I’m just a few weeks away from my glorious one-year anniversary with PJ Media. Last July, when the site decided to hire the world’s greatest PR and/or political expert, they begged and pleaded for me to join ‘em. Each day, I was besieged with candy, cards, and bouquets of flowers. It was one love letter after another.
So eventually, I threw ‘em a bone and agreed. You’re welcome, America!
[NOTE FROM PJ MEDIA MANAGEMENT: We have no idea how this PR hack slipped through the cracks. Our best theory is, someone here was trying to hire Scott Presler, and there was an unfortunate typo in the email. Sigh. Our sincerest apologies to all the readers.]
Like many of you, I had followed politics for a very long time. When I was 10, I was fascinated by the ‘84 Reagan-Mondale debate. About a decade later, I was chairman of the James Madison University College Republican Club, where some of our shenanigans (including a hostile takeover a rival liberal club) were covered by CNN, the Washington Post, and a pair of independent movies.
But after college, I mostly left that world behind, focusing on making money in the private sector, often in industries that don’t exactly scream “family values”: alcohol, gambling, casinos, models, celebs, MMA, etc. I still followed politics, but more as a hobby than as a profession.
Other than sitting on the board of directors for Drug Free America and doing occasional “media training” sessions for conservative groups, I was a spectator. So I still watched politics, but I watched it as a fan.
Certainly not as a participant.
So writing about politics day in, day out — for an entire year at a time — has forced me to examine political PR far more comprehensively than ever before. Previously, I made surface-level observations about cause-and-effect, mostly along the lines of, “Well, if Congressman XXXX was a client of mine, I’d have him do A, B, and C.” But rarely did I delve any deeper than that.
That’s all changed over the past 11 months — and the results were astounding: Some of my earlier beliefs and assumptions were validated; others were thoroughly debunked. The two biggest examples of each are:
- I was absolutely right about Republicans and Democrats using PR differently. Because the GOP has an adversarial relationship with the mainstream media, they try to work around ‘em. The Democrats don’t do that: The media is their ally, so they telegraph their moves through the top outlets. The benefit of the Dems' strategy is, it’s a fast, efficient means to mass-disseminate information. But the liability is, if you understand PR, you can “reverse engineer” their tactics to deduce their entire gameplan. Which means… almost everything they do is telegraphed ahead of time!
- But just because they use traditional PR, it doesn’t mean they use it well. That was my biggest misconception: I assumed the Democratic Party would make PR decisions the way a normal, capable PR pro would. I’ve spent enough time in PR agencies to know that methodology, so I tried to juxtapose it on the Donkeys, and spitball a probable timetable. That was wrong of me: The Democrats move as if their feet were in cement blocks. Everything takes longer than it should.
As a result, the GOP could, potentially, have the best of both worlds: Not only do the Dems telegraph their moves ahead of time, but they do it so ridiculously s-l-o-w-l-y, there’s simply no excuse for MAGA not to have their ducks all in a row.
The Donkeys move like Drax the Destroyer:
PRedictions: Someone on the left will claim a leadership position on the “anti” side of all this Democratic Party discontent. We’ve already reached the point where nearly HALF of all Democrats are demanding a new party. At the same time, some of the most famous influencers on the left — such as our old pal David Hogg — are being excommunicated from the DNC.
Running against the party establishment is low-hanging fruit. It’s practically touching the ground!
Additionally, tying (likely) Democratic presidential frontrunners to the chaos and dysfunction of the DNC would give an “outsider” (or someone campaigning as such) a competitive advantage in the crowded 2028 primaries. It’d be especially effective on someone like Kamala Harris or Pete Buttigieg: The closer their opponents were to Biden/DNC leadership, the more effective the attack.
Eventually, a big-name Democrat will run just as much against his/her own party as they are against MAGA. It’s just too obvious a move.
PRojections: Tucker Carlson will pivot back to MAGA. The ex-Fox News host was self-aware enough to realize he jumped the shark in his absurdly mean-spirited ambush of Ted Cruz, so he called President Trump and personally apologized:
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Wednesday, Trump said Carlson had reached out to him to apologize for some comments he made deriding those in the administration and the MAGA sphere who have cheered Israel's strikes against Iran.
"Tucker's a nice guy," Trump said. "He called and apologized the other day because he thought he said things that were a little bit too strong and I appreciated that."
Naturally, attacking Cruz in public and apologizing to Trump in private doesn’t exactly make things right. A public attack deserves a public apology.
But hey, at least it’s a start.
PRaise: President Trump (or, for this column, PResident Trump), for deftly keeping the MAGA coalition together amidst the backhanded attacks and snide, snarky pejoratives from the “America Sucks” conservatives.
For a very long time, the Democratic Party had a near-total monopoly of America-haters. As a general rule, the more patriotic you were, the more likely you were to vote Republican.
But not anymore. Under the guise of “just asking questions,” there’s an anti-war, hardcore isolationist wing in MAGA that views America as the world’s primary vehicle of evil and destruction. (Oddly enough, they feel the exact opposite about Russia: Everything’s always awesome in Russia.) From our nation’s inception through World War II and up to the War on Terror, the “America Sucks” conservatives have reinterpreted history to condemn men such as Winston Churchill, excuse men such as Adolf Hitler, and make a mockery of “American Exceptionalism.”
I’m sure Trump was tempted to fight fire with fire and defend his Iran policy from those inane “warmonger” allegations.
But he didn’t.
Instead, he took the high road, letting his lieutenants — including Vice President JD Vance — say what needed to be said, but doing so in a way that retained the MAGA coalition.
For example, Trump posted this on Truth Social last night:
Boom. Trump communicated how he felt, and he did so directly. But just as importantly, he did so in a way that also sent a unifying message: This is our direction, so get behind it.
A less-skilled president would’ve played it very differently. Kudos to Trump for saying what he said — and not one word more.
PRedators: Just because Carlson will pivot back to MAGA doesn’t mean it’ll be consequence-free. Carlson wants his PR “brand” to be that of a hard-hitting, unapologetic truth-teller who has the courage to say things no one else will. But in his video with Cruz, he came across as biased, phony, and disingenuous — and much more interested in “gotcha” moments and YouTube virality than an honest discussion of life-and-death issues.
Tucker was about as “honest” and “truthful” as a Michael Moore documentary. (And y’know, I’m sure they’d both agree on Israel and Iran.) But unless Michael Moore fans are gonna subscribe to Carlson’s channel en masse, this isn’t an audience he can monetize. They might’ve clicked on the video to sample that delicious GOP-on-GOP violence, but they won’t stay long-term.
You don’t make friends of your enemies by making enemies of your friends.
Tucker Carlson is still an immensely skilled commentator and extremely well known. His career will continue; he’s by no means finished. By this time next year, he’ll still be a force.
But make no mistake, he is diminished. Probably beyond repair.
