one thing i'm fascinated by is how these "tested" messages do not actually have any relationship to how people encounter political messaging these days.
Replies
So we have real life confirmation of voter activation/participation with Mamdani messaging that completely contradicts the theoretical model that’s failing. And yet you can’t challenge the Democrat leadership that they know better 🤔
aug 25, 2025, 12:24 pm • 1 0 • view
The message is testing poorly because the message is a bummer, not because the message is wrong or unpersuasive.
aug 24, 2025, 9:04 pm • 3 0 • view
Sunk costs. Not willing to write off they spend money on idiots as it may make them look like an idiot. Unfortunately for them, it makes them look like more of an idiot but sticking with it versus cutting loses and perhaps increasing their support.
aug 24, 2025, 6:55 pm • 0 0 • view
All of these messages are way too long to meaningfully test. Its weird to test these and not slogans or general themes
aug 24, 2025, 8:44 pm • 3 0 • view
The problem isn't "tested messages" as such (unless you actually think Newsom's messages haven't been tested). It's matching the messages with people with the right acting skills to get the messages to hit home. "Authenticity" is a matter of the messenger having the right acting chops.
aug 25, 2025, 1:52 pm • 1 0 • view
Also, a bunch of them are substantially the same but test at completely different levels. The methodology must be incredibly stupid.
aug 24, 2025, 6:51 pm • 19 0 • view
Yep, the methodology looks really bad, like they jammed in what they wanted to talk about no matter what. bsky.app/profile/whst...
aug 24, 2025, 6:53 pm • 18 1 • view
fwiw it's not hard to craft a line that nods to kitchen table issues but still captures some urgency. "you put this asshole in office to make your life easier but all he's done is cut taxes for his rich buddies, kidnapped your neighbors and sent the military to tell you to shut up when you complain"
aug 24, 2025, 6:50 pm • 3,102 514 • view
📌
aug 25, 2025, 12:46 am • 0 0 • view
Keep it simple
aug 25, 2025, 1:53 am • 0 0 • view
Freaking Gavin Newsom and all of his baggage is resonating because there is an appetite for someone, ANYONE, to message like that and fight back! Imagine if a politician that didn't toss Trans people to the wolves did this!
aug 24, 2025, 7:03 pm • 38 2 • view
Easy peasy.
aug 24, 2025, 6:57 pm • 0 0 • view
Canceling cancer research…who asked for that?
aug 24, 2025, 11:30 pm • 2 0 • view
hear, hear
aug 24, 2025, 9:13 pm • 0 0 • view
100%
aug 25, 2025, 1:49 pm • 0 0 • view
These losers all seem to have forgotten that the last Democratic presidential candidate to inspire actual enthusiasm (Obama) did so because of his unapologetic opposition to the Iraq war, a stance considered political suicide at the time.
aug 24, 2025, 11:43 pm • 5 1 • view
* (winning Democratic candidate to inspire enthusiasm, I should say)
aug 24, 2025, 11:44 pm • 0 0 • view
He then proceeded to stamp out all that enthusiasm by telling the left to fuck off
aug 25, 2025, 1:17 am • 0 0 • view
Yep. Talk like a normal person.
aug 24, 2025, 10:09 pm • 2 0 • view
Dems, Dem consultants, most MSMedia--all act as if the only way for Dems to win is to follow--not lead--uninformed/disinformed voters. Big Data surveys ask low info voters re: 100s of policies & discover they're focused on their wallets--Bc Dems & media don't inform ppl on threats to democracy.
aug 24, 2025, 8:59 pm • 12 1 • view
That strategy worked great in 2024--for the GOP. MSMedia hire many RWngers to do the RW part of MSM "both sides" coverage, & hire many "centrists" who say both sides are equally bad & who practice Murc's law religiously. So media influence Dems, their donors & their consultants in a RW way.
