Republicans treat politics like viral marketing, Democrats don’t

Episode Summary 

In the aftermath of every presidential election, a flood of analysis pours in during the following weeks. But the real data actually takes a lot longer to come in. And now, several months after the fact—nearly a year actually—all of the most serious validated voter studies have come in, and they have some interesting findings for the losing party.

One of the things that has become apparent from all of these analyses is that the Republican Party’s leadership and political consultant class has far more modern political strategies that fit within the social media age than Democrats.

Joining me today to talk about how both parties are adapting or not adapting to the social media age is my friend Rynn Reed. She is a political strategist and also the founder of Creator Congress, a new group that is connecting progressive content creators and influencers, giving them services and connections to each other and to political actors. In our discussion, we talk about the 2024 election and how the Democratic Party and its allied groups spent almost all of their money on television ads, despite the fact that many Americans do not watch traditional television because they fast-forward, mute, or block web advertising.

We also talk about how right-wing Americans have done much more to fund cultural products that are not necessarily political but have deep political undertones. Over the decades, Republicans have invested billions of dollars in selling their larger values and political brand while Democrats seem to think that a barrage of easily ignored video ads can counteract it.

This is a serious issue for Democrats because Donald Trump's 2024 election victory was largely thanks to people who had never voted before or who rarely vote. They had the idea to vote for Trump because of the advocacy media and cultural conservative content that they consumed on a regular basis told them they shouldn’t vote for Kamala Harris because she's an extremist.

That’s an absurd viewpoint given Trump’s long record of authoritarianism, but since millions of people pay little attention to politics, his narrative was successful enough to win the day. If Democrats want the grand rejection of authoritarianism they frequently say they desire, they will need to dramatically modernize their campaigning.

The video of this episode is available, the transcript is below. Because of its length, some podcast apps and email programs may truncate it. Access the episode page to get the full text.

Theory of Change and Flux are listener supported. We need your help to keep going. Please subscribe to stay in touch on either Substack or Patreon. Paid subscribers get full access.

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Audio Chapters

00:00 — Introduction

06:33 — Non-voters and young voters have few opinions but are willing to develop them if given the chance

08:29 — The Trump-as-moderate myth

11:12 — How Trump made Republican consultants more innovative by throwing out the obsolete ones

17:20 — Democrats haven't realized most people think America has been on the wrong track for a long time

25:59 — What Trump and Republicans instinctively know about viral marketing

31:32 — After a loss, Republicans change tactics, Democrats argue about policies

38:41 — The role of authenticity in politics

40:25 — The data mirage in political campaigns

46:23 — The future of democratic engagement

52:36 — Creator Congress

Audio Transcript

The following is a machine-generated transcript of the audio that has not been proofed. It is provided for convenience purposes only.

MATTHEW SHEFFIELD: The year after an election, as you know, a lot of research organizations come out with validated voter studies, and so now there's been like, I guess six or seven publicly released ones and from various organizations. And, everybody has their takes, but they do line up in a lot of similar ways . And sometimes these ideas contradict the exit poll data, but, a lot of times they don't.

And this year I don't feel like there was a lot of contradiction. What [00:04:00] did you think?

RYNN REED: Yeah, no, I don't think that think the pol felt pretty aligned with the data that we were seeing, or at least the takes I

was listening to about the reports. I think it's really difficult to tease out. something that I've just been thinking about a lot is teasing out the focus on.

The electoral college and the states we needed to win, whether it was in the Sunbelt or the blue wall and, how that can discourage voters. I think especially after Trump's election in 2016, losing electoral college, but winning the popular vote like two things happened. I think it discouraged voters that might've turned out otherwise, and I think it led to some of the suppression time.

I really, I just think people were like, what's the point if I'm not in one of these places like. the electoral college is all that matters. And then I think like what we lose there is momentum. We don't have, handed Trump a mandate, not really, but like perceptively because he won the popular vote.

But I think a lot of that had to do with some of the messaging tactics. And I think it's really hard to out the effects of the polls and what happened after with like how we messaged and where we targeted.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. and, I think the other kind of side effect of the way that the, Harris campaign and its various allies did their spending and, focus is that because they did focus overwhelmingly on the swing states. that it didn't buck up a lot of these congressional candidates.

And so those people, who, and obviously, all the studies do indicate that the non-voters would have supported Trump more this year. But on the other hand, if you focus specifically on your select people who do like Kamala Harris at least, somewhat. there probably are some house races that were lost. I think that's pretty clear, especially in New York and California.

REED: Yeah, and I, and what I heard on the ground is from [00:06:00] these races are people that were supporting in congressional races as they were being completely ignored by, by, the spends and by, by the party real large. I

think really interesting to me and I think there's some like counter data that's really interesting.

There was a really good citations needed episode on this where they cover some of the exit polling and, what might have been missed in that non-voter account and how actually difficult it is to say how a non voter would vote. it's worth a listen. I, thought it was really interesting.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah.

Non-voters and young voters have few opinions but are willing to develop them if given the chance

SHEFFIELD: studying the non-voter, it is tricky because a lot of times they are more likely to say that they supported the winner of the

race than, they actually might have been. Or they don't really have firm opinions. And

REED: and that's something

into a little bit. It's like when we're talking about, especially like young male voters, like how firm their opinions are at any given time or young people generally. Like overwhelmingly up until this election, young people have swung tremendously to the left, especially during first Trump's first And, young voters just have very polarized opinions. They're still forming their thoughts. I think it they're just not a like hard set group that we can just be like, yes, this is how they're gonna vote throughout their lives and, going forward.

