This Is a Messaging War. Democrats Are Still Asleep.
Donald Trump handed Democrats a golden opportunity yesterday to expose his incompetence. When his director of the Office of Management and Budget paused “all agency grant, loan, and other financial assistance programs,” Democrats had the chance to show the American people concretely how chaotic, dangerous, and cruel Donald Trump’s administration is. Democratic leaders had to have seen this type of chaos coming after all, considering their decades of experience in politics and years of working against Donald Trump. So naturally they launched a coordinated campaign across media platforms using their hundreds of elected members and surrogates to spread their message, right? Wrong.
Here’s what we got instead. Please watch all of this. It’s everything wrong with how we message.
We got seventy-four-year-old (only?) Chuck Schumer crustily reading prepared remarks, flanked by some very concerned-looking colleagues. Schumer looked down to read the words “It is just outrageous.”1
What year is it?
Why do we need a script to channel our outrage?
Where is the urgency in the message?
Sure, after Schumer spoke Senator Maggie Hassan somewhat more emotively described the costs of Trump’s incompetence, but ultimately it’s still just old rich people furrowing their brows and reading from a script. I’ve written recently about how our party leadership is too old, and it showed today. As one Democratic comms strategist I spoke to put it, “We’re using a 1980s press conference playbook, with messengers no one cares about.”
Let me be perfectly clear. This is a messaging war. Our opponent is a walking meme factory backed by an entire extremist media ecosystem. His smallest utterance commands universal press attention. The world’s richest man – with his own social media company and fanboy army – is one of his top lieutenants. Against this legion of media doom we trotted out a cranky septuagenarian reading off his list of grievances at the city council meeting.
Winning a war requires strategy, preferably one that throws your opponent off balance and takes away his ability to react. Democrats have long resorted to outrage in response to Trump’s abuses of power. Outrage, however, can either motivate or repulse an audience, so it matters how you do it. In 2024, Democrats used outrage to attack Trump’s anti-democratic conduct, and the message didn’t land with voters. Today, still apparently unchastened, Democrats tried more of it, decrying Trump’s money grab as unconstitutional. Understandably, we want to be the party that defends institutions from the Republicans who seek to destroy them. However, the way we do that is by being the party that defends people first.
Democrats should focus their messaging on how Trump’s bungling hurts ordinary people.
If single moms are crying into their cameras on social media about how Trump is taking their money away, get them on camera! (Watch that video and compare it to Schumer's remarks. Which do you find more compelling?)
As Democratic strategist told me, “Use the opportunity to get voters alarmed and mobilized that Trump is hurting their homes, pocketbooks, schools, churches, health care, parents, kids – this isn’t what they voted for.” People are all of a sudden remembering how bad Trump was at this job, so Democrats should be talking about nothing else. As another Democratic communications strategist told me, “sometimes widespread outrage works.”
Democrats must be ready to seize every political opening – these moments are rare, and wasted chances have lasting consequences. Trump and his team will learn and adapt. Capitalizing on their mistakes matters immensely for Democrats’ chances to recapture congressional seats in 2026 and impose some check on Trump. It will also go a long way toward setting the terms of the 2028 campaign.
Unfortunately we as Democrats often do not know how to exploit an advantage when it is given to us. In the months after January 6th, Republicans lacked any coherent counter-message. Some tried alleging that the insurrectionists were actually leftwing ‘antifa’ radicals from the BLM protests. Others ducked and covered when asked. Still others even ran up the white flag and admitted that the attack was Trump’s doing. Democrats, however, failed to press their advantage in that moment, to prosecute an obvious criminal when he was at his weakest, and let us have done with Trump once and for all. The rest, of course, is history.
Look, I get it. it’s easy to second-guess a strategy from the sidelines. Most communications teams in our elected officials’ offices consist of one person, or two if a member is lucky. But I also know something about media strategy myself, so I am out here trying to be useful in any way that I can.
Trump owns this decision. We have to shove it down his throat.
As my friend Adam Parkhomenko points out, Schumer seemed to have recovered enough from the outrage by the end of the day to vote in Trump’s nominee for Transportation Secretary.
When Nancy Pelosi hobbled out with the sole purpose of preventing AOC from assuming a leadership position (in place of the older white man who was next in line, who had "earned" it) and then hobbled back to...? I knew we were sunk. I think that moment held more significance than we realize.
They need to have AOC or Elizabeth Warren or some of the other Congress women who are outspoken give these. Schumer spoke against Biden for re-election. He isn’t any better at getting the message across. Maybe it is time for him to step down.