aug 24, 2025, 9:04 pm • 4 0 • view
SBF, once 1 of the biggest Dem donors-- openly gave $ to Dems but gave equal amts of dark $ to GOP. So he was not a Dem ally. How many other Dem donors do that? Does it influence their advice?--in such a way that they advise Dems in ways that help the GOP? www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
aug 24, 2025, 9:07 pm • 4 0 • view
In even mainstream media, in the economy & in other ways, we are immersed in Right Wing views. So it's natural that Dems, Dem consultants, Dem donors, Dem Big Data surveyors etc. are all believing in & acting on RWng disinfo. But somehow we all need to get past this, if democracy is to survive.
aug 24, 2025, 9:10 pm • 2 0 • view
Interesting point!
aug 25, 2025, 7:25 am • 1 0 • view
Thanks, Blanche
aug 25, 2025, 3:27 pm • 1 0 • view
"We're all adults here, we can all agree that all people want the same things for their family, even if their family looks a little different from yours. They want to put healthy food on the table, to send their kids to good schools, and to know their kids will be safe when they leave the house.
aug 24, 2025, 10:54 pm • 1 1 • view
Right now, this admin is making grocery prices rise & products are disappearing from the shelves. They're taking parents away from kids and making people feel afraid to walk down the street. They're so sensitive, they're even getting comedians cancelled! Is this really what you voted for?" etc
aug 24, 2025, 11:01 pm • 3 1 • view
Put it on a billboard. Meeting adjourned.
aug 24, 2025, 11:31 pm • 1 0 • view
I’m in the way back in California. People here don’t see these issues as substantive. They buy into the old Conservative Party line and still blame Dems for anything that goes wrong from prices to wolves. I’ve had better arguments with mules.
aug 24, 2025, 7:23 pm • 1 0 • view
Maybe we just need to send dem leaders to improv school to learn “yes AND”
aug 24, 2025, 6:51 pm • 66 1 • view
Exactly - it’s not “tariffs are bad economic policy.” It’s “Trump promised to lower prices. He lied and now everything costs more.” Perhaps more importantly, no one should listen to the guy who spent a billion dollars and lost to Donald Trump.
aug 24, 2025, 6:54 pm • 7 0 • view
That works.
aug 24, 2025, 11:46 pm • 0 0 • view
And they show disdain for anyone who does exactly that.
aug 24, 2025, 10:34 pm • 0 0 • view
💥
aug 24, 2025, 7:38 pm • 0 0 • view
cussing makes the Baileys sad
aug 24, 2025, 9:23 pm • 7 0 • view
he literally prefers the imaginary constituents in his head to his actual human voters
aug 24, 2025, 10:08 pm • 1 0 • view
The rich buddies one won’t work on bros: they think they’ll be the next rich buddy
aug 24, 2025, 10:41 pm • 1 0 • view
not to mention how weird they all are. that is still a valid talking point.
aug 25, 2025, 3:34 am • 0 0 • view
“The guy cutting funding from cancer research is spending untold billions to send the military to American cities to round up Uber eats drivers.”
aug 24, 2025, 11:56 pm • 32 1 • view
Like, how is a police state not a fucking "kitchen table issue."
aug 25, 2025, 12:18 am • 16 0 • view
Also like "vote for me I'll get end the military harassing your kids" is a pretty kitchen table issue!
aug 24, 2025, 8:25 pm • 1 0 • view
Even if the “kitchen table issue” advice were true it will always fail as it cannot keep and retain attention unless yolked to more sensational news. A huge problem we have is that “the tax systems unfair” cannot compete with “dangerous foreigners” and “sexual deviants” for short attention spans.
aug 24, 2025, 6:54 pm • 2 0 • view
You gotta hammer on the individual cases and put a face to it if you want people to remember the systemic critique (Pedocon theory!). It might feel grubby but you can’t throw mud without getting some on your hands.
aug 24, 2025, 7:03 pm • 1 0 • view
I’d even say that the ICE bs is a kitchen table issue - grocery prices are only starting to show the tariff impacts, restaurants have seen a decline, foreign tourism is down. None of this is good for us.
aug 25, 2025, 2:39 pm • 1 0 • view
The problem is conservatives have a stranglehold on new and traditional media. How then do you get the message out?
aug 24, 2025, 6:54 pm • 0 0 • view
And yer grocery bill....
aug 24, 2025, 8:16 pm • 0 0 • view
Maybe they should actually come talk to some of us. How many Town Halls are they holding these days?
