What really flummoxes the left in messaging (yes, merely one of many problems - I grant) is that we’ve forgotten that at our core, we are storytellers not slogan makers. Of...
course slogans are crucial - simplifications that once repeated become the tattoo of our culture (purportedly) and thus manufacture our common sense.
But, to work, they must anchor back to a story. A story that sets the terms, defines how things work.
But, to work, they must anchor back to a story. A story that sets the terms, defines how things work.
The story must make sense of how we got here - our origins.
And it must give us not just a glimpse of our desirable future but an absolute hunger for it.
And it must give us not just a glimpse of our desirable future but an absolute hunger for it.
The right has an origin story - a reason for why we “suffered the fall” from grace. It is “them”, “those people” who don’t believe in our way of life, don’t “work hard”, are “takers” or “don’t obey our laws” (isn’t it ironic?)
And equally important they have a shorthand for the world they promise to deliver.
A most potent shorthand: nostalgia. Potent because one can conjure it without having to imagine at all. It renders us inactive- shuts down need for creativity.
A most potent shorthand: nostalgia. Potent because one can conjure it without having to imagine at all. It renders us inactive- shuts down need for creativity.
One simply flips through the spoon fed Kodachrome reel of the history and culture we’ve been fed. Look up pics of Donna Reed and Father Knows Best and you’ve got it. (Never mind it was a lie then and is a farce now.)
The left is getting far better at origin story. But then we get understandably hung up on present harms and horrors. The need to depict them. And to be sure, reconciliation cannot happen without truth.
But we must also make people long for the beautiful tomorrow in order to inspire them to work for its birth.
