It Isn’t About Your Message


Housefly.Reading time – 1:54; Viewing time – 3:17  .  .  .

The 2012 general election generated a lot of forward looking comments from pundits and political operatives, like:

The Republicans will have to change their messaging if they are going to appeal to Latinos.

“Severely conservative” Mitt Romney will have to pivot to the center in order to attract independents.

Republican candidates have to stop saying things like, “A woman’s body has a way of shutting that down [in cases of rape],” and “[Pregnancy from rape] is God’s plan.”

This year those statements are being modified only slightly by saying that Trump will have to change his messaging if he is going to appeal to Latinos and African-Americans. Like Romney, he’ll have to pivot to the center in order to attract independents. He’ll have to stop demeaning women and he’ll  have to refuse to align with hate groups if he is going to attract anyone but the hair-on-fire pissy people (my description, not a quote).

The important point, though, is that all that “how to win elections” word torturing is completely misguided, wrong-headed and even dishonest.  It seems to say that all that matters is the manipulation of the message and of voters.

To which I say, “Nuh-uh.” What is important is not the crafted messaging of an appeal to African-Americans or a pivot to the center or avoiding saying stupid stuff. What is important is what candidates would actually do. And however you dress up Trump’s piggy statements, it’s clear that even with lipstick, he will continue to be a pig and he will do what pigs do.

Charles Blow recently wrote, “Trump is an unfiltered primal scream of the fragility and fear consuming white male America.” Surely, there’s much we can learn from that. More critically, though, Trump’s frivolous comments about the use of nuclear weapons abandons common sense and even survival. In a real crisis, what would he do?

This election is about many things including what’s already been mentioned, as well as voter disenfranchisement, big money poisoning of our politics and the millions of good paying jobs that Congress continues to say “It’s all about” but consistently refuses to take action to improve. It is about these substantive issues and is not about focused-grouped, misleading messages.

TO OUR POLITICAL CANDIDATES (not just Trump) – News flash: It isn’t about your message.You need to understand that Latinos don’t care what you say about immigration reform; they care about what you would do about it. Americans don’t care how you flap your lips about Medicare, Social Security, jobs, climate warming and terrorism; they care about what you would do.

If you’re all about the hot air of your finely honed, misleading messaging, then all you are is a manipulator and we will sniff you out. You may have had your way with us for a while, but if you’ve been dishonest with us, we will swat you like we would an annoying housefly and flick you away.

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Ed. note: There is much in America that needs fixing and we are on a path to continually fail to make things better. It is my goal to make a difference – perhaps to be a catalyst for things to get better. That is the reason for these posts. To accomplish the goal requires reaching many thousands of people and a robust dialogue.

YOUR ACTION STEPS: Please offer your comments below and pass this along to three people, encouraging them to subscribe and engage.  Thanks!  JA


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3 Responses to It Isn’t About Your Message

  1. John Calia August 28, 2016 Reply

    Interesting that you make all these observations without once mentioning Ms. Clinton. Does that imply that she is not guilty of the same masquerade?

    • Jack Altschuler August 28, 2016 Reply

      Fair observation, John. To be clear, all the comments apply to all candidates with the exception of the nuclear weapons issue. That belongs solely to sociopathic Donald Trump and that issue dwarfs all others.

      Mrs. Clinton’s evasions, semi-answers, lies, shifting positions and the rest are just as sulfurous to democracy and make just as opaque what she would do as does every other political candidate’s self-serving, disingenuous messaging. I’m not even a little happy with our choices for this election and am less happy with the continuous rhetorical distortions.

      The one thing worthy of note in this context about Mrs. Clinton is that the vast majority of “scandals” that have been tied to her are not scandals. Seven Congressional investigations into Benghazi turned up no wrongdoing whatsoever. Ken Starr and his special prosecutor mercenaries spent 5 years investigating Whitewater, Vince Foster’s death and many other so-called “scandals” and they came up empty. When Hillary haters assume she is guilty of multiple scandalous endeavors, it turns out they’re assuming to be true a Big Lie that really has been carried along by a “vast right-wing conspiracy.” Oddly – and this is the point – she has helped it along with her blatantly phony messaging.

      And, no, her complex private email server insanity isn’t okay and all the outrageous explanations, excuses (paraphrasing her justification, “All the kids did it.”) and half-truths said about it should and would sink her ship in any other election. But this isn’t any other election, so propriety demands that she write a heartfelt thank you note to Trump on November 9 for being even more unacceptable than she is.

      Pitiful. Absolutely pitiful.