Warren Buffett famously confessed that “[t]here’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”[1]
If anything, the November election showed that focusing on authoritarianism, threats to democracy, and Trump’s criminal behavior were losing messages. It didn’t mean anything in the day-to-day lives of Trump voters.
So, what now? What does this mean for the new resistance?
We need to give people a meaningful alternative to authoritarian populism using emotive language that connects with where people are, where they live. Progressive populism 2.0 if you will.
How do we do that?
Class warfare by economic elites and the emerging super class of trillionaires (we’re not there yet, but close) is foundational to progressive populism.[2] But that message doesn’t connect with people’s everyday lives.
Progressive populism 2.0 therefore needs to adopt a new language.
Reframing the narrative with a new language means taking a page from the Gingrich playbook “Language: A Key Mechanism for Control.”[3],[4] Yes, Gingrich is a horrible excuse of a human being, but he was not wrong on how to successfully manipulate language.
Terms like authoritarian, democracy, racist, misogynist, criminal, extremist, the 1%-ers, and fraud don’t work anymore.
The language of the new resistance, the new progressive populism, needs to create strong, visceral emotional reactions – reason and logic won’t do it. But the language must be tied to an actual, observable adverse impacts on Trump voters.
For example, free markets, shareholder capitalism, and across the board tariffs inevitably mean that Trump will fail to lower prices or keep inflation under control.[5],[6]
Companies that made record profits are not going to their drop prices due to a newly found sense of patriotic duty. The price of milk and eggs will remain high and cereal boxes are not going to magically increase in size.[7]
Drill-baby-drill will not bring down gas prices. The U.S already produces more oil than any other country, ever.[8] Almost as much as all the Gulf states of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, and the UAE combined. Gas prices aren’t going anywhere near pre-pandemic levels.[9]
When prices rise because of the Trump economic plan, the message should be simple and straightforward.
“Trump betrayed the American people by failing to deliver on his promise of lower food and gas prices because his obsolete ideas only helped an out of touch, self-serving ruling class.” (OK, maybe too much got dumped in that, but you get the point.)
Don’t over explain. Don’t discuss policy. Use simple words that create strong emotions to point out every failure every day. Then do it again and again and again.
[1] In Class Warfare, Guess Which Side is Winning
[2] Does America Need Trillionaires?
[3] Language: A Key Mechanism of Control
[4] Optomistic Positive Governing Words and Contrasting Words
[5] Donald Trump: A Threat to the U.S. Economy?
[6] Former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers warns Trump plans would ‘set off an inflationary spiral’
[7] Food prices worried most voters, but they likely won’t see lower grocery bills under Trump
[8] United States produces more crude oil than any country, ever
[9] What you think you know about increasing gas prices is wrong
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