SHEFFIELD: yeah, although there is some research that does indicate that your political opinions when you were a certain, when you were young, are a bit more fixed for a lot of people than they might, otherwise want to think.

REED: Really.

SHEFFIELD: Um, yeah, unfortunately.

REED: I feel like

Pretty dramatically or had lots of like iterations or add-ons, but

SHEFFIELD: mine certainly did, but what, tell me what you mean in your context.

REED: I think, I was just reactionary. think I called myself like a Chomsky libertarian at some point. I was very like, what do we need [00:08:00] government for Mutual aid is the

SHEFFIELD: I.

REED: things like that and like bucked systems, or would've been like a third party supporter until I started working in politics and realized the limits of my own ideologies and had to

Figure out power

SHEFFIELD: oh.

REED: were and how to be a good, good soldier in that way.

SHEFFIELD: And to actually take politics seriously as a pol

REED: actually.

SHEFFIELD: matter of policy. Yeah. Yeah.

The Trump-as-moderate myth

SHEFFIELD: and that, yeah, like that is definitely a, a huge problem of Republicans that they and, having been one, I can say that, most of them know almost nothing about policy. and, and Donald Trump is a perfect example of that.

he's a guy that, probably, obviously had some kind, some racist attitudes and things like that, in a of ways was just a conventional New York resident. not against the government and probably, for it overall. but, and he, he was a moderate Republican.

At least if you look at when he very first came on the scene, there were two groups of people who supported him and it was the anti-immigration people, and then it was moderate Republicans. That's the irony. That was an attraction for some people for Trump, and it still continues to be like, there's I've seen a number of polls over the years that, a lot of people, even now still think that Donald Trump is more, that he's less conservative than, most Republicans even, even though it's very clear now that he just does whatever the, far right Republicans tell him to.

REED: And, but isn't that partially, I mean about the kind of establishment versus non-establishment. Like they can like we shock test and project onto him the versions of things that they wanna see because he doesn't fit an archetype of [00:10:00] politician.

SHEFFIELD: I think that's a huge part of it, but also just the, his rhetoric that he. Talks about and that, like I, and you can even see it on this budget bill that, the Republicans have been working on for so long that, just, recently as we're recording this on the 3rd of July that he had said the day before on the 2nd of July that, you know, I always tell Republicans you don't touch, Medicare and Medicaid and social security. and then somebody was like, but wait, we are touching Medicaid.

REED: Yeah, and I think this term in particular, I've noticed his like slides into kind of cogent speech, especially around like Iran and Israel was really interesting, the kind of decisive ness of his media appearances versus the bill where he like weaves and, ducks and is not, I just won't commit to anything.

The Republicans in general have actually been really good about this. We were trying to like, find clips of them saying they wouldn't cut Medicaid, and they were very strategic, very aligned and never said, never said those words

How Trump made Republican consultants more innovative by throwing out the obsolete ones

SHEFFIELD: The other thing I think hasn't really been talked about in some of these studies is the role of television advertising in democratic campaigns versus Republican campaigns.

it's just. Insanely disproportionate that Republicans put their money a lot more in digital, a lot more in media, like for, produced media advocacy media. Whereas Democrats tend to dump everything into two buckets usually, which is TV ads and on the ground, door to door knocking and within political science, both of those things are pretty clearly not effective. And that's it. It, there's just this weird irony, tragic irony of democratic politics [00:12:00] in that there are so many political science professors, who lean democratic, and yet the party doesn't actually learn anything from them. It seems

REED: I feel like it's such an outsourcing to the class too. we just have these like deeply like entrenched consulting class that just refuse to learn and have no real impetus to, I, can't, totally track the difference because I'm just like, don't understand the Republican side as well, but.

feel like we have more consultancies that do non-innovative stuff and just refuse to update their priors. We'll have mail campaigns sending out, and this, we saw this with Acacia's Race, right? Like AOCs Race when Crowley sent out 25 mailers or something, some kind of absurd amount and, they just weren't clocking. They weren't clocking where to go with things. And I think I've seen male firms doing that up to this day and just their client's money a little bit. and Cuomo's race too, right? I was seeing that although Momani actually put a ton into TV ads, which I thought was really interesting, I think 70% of his race, of his

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Although he did a lot of produced.

REED: of earned media and a lot of digital, so he up the difference with free media.

SHEFFIELD: With regard to the Republican consulting class, it is a different that they, things, changed because of Donald Trump, because when he first came on the scene, pretty much all of the Republican consultant class hated him because they thought he was a liberal a rhino that was actually like, people forget that's how things, that's what never Trump was originally for most of these people. It was that he was a rhino and, Republican in name only and a liberal who's gonna betray the party and make them get in the league with the Democrats.

REED: [00:14:00] Sure.

SHEFFIELD: so they wouldn't work for him, but also Trump hated them as well. So basically this sort of, calcified layer of Republican consultants, he threw them out in the street and he had brought in these people who were state level operatives, basically, like Corey Lewandowski or Susie Wiles. And and they had no. They had no priors to use your wording for it. And so they were willing to do whatever seemed best, or to import techniques that they learned from commercial marketing.

And, because, commercial marketing doesn't work the way that. Camp, especially presidential campaign marketing works.

