Thread by @HoarseWisperer

I’m going to lay this out there as some unpleasant truth and then everyone can flame me and we can go on with our days.

Political campaigns are fundamentally reductive exercises in oversimplifying complex things down to a battle of 30-second soundbites.

That’s reality.

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When a topic is big and complicated, it really doesn’t matter what the substantive arguments are for or against a candidate’s position.

All that matters is whether they can effectively evoke emotions that make people love their “ideas” and fear or hate their opponents’.

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As someone who worked in communications strategy and messaging, the easiest way to make a message sellable is to tie it to things *people already believe* and *already have strong feelings about*.

If you have to educate someone out of their deeply held emotions, good luck.

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Which brings us around to healthcare...

We all know our system is broken. We all know it is atrocious that we don’t have affordable healthcare. We all know we deserve better.

Those issues make people willing to listen to fixes...

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However, people also have a lifetime of experience with the government and deep-seated feelings about those experiences.

If the Democratic candidate is running on a Medicare for All plan even remotely close to Bernie’s or Warren’s current model, the ads write themselves.

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Imagine a TV spot that slowly scrolls through images like these...

Take a minute to look at each one for three seconds each like you would in a TV ad...

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And as those images are slowly scrolling by, a solemn voiceover would be saying:

“(Democratic candidate) wants you to believe the government can run your healthcare like a well-oiled machine...

Americans know better... (cont’d)

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And then the spot closes with:

“If (Democratic candidate) wins in November, the same government that runs the post office will be in charge of your health... and there will be nothing you can do about it.”

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Again, this is, of course, a vast oversimplification and appeal to emotion.

It plays on existing feelings about all things governmental:

Everyone hates the DMV. Nobody thinks the post office is a bastion of efficiency.

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And it plays on Americans deep, deep fears about healthcare.

Imagine those spots running in battleground states.

They would singlehandedly hurt not just the nominee but every race on the ballot.

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Only Medicare for All has this unique baggage because only M4A calls for an all-in gamble on the government taking over healthcare management with no recourse if it struggles or fails.

Running against that would be an absolute gift to Republicans.

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As I have said five trillion times, I am STRONGLY pro-universal healthcare.

If we ever want to get there, we have to win a whole lot of elections in a whole lot of places.

A candidate running on M4A dramatically increases the likelihood we’ll lose. Dramatically.

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