In this Chai Talk, I sit with strategic communications expert Anat-Shenker Osorio who explains how Democrats can win over disaffected voters with more effective and passionate messaging.
Jun 23·edited Jun 23Liked by THE LEFT HOOK with Wajahat Ali
I have been pushing the importance of narrative in messaging for a very long time, and Osorio is right-on that there has to be a conflict for a narrative to work. Her example of the story of how Biden FOUGHT for the lowered price of insulin--not to mention Medicare negotiations with Big Pharma--is right on. Same goes for the economy. We (the Dems) FOUGHT for the programs that are giving so many new jobs (and won despite pretty universal NOs from Republicans; we are FIGHTING to be sure your air and water are clean and that things like heat domes and swelter can be minimized, not worse in the future. We fought the inflation that resulted from supply issues during the pandemic. And on and on.
And then: we are fighting to be sure that people who know what they are doing are the ones keeping your food safe (segue to the 2025 to gut the administrative state). We are fighting to control immigration in a rational way (segue to the nixing of the bipartisan border bill)--Don't start with "The Republicans bollixed the border bill"--stress how we fought and compromised to get it and then, when the GOP bollixed it, we have kept trying to implement the controls even though we can't get the funding...)
And so on. The GOP has given us fodder for the narratives--the stopping of the border bill, the aims of Project 2025. Don't just say "GOP bad." Say "we know what you want and we are doing X to be sure it is in place."
Excellent interview, Waj. Your guest, Anat-Shenker Osorio, hit it out of the park! Love her Democratic slogan, "Our Freedoms, Our Futures". I'm gonna run with that. We must appeal to the hearts and souls of every American who truly loves this country.
Looking forward to listening to her podcast, "Words to Win By". Thx, Waj!💙
Look at his fans and those still undecided and those who haven't enough experience in the world who just don't know that this is not how an adult lives and works and behaves. There is an enormous, though not majority, of men and women who like how trump behaves. Here's a guy who has gotten away all his life grifting, defrauding, stealing, raping, groping, and be a blowhard about how successful he is. There are a whole lot of people who wish they could behave like that and lie in a mansion, drive fancy cars, get away with everything and become President of the United States. It give them permission to behave the same way.
Some say we need to emasculate Trump. I disagree. Why stoop to the level of sexism by calling him a girl or a eunuch?
How about we elevate the mournfully lost character of adulthood, of elegance, of sheer expertise and know-how and getting things done? Of the professional? Picture Trump as the id-driven infant that he is. Portray him as the 7-year-old, lying, sneering, smearing, bully and give him a lollipop to shut him up? Portray Biden as the guy with enough wit to take "Let's go Brandon" to "Dark Brandon" putting on his shades. Or the guy who gets things done. Picture the GOP House and Senate members watching Trump behave like a toddler and then copying him, as he used demeaning them to cow them into doing what he does. Then watch as they thank him for calling them names only to beg him to let them be his servants.
These people are cartoons. Portray them as such while Biden has been the quietest and most successful President we've had against all odds and 2 traitors in his own party in the Senate. While the toddler party is busy being toddlers, show all that Biden has accomplished. List them. Name them. Point out how what Biden has done has improved our economy not only or now but for the decade. Yes, there is inflation that he inherited from the GOP and at the same time the percentage of wage gains have outstripped the rate of inflation while he fights to preserve programs that help the lower middle class, working class and poor.
Nobody doesn't know that Donald Trump is a racist psychopath, and an authoritarian for whom the will of the people is irrelevant, but for a while, there were some people who didn't know that Joe Biden is a racist psychopath, and an authoritarian for whom the will of the people is irrelevant.
Or maybe some of those people knew he was racist, and tended towards intransigence, but convinced themselves that he would restrain himself, for the sake of his legacy. (After all, what other choice did they have, but to vote against Donald Trump?) But now they've all seen Joe Biden's irredeemable racism, and they've all seen him defy the will of the people, committing the most significant crime of our time.
Even people who fantasized that Joe meant something different, when in his very first SOTU, he spat in the face of BLM, and pledged MORE funding, for racist policing. Even people who twisted themselves in knots to grasp at the pretense that border-guards on horseback, whipping black people, weren't really doing the thing we all saw them do... just so they could defend Joe Biden's defence of confederate whip-crackers. Even people who were wilfully blind to the fact that Joe Biden prolonged, and then escalated, all of Donald Trump's racist border-savagery.
Now they've all seen Joe Biden's racist savagery manifest in an unthinkably sadistic genocide. Now they've all seen Joe Biden spit in the face of public opinion & wield America's might, wealth and influence to suit HIS OWN inhuman, racist preference.
Now they've all seen Joe Biden lie like a Trump. Repeatedly. With no regard for the fact that WE ALL KNOW he's lying. Literally NO ONE believed him when he claimed there was any "red line" regarding Rafah. He STILL refuses to acknowledge that there were not "40 beheaded Israeli babies."
Joe Biden is a monster. All three of those people in your picture are monsters. So are ALL of the like-minded racists, and craven, amoral yes-men, whom Joe Biden surrounds himself with. Including Merrick Garland, who personally held back the DOJ — to the point where people were afraid to utter Trump's name in his presence — enabling Trump to remain viable as a candidate for this election.
It's not "the Democrats' messaging" that is threatening America's chance to escape Trump's racist authoritarian disloyalty to Americans; it's Biden's racist authoritarian disloyalty to Americans, that ruined America's chance to escape that fate. Biden preserved Trump to FORCE the electorate to give him a second term. And then Biden's racism & disloyalty unmasked him (as well as MANY of the most powerful Dems), as the fully inhuman, genocidal Zionists, that they are.
