The Democratic Party is failing in its obligation to vigorously oppose Trump’s power grab, criminality, massive abuse of American norms, and the grievous damage these are causing to individuals, the nation and the world. It has a huge communications problem that, frankly, is a surprise because there are obvious solutions.
Trump provides the Dems with enough ammunition to bring him to account daily, but they seem reluctant to avail themselves of it. Their hesitation is baffling.
This is not a new challenge. During all four years of the Biden administration, communication was not a Democratic strong suit. In fact, poor messaging had much to do with the party’s electoral trouncing. They kept trying to convince voters that what they saw with their eyes wasn’t true. The economy was booming (it was) and “look at all the wonderful things we have done for you.” They failed completely to acknowledge that the high prices people were paying for basic goods—food, gasoline, car loans, mortgages—were as nothing compared to abstractions like GDP growth and low unemployment. They never aligned with the reality that people were suffering or talked about what they would and would do to improve lives. On top of that, they wanted credit for bringing the Southern border under control, even though they only did that in the eleventh hour of their administration after sweeping the problem under the rug for more than three-quarters of their White House term. All of this despite polls showing that inflation and the border were top of mind to voters.
Democrats during the Biden years operated in a self-created communications desert. They appear to have learned nothing from this and today are keeping that cluelessness going.
I’ve addressed this issue in past Rants, but Democratic lassitude prompts me to revisit it again, this time with a bit more granularity and reference to my personal experience:
Democrats need a well-planned, coordinated three-pronged effort to put forth party spokespersons from their congressional, gubernatorial, mayoral and state legislative ranks (Michigan State Senator Mallory McMorrow, for example) every single day to speak in opposition to the illegal and appalling actions and inactions Trump and his lackeys are undertaking to undermine the nation and the world. The messages should be simple, instructive and delivered succinctly They should speak directly to the problems Republicans are causing ordinary Americans and how Democrats would address them. Nothing fancy:
(1) Daily news conferences.
Most voters don’t follow what is going on in Washington, DC very closely. A recent poll revealed that only 27 percent of respondents had even heard about Qatar’s gifting of a $400 million plane to Trump. They need to be told that Republicans are slashing school breakfast and lunch programs to the bone and what this means for millions of American families. They need to know that Democrats will fight to restore and expand these vital programs. They must be told that millions of people will lose their healthcare and why that’s a calamity for all of us who will be paying for them when they show up in emergency rooms. They need to know that tariffs are a tax and the specifics of how they harm consumers. And so forth.
An example of how to do this effectively derives from now discredited (for other reasons) former Governor Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) who, during the Covid-19 pandemic, held daily news conferences reporting on what he was doing to combat the virus. These were widely covered and viewed and garnered a lot of positive feedback from the public. The contrast with Trump’s disjointed, bumbling daily Covid news conferences fraught with his customary chaos and dangerous advocacy of bonehead “cures” was well-noted by both press and public. Set aside from this analysis that Cuomo was not always honest about his actions. It was the medium and the messaging strategy that was brilliant.
(2) Podcasts.
Although I still read newspapers and watch nightly news programs, I have tilted to where I get much of my news from…podcasts. I do this while going about my routine daily business—kitchen chores, cleaning up, showering, shaving, etc. I also stream podcasts while driving.
Judging by the data, I am not alone. The podcasting phenomenon is growing like topsy and, as an information medium, currently attracts more than 160 million American listeners. 55 percent of the U.S. population 12 years old and older listen to a podcast at least once a month. That number is increasing at a skyrocketing rate. The Pew Research Center reports that 34 percent of Americans listen to an average of 8.3 podcast episodes per week, and 23 percent spend over 10 hours listening weekly. Interestingly for an information medium, the percentages of listeners by age group vary very little. The elderly are just as committed listeners as younger folks. Podcasting has become so huge that it is overwhelming traditional broadcasting in terms of the number of eyes and ears it reaches.
The legacy media, newspapers and television to be more specific, is hemorrhaging eyeballs at an alarming rate. At this writing, it was just announced that cable network MSNBC experienced a day when only 38,000 viewers tuned in. In the aggregate, the three major broadcast networks (ABC, NBC and CBS) nightly news programs reach only 18.5 million viewers. There are several hundred podcasts whose audiences far exceed that number.
YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts comprise almost two-thirds of the most popular podcast platforms. While it is difficult to pinpoint the number of listeners/viewers of a particular podcast, the general consensus is that the most popular podcasts dwarf the number of ears and eyeballs the legacy media attracts. Podcasts like the Meidas Touch, the Joe Rogan Experience, the Shawn Ryan Show, NPR News Now, Up First and Stuff You Should Know have huge audiences and should be ones Democrats target daily. It is not enough to go on podcasts like Pod Save America, which appeals only to a progressive audience, and conclude that they are making a dent in the public information space.
(3) Social media.
More Americans get their news from social media than from any other source. YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, LinkedIn, and X dominate this realm, with close to 100 percent saturation of the U.S. public. Democrats must have a strategy for messaging here too on a daily basis.
This is not rocket science. Voters need to know that the Democratic opposition is robust and has a plan to make people’s lives better. They need to understand why what Trump and Republicans are doing in gutting social programs to transfer wealth from the poor and middle classes to the ultra-rich, flipping our loyal allies into adversaries and our enemies into allies, and assaulting the Constitution, are dangerous. They need to understand why Constitutional protections like Habeas Corpus and Due Process are fundamental protections of us all. Homeland Security Secretary Kristy Noem recently told a congressional committee that Habeas Corpus gives the President the right to deport people, a definition both absurdly wrong, a total perversion of its true purpose and completely out of touch with reality. Only a few Democrats during the committee hearing called her ignorance out. Otherwise, the party let it go. Stuff like this merits screaming to the rooftops.
Corrupdate. I have been pondering why Trump’s blatant, unprecedented, all in the open corruption has not yet broken through with the public. To the extent that his grift has been polled, it appears that voters just don’t seem to care about it. It’s just “ho-hum, what else is new?” to them. I suppose that, despite there being an abundance of sleaze during his first term, he was re-elected anyway, which showed that voters did not care about it.
This does not mean that Democrats and the media should stop talking about it. Perhaps, like Joseph Goebbels and his contemporary Republican imitators, if there is an incessant drumbeat from Dems and the media, at least some voters will believe that this is an issue that matters.
Dick Hermann
June 6, 2025
Trump provides the Dems with enough ammunition to bring him to account daily, but they seem reluctant to avail themselves of it. Their hesitation is baffling.
This is not a new challenge. During all four years of the Biden administration, communication was not a Democratic strong suit. In fact, poor messaging had much to do with the party’s electoral trouncing. They kept trying to convince voters that what they saw with their eyes wasn’t true. The economy was booming (it was) and “look at all the wonderful things we have done for you.” They failed completely to acknowledge that the high prices people were paying for basic goods—food, gasoline, car loans, mortgages—were as nothing compared to abstractions like GDP growth and low unemployment. They never aligned with the reality that people were suffering or talked about what they would and would do to improve lives. On top of that, they wanted credit for bringing the Southern border under control, even though they only did that in the eleventh hour of their administration after sweeping the problem under the rug for more than three-quarters of their White House term. All of this despite polls showing that inflation and the border were top of mind to voters.
Democrats during the Biden years operated in a self-created communications desert. They appear to have learned nothing from this and today are keeping that cluelessness going.
I’ve addressed this issue in past Rants, but Democratic lassitude prompts me to revisit it again, this time with a bit more granularity and reference to my personal experience:
Democrats need a well-planned, coordinated three-pronged effort to put forth party spokespersons from their congressional, gubernatorial, mayoral and state legislative ranks (Michigan State Senator Mallory McMorrow, for example) every single day to speak in opposition to the illegal and appalling actions and inactions Trump and his lackeys are undertaking to undermine the nation and the world. The messages should be simple, instructive and delivered succinctly They should speak directly to the problems Republicans are causing ordinary Americans and how Democrats would address them. Nothing fancy:
(1) Daily news conferences.
Most voters don’t follow what is going on in Washington, DC very closely. A recent poll revealed that only 27 percent of respondents had even heard about Qatar’s gifting of a $400 million plane to Trump. They need to be told that Republicans are slashing school breakfast and lunch programs to the bone and what this means for millions of American families. They need to know that Democrats will fight to restore and expand these vital programs. They must be told that millions of people will lose their healthcare and why that’s a calamity for all of us who will be paying for them when they show up in emergency rooms. They need to know that tariffs are a tax and the specifics of how they harm consumers. And so forth.