aug 24, 2025, 11:31 pm • 1 0 • view
They don't care, most of the poorest states are red states and they constantly vote in Republican super majorities at the state level.
aug 25, 2025, 5:34 am • 0 0 • view
I think this is a great example of a common sense approach to messaging using colloquial conversational language that while not focused on core left talking points does not betray them either but is clear and unequivocating.
aug 26, 2025, 1:12 am • 0 0 • view
To this very point 👆, last week @mayorwu.boston.gov of Boston responded defiantly to AG Bondi’s threat to withdraw Federal funding unless he city cooperated with ICE. The focus was on the issue at hand, but she deftly wove in the kitchen table issues into her remarks without losing a beat. ☑️ it out.
aug 24, 2025, 8:29 pm • 4 0 • view
aug 24, 2025, 6:52 pm • 2 0 • view
Aces!
aug 24, 2025, 6:54 pm • 1 0 • view
Yes, they’re missing the point about the power of anger and emotion in messaging
aug 24, 2025, 11:22 pm • 1 0 • view
+1. Would submit that rather than highlight the Trump-voter’s, eh, poor-decision making, perhaps more effective to note that “…you trusted this person and he has betrayed your trust; all he’s done …” Realize we’re spitballing on this Sky thing. But such a nuance has been helpful in my conversation.
aug 24, 2025, 7:15 pm • 5 0 • view
Yes. Walk & chew gum at the same time. It can be done. "Trump will kick your grandma out of elder care in order to pay for thugs to roam the streets and snatch your daughter in broad daylight."
aug 24, 2025, 7:00 pm • 19 1 • view
Sometimes I wonder if Dems aren’t being threatened as much as Republicans claim they are being threatened by the MAGA base.
aug 24, 2025, 6:52 pm • 1 0 • view
THIIIIIIIIS
aug 24, 2025, 8:16 pm • 0 0 • view
Don’t forget to throw in some shade for Republicans, who are continuing to support this rapist felon who thinks he’s a king when he should be a public servant
aug 24, 2025, 7:28 pm • 11 0 • view
And the DC hospitality industry is seeing COVID levels of business
aug 24, 2025, 6:51 pm • 27 0 • view
Also, the military deployments and immigration raids are having a marked effect on local economies (on top of the general damage he's doing at a national level), so it's not like they're completely separate things. Effective messaging should be able to tie it all together.
aug 24, 2025, 6:56 pm • 13 0 • view
More broadly you could just ask who exactly is paying the tab for all this deployment...and maybe get people thinking about the fact that it's gonna be them and it's not gonna be cheap....
aug 24, 2025, 7:38 pm • 6 0 • view
Yessssss
aug 25, 2025, 7:22 am • 1 0 • view
Okay but the urge to “craft” messages that do bankshot stuff like this is the root of a lot of the Democratic message terribleness. Just say what you think! Threading the needle between six different issues is performance art, not persuasion
aug 24, 2025, 6:52 pm • 522 14 • view
I would love it if my local rep would inflect that he cared, at all But I’m going to wind up driving through a checkpoint on my way to work and sheltering my undocumented students in the book closet before they ever happens
aug 24, 2025, 6:55 pm • 2 0 • view
right, i mean, if you asked me what i thought on the spot, i might say something like this. it is actually rhetorically effective to contrast what someone says they do with what they're actually doing.
aug 24, 2025, 6:54 pm • 524 9 • view
right, I think the distinction here is contrasting for the sake of dunking and demonstrating contempt vs contrasting for the sake of working in some consultant-approved keywords to boost your keyword score
aug 24, 2025, 9:54 pm • 3 0 • view
Which is, I think, the bigger issue with the candidates we see put forth: so many of them *require* crafted lines because they’re incapable of saying what they think in the moment (or worse, that they don’t believe what should be said). That should be disqualifying at this point.
aug 24, 2025, 6:56 pm • 192 3 • view
It’s the latter. They don’t have any convictions. They are empty vessels the consultants fill with messaging.
aug 24, 2025, 8:15 pm • 1 0 • view
Zohran did a charming little video about how his comms team told him he was using the word "ultimately" too much (cute supercut of same), then "I am listening, I am learning" (cut to interview where he catches himself at "ul-" and changes word). It killed me. I died. I'm still crying.
