The GOP has a major messaging problem because the craziest and most evil slate of Democrat candidates ever just crushed the midterm election, even flipping Texas and Georgia.
Spencer Pratt had excellent messaging, but California has a hell of a lot of fraud. But across America on Election Day, more was at work in the GOP’s crash than just Democrat fraud. Obviously, GOP messaging was seriously flawed in some way. “‘Free stuff!’ is a VERY easy story to tell, and when everyone's gotta take out a second mortgage just to pay their insurance premiums, ‘free healthcare’ is an unbeatable story. It doesn't matter that ‘free healthcare’ doesn't exist and socialized medicine is a terrible product...it's not the product, it's the brand. And ‘FREE!’ is a great brand,” Pratt explained.
“You can't get mad at people for having the financial literacy of a 9 year old. I mean, you can, but they outnumber you a million to one, so it's not going to be productive. You need to figure out how to make an unsexy story sexy, or else the ‘free stuff!’ crowd is going to eat your lunch every time,” he added.
It has always been true that Democrats have been better at rewriting their own record and smearing their opponents. Even as far back as Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr, the leftists were better at reshaping their images (see Founding Brothers). The Democrats started the Civil War to preserve slavery and protest a Republican election win, and the Democrat Party spent decades terrorizing and disenfranchising black Americans. And yet they have so successfully rewritten their history that now everyone seems to think the Republicans are the inheritors of the Confederates and the Democrats are the party of racial justice. In fact, the only racial group that still leans GOP is white people; that is how effective Democrat lies about skin color are.
At any given time, Democrats have supported one or more policies which are directly in contradiction to the principles of our Declaration of Independence and Constitution. Somehow they seem to have convinced most of the country that they are the party of democracy, ordinary workers, and freedom. They have a hell of a messaging skill, and they always have.
Republicans, on the other hand, tend to accept the status quo that Democrats hand to them. If Democrats say abortion is necessary, we just figure out how to say it is less necessary in some situations. If Democrats say that welfare is vital, we just figure out how to have a little bit less welfare. If Democrats say that we need to have a federal plan on healthcare, we just talk about how to have a little bit less federal meddling than before. In other cases, we are purely reactionary.
Democrats rewrite their history in connection with the Confederacy, and for some reason the GOP helps them do it by defending the Democrats and allies who committed egregious war crimes. American voters feel that politicians are not taking their concerns about data centers seriously, so Republicans just yelled louder that data centers are great while Democrats cleverly lied about their AI agenda.
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That is all the context behind Pratt’s post-election critiques. “If you think that high prices lost the election for the right, you don't understand marketing. Humans have no problem paying a premium for a good quality brand. Notice the word ‘brand’, not ‘product’,” argued Pratt. “Are Nikes better than New Balance? Nope. But the brand is better. And notice what happened when they tinkered with the brand and screwed their core narrative? Nike stock fell through the basement. Did the product change? Nope. The brand did.”
He continued, “It's not the product, it's the brand. Results don't sell the product, the storytelling does. Will these newly-elected commies lower prices? Of course not. Are they gonna get you free healthcare? No, your insurance is gonna get even worse, just like it did the last time they tried socialized medicine. They're not going to do anything they've sold you, but... like Saul Goodman said: if you're committed enough, you can make any story work.” That’s what Dems did. They’re more fanatically dedicated.
“The committed storytelling of a couple insane podcasters was enough to fracture an entire political coalition from their own side in less than 2 years... they have zero power, zero credibility, they've never actually governed anything nor produced any results, but... they're good storytellers, and that's all that matters. Are they telling a good story? No, it's atrocious, but they're telling their atrocious story effectively and compellingly,” Pratt added.
Republicans need way better messaging; they need to stop legitimizing MSM by going on those networks; they need to have much better targeted outreach to different age and racial groups. Most of all, the GOP must stop believing Dems are so bad we’ll win by default. If James Talarico can win in Texas, no candidate can win just because the Democrat is insane. American voters have short memories, and our education system ensured most people don’t understand economics well — especially among young people.
The Democrats rallied to cover for crazy Talarico. Ken Paxton’s own fellow Republicans, John Thune and John Cornyn, worked against him. That is why the GOP loses.