An example of how to do this effectively derives from now discredited (for other reasons) former Governor Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) who, during the Covid-19 pandemic, held daily news conferences reporting on what he was doing to combat the virus. These were widely covered and viewed and garnered a lot of positive feedback from the public. The contrast with Trump’s disjointed, bumbling daily Covid news conferences fraught with his customary chaos and dangerous advocacy of bonehead “cures” was well-noted by both press and public. Set aside from this analysis that Cuomo was not always honest about his actions. It was the medium and the messaging strategy that was brilliant.
(2) Podcasts.
Although I still read newspapers and watch nightly news programs, I have tilted to where I get much of my news from…podcasts. I do this while going about my routine daily business—kitchen chores, cleaning up, showering, shaving, etc. I also stream podcasts while driving.
Judging by the data, I am not alone. The podcasting phenomenon is growing like topsy and, as an information medium, currently attracts more than 160 million American listeners. 55 percent of the U.S. population 12 years old and older listen to a podcast at least once a month. That number is increasing at a skyrocketing rate. The Pew Research Center reports that 34 percent of Americans listen to an average of 8.3 podcast episodes per week, and 23 percent spend over 10 hours listening weekly. Interestingly for an information medium, the percentages of listeners by age group vary very little. The elderly are just as committed listeners as younger folks. Podcasting has become so huge that it is overwhelming traditional broadcasting in terms of the number of eyes and ears it reaches.
The legacy media, newspapers and television to be more specific, is hemorrhaging eyeballs at an alarming rate. At this writing, it was just announced that cable network MSNBC experienced a day when only 38,000 viewers tuned in. In the aggregate, the three major broadcast networks (ABC, NBC and CBS) nightly news programs reach only 18.5 million viewers. There are several hundred podcasts whose audiences far exceed that number.
YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts comprise almost two-thirds of the most popular podcast platforms. While it is difficult to pinpoint the number of listeners/viewers of a particular podcast, the general consensus is that the most popular podcasts dwarf the number of ears and eyeballs the legacy media attracts. Podcasts like the Meidas Touch, the Joe Rogan Experience, the Shawn Ryan Show, NPR News Now, Up First and Stuff You Should Know have huge audiences and should be ones Democrats target daily. It is not enough to go on podcasts like Pod Save America, which appeals only to a progressive audience, and conclude that they are making a dent in the public information space.
(3) Social media.
More Americans get their news from social media than from any other source. YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, LinkedIn, and X dominate this realm, with close to 100 percent saturation of the U.S. public. Democrats must have a strategy for messaging here too on a daily basis.
This is not rocket science. Voters need to know that the Democratic opposition is robust and has a plan to make people’s lives better. They need to understand why what Trump and Republicans are doing in gutting social programs to transfer wealth from the poor and middle classes to the ultra-rich, flipping our loyal allies into adversaries and our enemies into allies, and assaulting the Constitution, are dangerous. They need to understand why Constitutional protections like Habeas Corpus and Due Process are fundamental protections of us all. Homeland Security Secretary Kristy Noem recently told a congressional committee that Habeas Corpus gives the President the right to deport people, a definition both absurdly wrong, a total perversion of its true purpose and completely out of touch with reality. Only a few Democrats during the committee hearing called her ignorance out. Otherwise, the party let it go. Stuff like this merits screaming to the rooftops.
Corrupdate. I have been pondering why Trump’s blatant, unprecedented, all in the open corruption has not yet broken through with the public. To the extent that his grift has been polled, it appears that voters just don’t seem to care about it. It’s just “ho-hum, what else is new?” to them. I suppose that, despite there being an abundance of sleaze during his first term, he was re-elected anyway, which showed that voters did not care about it.
This does not mean that Democrats and the media should stop talking about it. Perhaps, like Joseph Goebbels and his contemporary Republican imitators, if there is an incessant drumbeat from Dems and the media, at least some voters will believe that this is an issue that matters.
Dick Hermann
June 6, 2025
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