LindaBP Podcast
LindaBP Podcast
E3: Democrats are the Worst at Marketing and Messaging
Recorded May 19, 2024 when Biden was still in the running. I explain why the Biden-Harris camp, specifically, and Democrats in general, should update how they campaign. Even though the candidates have changed, I stand by the need to improve campaign communication. PS: Sorry for the muffled audio. If it annoys you (I understand completely), check out the transcript.
Noted Resources:
Todd Cherches (Visual Thinking, Communication, and Leadership)
Douglas Yates, Ph.D American Graduate School in Paris
Connect with me at: LindaBP.com or on IG @LindaBP68
Welcome to the LyndaBP podcast. I'm Lynda, a chick with MS who's getting nervous about the upcoming U. S. election. Since dictators don't like disabled people, I'm recording now while free speech and women with opinions still exist. Are you better off than you were four years ago? Hmm, let's see. Well, I'm not in lockdown, I have access to a vaccine, and I'm not terrified of dying from COVID while listening to an idiotic president offer up bleach shots as medical treatments. So yeah, I am better off. And yet they say the election this fall will be close? Seriously? Well, that means either pollsters randomly call quite a few cult members, or those polled have completely forgotten that COVID happened, or Democrats are perhaps the worst at marketing and messaging. And you know what? I'm pretty sure that's it. I'm not a marketing person at all. And I could think of a bunch of different things that they could say, at least for people my age. How about this? Why don't you play, the Sex and the City theme song as you say,"attention women of America, Republicans, they're just not that into you". Have the GOP break up with the Statue of Liberty on a post it. They can literally tell her and everybody else with a vagina, I'm sorry, I can't. Don't hate me. You could probably hire Sarah Jessica Parker to sit in the back of a police car and Slam the post it against the back window. And that's just two Sex and the City references they could use. Or, go in a Jeff Foxworthy direction. Would you rather save a clump of cells than a septic mom of three who's carrying those cells? Well, then you might just be a Republican. Would you rather cash an NRA check than keep guns from pulverizing schoolchildren beyond recognition? Then you might just be a Republican. Oh, here's one. Why don't you play the Sopranos theme song in the background while noting that if Trump gets back in office, we're going to start shaking down our NATO allies, demanding that they pay us for protection. De Niro hates Trump. Hire him to do the voiceover as Don Corleone. Boom. I just referenced two of America's most beloved. Fictional mafia families. They can reach all the jabronis out there who still think Trump has their backs. Play George Michael's Freedom 90. Have supermodels do infrastructure jobs. You could list out all the ways Biden and Harris won't let us down, will not give us up. And how they'd really love to stick around. Come on. This isn't that hard. Okay, here's another one. How about 30 seconds comparing Mike Johnson to Eddie Haskell. And I'm sorry kids, you'll absolutely have to Google that one. But if you're an old fart like me, you completely understand the reference. Mike Johnson isn't nice. He's polite. There's a difference. A nice politician would pass legislation allowing doctors to make healthcare decisions based on the symptoms you're experiencing and what's best for, you know, your survival. A polite politician prays for you while you bleed out in the parking lot and leave your other children without a mom. A man like that isn't a good Christian. He's a good Christian nationalist. Again, there's a difference. You know, we really need to ask ourselves, how are we campaigning? Why are we campaigning this way? How will we win if we keep doing the same thing and expect a different outcome? Dr. Douglas Yates, he's a professor of the American Graduate School in Paris, and he noted that,"American presidential debates are not really debates. Well not in the formal sense of two adversaries dialectically addressing a single pointed issue. Rather, they are television spectacles where two men deliver short, improvised speeches moderated by television journalist hosts. And sometimes even inviting the audience to ask questions, like an afternoon talk show. In these non debates, there are exchanges of invective, ad hominem insults, unwarranted claims, unverified facts, slogan mongering, immaterial subject manner, anecdotal evidence, hypothetical examples, and many other logical fallacies that would be corrected in a properly regulated debate. Rarely are the two adversaries forced to follow a single line of reason to its logical conclusion. This kind of mudslinging is hardly the right format for valid debate and conclusive arguments."End quote. Exactly. I hate watching debates. I already know what the candidate thinks. None of us are tuning in because we want to learn something. They already communicate with us in real time through social media. We can read their positions online from their websites. We all tune in for the spectacle, not for the information. And that's if we