Don’t our intelligence agencies combat radicalism (Islam, et al) by employing bright, educated, and trained operatives to understand the language in which the radical propaganda is couched, and then to add contradictory messaging using that same language, particularly in online forums ?
Democrats are losing the war of facts, ideas, plans, statistics, and information. This is not the language in which this battle is being fought.
It’s knowable (if frightening) where Trump supporters are getting their information. It’s equally knowable what language is used on those sources (ie, simplistic, reductive, inflammatory, hyperbolic, etc.).
Policy wonks shouldn’t be scripting the messaging of the Democrats. PsyOps types should.
I’ve got one of those family members (don’t we all ?) who I truly love deeply, but she’s also simple, religious, and conservative. She posts all the RW nonsense memes, and I’ve learned that there’s nothing I can do about them but let them fly by unanswered.
One always sticks with me:
I could spend hours telling my beloved family member everything that’s wrong with this meme, and then explaining to her the quantitative ways in which the countries where Democratic Socialism rules the roost … are markedly better than the US.
But you may as well stand a broom in the corner and talk to it. It isn’t the language that she speaks.
And … if we’re explaining, we’re losing. If we’re defending, we’re losing. If we’re constantly in fact-checking mode, we’re losing.
@Ulfreida has been posting a lot about nonviolent communication.
Which is fine.
But it wouldn’t be my first choice if I were running this thing. You have to meet people where they are. The Trump supporters are effectively speaking Portuguese, and Democrats seem to think that continuing in English … but getting increasingly louder … will create effective communication.
It won’t.