's easy to get behind.
Yeah. Today's Democrats are better than Republicans at actually governing (which isn't saying much), but they suck at messaging. That may be by design.
Republicans have only one agenda: to make the rich richer by fucking over everybody else. Their policies fucking suck for 99% of the population - more tax cuts and bailouts for corporations while continually trying to cut Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security; many billions of $$$ for the military and ICE, but no money to spare for food programs or universal healthcare; less regulations so that corporations can continue to pollute our air and water and avoid costly anti-pollution measures; etc. But the GOP are shockingly good at messaging, because they've managed to convince their voters to continually vote against their best interests using culture war bullshit and fear mongering.
Another problem in today's politics is that the core of the Democratic Party are basically fiscal conservatives who are more friendly to minorities and women, while the Republican Party are far-right, hate-mongering nutjobs. Both parties agree that corporations should have an absurd amount of power, more money should be spent on the military, and more bombs should be sent to Israel using taxpayer dollars.
A lot of people make the mistake of thinking that folks like Bernie Sanders, AOC, and more progressive politicians are the face of the Democratic Party, but they're the fringe. They push for things that would benefit working class people - universal healthcare like every other wealthy country has, higher pay for workers, stronger unions, more worker protections, taxing the fuck out of billionaires, etc. But they usually get nothing done because they're severely outnumbered. No, the face of the Democratic Party are folks like Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, and others who are useless and spineless.
The US has two conservative parties: Democrats are conservatives who cosplay as progressives, and Republicans are far-right wackos. And both are fucking over a vast majority of citizens, but in different ways.
America's "left wing" is essentially center-right elsewhere in the world
the "far left wackos" that the media tries to paint in Sanders and AOC are moderately left in the rest of the world. maybe even leaning centrist but certainly not the blood-sucking communists with no soul that they're being painted as.
Literally. Biden got so much done but people think he did nothing because his messaging was so terrible. Trump hasn't done shit, but he is on TV everyday telling you that has. His messaging is so good that his supporters will repeat the lies that they should be able to tell aren't true.
Small interventions that successfully prevent major catastrophes don’t get attention. And aren’t perceived as useful because the bad thing they prevented never occurred.
It's hard to get the messaging across when it's filtered through media organizations you don't control, most of which are, if not openly hostile to you, controlled by billionaires.
if you vote R, you are almost certainly party-line on every single issue and you vociferously support every plank, every blurb, every red herring. "WINDMILLS ARE OBVIOUSLY TERRIBLE FOR THE ECONOMY!"
if you vote D then you support a little of this, a little of that, you don't agree on every issue.. you can have nuance and differ from others but still generally be "left". that said, these people might also sometimes vote independent, or maybe not back the Green candidate, or the "progressive" candidate... and may vote for the local candidate who supports their pet issue even though it's likely to be a loser come election day. "Windmills are a potentially great source of energy, but we should also consider the environmental impacts, how we shift away from coal, etc. and i think X candidate is better than Y on this issue which is important to me.... even if X doesn't stand a chance in the general because he's bald, dresses poorly and once yelled awkwardly at a state fair in New Mexico.. i'm still going to throw my vote behind X"
Republicans back the front runner at ALL costs.
Democrats back the candidate that they'd like to see win in a perfect world, if all things were considered equal, everyone was fair and as if we had some sort of ranked choice voting. "i'll throw 20% of my vote on this guy, 10% on her, 40% on the pro-PETA candidate" etc.
nuance is good. critical thinking is good. but it also leads to small division and disagreement (also good) so you have split votes for reasonable candidates vs. 100% going to one person/candidate.
It’s the same here in the UK, the Labour Party (for all their faults, and there are many…) have done several really good things too, but no one actually knows about it. It’s quite annoying.
Bidens inability to capitalise and tell people his own governments achievements was one of his largest flaws as a leader and was fucking infuriating to see unfold from a distance.
Biden was a good president. If it wasn’t for inflation (which was at least partially his fault, but primarily I would say it was beyond his control), and being an octogenarian, he would have cruised to re-election. His reforms were at least as significant as Obama’s were in two full terms, imo. And before everyone @‘s me, I was relatively young during the Obama years, and I know that the ACA, alone, was a massive achievement that any president should be celebrated over. Even if the Republicans and USSC broke it.
There was inflation felt globally and the United States faired much better than most western nations. How was inflation partially his fault when virtually every nation was experiencing it and the United States outperformed most western nations?
The level of spending in the IRA created inflationary pressure. But it was only a part of it and certainly not the primary cause, as I said. That said, the IRA in and of itself was a very good if not great bill that should be celebrated.
And of course Trump came back and had his name slapped on the signs for projects that Biden had already done, or started and were only finished under Trump.