I have been pushing the importance of narrative in messaging for a very long time, and Osorio is right-on that there has to be a conflict for a narrative to work. Her example of the story of how Biden FOUGHT for the lowered price of insulin--not to mention Medicare negotiations with Big Pharma--is right on. Same goes for the economy. We (the Dems) FOUGHT for the programs that are giving so many new jobs (and won despite pretty universal NOs from Republicans; we are FIGHTING to be sure your air and water are clean and that things like heat domes and swelter can be minimized, not worse in the future. We fought the inflation that resulted from supply issues during the pandemic. And on and on.
And then: we are fighting to be sure that people who know what they are doing are the ones keeping your food safe (segue to the 2025 to gut the administrative state). We are fighting to control immigration in a rational way (segue to the nixing of the bipartisan border bill)--Don't start with "The Republicans bollixed the border bill"--stress how we fought and compromised to get it and then, when the GOP bollixed it, we have kept trying to implement the controls even though we can't get the funding...)
And so on. The GOP has given us fodder for the narratives--the stopping of the border bill, the aims of Project 2025. Don't just say "GOP bad." Say "we know what you want and we are doing X to be sure it is in place."
Excellent interview, Waj. Your guest, Anat-Shenker Osorio, hit it out of the park! Love her Democratic slogan, "Our Freedoms, Our Futures". I'm gonna run with that. We must appeal to the hearts and souls of every American who truly loves this country.
Looking forward to listening to her podcast, "Words to Win By". Thx, Waj!💙
Look at his fans and those still undecided and those who haven't enough experience in the world who just don't know that this is not how an adult lives and works and behaves. There is an enormous, though not majority, of men and women who like how trump behaves. Here's a guy who has gotten away all his life grifting, defrauding, stealing, raping, groping, and be a blowhard about how successful he is. There are a whole lot of people who wish they could behave like that and lie in a mansion, drive fancy cars, get away with everything and become President of the United States. It give them permission to behave the same way.
Some say we need to emasculate Trump. I disagree. Why stoop to the level of sexism by calling him a girl or a eunuch?
How about we elevate the mournfully lost character of adulthood, of elegance, of sheer expertise and know-how and getting things done? Of the professional? Picture Trump as the id-driven infant that he is. Portray him as the 7-year-old, lying, sneering, smearing, bully and give him a lollipop to shut him up? Portray Biden as the guy with enough wit to take "Let's go Brandon" to "Dark Brandon" putting on his shades. Or the guy who gets things done. Picture the GOP House and Senate members watching Trump behave like a toddler and then copying him, as he used demeaning them to cow them into doing what he does. Then watch as they thank him for calling them names only to beg him to let them be his servants.
These people are cartoons. Portray them as such while Biden has been the quietest and most successful President we've had against all odds and 2 traitors in his own party in the Senate. While the toddler party is busy being toddlers, show all that Biden has accomplished. List them. Name them. Point out how what Biden has done has improved our economy not only or now but for the decade. Yes, there is inflation that he inherited from the GOP and at the same time the percentage of wage gains have outstripped the rate of inflation while he fights to preserve programs that help the lower middle class, working class and poor.
Nobody doesn't know that Donald Trump is a racist psychopath, and an authoritarian for whom the will of the people is irrelevant, but for a while, there were some people who didn't know that Joe Biden is a racist psychopath, and an authoritarian for whom the will of the people is irrelevant.
Or maybe some of those people knew he was racist, and tended towards intransigence, but convinced themselves that he would restrain himself, for the sake of his legacy. (After all, what other choice did they have, but to vote against Donald Trump?) But now they've all seen Joe Biden's irredeemable racism, and they've all seen him defy the will of the people, committing the most significant crime of our time.
Even people who fantasized that Joe meant something different, when in his very first SOTU, he spat in the face of BLM, and pledged MORE funding, for racist policing. Even people who twisted themselves in knots to grasp at the pretense that border-guards on horseback, whipping black people, weren't really doing the thing we all saw them do... just so they could defend Joe Biden's defence of confederate whip-crackers. Even people who were wilfully blind to the fact that Joe Biden prolonged, and then escalated, all of Donald Trump's racist border-savagery.
Now they've all seen Joe Biden's racist savagery manifest in an unthinkably sadistic genocide. Now they've all seen Joe Biden spit in the face of public opinion & wield America's might, wealth and influence to suit HIS OWN inhuman, racist preference.
Now they've all seen Joe Biden lie like a Trump. Repeatedly. With no regard for the fact that WE ALL KNOW he's lying. Literally NO ONE believed him when he claimed there was any "red line" regarding Rafah. He STILL refuses to acknowledge that there were not "40 beheaded Israeli babies."
Joe Biden is a monster. All three of those people in your picture are monsters. So are ALL of the like-minded racists, and craven, amoral yes-men, whom Joe Biden surrounds himself with. Including Merrick Garland, who personally held back the DOJ — to the point where people were afraid to utter Trump's name in his presence — enabling Trump to remain viable as a candidate for this election.
It's not "the Democrats' messaging" that is threatening America's chance to escape Trump's racist authoritarian disloyalty to Americans; it's Biden's racist authoritarian disloyalty to Americans, that ruined America's chance to escape that fate. Biden preserved Trump to FORCE the electorate to give him a second term. And then Biden's racism & disloyalty unmasked him (as well as MANY of the most powerful Dems), as the fully inhuman, genocidal Zionists, that they are.
I WISH it were only the messaging.