aug 25, 2025, 1:42 am • 3 0 • view
These people have the most gifted, natural communicator in a generation. A man incredible at being natural and human and connecting with who he's talking to... and they're trying to make him nitpick his words while speaking. If anyone can put me in touch with this comms team. I just wanna talk.
aug 25, 2025, 1:42 am • 0 0 • view
Old Dems still want their candidates to be nice to billionaires and corporations, while pandering to workers, which reads as increasingly contradictory and delusional.
aug 24, 2025, 7:19 pm • 4 0 • view
omg you nailed it! if i see chuck schumer hunched over a lectern reading from a piece of paper *1 more time* ....😡 if he can't just stand up and say what's on his mind, i have to wonder if he's still even GOT a mind
aug 24, 2025, 7:47 pm • 5 0 • view
Absolutely! The answers should be automatic because they believe in those values to their marrow. The answers should be scathing because to even suggest those values aren't worth it is offensive to the soul. The answers should be authentic because those values ARE authentic.
aug 24, 2025, 7:10 pm • 111 4 • view
Their marrow is donor dollars
aug 24, 2025, 10:14 pm • 1 0 • view
No shame in training and rehearsing. Like playing music. Not everyone is a spontaneous genius. But like music, you practice not until you *can* do it right but until you *will* do it right.
aug 24, 2025, 7:43 pm • 65 3 • view
You are talking about performance. Acting. What people trust in political terms is some level of authenticity. Too many Dems these days are media trained by people who are out of touch with real life & real emotional responses. People who think that somebody badly beaten by ICE is a “distraction”.
aug 24, 2025, 10:55 pm • 2 0 • view
Good points, still think a bit of coaching and practice could help a number of Ds connect better, but JMO. Great point about ICE hurting people. WAY more than a “distraction”!
aug 24, 2025, 11:23 pm • 2 0 • view
Given the truly outrageous things we are seeing unfold, checking with a political consultant before responding shouldn’t be anyone’s first move. Pretending like it’s “all cool” is also mind-blowingly stupid. In a house fire to say get out! In a dem house fire they say relax no prob. No bueno.
aug 24, 2025, 11:38 pm • 0 0 • view
Yeah. That's a pretty close metaphor, the only thing is though, they're privy to much more information than the hoi polloi and that's what started Bouie's whole comment thread. It's like the reliance of students using LLM's to do their writing – it's evaporating their skills as thinkers.
aug 24, 2025, 11:55 pm • 1 0 • view
Again, this is being authentic. "It's who I am" Practice what you preach. No paladin is born. I thought along these lines soon after I punched reply. I think I understand what you're saying, and I believe might even be a facet of what the problem is.
aug 24, 2025, 7:56 pm • 26 0 • view
The befuddlement one must feel when confronted with a Crowder "Change My Mind" is unexpected. But that is the lay of the ground now. Until it evolves again the unpracticed must sit, the unready stand aside, the unwilling go home. And when they aren't needed, they too will be replaced. An opinion.
aug 24, 2025, 7:56 pm • 20 0 • view
I think Jeffries needs training. He has potential but sweet mother of pearl he makes a hash of things
aug 24, 2025, 8:02 pm • 1 0 • view
I can't say specifics, I don't "know" the man. But I think you mean rhetorical training? Everybody could use that. Especially in the face of the rambling barrage from 1600. What little I got was in boot camp. A torrent spat in your face that made no sense but you must push through.
aug 24, 2025, 8:07 pm • 2 0 • view
Yes, rhetoric. He seems like a quite smart fellow. Trump is made for propaganda. I can’t see how people stand him, but he connects with his devotees for sure, and it is a firehose.
aug 24, 2025, 8:50 pm • 2 0 • view
Some Dems don’t like Jeffries, but I don’t have the issues with him as much as I do with the party. The Dems don’t use him enough to promote their agenda.
aug 25, 2025, 11:02 am • 1 0 • view
Interesting perspective. Seems a possible explanation of his wonky stances if the party is pressing on him.
