Researcher, message maker, campaign advisor.
Host of Words To Win By: a podcast about progressive wins.
@wordstowinby
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Sep 12 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
I know it feels like all fun and games with the eat dogs comment. That it is so obviously ridiculous that repeating it exposes how heinous Trump is and thus moves voters away from him. But there's no evidence to support this claim, and plenty refuting it. 🧵
First, if showing voters who Trump is were going to work, it would have worked. "Grab 'em by the pussy," mocking a disabled reporter, full page ad on the Exonerated 5, and on and on would have kept him out of White House in 2016.
Sep 10 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Please stop inadvertently spreading heinous lies about Haitian immigrants in a laudable effort to refute those lies. When you say X is not/does not Y, you simply cement the connection between X and Y. Studies show people recall the assertion and not whether it's true or false./1
Say what IS true rather than negating what isn't, which requires repetition of horrible things. For example, Haitians, like many new Americans, bring their culture and cuisine with them. Dishes like fried plantains, squash stew & pork shoulder are delicious staples.
Aug 24 • 8 tweets • 1 min read
The line between patriotism and nationalism is not fine. And crossing it is not progressive.
I understand - hell, I admire - the construction of a national identity in a nation where ethnicity alone doesn't define it. An identity made of values & dreams & experiences.
Jul 24 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
Think about the wild passionate energy you saw from the crowd in WI yesterday, and if Harris had said *any* of this instead:
And the crowd goes...mild.
🧵
What is wrong with this, let me count the ways.
First, nothing about this is specific to Kamala Harris as an individual, a real human who - dare I say - did not fall from a coconut tree but comes with a specific context.
Jul 7 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
The French left just demonstrated precisely how to confront fascism: on offense. Le Pen tried to distance herself from...her own platform - sound familiar? - and the left gave her zero room. /1
They nimbly made an argument across a *very* fractured far left versus center to block the right. Making the personalized perils of fascist rule absolutely clear to even the most disaffected voters. Using humor & history, they made the best of the very short campaign sprint.
Jul 3 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
“Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty.” -Arendt.
It's equal parts unsurprising and infuriating how much of the MAGA Dictatorship is predicated on mediocre white men feeling incensed they have not been given what they perceive to be their due: total control over the rest of us.
Jun 15 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
There is a very dangerous "both sides" happening among disaffected Dem & swing voters not of the usual strain. Not that both parties are same but rather that MAGA is driving us into lake & Dem are failing to put on brakes. So, both sides get us drowned. rollingstone.com/politics/polit…
Apr 29 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Nancy Reagan telling kids to "just say no" ushered in a spike of drug/alcohol use. Hard to imagine what - if actually heard - could better *dissuade* young from voting than being excoriated for not doing so.
What DOES mobisuade young people.../1
1) Apply lessons from Brazilian campaigners in 2022, in a 2 aging ex presidents face-off, increased youth turnout 47% by channeling desire for defiance into voting: wordstowinby-pod.com/speak-yourself/
Apr 16 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
What folks are missing in the "does Bragg actually hurt Trump" discourse is the following: 1. Elections are won/lost by millimeters. "Only" 29% (lowest poll) of uncommitted voters saying this flips them is a tsumani. /1
2. Voters don't follow details, nor do they parse specifics. And they've been conditioned to view electoral contests in sweeping narratives, e.g. Morning in America, "Yes We Can," Swift Boat, Romney's 47% elitism.
Mar 28 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Here's what we're seeing in focus groups: Double haters contemplating sitting out, third party or skipping top of ticket are often willing to brush aside Trump committing past crimes. But what moves them is contemplating future harms *to them*. /1
This is why it's so vital to call out what Trump is really on trial for in NY criminal case: Voter Deception. That turns "hush money to adult star" case that's background noise of bad thing to the original effort to seize and wield power that set the pattern for his presidency.
Jan 11 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Evergreen pro-tip: Run against your opposition not the "other" your opposition has scapegoated to hide the fact that they're screwing us all. /1
Over and again, we see not merely in data but in actual results that "please all" - i.e. milquetoast messaging intended to be at least inoffensive - ensures you "please none."
Jan 1 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
Dancing to @taylorswift13's "Look what you made me do," in NYE Sexitude class (as one does) and just fully felt the much needed buck the fuck up energy.
@taylorswift13 How dare any of us be cowering in fear before the fascists winning the election? They are a sniveling few and we are beyond the majority.
Dec 20, 2023 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Absolutely! Here are some ready-made materials for and examples of doing just this - 1. Making the MN Miracle possible - confronting relentless race baiting and defining "Minnesotanness" to achieve progressive governance wordstowinby-pod.com/greater-than-f…
Democrats are making the same mistake as ever: agreeing to have the opposition's argument, handing them the advantage, thereby both losing swing and pissing off surge voters. /1
By recreating Trump's brought to you by White Nationalists immigration program, they are tacitly endorsing this as the right thing to do. Thereby signaling to conflicted voters that "securing" the border is a key election issue and leading them into the arms of Robocop. /2
Nov 29, 2023 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Arguing with people's feelings and their lived experience is a losing prospect in any conversation - politics included. This is why touting accomplishments - esp. framed in terms of having "grown the economy" & raised GDP will not work & even backlashes. /1
A rising tide no longer lifts all boats (arguable it ever did before but at least moreso) because we're drowning in a sea of inequality. Growing GDP means nothing unless working people actually get to keep the wealth we keep creating. /2
Nov 16, 2023 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
The problems, the horrors, the challenges - they are manifold. And yet it is always the case that if you want people to come to your cause, you must be *attractive.* That is - draw people into an enticing future, not merely attempt to convince them of present achievements. /1
And just like any magnet, being attractive requires having a polarity. In other words, you will also repel those who utterly disagree with everything you believe. Otherwise, you're peddling milquetoast - the appease all, please none approach. /2
Sep 15, 2023 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
Talking about the MAGA/McCarthy (yes, you read that right) Impeachment, a thread:
First, putting the words "Biden" and "impeach(ment)" near each other likely implies, to conflicted and/or low info voters, some guilt. And it feeds the "both sides" - Dems impeached Trump so GOP impeaches Biden equivalency right is counting on.
Jun 7, 2023 • 17 tweets • 3 min read
Fantastic piece. Only affirms what we see in weekly focus groups: Democrats are viewed as lacking strength, as not fighting back against the MAGA threat. That's the chief beef among voters who made up our winning '18, '20 & '22 coalition.
Illustrative e.g. from disaffected Dem group: “I've heard a lot about transgender rights. It's frustrating to hear such a dedicated effort to restrict rights for a group of people when there are so many other issues going on in the world that need attention.”
Jun 7, 2023 • 12 tweets • 3 min read
Absolutely devastating how many decades we spent embroiled in arguments about climate change being real & person-made when, all along, we should have been clearly telling folks that a handful of corporations are poisoning us for profit.
Personifying "climate change" - making it the actor in our sentences - precludes organizing. You can't go protest at "climate change's HQ." But you can go after the petrol pirates plundering our very air, land and water.
Jun 5, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
First they came for the...and I did nothing because I had opeds to write about how, really, polarization is the problem.
Next they came for the...and it was vital that I point out how both sides, really, are at fault.
Apr 18, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
If you want to win the debate, you must first set the terms./1
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