I’m extremely skeptical that these exercises produce any meaningful data. People are very bad at telling you which messages they find convincing!
Replies
Pretty sure they aren't mainly asking people about the messages, but rather measuring treatment effects on self-reported attitudes about parties (or politicians) using randomization to messages. Plenty of room for error, but this isn't just asking people what message they find convincing.
aug 24, 2025, 11:58 pm • 1 0 • view
This this this this this this omg this Exactly Yes.
aug 24, 2025, 11:22 pm • 0 0 • view
I would also extend it to opinion polling in general. It can, sometimes, give an idea of change but people see just not consistent or whole enough for that kind of research to be meaningful.
aug 25, 2025, 12:25 am • 0 0 • view
Pollsters on both sides are always wrong. bsky.app/profile/iamc...
aug 24, 2025, 11:15 pm • 5 1 • view
There’s nothing voters love more than a paragraph of text the end with a discussion of tariff policy.
aug 25, 2025, 3:53 am • 0 0 • view
An underrated part of the problem is that they are all worded badly. Just the most flat, stilted phrasing imaginable.
aug 24, 2025, 11:27 pm • 0 0 • view
The American people simply do not understand the content of their own minds rendering shit like this utterly useless. That's not even mentioning that this style of politics explicitly embraces believing in and striving for nothing
aug 24, 2025, 11:18 pm • 3 0 • view
People are convinced by repetition. This is fairly well studied and understood, and it makes these surveys both useless and easy to game. Say shit 8 times, people will believe it, even if it's bullshit.
aug 25, 2025, 6:22 am • 2 0 • view
Whether or not this is a good way to test messaging, Stancil's statement is straight up wrong. There are several fundamental differences between these two messages. They're not nearly identical.
aug 24, 2025, 11:45 pm • 0 0 • view
1st message is only that Trump is doing this as a distraction from tariffs with more focus on harm from tarriffs. 2nd one says what Dems were already doing to keep people safe & says takeover is Trump's distraction from tarriffs AND the Epstein files. Not the same.
aug 24, 2025, 11:50 pm • 0 0 • view
the point is not to present meaningful, useful or truthful data, but to promote desired (by Shor's think tank) political outcomes
aug 24, 2025, 11:58 pm • 4 0 • view
Agree not sure how useful this data is. But I do think it’s really telling that a similar message that leads with Dems gets such a negative response. If nothing else it tells us what we already know. Dems brand is trash and in my opinion may never recover.
aug 25, 2025, 12:28 am • 1 0 • view
And besides the whole obsession with TheMessage™ is nuts, as if the perfect message will win elections for Dems. It’s not a message problem, it’s a bandwidth problem. The RW propaganda machine dominates & drowns out any D messaging anyway. That’s the problem to be solved. It’s bandwidth, not content
aug 24, 2025, 11:38 pm • 1 0 • view
as you should be! political messages are not isolateable: as @adamgurri.liberalcurrents.com inplirs, it’s like other gestalt messaging … like comedy. Don’t have Shor write your jokes!!!!! bsky.app/profile/adam...
aug 24, 2025, 11:44 pm • 2 0 • view
*implies
aug 24, 2025, 11:45 pm • 0 0 • view
I saw someone present a version once where the output was a line of people essentially pressing plus and minus buttons in response to a campaign message for how they were feeling each moment. They explained that the Dem party loved messages that resulted in as many mildly positive lines as possible.
aug 25, 2025, 8:38 pm • 0 0 • view
this same dynamic plays out when testing consumer product claims. there is often a vast difference between what people say is important and what their behavior shows is actually important. dems have been endlessly claims testing, like a brand that has lost touch with its authentic voice.
aug 24, 2025, 11:27 pm • 1 0 • view
This is why people who study social phenomenon just ask a bunch of people what they like in a multiple choice survey and then call it a day
aug 24, 2025, 11:16 pm • 1 0 • view
Every time I've ever changed my mind on an issue - consciously - I can point to vague reasons/life events which shifted my broader perspective or like the arguments I find convincing after the fact, but I would be lying if I actually understood why I believe what I do to the truest sense.
aug 25, 2025, 12:18 am • 1 0 • view
People do not encounter words in a vacuum, they receive them from political figures about whom they have pre-existing beliefs, something that strongly colors their reaction. The same message can be cringe or convincing depending on who says it!
aug 24, 2025, 11:15 pm • 343 24 • view
The weirdest thing is that these critics act like we all should have known: a) how these terms will be received after they are intermediated through hostile interlocutors, and b) what the correct terms might be (if presented at all) because they have not gone through the same process.
aug 24, 2025, 11:29 pm • 8 0 • view
Like, no. You either talk about the things that these words represent, or you don't. You cannot preemptively innoculate your language through careful selection.
aug 24, 2025, 11:29 pm • 2 0 • view
When someone like the Good Liars reads a quote to a Trump supporters and tells them that it came from a Democrat. The Trump supporter will vigorously oppose it. Then they will be told, oh, wait, sorry, Donald Trump said (or did) that. Then the MAGA Republican says oh! In that case I support it.
aug 25, 2025, 3:09 am • 0 0 • view
the weirdest bit is that they saying to avoid certain topics or terms to appeal to people, but "the people" are the ones screaming for them to do something about those issues!
aug 24, 2025, 11:53 pm • 2 0 • view
You can find it cringe but still wind up believing it if it’s repeated often enough without challenge or alternative. These political scientists never consult comm scholars and it shows.
aug 24, 2025, 11:23 pm • 1 0 • view
And, often the response to a message is nuanced and can’t be summed up with “like/dislike” or “persuasive/not persuasive”
aug 24, 2025, 11:21 pm • 1 0 • view
Beat me to it. www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGsH...
aug 25, 2025, 12:24 am • 2 0 • view
I used to do a lot of focus groups for spare cash ~30 years ago, and between them and the MANY times we get phone-polled to this day because we have a landline AND answer it, I suspect that the main utility for message testing is (or should be) to let you know which messages are actively repellent.
aug 24, 2025, 11:20 pm • 5 1 • view
Yeah I definitely think they have *some* utility, especially on people’s pre-existing narratives about public figures. I just think people are not very good at knowing in advance which messages would persuade them. Persuasion is a super complicated, often illogical phenomenon
aug 24, 2025, 11:23 pm • 7 1 • view
Yeah, I was thinking that. Like, what even is the process here? They have a panel and then someone reads the entire line to them, and they rate it?
aug 24, 2025, 11:14 pm • 5 1 • view
a survey open for one day
aug 24, 2025, 11:16 pm • 1 0 • view
The second message starts with "Democrats", and people might stop reading right there. It also sounds like a DNC post. The message does not need to introduce a political comparison. The politics and the effects, are all Trump's.
aug 24, 2025, 11:37 pm • 0 0 • view