aug 25, 2025, 1:56 pm • 1 0 • view
How do you do fellow human
aug 25, 2025, 3:23 am • 0 0 • view
Can you imagine how people in L.A. and D.C. feel about their terror and anger at being invaded is considered a "distraction" by the Dem leadership. Why not just flip them the Bird Hakeem and tell them to STFU.
aug 24, 2025, 7:01 pm • 16 1 • view
How can they not see that taken as a whole those messages << the sum of the parts? However persuasive any one statement may be, the people following these analytics and delivering them in sequence look like unprincipled, pandering losers who have no core. Everyone sees right through them.
aug 25, 2025, 3:39 am • 0 0 • view
IMO it’s mostly just a matter of firepower. You don’t need to obsess over the perfectly crafted message if you have blanketed all channels of mass communication with a constant stream of propaganda. You can’t break through that brain infection with a single, well-crafted message.
aug 24, 2025, 7:01 pm • 8 0 • view
"they're all freaks" works well with a quick reminder "and we are not"
aug 24, 2025, 6:57 pm • 0 0 • view
The worst thing about this memo? The messages they disfavor are as rhetorically INeffective as possible, meandering mishmash, while kitchen table shit is written crisply and urgently. Blue Rose does this all the time (they butchered one of @anatosaurus.bsky.social 's messages). It's atrocious.
aug 25, 2025, 7:22 am • 5 0 • view
The biggest problem was Biden never got out and spoke and Kamala only got like 3 weeks time to get it out.
aug 24, 2025, 6:58 pm • 3 0 • view
And she wasn't allowed to say anything against Joe or his policies.
aug 24, 2025, 7:11 pm • 3 0 • view
This. The gap between the rhetoric and the reality is so enormous. The messaging should start there. Even before you get into how awful the reality is.
aug 24, 2025, 10:01 pm • 3 1 • view
Showing a little passion helps, as well. There’s no fire in that message.
aug 24, 2025, 9:00 pm • 3 0 • view
Am I missing something? "The higher the percentile, the more effective that talking point is at driving down Donald Trump's disapproval"? Democrats don't want Trump's DISapproval to go DOWN? (Are they inverting the scale on that Republican page?)
aug 24, 2025, 11:12 pm • 1 0 • view
We might have to grapple with the possibility that many career politicians don’t have independent thoughts at all.
aug 24, 2025, 6:59 pm • 14 0 • view
A lot of them actually are that politician from Parks and Rec who just kinda sits there when he’s not gladhanding with voters
aug 24, 2025, 7:00 pm • 5 0 • view
Ok but Sen. Van Hollen’s hair on fire, “this is a dictatorial power grab” message got a rousing 13%! When Dems go alone on this messaging, MSM gleefully boffsides it and gets to say “extremists in both parties!” Ppl forget that GOP has had Fox providing air cover for their assaults for 30 years!
aug 25, 2025, 4:55 am • 0 0 • view
I mean, this is today! A leading MSM outlet basically signaling that there is no reason to panic, it’s all just optics:
aug 25, 2025, 5:13 am • 0 0 • view
Well said. Sincerity resonates. “Messaging” needs work, but this seems way too fancy
aug 24, 2025, 7:31 pm • 1 0 • view
Asking your neighbors questions is a lost art. That’s how we learn and that’s how we can be responsive. All the dems in our town are not like me. But being honest, listening, and developing trust outside the election cycle is key. Ask me how I know.
aug 24, 2025, 7:16 pm • 1 1 • view
also, even mid messaging and priorities could go a lot farther if literally any elected Dem other than newsom was capable of repeating the same thing a dozen times per day
aug 24, 2025, 6:53 pm • 6 0 • view
Yeah, Zohran makes this kind of argument (“Trump appealed to people based on their material needs and then delivered authoritarianism and corruption that helped the wealthy while betraying his voters”) and I think it works because he genuinely believes it. He’s not just trying to triangulate.
aug 25, 2025, 8:50 pm • 2 0 • view
There are unique elements of Trump that often get papered over, but the issue with deliverism or rather Shorism is that it tends to be overly reductive and premised on the idea you can only succeed if you silo away any hard issue. That's just not true. You can play these issues off each other.