can stomach it. Most of the time we wait and get the highlights the next day. And let's be clear, based on what we've learned these last 10 years, Trump could shout the N word or, call women cunts and it wouldn't sink his campaign. His supporters, as well as certain media outlets, would justify any outburst. So, if you're allowed to lie, can do no wrong, can say no wrong, and you're not providing the public with new information, what's the point? Stop wasting our time. If you really want to show us how candidates think on their feet. Uh, if you want to know, do they really understand the issues, then take them away from an audience and their ability to grandstand, literally have them in a room and have one commentator ask questions, force them to follow a single line of reason to its logical conclusion. And if it has to be entertaining for ratings, then make it more like a game show rather than a stage performance. No word salads allowed. If you don't actually know the answer, you don't get a point. If you can't follow reason, you lose a point. If you lie, you lose two points. Have people fact check them in real time. Actually, forget the people, put an AI machine right there in the room and let the computer decide who's telling the truth and who isn't. And what about campaign rallies? I mean Again, who cares? The last time I went to a rally was in the fall of 1985. It was at Trinity High School. It was a pep rally. I'm good. Why would I mess around with large crowds and traffic to listen to someone I've already decided to vote for? And if I were undecided, how would a stadium speech help me? You know, these campaign hallmarks made sense before the internet and 24 hour news cycles existed. But now they seem like a waste of time and resources. And I don't understand why the candidates only visit states that are deemed battleground worthy. It just kind of makes you feel bad for the other states. But since this will happen this election cycle, I wish they would change how a rally is produced. Let's start with the obvious. I don't care who's sitting behind the candidate on stage. I know I'm watching a curated event. It's not a first come, first served cross section of all the attendees. Call me crazy, but I'm pretty sure there aren't 10, 000 people of color sitting behind the cameras out of view at a Trump rally. Instead of people, Biden should be standing in front of a giant screen that pairs his remarks with visual aids, and those visual aids can back up what he's trying to communicate to the voters. You know, don't tell me how many infrastructure jobs were added this year. Show me, with a bar graph. We don't take in information the same way we used to, so why haven't political campaigns caught up? A lot of what we hear in our day to day life is often paired with something to look at. We get captions, photos, videos, infographics, heck, sometimes there's a random hand drawing cartoons to match what we're being educated about. And yet, we're only given verbal information when the person running for office is being interviewed, debating, or giving speeches. It just feels so antiquated. It's like showing up with your Walkman and a cassette tape to a virtual reality headset fight. We're not simply auditory learners anymore. Gone are the days where we sit huddled around a radio listening to our world leaders. We receive a large percentage of our information visually. Todd Cherches, he's a pioneer in the field of visual leadership. In his TED Talk, The Power of Visual Thinking, he notes that communicating in this way, it grabs people's attention. They won't be distracted by their phones if they're too busy looking at the screen you've provided. It also improves comprehension. Visual analogies and metaphors increase understanding. People don't have to guess what you mean or imagine it for themselves if you show them what you're trying to say. This visual approach ultimately helps us remember and increases our retention of information. I'm Gen X. I watched MTV when it was actually a television station providing music videos, not just reality shows. And let me tell you something, it changed everything. Rather than deciphering lyrics yourself, you were given a story. A song that was once yours to interpret freely suddenly came with operating instructions. You know, it's interesting, actually, if you think about it. Video killed the radio star, only to have reality kill the video star. When it comes to politics, conservative media has certainly killed many political stars, reality TV star is killing off traditional conservative media. Kind of karmic, if you think about it. Yet, politics has never really mastered how to manipulate its message visually. Sure, there are tweets to read and commercials to watch, but candidates could offer so much more. Imagine if during a debate, instead of just referring to their notes, candidates brought up a PowerPoint slide that showed a pie chart or a bar graph when they talk about job numbers or unemployment rates or GDP changes due to tax cuts, money spent or money saved. These normal election cycle traditions that we all have to sit through could actually inform us if paired with visual information. And candidates could easily be called out for lying. You can't say a person misspoke if they purposefully show a pre made chart that's littered with fake findings. Then, if they're lying on a regular basis with visual aids filled with inaccurate data, reporters could finally be brave and have some integrity. They could simply shut off the camera, ending the interview, because the lying continues. The world has changed. We communicate more often with emails, instant messages, and texting instead of talking in person or on the phone. 