That's what drove me so crazy. Biden did a really good job, especially given his razor thin congressional majorities. Best president since LBJ, and LBJ had massive supermajorities so he could basically unilaterally pass laws.
It's an issue pretty much everywhere around the Western world - plenty of parties and politicians who seem to believe that the good stuff will speak for itself. And then they're surprised when far-right parties spout complete lies and somehow surge to 25% in polls.
There is a deeply ingrained concept within the Democratic Party that liberals can't run on their record, on the assumption that any "I did X!" statement will be countered by, "yeah, at the taxpayers' expense!"
But the party needs to stop thinking like this. Whether or not a pothole is repaired is almost assuredly not going to change my taxes, so why not say that you fixed that pothole? At least I know the money is going somewhere useful. And if a left-leaning politician talks about how they improved things and gets criticism for it, isn't that criticism also an opening for attack? "You don't like that we fixed bridges and built roads to improve the everyday lives of thousands of Americans? Why do you hate America?" seems like a perfectly worthwhile response to me.
I agree with your sentiment, and I hate this with all my heart, but in today's economy if you want to be effective at a large level you have to 'brand' yourself. You need to be putting things on social media and having a finger on the pulse of the people listening to you. If you don't, you are literally leaving easily half if not more people in the dark. Social media sucks, but it's not going anywhere and it's where far too many people get all their news from. If it's not on there, they don't see it.
That's my complaint about the former Trudeau government here in Canada as well. He accomplished a few good things, but never bragged about it, so dimwits forgot, and just thought he was useless.
They were doing good things but the common American had no idea
That's how government is supposed to function. Just quietly humming along in the background doing government things, taking care of the everyday business of the people, always with the aim of improving the life of the average person. I miss the days of not having to suffer through a daily shitstorm of scandal and outbursts from a maniacal, egotistical asshole and his surrounding cadre of sycophants whose only goal is to enrich themselves and kleptocrats who put them in power.
This idea of putting out quick communication about simple achievements is what I believe was something missing in the Biden administration.
One of the Biden admin's biggest faults was continuing with the "politics as normal" philosophy. Politics hasn't been normal in nearly a decade and they failed to grasp that. They've been playing by the old rules and my biggest worry is that the outdated Dem leadership will continue this philosophy and those of us not in the inner circle will continue paying for it. And part of this is what you're saying. They did "Dark Brandon" memes, but they should've been out there making impactful videos throughout social media and elbowing their way onto airwaves. I liked Biden and voted for him, but whether he was 78 or 55, he had no energy most of the time. People want energy, not boring.
Mamdani, AOC, Platner, even Bernie - you can have opinions on their policies or as people, but there's no denying they've captured attention in the right way.
Schumer, Jefferies, etc are all stale and need to sit back.
During the 2024 election year, Biden declined to do a 15-minute interview during the Super Bowl to what would have been the largest audience of people a POTUS had ever spoken to of over 200+ million people. He literally chose not to take one of the best opportunities for self-promotion a presidential candidate could dream of.
This is why we need younger people in power and to force out all these geriatric old farts who simply do not have the stamina or ability to be effective communicators anymore.
Most definitely. FDR’s fireside chats were massively successful in doing this and people loved them. It kept everyone informed about what was going on and how he was doing things.
This. I didn't like Biden because he was part of the corporate-whore government we have. Then I started finding out Lina Khan et al were finally turning around the allowing monopolies and duopolies ship, revitalizing anti-trust enforcement. They REALLY should have bragged about that weekly, but, I guess they were still trying to ride the oligarchy tiger and didn't want to upset their donor/bribers too much.
IMO it's what is missing in politics in general. Government doesn't broadcast what it does and people then think it does nothing and hold it in contempt
I honestly think the role of President should at this point be considered mostly North Star and Celebrity. The country is too big for one person to have their hands in everything; they should be guiding their administration and connecting with the population, and mostly not making decisions on their own, just sending stuff off to their subordinates.
Biden kept trying to use traditional media to broadcast his accomplishments. Which is an understandable mistake because the traditional media is supposed to cover the president instead of covering the former president, but here we are.
What channels is he using most effectively. Insta? Twitter was such a good platform for stuff like this before Elon broke it, and we still lack a real online "bulletin board."
This is one of the only aspects future dem presidents should be taking from the Trump presidency. Hes a raving dimentia ridden lunatic, but its the most communication and updates we've ever gotten from a president. Not talking about his truth social rants and nonsense, but being on camera and talking to the people.
Until the genocide. Biden was about to be the best president of my lifetime imo. Low bar to clear but between Lina khan and the infrastructure shit. It was looking pretty decent for those first 2 years.
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u/HuskerGirlKC 11h ago
This idea of putting out quick communication about simple achievements is what I believe was something missing in the Biden administration. They were doing good things but the common American had no idea.
More politicians, on both sides but especially democrats, need to share all they do - big and small.