REED: Yeah.

SHEFFIELD: they, figured out a long time ago that TV ads, all they do is establish branding. That's all they really are for. They establish prestige, but they don't motivate or persuade.

They just remind people that you're there. And so yeah, so now the Republican consultant class is this entirely new. Wave of people who are. They're not set in their ways. They, haven't been doing the same stuff since the eighties or nineties. and and this is why they've been able to, like they were able to see again, the Trump campaign was, they were open about this in 2024, that, our goal.

Here is going to bring in non participate, people who don't traditionally vote. And we're gonna be focusing on young men in particular. And and beefing up trump's numbers among Hispanics and, black people. And I. They said they were gonna do it and then they achieved what they said they were gonna do.

And it's not like Democrats couldn't see that coming. 'cause it was in the New York Times. Seems every few weeks. and Politico and everywhere else,

REED: Totally. it's an interesting thing. I think what they seem to really understand and to your point about Investing in TV [00:16:00] ads being like just present, like presence in the media space. Democrats are always just about presence and never about persuasion, where I feel like that second tier, the sort of like digital media, new media tier where people can actually be moved one way or another.

That's really where Republicans have just dumped all of their investments. That feels like kind of the constant, hum of where they've invested since, know, 20 14, 20 15.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Yeah, that, and I think that's right. And, the, I remember back when I was a Republican consultant, I would, I wrote a big long article saying that, you guys need to stop trying to beat the media. You need to be the media.

REED: Sure.

SHEFFIELD: and, then I just added up like all the audience size of Fox News and, these various things.

And I was like, look, you guys have nothing. No one sees what Republicans are talking about, and then I went and left the Republican party and they followed my memo.

REED: they really did pick that up. Nobody sees people see what they're talking about now more than. more than anything the Dems are doing where they just can't seem, it doesn't matter what they do, it's just their presence and the more that they are present, but like the Republicans have turned people against them, it actually just creates like a factor, like a fly buzzing around.

I, I just think they can't puncture it right now.

Democrats haven't realized most people think America has been on the wrong track for a long time

SHEFFIELD: yeah, and it's, and they don't understand that, in politics after the rate recession, the, zeitgeist. Is a hundred percent for, maybe not a hundred percent, but the vast majority of Americans think that the financial system sucks.

They think that the, getting a job sucks. They think that, paying for food sucks and or dating and, whatever it, all these things are basically have been taken over by extractive. Capital that is trying to financialize everything, trying to monetize everything.

And [00:18:00] people hate that and re Republicans seem to understand that. But, and of course they don't want to do anything about it. And if, anything what they do makes things worse for her. Financialization. And they got just in, in their bill. They're trying to, make it so that states can't regulate ai for 10 years, a moratorium on it.

And this is just one of things. So it's, it but Democrats are the Democratic brand is they, haven't understood the people. They don't, see things in terms of the issues necessarily. They see how you talk to them and your overall vibe, if you will.

REED: Yeah, no. One of the most interesting things from this, the passing of this bill was the public lands giveaway, and I feel like I just saw so many people online talking about how. It was great and they should sell it to do an auction and like generally average citizen should be able to, auction and purchase this land. And then also complaining in the same breath about, the cost of going the land and wanting to roam on it freely and how it to be open to the American public. like those two things are completely at odds, right? Like an auction off to, normal citizens and like free roaming and like access. And just this like weird, oh, the government shouldn't control it. Even though the government's, the people, like I just, people don't think about policy that deeply. They, truly, they're not putting those two parts together. And I don't think that's even, people will say, oh, the American public is just stupid.

And I really think it comes down to of rational ignorance and, just distrust. They don't want to listen 'cause it, they've been burned so many times and they've been talked down to. yeah, I don't think the Democrats have that at all. And the Republicans have nailed the, presentation of it.

Even if they haven't actually changed any of the policies. There's pushing same thing from, 1954.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. [00:20:00] and with, and Trump is able in a lot of ways to, just to circle back to something we were talking about earlier, that, he's able to get away with being seen almost as not a politician, almost as not part of the very laws that he himself is enacting and bullying Congress into signing because, because he's so good at deflecting.

Blame and saying, a anything, it is literally the Trump public posture that anything that is popular, I did it and anything that's unpopular, someone else did it. And, Democrats never say that and never point out just the naked cynicism of it all. they, and it's not like they don't know that.

Like they all know that's what he is doing. and they'll say that. Privately in the, they, and they might say that, in, in an occasional podcast discussion or if they're on, I don't know, bill Morris show or something like that, like they might say it in those venues, but they don't understand, like that's an insight that the public would love you to tell them.

REED: Yeah, I think there was like, there's a. Treating the public like children in our messaging. I think there's a lot of talking down to, or I really like the phrase we talk like about the working class, not to the working class. We treat it like an anthropological study when we talk about people or voters. and I don't think it works. I don't think people like it. And I think Trump has just really nailed that sort of attention and talking to people in a way that they feel heard and seen.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. and then, of course independent of him, they spend so much money on, media, on advocacy media, so I. even if you might not like him very much. 'cause that's, one of the things that, that I noticed in the exit poll was that, [00:22:00] when you looked at people, so they asked him, do you approve of Trump?

Do you approve of Harris? And there were people, a pretty sizable number of people who didn't approve of either one. And, Trump won that, vote. and so basically, and that's what advocacy media is doing, I think, because it's essentially obviously, that Republicans are less extreme than the Democrats, but a lot of people.

