...for professionals trading in persuasion and emotional hooks (i.e., all you fundraising communicators), a visit like Pam's -- to the dark, vulgar, sphincter of America's worst side -- sounds positively like going to a high-end advertising trade school to me.
¶ Ignore the fact that you don't agree with their opinions and ideas (irrelevant).
¶ Look at how people actually talk. Real people ... when they are saying something with HEAT (however loathsome or deplorable you might find the statement) ... pay attention to how they talk. The adjectives. Adverbs. Their skill with pronouns.
¶ You can't defeat your political enemies with reasoned debate (you silly cookie-cutter Democrat elites!).
¶ You CAN, though, defeat your enemies by finding a more in-tune emotional message for some or all of the very same target audience. Something that sounds right to the right people at the right time. Instead of, say, like a lecture in policy facets.
¶ Students: consider it homework.
¶ How DO people on President Trump's FB page talk?
¶ Not the here-today, gone-tomorrow issues. {I'll have to promise "trust me" on this; after reading hundreds of books about politics and wars, history I think resembles the Northern Lights: today's RAGING HOT issues fade before the NEXT raging hit issue [not a typo] ... in a blink ... all the time ... every morning.}
¶ Get your wise-student hat on. You are "Entering a No Judgment Zone." If you're thinking "their arguments make no sense!", you're not focused on what matters: the language and emotional triggers buried behind it. If you find yourself saying, "What a racist asshole!", well, of course, you're right. But your homework will earn an F. You have to see through content, to the emotions below. And you know what? It's pretty amusing. The actual President Donald Trump drowns in butter. Adulation ONLY welcome here, on this site.
¶ Back to business: What ARE their emotions?
¶ How are they expressing those emotions?
¶ Are they hungry? Delicious! Nutritious! "Let me join you. I even brought my own knife and fork."
¶ Learn from everybody. Steal their success. Repeat.
¶ Remember: Trump's supporters put him in the White House. That takes a TON of emotional heavy lifting. That's VICTORY. The Democrats did not win the White House. Definition: you and yours are losers. Wrong consultants. Wrong beliefs. Wrong assumptions. Wrong data. Wrong messages for sure. Don't blame Trump because you lost. Democratic warhorses thought the 2012 elections would continue into 2016. They lost.
¶ Politics are NOT about winning debates. Politics are about gaining control. You have to win first. Then you can change stuff.
¶ If you're going to be in a bubble, please be in a bubble where lots of people vote. For any of you sitting behind drawn blinds thinking, "The fact that I didn't vote for Hillary was my protest against the system. The fact that I, admittedly, didn't vote AT ALL in the 2017 Presidential election was my protest against government in general ... because
¶ I AM that smart, I have read THAT much, AND I want the very BEST for this amazing nation ... this unique EXPERIMENT in modern democracy (where every voice can have its say) ... and for the small world and community and district and even block I live and work in ... as might my parents, as might my kids (if my mate and I so choose to have a bigger family).
¶ You know what, on 2nd thought, i was an idiot. DAMN!!!! And look what happened.
¶ The US Republican message machine is about as subtle as a Hallmark card. And the Democrats try to debate that. Reason vs. emotion. Any of today's top neuroscientists can tell you how THAT contest will turn out.
¶ You're not looking for the right words; you're looking for the right emotions. And STOP holding your nose at the very thought. That's WHY "they" call you elites.
PS ¶¶¶ "All fundraising communications should sound like conversation." (<George Smith)
¶ FB comments are how HONEST conversation sounds, warts and all.