aug 25, 2025, 8:57 pm • 2 0 • view
“Not saying he’s being a fascist asshole and punishing places that didn’t vote for him ONLY because he’s all over the Epstein files and inflation is through the roof, but he definitely wants all that off the front page”
aug 24, 2025, 7:43 pm • 2 0 • view
I’m absolutely fine with someone comparing prices now to when he took office, but using the guard as his own personal army because he can’t handle mockery has to be the main thing and Epstein a close second.
aug 24, 2025, 7:49 pm • 3 0 • view
The David Shor memo goes in the “Democrats can’t win” file.
aug 24, 2025, 7:11 pm • 0 0 • view
Was talking with a dog playdate buddy here in suburban NC, and he's doing a lot of traveling to see places before Trump initiates martial law, and is crossing places off his list he thinks he can't get to first. Fascism *is* a kitchen table issue. Normal people have to account for it.
aug 24, 2025, 11:40 pm • 6 2 • view
I feel like getting jackboots off the streets would be intensely motivating for voters
aug 24, 2025, 8:48 pm • 2 0 • view
because the "tested" messages come from the D versions of Frank Luntz, and they don't ask the questions the D on the street (citizen on the street) wants them to ask and answer.
aug 24, 2025, 10:11 pm • 0 0 • view
Maybe they need to test messaging on the Epstein files
aug 24, 2025, 7:10 pm • 0 0 • view
It seems like democrats are always shooting for incremental changes. The trick is finding a good way to sell a plan for greater economic and personal security. That's FDR 2.0 at least.
aug 24, 2025, 7:35 pm • 0 0 • view
"Kitchen table issues" is tired and corny. Any politician who starts spouting that term is telling me they don't know anything about how people really live. It shows me that they'd rather spend money to hire cynical, greedy, jackoffs like Third Way and Blue Rose than talk to people themselves.
aug 24, 2025, 7:31 pm • 11 0 • view
Are they actually polling real people or just using AI?
aug 24, 2025, 7:16 pm • 1 0 • view
These tested messages poll super great with the donor class.
aug 24, 2025, 10:28 pm • 1 0 • view
Tbh, in the few Republican town hall episodes I've seen, kitchen table issues seem to be the vast majority of rage focus.
aug 24, 2025, 6:51 pm • 3 0 • view
Dem messaging would improve 1000% if David Shor decided to one day just walk into traffic.
aug 24, 2025, 6:51 pm • 8 0 • view
Also these tested messages have seemingly not worked for a literal decade. If they did, wouldn't Clinton & Harris have won?
aug 24, 2025, 6:50 pm • 17 0 • view
Really, anyone involved in the 2024 campaign that managed to engineer defeat against Trump's chaotic ramble of a campaign should *never* be allowed anywhere near campaign management again. (Walz is excused. He was doing well till he was gagged.)
aug 25, 2025, 1:38 pm • 2 0 • view
And notably, the ones they tested them against are also wishy-washy consultant speak (“a manufactured DC crime crisis” and “an imposition on DC home rule”) instead of “Stephen Miller’s jackbooted thugs are coming to your neighborhood”.
aug 24, 2025, 6:55 pm • 24 1 • view
Yes. I would be out there telling people that the jackbooted thugs are coming to your city next and they are going to arrest you if you so much as look at them the wrong way. In this case, fear is the correct response.
aug 24, 2025, 7:43 pm • 5 1 • view
Ds need a Newt/Luntz team who in the 1990s sent training tapes to R politicians teaching them to speak about Ds in demeaning and derogatory language. Luntz helped craft many of Rs lines. Eliminate estate taxes becomes ‘eliminate death taxes’; the PP&ACA becomes ‘Government takeover of healthcare’.
aug 24, 2025, 7:33 pm • 0 1 • view
Public opinion polling stopped being accurate (if it ever was) when the landline became extinct. A snapshot of weirdos today.
aug 24, 2025, 6:55 pm • 0 0 • view
Frankly I'm just tired of these incessantly wrong people keeping their highly paid jobs as consultants. Give me new bad ideas, at least
aug 24, 2025, 7:22 pm • 16 1 • view