Actually have been inundated with that message so much that they actually really believe that. and, and the, only caveat though is, in, in a lot of these analysis analyses is that, and I do want to make sure we talk about it, is that, like the particular candidates, sometimes I think people.

It is easy to draw these broader conclusions that may not be fully relevant in light of who the candidates were.

REED: Oh

Your example?

SHEFFIELD: I like, just like with Trump and Harris, so so Harris, as a woman, studies have persistently shown that people, that people. Think that women candidates are more left wing than they are, and so just by virtue of her being a woman.

That itself might have made people, she think she was more extreme, some people. And then whereas with Trump, with these non-voters or, non-regular irregular voters, unlikely voters, the fact that he's, was famous celebrity and has been for decades. That might have some, a significant kinda shape for him, uniquely that no other Republican candidate can match, at least, unless they pull a, a Tucker Carlson or a kid rock out of their hat in 2028 or something.

I.

REED: Yeah, the Tucker Carlson, [00:24:00] beef was really interesting during the conflict with Iran. I'm curious like how that landed with you or what you think was happening where there's just like that real tension with Tad Cruz of kind of advocacy media turning on. The Trump administration. And it was just an interesting, like who has the power here?

who wins out at the end? And I think it was a real, game of chicken for a while there.

SHEFFIELD: yeah, it was, and then, and Trump

REED: I,

SHEFFIELD: in the end, just, was like, we're gonna bomb him. it was such a complete waste of time. Because, and they, even admitted beforehand, that, one of the, places of the nuclear sites was already so far underground that they didn't even bother putting the, bunker busting bombs in there.

They just sent some tomahawk missiles from a summary. and it was like, that's where all the uranium was. So nothing of any of, like some stuff was destroyed at these other sites, but you didn't really do anything. And, they knew that going into it. that's,

REED: Yeah,

SHEFFIELD: again, that's not something I hear Democrats saying.

Not really. have you seen that?

REED: the challenging of it.

SHEFFIELD: challenging that it was just didn't even accomplish what he said it would accomplish.

REED: No,

SHEFFIELD: little.

REED: they got, did breach that, I believe the pushback they got was like, do you not honor, do you not honor the men and women who were like executed this mission? and then we back down, we don't, we we get one little hit, you get one punch in the jaw and we crumble. And we did not follow that all the way through.

SHEFFIELD: I think that there is one significant thing with the way that Republicans Democrats seem to, what you're saying, like with the, like they, they want to make the 0.1 time

REED: Yeah.

SHEFFIELD: and then they think that's enough.

REED: Yeah.

What Trump and Republicans instinctively know about viral marketing

SHEFFIELD: And it's if [00:26:00] you listen to Trump, Trump's been saying the same thing for 10 years.

The immigrants are coming to, to kill you and take your jobs. And, and the Democrats are, they're trying to make all your children transgender, and, transgender communists who, worship black people or something like that. That's the message. They've had the same message for 10 years. I think the democratic leadership class and consultant class, they look at that and they just roll their eyes at it instead of realizing, actually that's extremely effective. So you can think it's dumb and you can think that, it's manipulative or whatever. whatever you want to think about it.

But you know what, it, it works because a lot of people don't pay attention. And so if you have to repeat yourself a lot.

REED: Yeah, listening to a, I think it was Chris Hayes and Ezra Klein, and they were talking about like mimetic policies or these like policies that have just like kind of grants. And sweeping ability to say a lot of things at once, build the wall or I don't know. But build the wall is like, the big one that kind of sticks out is this very textural policy proposal that's not really a policy, but just a meme that you can just share forever. and we don't really do those. we ourselves in, we're like, oh, This thing, this built the wall. It's too simple. It's not a real policy, but then he executed on it, right? Like at the end of the day, like Trump has delivered on the promises he's made to people. In a lot of ways he's terrifying ways, that are deeply e unconstitutional.

But I think. I think those things, when you are able to bring the people with you, when they're able to what your points are really simply and, iterate it, you build this sort of outside amplification network that allows you to move things forward outside of, compromise and legislative like organizing. [00:28:00] Which is just really interesting and something the Democrats have really never done. they've always relied on internal we have to win over the coalition. We have to win over this power player. And all this backroom organizing where I think Trump and his ilk and like this kind of new branch of the Republican party rely on external factors.

They rely on advocacy media. They rely on their own base to amplify their message and, push it through

SHEFFIELD: Yeah.

REED: it, because it's textural and like sticks with them.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. and, yeah. And that, idea of having the, having a message that is, is simple enough and dis discreet enough that your own voters become the messengers. that's what, viral marketing is. if you're launching a, new. A new makeup brand or a new clothing line, obviously you're gonna enlist celebrities for it.

But, there's, people only know, pay attention to celebrities so much.

REED: Yeah.

SHEFFIELD: and, and even if you love a particular celebrity, you're obsessed with them. if she takes a picture in some, pants or something, I, you're, there's no guarantee you would see that even if you're obsessed with that particular celebrity.

And so, they have to do more than that and, which is why that they invest in, giving free products to people, and just, and then let them say whatever they want about it. And, that influencer, like that is the influencer model. And Democrats really have not kept pace on that at all and well, and it's also that besides the fact that, that people have actual contact with these influencers, or micro influencers, it's also that that they have more credibility because of course a fashion brand is going to tell you that their, that their new line [00:30:00] of jeans is awesome.

