Elitists vs. simple speak: Democrats face challenges.

MAGA has turned the GOP into the party of the poorly educated and made it easy to manipulate them with simplistic gobbledegook. The challenge for Dems is to speak their language and explain the unintended consequences of simplistic solutions to complex problems. Appropriate messaging to voters of various education levels is key to political success. Democrats are just not good at that. Education is the greatest predictor of how someone will vote.It may be an insurmountable challenge, but they must at least try to improve.. https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/14/politics/the-biggest-predictor-of-how-someone-will-vote/index.html.

Abstract concepts and warnings of unintended consequences based on facts, data, and historical experiences work in communicating with the more educated. The messaging challenge for Democrats is they have to wait for reality to catch up with their predictions and make the connection in simple, 6th-grade-level terms. That is the average reading comprehensive level for the United States. Democrats need to express themselves in terms that reach them, too. This means speaking to the public just as you would a 6th grader about policies that even Ph.D.s debate. It can be done. MAGA did it.

"I told you so" or "you are too stupid to get it "are not the best responses. The best approach is a cynical one, which is exactly the one MAGA used. "See, the price of eggs is ridiculous. Remember what it was like when X was in charge? Therefore all of these prices and inflation are their fault, implying vote for him and he will fix it."(whether it was or not true or the hows to do it are missing). Harris attempted to bring messaging down to common terms better than most Democrats lately, but it was not enough, and she was reluctant to criticize Biden. Bill Clinton was the best explainer in the simple language of any politician I can recall. What goes around eventually comes around but at that point placing the blame should be in simplistic language, too. If I ever hear again "existential threat", or other jargon like that, libs need to get their tongues examined. Showing how smart you are to use big words is unhelpful.

Communicating with those who are illiterate or who have 6th-grade reading comprehension abilities takes a special set of skills. For a good part of my professional life, I have specialized in trying to do it in both columns and in books, in politics, and in educating people about being good and smart consumers. I write in simple English and try to avoid jargon. Sometimes I fail and fall into the jargon trap. Other times to alleviate my own frustrations, I write blog postings about messaging failures or suggest maybe "it could be said this way".  

The problem is today's problems are not simple and the solutions to them are complex and the harmful result of ignoring complexities is unintended consequences. ..making the current victims even victimized more. Dumbing down equals dumbed-down policies that the dumbed-down only see it in the price of eggs and then vote for the candidate whose policies will increase the price of eggs.  Democrats need to get their messaging to the 6th-grade level if they want to make hay in pointing blame in the next two years. 

https://mufticforumblog.blogspot.com/2024/11/trumps-achilles-heels-unintended.html

https://mufticforumblog.blogspot.com/2024/11/if-its-economy-stupid-magas-rise-is-its.html