Mr. President, It’s Time To Go Negative—With The Truth

Mr. President, there is good news and bad news. You know the bad news. If the polls are accurate, Donald Trump is ahead of you among voters across the country and in five critical battleground states you are also behind. Significant percentages of traditionally Democratic constituencies, particularly African Americans, are considering voting for your opponent. Even your support among voters under 30 has taken a nose dive.

            Many voters who previously supported you are dissatisfied with the direction of the country. Your many accomplishments are not resonating with the American public. Some of your advisers seem to believe that the voters are just  unaware that unemployment is at a historic low, that job growth has defied expectations, that inflation is slowing. If news accounts are correct, they are advising you to double down on efforts to increase the public’s awareness of your accomplishments and in particular demonstrate how much better American’s have become under your administration.

            This would be a serious mistake. Most Americans are aware of these figures but the numbers don’t address their struggle to make ends meet. Middle class families can’t afford to purchase a home; residents of apartments are being squeezed by rental fees that seem to defy gravity. It doesn’t matter that inflation is slowing when people can’t afford the sky-high cost of meat or fruit or a dozen other staples. If their car dies, they don’t know how they will afford to pay for another, where a car loan today resembles a mortgage.   

            Doubling down won’t work because this is the reality for most Americans.

            Now for the good news. In the last election seven million more Americans voted for you over Trump. While you cannot hope to change the minds of voters who voted for Trump and continue to believe in him, you can motivate those who voted for you in the past and those who are now on the fence. The mid-term election proved this. Millions were motivated to vote for Democrats because they were angry about the Supreme Court decision in Dobbs striking down Roe v. Wade.  

            The good news is that Trump has openly and very publicly declared what he intends to do if elected. But since many Americans are still not aware that their civil liberties are in serious jeopardy, confronting them with the simple truth will motivate your supporters and those considering voting for Trump to come out on election day in force to vote for you (despite their qualms about your age and the state of the economy).

            How do you get your message across? Use TikTok influencers to reach younger voters. Create strikingly evocative commercials for Instagram. Have your supporters “paper” X with Trump quotes. Remind your advisors of a commercial you saw in 1964. You remember, the one where a three-year-old girl is standing in a meadow, picking petals off a daisy, counting. But when she reaches “nine”, she is interrupted by a male voice counting numbers backward from “ten”, like the start of a missile launch. Then you see a close up of the girl’s right eye; her pupil fills the screen; then the flash of light and the sound of a nuclear explosion. “Daisy,” played exactly one time as a commercial on TV, but replayed by the nightly news and debated across the nation, helped Lyndon Johnson win a landslide victory over Barry Goldwater.

            Memes work. Meme’s reach hearts and guts.  Consider these:

            A picture of American soldiers with Trump calling them losers.

            A picture of headstones at Arlington Cemetery with Trump calling fallen soldiers losers.

            A picture of crosses and stars of David in cemeteries in Normandy with Trump calling American soldiers losers.

            A picture of the floor of Congress on Jan. 6 with Trump calling his adversaries vermin that need to be rooted out.

            A picture of Trump and Putin with a caption, “People are Known by the Company they Keep.”

            A picture of Trump calling for the termination of the Constitution.  

            A picture of General Milley with Trump saying he should be executed.

            A photo of Russian tanks in Ukraine with Trump saying, ““You know what? Putin’s fine. He’s fine. We’re all fine. We’re people.”

            Fear, a page from the Republican’s playbook. But in this election, Americans should be afraid.