REED: the best line. Yeah.

SHEFFIELD: And of course, a celebrity who's being paid to tell you that these genes are amazing. Of course she's gonna say that they're amazing, right? So they don't have inherent credibility. Now, whereas the, micro influencers, and even if some of them are on the take and That's, that is its own issue perhaps, and arguably for the, FEC or something.

But but but to, just to the people who, you know, like watching somebody because they, they love her takes on, I don't know, real Housewives in New Jersey or something

REED: Yeah,

SHEFFIELD: and and she makes a little comment, oh, and I just got these really cute pants. They're awesome.

that means a lot more from her.

REED: And there's a lot of good research on this and I think the Democrats have still not totally caught up. They like, 'cause even I, a lot of the creators I've loved, I. As they've been roped into the Democratic establishment, I think their message just gets less and less salient Over time, you become like, are you saying this 'cause you actually believe it, or are you saying this because you work directly with the Democrats and this is what they're telling you to say? Which I think is a real problem. we don't work with creators the way that the right does because they really like, people are bought in. There's an ideological project there where they like. Bring people in from high school, college, and I think they have a lot of true believers, and I know that's not true across the board, but I think they do create true believers first

SHEFFIELD: Oh, I knew, yeah.

REED: amplifiers second.

And I, don't think that's the direction that we that Democrats broadly go in.

After a loss, Republicans change tactics, Democrats argue about policies

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's right. and, and the, other thing that is I think it worth talking about here for us is that about public perception and, the issues because, there's there after a losing presidential election. it's interesting how each, each party handles the loss because in the Republican side, they almost, there, there are some people that it will be [00:32:00] like, oh, it was this issue that lost us, or that, but generally they don't have that conversation.

Generally what they say after a loss was, lately now they claim it was stolen from them, but,

REED: yeah.

SHEFFIELD: But aside from that, that obvious lying and whining, usually what they do is talk about tactics and strategies. That, so they don't say, oh, we need to reevaluate our policies.

They say no, we need to change. what we're doing and how we talk about them or where we talk about them and, who we're targeting, that's what they do.

You don't see, these right wing pastors being like, all right, that's it. Packing up this whole Jesus was a fraud. He, he wasn't real. I was lying to y'all. That's not what they're doing. and they changed the, strategies and they focus on that.

And whereas for Democrats after a loss, there's just these, drag out. Policy debates and they're like, it was, and each side of the equation is like, it's your fault.

It's your policies that made us lose. It's your, and these are not, these are again, are not supported conclusions, because if policy was the number one thing for voters, republicans would never win elections.

REED: Yeah,

SHEFFIELD: It's that simple.

REED: I, I had this conversation a few weeks ago with one of my superiors, and he asked me like. Should we have kept saying abolish ice? Was it a mistake to embrace that term back when it was like being used? Really 20 18, 20 17? and I was like, that's not the right question.

The question is how should we have handled it tactically? Because if the right wing had been doing it, if they had a pol like a phrase or an unpopular policy, they wouldn't have backed down on the policy. They would've doubled down on how to make it popular. [00:34:00]

SHEFFIELD: or they just wouldn't talk.

REED: But they wouldn't, but they would figure out how to get their way in another way. What we've seen is like when abortion was unpopular, they moved, it, right? They moved it into contraception or they moved it into the states like, like they were trying at the national level. They moved it. There was always like a tactical change to your point where I feel like we, we see something as unpopular, we just

SHEFFIELD: Drop it. Yeah.

REED: and say, we'll just move further right on this issue and people will follow us.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Yeah. And that's, and another example of that is like their anti LGBT stance that, so none of them has changed their mind with regard to same sex marriage,

REED: right.

SHEFFIELD: They all want to get rid of it.

REED: Yeah,

SHEFFIELD: and the vast majority of them, probably want to make it a crime to be lesbian or gay like that.

REED: absolutely.

SHEFFIELD: That's what they want. Like they haven't changed their opinions. And yet if you talk to, hell, you talk to every, the average political reporter, they, don't realize that. Because republicans, they just, so when they have an unpopular policy, they don't change their viewpoints, they just don't talk about it.

REED: sure.

SHEFFIELD: That's primarily what they do. or they redirect it as you were saying. So with the, the, anti-SIM sex marriage viewpoint, instead of emphasizing that, they went after trans people. And then when they whip that into a frenzy, then they can be like, oh, and by the way, we also.

Hate lesbian and gay people.

REED: Yeah. Then it becomes a question of like gender checking and chasing that rabbit down

SHEFFIELD: well,

REED: further Yeah. exactly

SHEFFIELD: yeah. 'cause we all know that, just being exposed even for a second to someone who's a lesbian is gonna make you a lesbian. We know that, this is a fact.

REED: And that case will be so much easier to make [00:36:00] after years of anti-trans sentiment. use this analogy a lot when I was a door, like a humble organizing door knocker. One of the things they teach you is to get a few yeses before you make an ask. And I think the Republicans are really good at this.

They'll set up like very simple, inductive, logical blocks that you're okay, I get it. I'm like here with you. And then they make a leap. Leap by the time they make that leap, you've already said yes a few times and it's like you, you set the stage for yourself to agree with them.

And I just opposite of that. What the democrats often do is they'll start from like a deductive place of oh, we all agree on this principle. Ergo you should agree with this smaller point, or this like principled point. we are missing the fact that people don't agree with us on that principle at all.