50 percent of Americans now use closed captions when watching English speaking television shows, even though only 13 percent of Americans are actually deaf or hard of hearing. In other words, we're using subtitles to enhance what we're already listening to. I'm one of those people myself. And if you're like me, you might rely more on your visual memory than your auditory memory to function. And you probably need as much visual information as possible to get through the day. Politicians should be adapting to this. And finally, there's one really big reason the Biden Harris camp should change up how they campaign. It's an uncomfortable truth. That needs to be spoken. Joe Biden is 81. Now before you call me ageist, or tell me how wise he is, let's just break down the facts. My parents were in their mid to late 20s the first time Joe Biden ran for elected office. My daughters are in their 20s the last and final time that Biden is running. No candidate should be front and center this long. Three generations shouldn't be voting for the same person, and if they are, they shouldn't be receiving their political messaging in the same way. This leads us to the truth of why a Biden campaign speech should be a multimedia presentation narrated by Vice President Harris. Because she's the gal with the golden vocal cords. As a speech therapist, I can't help but notice that although Trump may only be 4 years younger than Biden, he sounds 10 years younger. When Biden gives a nuanced, intelligent answer in a thin, breathy, old man's voice, it takes away from his message. Whereas Trump's word salad ramblings are done with a booming voice. He's harder to ignore and his older supporters can hear every insane word that he utters. You can't outre a Trump supporter. You can't verbally juujitsu a MAGA moron with facts, but you can absolutely lose an intelligent Biden supporter if they can't hear or understand him. Don't give people a reason to vote. Third party or sit this election out. You know, in Biden's defense. He has spent a lifetime communicating in a very specific way to overcome his fluency disorder. It's impressive because it takes a lot of work to not stutter. And sometimes the work he does to avoid stuttering gets designated by the media as proof somehow of a cognitive decline. When in actuality, he's just pausing or closing his eyes to get his words out smoothly. Most people only have to think about what they're saying, not how they say it. Asking any 81 year old to suddenly speak differently to modify his loudness levels, it's a big ask. But asking a lifelong stutterer to modify his loudness levels on top of maintaining his fluency, it's a gigantic ask. This is the reality of being blessed with living a long life. You will lose some functionality. You'll either need readers or ridiculously large fonts because you've gotten older. You might need a hearing aid or a walking stick because of reduced mobility. It's not my fault the American political system doesn't provide mandatory off ramps for lifetime politicians who live in a country as youth obsessed as ours. A quarter of a million people will get facelifts this year. Teenagers are now getting Botox and using social media filters to look younger and better. You can't have it both ways. If your candidate can't vocally throw down like he used to, then you better have a long list of surrogates lined up to speak for him, narrate his videos, and run down his accomplishments. Give others the microphone as often as possible. And for goodness sake, make sure there's a railing Biden can grab every time he takes every stage. And stop letting him answer questions while walking through crowds of reporters. Have him stand still and have the reporters come to him. This isn't rocket science, people. This isn't rocket science. This is the reality of adapting your environment for a man in his eighth decade so that he can get through a campaign in one piece. We don't need something catastrophic happening at the last minute that would cause him to lose the election. Too much is at stake for the Biden Harris camp to not safely and strategically revamp how the oldest candidate in history is interacting with the masses Our first president was smart enough to say, you know what, two terms, that's it. I think our current president should be smart enough to go, you know what, this was too much. You have to stop running when you get to this age. Thanks so much for listening. Please like and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Links to any resources mentioned can be found on my website, LindaBP.Com, or you can follow me on Instagram@Lindabp68. Difficult conversations are always welcome. Manufactured outrage is not. Please comment accordingly.