Messaging: The California GOP’s Biggest Problem

​A Clean Clock

We Republicans had our clock cleaned in the recent midterms in California.  Explanations for this have included all of the following: (1) Identification with Trump who is hated by swing voters, especially “suburban women,” (2) A much better funded and sophisticated GOTV operation by Democrats involving billionaires, social media targeting experts, union workers and energized Trump hating party activists, (3) Democratic cheating and fraud, (4) Divisions between the establishment and activist wings of the CAGOP, (5) The continuing unfavorable demographic trends, and (6) the unpopularity of GOP positions on social issues.  

My Take: It Begins with Our Message

While there is truth to all of these explanations, the biggest problem is our message.  Our message must be more than our platform or a laundry list of correct conservative positions.  It is foremost what we sound like to people we are trying to persuade.  Our message of limited government, law and order, traditional values, low taxes and reduced regulations, is one made to preach to the converted, to a comfortable middle class that wants to hold on to what is has. But what does it sound like to those not already onboard that we need to reach and persuade?  Does it sound like an invitation to join us on the path to success and happiness, or does it sound like a bunch of already successful people just wanting to protect their privileged positions against those less successful?  Just how much does protecting Proposition 13 mean to people who can’t make rent and for whom buying a house is out of the question?

A successful message has to appeal to people other than dyed-in-the-wool Republicans yearning for the second coming of Ronald Reagan.

The Other Side’s Plan
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The historic way for someone to gain political power is to define people in a “victim, persecutor, rescuer” triangle.  They say, “you” are the victim, “they” are the persecutor, and “I” am your rescuer.  A narrative framed this way appeals to natural human psychological principles.  We all have a tendency to see ourselves as a mistreated victim, and look for someone to recognize this and be on our side.
 
Democrats have employed this approach in most of our large cities for at least a hundred years.  The most famous practitioner was James Michael Curley, an Irish mayor of Boston who drove the English out of Boston to consolidate his Irish power base.   California Democrats are following this playbook at a state level now.  Their target is the middle class, better known as “the deplorables.”  They drive industry and agriculture, and thus middle class jobs, out of the state in the name of the environment using racist rhetoric for emotional cover.  As more middle class jobs and people leave the state, the Democrats’ hold on power increases.  The question for Republican messaging is how to counter this.

​The Democrat approach has one major weaknesses and vulnerability. The elimination of middle class jobs hurts the very people it claims to help by cutting off their upward economic mobility.  They cut the middle rungs off the ladder of upward economic mobility, trapping their supposed beneficiaries at a level of permanent serfdom.  Serfs are not slaves.  They are legally free, but the economic system affords them no opportunity to rise above poverty.  This medieval system is the Democratic Party’s model for California.  Everywhere Democrats have established their one-party rule is characterized by this huge gap between the very rich and very poor.  Everywhere they have their way the middle class is eliminated. This is glaringly obvious and widely acknowledged, and it is the weakness Republicans should attack relentlessly.

The Structure of Our Message

              In the victim-oppressor-rescuer framework, we describe the working poor as the victims, the billionaires who run the Democratic plantation as the oppressors, and we God-fearing middle class   Republicans who share the values and aspirations of our working poor brothers as the rescuers.  This leads to talking points like the following:

The Democratic Party is the party of economic inequality and obliterated opportunity.  This is not a bug but a feature of their plan to be the masters of a society of serfs

The Democrats cut the middle rungs off the ladder of upward mobility so they can sit as masters and pretend benefactors of a captive people. 

The Democrats feed you useless hate speech about a supposed white oppressor racist middle class to distract you when they themselves are the true oppressors just like their party’s slave-owning founders long ago.

The Republican Party is the party of opportunity and upward mobility.  We are the party of shared prosperity, not based on income transfer but based on opportunity to better your own situation. 

The good society is not one where everyone gets the same benefits regardless of how hard you work, but one where doing the right thing is rewarded, where your success is primarily up to you and not some handout in exchange for your political loyalty.

The Democrat’s supposed concern for the environment is phony.  It’s just an excuse to eliminate middle class jobs and the middle class itself as a means to keep their power.  If they were really about climate change, why did they shut down our functioning zero carbon nuclear power plants?  Was it to eliminate their middle class jobs?

Their so-called “environmental justice” is a word game that really translates as “no decent jobs for people of color.”  They want the price of electricity and gasoline in this state to be double what it is elsewhere so no factories will ever be built here and bring middle class jobs with them. 

Republicans are not anti- immigrant.  We want a country with a growing economy, with lots of work and opportunity.  We want people who love this country and the opportunities it affords to come here.  If you are a law abiding person who embraces our creed of freedom and personal responsibility we want you.  This is the land of freedom, not the land of free stuff.  There just has to be a legal and fair process.  We don’t want to import the corrupt system people are running away from.

All of us, of every race, color and creed, who love the freedom and opportunity that America is all about are brothers and sisters.  Those who would enslave us to a one-party socialist police state are not.

Billionaire Democrats don’t need the protection of law and property rights.  These things protect the rest of us, the poor most of all.

Every billionaire who is also a Democrat wants you to be a slave.  Every one.

America is the land of opportunity, the land of the free and the home of the brave.  The sky is your limit.  Don’t settle for the crumbs Democrats offer you in their slave state.              

Note that talking points like these never attack the poor, or people on welfare, or even illegal immigrants or criminals.  Instead we attack the billionaire Democrats who are conniving to keep these victims enslaved.  We identify with the victims, because these wicked billionaire Democrat oppressors are trying to do the same thing to us.

This rhetorical approach has the added advantage of being true.

Social Policy

Keep it simple.  The Democrats have locked in the social liberals, Republicans have locked in the social conservatives.  Just stick to social conservative positions matter-of-factly and move back to our core message of upward economic mobility.  Taking squishy positions on the social issues just traps a candidate in endless discussions about them.  You don’t see any Democrats taking a moderate position from their side.  You will not win over any squishy people by being squishy yourself.

Immigration

Why do you think people from Mexico and Central America want to come here in the first place?  Because their own countries are already ruled by people just like Democrats, people who use the Curley Effect to divide people, keep them in poverty, deny opportunity and perpetuate their own rule.

You can’t blame people for wanting to come here for opportunity, but we can and must insist they do so on terms that strengthen our system of opportunity and not undermine it.  The principles that should govern immigration policy should include the following: (1) Immigration must be lawful and illegal immigration should not be rewarded, (2) Immigrants should not place an undue or permanent burden on our welfare system, and (3) Immigrants should not become voting citizens before a process of Americanization and demonstration of commitment to the American system of law and government.

Feelings are Important
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The ill-feelings toward “old white male” Republicans on the part of “young diverse people of color” are not without foundation and are easily exploited by the Democrats.  But the actual differences of beliefs may not be as great as we think.  What aggravates the feelings is isolation.  We each go to our own churches and other groups almost exclusively and seldom meet people outside our comfort zone.  If Republicans want to make a dent in that we need to take the first step.  Why not pick one or two Sundays a month to attend a black or Hispanic church?  Just be there, be friendly, and worship with them.  Seek out other similar opportunities in other venues.  Take a unionized Democrat co-worker to lunch.  Show them we are people too and not the devils the Democrats tell them we are.  Feelings are important.