They've already been like that principle point has been eradicated.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. and it's also that they often, democrats often, like they, they insist that people agree with their methods first

REED: Absolutely. Exactly. Exactly.

SHEFFIELD: before agreeing with their policy. So they're like, we all know that this is the sound form of a epistemology. And it's like the moment you're, using that word in political rhetoric is the moment you've lost.

REED: lost. Yeah. already, put yourself in a place where you have to defend that first principle that you're working from. And if you're in a place of defensiveness, you've already lost. Like you, you don't have that like space to argue and engage.

And what's so interesting is we saw this with their meme warfare. from Russians in 20 14, 20 15, and I feel like the right wing actually ended up adopting a lot of this, these tactics. There's this great piece, or like a study from Nebraska about the internet research agency and, how they, the tactics they used to influence the elections. And yeah, so it is like they studied from 2014 to 2018 and this piece came out in 2019.

Very, like highly recommend. It was a good read.

SHEFFIELD: Okay. Yeah. [00:38:00] we'll, put it in the shoutouts if you can pick it up.

REED: I.

SHEFFIELD: but with the issues though, so like people have their different positions, and it's, it is probably true that some positions might be liabilities or whatnot, right? But the other reality is, that both the.

Centris side and the progressive side. Both sides actually have policies that the public doesn't like. And both sides have policies that the public does And so really, I. and like people who are progressives like to rag on rom Emanuel and because he's, done a lot of things that he's very opposed to progressives, right?

The role of authenticity in politics

SHEFFIELD: But on the other hand, he is a good campaigner. Like the guy I. Knows how to win elections. And in some sense, I think if you look at, if you compare and contrast him, with, Zora Ani who just won the, primary of the mayors in New York, like both of these guys have completely opposite political viewpoints, but they both understand how to tap into this dissatisfaction of the zeitgeist.

this dis dissatisfaction zeitgeist that, that everyone has in, their own unique ways, and that's really what the message that people should be trying to learn in democratic politics, I think.

REED: I think that's right. Ani is just such a generational communicator. I like, I knew him as an assembly person and, did not realize his game. He is

SHEFFIELD: Oh.

REED: at seeing through sort of the questions being asked of him and directing them head on and I don't know, ramen, I don't know if I've watched Rah Emanuel speak as much as I have mom Bonnie at this point.

So I don't know if I can speak to his, like efficacy as a communicator, but I think. Ron's like a generational talent. It's very, fun to watch him, tackle points head on and, feel like he's really connecting with the audience and not ducking and weaving and being [00:40:00] mealy mouth about things.

And I think that to me is modern politics is, I just think it's not even just authenticity. It's like people need to know where you stand. I think you do need to make a stance on issues in some ways. Not even policies, but just People need to know where you fit. And

of like and hawing that the Democrats are so used to is

SHEFFIELD: It's not what people want. Yeah.

REED: people want.

Yeah.

The data mirage in political campaigns

SHEFFIELD: on that point though, like I, think the reason why a lot of Democrats have these kind of.

He, hedging answers and misdirections and whatnot, or trying to say, not commit to anything is that, they're very poll driven. and to, going back to what you were saying about the, that they, talk about the working class rather than to them or with them that.

For a lot of Democrats, they, use polls as, the way to understand what people think instead of just talking to them a lot. And so as a result, a lot of the ideas that they have, they're data mirage is what I call it, that that they can point to some numbers and they can say, oh, look, this ad.

I tested was more effective than these three other ads. So therefore it's a good ad. And it's but there's an underlying assumption, and that is that TV ads work. And, and the political science research is pr pretty unanimous and has been for decades. That like my favorite study on this point was that, a guy.

Went. And so when Rick Perry was the governor of Texas one year he had no opposition, in the general election. And so his team still wanted to run TV ads. So because just for like brand projection and protection and I guess, they wanted to cash in too, probably. So they [00:42:00] decided to do it anyway and.

This political scientist, he was like, hey, can I just study those ads? there's no risk to you to let me see it. Everything from top to bottom in how they work and report it to the public because, you're not gonna lose man. You what, can you lose? So they, let him do it.

And what, this guy found was, so this was a me, this was the ideal environment for a television ad that there was no opposition there wasn't really much of any other kind of campaign messages floating around. And so he didn't have people attacking him. the issue in environment. There wasn't a lot of controversy going on.

When he put these ads out, what they found was that when the guy found, when he talked to the voters, is that the longest that any of them lasted in terms of a measurable effect on public opinion in this ideal environment

REED: Yeah.

SHEFFIELD: was 72 hours.

REED: Wow, that's

SHEFFIELD: That was it.

REED: easy.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. and, and that's the ideal environment.

So what that suggests, is that probably they may have. An effect like for an hour. In a regular high controversy, high epistemic load environment that they just have no impact. and I would say for Democrats, it's even worse for them though because they don't have advocacy media.

That you can, I, you can see a, five or six ads for Kamala Harris, 32nd spots. But then, you go and flip over on your YouTube and you've got Joe Rogan, saying, oh, Kamala Harris, she's incoherent, she's sucks in word salads and she's an extremist. and you sit here and you, listen to him tell you that for three hours if, three days a week or whatever, That [00:44:00] ad mean nothing to you, and if anything, as you were saying, it might have harmed her.

