More is better, up to a point. But already in the 1990s, Jerry Brown – four-time California Governor, California Attorney General, Mayor of Oakland and three-time Democratic Presidential candidate – was warning that the ability to define multiple segments of voters and to target advertising to those various groups carried a new risk. A candidate can put together a majority of votes to get elected but without having a majority consensus among those cobbled-together segments to form an effective governing coalition.
For anyone in the mood to nerd out over this topic, the Boston Review earlier this year offered various informed ideas on the topic under the rubric, "How Not to Defeat Authoritarianism." (1) Adam Bonica and Jake Grumbach introduce it by reminding us that while centrist Moderation “remains the conventional political wisdom” among consultants and many pundits, in the current situation it “is more conventional than wise, and the most prominent cases for it badly misunderstand how politics works.”
Of course, not all the voters who coalesce around a candidate will share the same opinion on every issue. This increases the importance of establishing a broader narrative to define candidates, campaigns and parties. A classic example of such a narrative was a central part of Franklin Roosevelt’s acceptance speech at the 1936 Democratic convention, known as the Rendezvous With Destiny speech.
Political tyranny was wiped out at Philadelphia on July 4, 1776.In a later speech that year at Madison Square Garden, he said:
Since that struggle, however, man's inventive genius released new forces in our land which reordered the lives of our people. ...
For out of this modern civilization economic royalists carved new dynasties. New kingdoms were built upon concentration of control over material things. Through new uses of corporations, banks and securities, new machinery of industry and agriculture, of labor and capital - all undreamed of by the Fathers - the whole structure of modern life was impressed into this royal service. ...
The savings of the average family, the capital of the small business man, the investments set aside for old age - other people's money - these were tools which the new economic royalty used to dig itself in.
For too many of us the political equality we once had won was meaningless in the face of economic inequality. A small group had concentrated into their own hands an almost complete control over other people's property, other people's money, other people's labor - other people's lives. For too many of us life was no longer free; liberty no longer real; men could no longer follow the pursuit of happiness. (3) [emphasis added]
We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace—business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.Now that is a narrative!! And FDR and the Democrats had 3 ½ years of fighting for New Deal relief and economic-stimulus programs behind them at the time so they could point to things they had delivered.
They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.
Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me - and I welcome their hatred. (3)
Political narratives and messaging 90 years later (i.e., now)
Of course, times change. But we still have economic royalists. And today’s January Sixers, masked ICE goons, and “patriot militias” are far better financed that their predecessors in Liberty League and the Ku Klux Klan (and the German-American Bund!) of the 1930s.
But we have seen some excellent examples of successful political narratives. For large-D Democrats and for all supporters of democracy it’s of course an negative example, but Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” has been a durable narrative theme for his supporters to rally around. Of course, narratives have to be spread by messaging. And the Trumpist messaging around the MAGA theme involved immigrants as invaders, MS-13 gang sadists, drug cartels, white-supremacist fantasies about Haitian immigrants eating dogs and cats, litter boxes for school children who identify as cats, and so on. The specific messaging may be and often is despicable and/or insane. But it’s a narrative that Trump and his supporters sound like they are willing to fight for it.
The Democrats can also have narratives bolstered by specific messages. The scale of corruption in the Trump Administration is off the scale of anything we’ve seen in American history. The iconic Teapot Dome during Warren Harding’s Republican Administration scandal in today’s dollars looks like a normal week in Trumpland today.
Stopping corruption is a useful narrative because even Republican voters at least claim to be concerned about it. But it also has to be messaged with specifics. And there is (to put it ironically) an embarrassment of riches for the Democrats to use: The Trump family’s crypto business. Jared Kushner’s business dealings with foreign governments as he allegedly does diplomacy on the side. Trump’s “Board of Peace.” The shady slush fund Venezuela set up to be controlled by the White House after Trump’s military intervention. Republican Supreme Court Justices taking valuable gifts from private donors. The end-of-the-week announcements about trouble in the Iran War followed up by Monday morning good news on which some investors always seem to profit when the stock market opens. Selling pardons to some awful people.
These aren’t obscure issues. They are in the news constantly. And most people think those kinds of things are sleazy conduct and theft of public money. Or “taxpayer money” as it is so often called (although the money belongs to the public’s government, not to the original individual payer of the taxes).
This probably isn’t what most commentators and campaign consultants mean when they talk about “kitchen-table” issues. Still: Narrative: Trump and his cronies are as corrupt as any government we’ve ever had! Messaging: Trump and his family made X million dollars last week on their crooked crypto business!! And so on. Delivered in a tone of We Democrats are going to stop this! (Erasing the word “bipartisan” from the campaign vocabulary is also something Democrats should seriously consider!)
And media is different than it was 90 years ago. Fireside chats over the radio and speaking in booming cadences so that everyone in a large hall can hear without the benefit of loudspeakers don’t resonate so well today. Now we live in a time where a Democratic Senate candidate in Georgia saying the words “and travel with Natalie” can send the entire national GOP into a hissy-fit of fake outrage!
In the era of AI and podcasts, messaging for one’s own side in the context of a broader narrative requires different presentations and more snark than was common in the 1930s. And maybe even a little international solidarity, like this new one from the British Marsh Family to a familiar ABBA tune. (4)
This post was first published at the ProDA-Progressive Caucus of Democrats Abroad Substack.
Notes:
(1) How Not to Defeat Authoritarianism. Boston Review 02/03/2026. <https://www.bostonreview.net/forum/how-not-to-defeat-authoritarianism/> (Accessed 2026-31-08).
(2) Roosevelt, Franklin (1936): Acceptance Speech for the Renomination for the Presidency, Philadelphia, Pa. The American Presidency Project. <https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/acceptance-speech-for-the-renomination-for-the-presidency-philadelphia-pa> (Accessed 2026-31-08).
(3) Roosevelt, Franklin (1936): Acceptance Speech for the Renomination for the Presidency, Philadelphia, Pa. The American Presidency Project. <https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/address-madison-square-garden-new-york-city-1> (Accessed 2026-31-08).
(4) "Thank You for the Bullsh!t" - Marsh Family parody of ABBA (on Karoline Leavitt leaving White House). Marsh Family YouTube channel 08/26/2026. <https://youtu.be/o9l1xArp2RM?si=6hle2sL8M9EMcvuj> (Accessed 2026-31-08).
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