REED: Yeah, could and I, 'cause it's something like a lot of the data I saw out of like social media from last year is that the Democrats produce like a billion views, which is like absurd. That's like an absurd number. But when you think about it, like how many of those views were just reinforcing the points that the right wing was making?

Like how many of them from our side were actually just. Like doubling down on something that people already believed from the right, because they were hearing it so much more frequently. Like one thing from that kind of infamous now media matters piece that like stood out to me that I just feel was never really talked about is that the right wing is just so much more frequent, right?

We looked at the bubble graph and saw like the red wave, like all the bigger red accounts. But the thing is, and I know we've talked about this before, is that there's lots of accounts that are actually like dem leaning. That the Democrats never actually invest in or speak with or engage with at all that are not reflected on that chart. it, so there's that, that the Democrats just actually don't embrace this world at all and are now just trying to create their own accounts to fill the void instead of leaning into what exists. And then the second point is just frequency. There's no investment or like understanding of it. The right is just constantly putting stuff out.

It's I don't remember what the exact stat was, but it's so much more content and so much more often, and we are just not prepared for that.

SHEFFIELD: No, and and the whole idea of, oh, we need to have a liberal Joe Rogan. it's a completely wrong, it's wrong thinking is what it is because, number one, Joe Rogan wasn't created by the Republican Party. That's number one. So he has a personal brand authenticity and, longevity in relationship with his audience.

and then number two is that, It. Let's say you magically were able to create a liberal Joe Rogan and from, [00:46:00] a top down fundraising, like that's not possible, but let's say that it was right. That there's one Joe Rogan, he's one of 500 right wing media personality. So even if you had a liberal Joe Rogan.

That's not really gonna offset all of these 500 other people. That's just not how it works.

The future of democratic engagement

SHEFFIELD: And, Democrats have, I think a lot of the democratic I. consultant class and, or we'll say leadership class, that they think that, as you were saying, that you can just create these top-down things and not, accept people, your own voters ideas and engage with them directly and in an authentic way because.

It's okay if they don't agree with a hundred percent of what you say,

REED: Yeah.

SHEFFIELD: because guess what? Joe Rogan doesn't agree with everything Donald Trump says, and neither does Tucker Carlson, as we said, like. people, that's, the other aspect of authenticity that, that you can't get through a political party anointing media figures.

and it's why it's real, because, and, again, like it's dumb and like misogynist and, all those things. I am, I agree with that. Whatever bad thing you wanna say, check, I'll check the box right next to you, about 'em. But, it's still it's still, authentic, at least in some sense.

That they believe the things that they say and they have some independence in the things that they say.

REED: And in that, in the, as your client, Chris Hayes podcast I was listening to this week, they also say something like that really stuck with me. That, the attention economy can no longer be bought and it must be earned. And I think what the right wing has found is a bunch of people who earned a lot of attention. And whether they co-opted directly or co-opted over time or just slowly like, partially influenced, like we said, They don't have, they don't actually fully control Tucker Carlson or Candace Owens or Theo Vaughn. Like all of those people are actually independent voices [00:48:00] simply know that relationship to the Republican party is a juggernaut for views. Like it actually produces, like an incentive analysis there that I think that Democrats have just never really benefited from or actually invested in. And where mom's race, which is really interesting to me. Created that incentive structure. They only spent $2,000 on digital ads at all. And compared to the absolute, like millions of dollars they probably created in our media from their, own viral videos and then a bunch of creators picking up the mantle because they believed in what he was saying.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah.

REED: that is the sort of structure that the Democrats could have if they would just release the reins a little bit and they. Frankly, up to this point have refused and I think are gonna have a very rude awakening in 2026 if, they don't let, up a little bit. And I don't know that anyone's gonna let go of that kind of power.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. yeah, like people, you, people in this day and age, like politics, it is a form of entertainment for a lot of people. and, and it has been for a while. cable news, that's the model. It's infotainment. especially on the opinion side of things, people watch the shows they watch 'cause they have a parasocial relationship with the host and, this is not something that's new.

and it's you, can go back to talk radio, like the reason that people are, because when you think about Joe Rogan's show, just that's an example. Like these, shows are interminable and they're about nothing. Most of the time. it's like Joe, Joe is sitting there, scrolling on the, on his screen and being like, oh, I saw that there was this, new vitamin thing, that they found in Malaysia.

what do you think about that? Oh, I don't know. I never heard of that before. Jamie. Look it up. Like that's the Joe Rogan podcast. it fucking sucks. [00:50:00] It sucks.

REED: It's a lot of dead space. Yeah. It's

SHEFFIELD: It's, yeah, but, you know what? but, but some people are willing to listen to it and like it because they were conditioned through talk radio.

REED: Sure.

SHEFFIELD: like that's Rush Limbaugh. that's Rush Limbaugh, just with more weak,

REED: And I also think it's like familiar and builds that parasocial relationship. Like when I started listening to right wing media, just to like better understand it. One of the things that shocked me the most was how vulnerable Dan Bonino can get on his show. He will talk about his wife, he'll talk about like personal things, intermittent, these weird supplement ads and intermittent, these like weird political takes.

a or he'll shout out his like chat a lot. There's a lot of engagement. There's a lot of the, real investment in Parasocial. Relationship building that I, again, it, I, it feels like when the Democrats engage with this, they're like above it and they just wanna really like tightly control all levels of engagement and

how important that relationship is.

The parasocial elements of it.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. And, the bidirectional elements.

REED: People wanna be seen and heard and reflected in the person they're speaking with.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah.

REED: yeah, we just ignore that. And I think, I, keep going back to Mom Bonnie's race because I'm obsessed with how they went about things. of the things that struck me the most is we're, we talk about their platform, it's being like, brought from the working class, which I, think feels true.

And, maybe they did do a study, maybe free buses, grocery stores, and like freezing the rent. Did come out of some like more thorough analysis of what people wanted, but, most likely it was probably a little bit heuristic. And the way that they got past that is they did the man on the street style video and they captured a perception of their engagement with people and then ran on this platform.

And I think that's kinda the brilliance of social media is that you can create these perceptions and that's the fight that we're [00:52:00] actually having with the Republicans all the time. It's not. These like actual things happening in the background. It's this like kfab WWE style perception of reality. And I do think the Mom Donny campaign actually did do those things in the background, but it also didn't matter because they were able to create this world that people like believed in. we are, we were just terrible at that. Like I just don't think the Democrats understand how to do it. And I think. Trump in particular, but now the Republicans kind of writ large and especially the advocacy media class, are able to like toy with that perceived reality. Yeah. In a way we just have not mastered

SHEFFIELD: Yeah.

Introducing Creator Congress

SHEFFIELD: and, to that end though, I did wanna make sure we talk about your personal project creator Congress. tell us about that and what you are doing with it.

REED: Yeah. last year I was seeing a lot of content coming out from primarily democratic creators or Democrat aligned creators, and I couldn't get over the fact that it felt inauthentic and it was often from creators. I actually had, I. Like pair social relationships with and enjoyed their content.

And then suddenly they got involved in the Democratic stew and I was just like, I don't get this, I don't wanna share it. It doesn't feel like relatable to me. So I started just talking to people. I, my sister's a content creator on Twitch. I started doing some organizing, which is my background. It's what I do. And what I came to is that there's really a missing like organization for creators to help them. Be authentic to themselves, particularly a lot of creators were being iced out over their stance on Palestine. So I started to figure, try to figure out what does it look like to have a space where creators who are further left of the Democrats, who want to share their authentic voice and still be in politics and not be completely marginalized and to, chappo fraction faction of, the party.

what does that look like? Where do they go? And I found that there were not many places and. I created Creator Congress to be [00:54:00] a bit of a home for folks in that in that in-between space and like, how do we get them political messaging? How do we help 'em with strategy? How do we engage them in the process outside of just like big tent, big party politics? I,

SHEFFIELD: and, you've got several different people signed up as well to, That they're down for it,

REED: yeah, we have about. I've recruited about 60 creators at this point. The followings range from like 10,000 to 3 million. like big followings, the way to smaller followings. But the, goal is to have a shared place. Um, we've been working on ways to help people get possibly healthcare and, resourced because I know that those things are really important and, it's, difficult. It's a lot harder to find funding in this space. But I'm down for the challenge. I really wanna figure out how we can help people in that. 'cause I actually think that's the future of the Democratic Party. I.

SHEFFIELD: And what did the creators who were assigned up, what did they think about it all? When, you.

REED: have gotten nothing but glowing feedback. People are just really excited to have a space where they are brought into strategy. Like we just had a creator brief a few weeks ago where. Instead of talking at them and feeding them staffs, I brought on a couple of experts and another creator to mc and it was just like a really like open space where people could ask questions and the content we got out of that brief was just incredible.

We got, I think we ended up with 10 million views on the topic and, people interpreting in their own way. There was no top down talking points and yeah, I think we just got phenomenal feedback and I think we hope to do more of those in the future.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. yeah. 'cause ultimately, the, weird paradox of the way that Republicans and Democrats do their own politics inside is that Republicans are more democratic in a lot of ways than Democrats are.

REED: Yeah.

SHEFFIELD: And, and, the public I think, can see that. In [00:56:00] some ways to a large degree, I think they can see it.

REED: there's a supportive network, right? Where I think what we recreate in the democrat creator organizing space is a really competitive environment. One where the, top, the creator with the highest following is, actually like the most resourced. And the people with very few followers who are actually probably more trusted by their base. They're not getting any resources. They're, they had to pay for their own DNC trip, which, the RNC would never let that happen. If you have even a remotely, like large following, the RNC would've probably paid your way. But like large creators, 500,000 followers, plus were paying their own way like limited access. It's not a good system. It's like we really, we do a tiering. We're always about hierarchy. We're not welcoming. So

SHEFFIELD: Yeah.

REED: figure out how to do this in a way that is not like that.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Yeah. and what's the website address for it? if people,

REED: creator congress.net.

SHEFFIELD: okay, cool. And then, what social media platforms would you want people to follow you on?

REED: Yeah. Instagram and TikTok. It's just creator dot Congress on Instagram and just creator Congress on TikTok.

SHEFFIELD: All right. Sounds good. Good to have you here. R.

REED: Yeah, so appreciate the time. Thanks, Matt.

SHEFFIELD: alright. So that is the program for today. I appreciate everybody joining us for the conversation and you can always get more if you go to TheoryOfChange.show, where we have the video, audio, and transcript of all the episodes, and my thanks to everybody who is a paid subscribing member. Thank you very much for your support. You have unlimited access, and if you would like to become a paid subscriber, just go to Theory of change.show or you can go to patreon.com/discoverflux.

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Thanks a lot, and I'll see you next time.

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