Update 2: Simplified the Title.
UPDATED: edited last paragraph — thanks, Lovejoy :)
Hear me out, please :)
I thought about this subject while responding to a comment on Dem’s diary this morning: Morning Joe Tries to Throw Elizabeth Warren Under the Bus …
As usual, I started getting long-winded and off-topic; I didn’t want to hijack an excellent discussion, so I’m doing a diary on my thoughts. And starting with my conclusion here:
I think we need to carefully craft what we say as we always do, but NOW, we should consider preparing two or more versions of everything our party places as a public message, at several different comprehension levels. Here’s why.
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From my comment:
Someone did an analysis of language levels used by Trump, former presidents[, GOP candidates from 2015], and average members of the Democratic Party. Trump consistently interacts with his base at a 4th grade level, and his base hears and understands him, considers him a great communicator (see also here and especially, here from 2015).
Matter of fact, there were a boatload of studies of language done between 2014 and today: they all conclude the same thing: we (Dems) interact at a 7th — 9th grade level (national average comprehension level), and it goes right over the heads of the mythical white, working class voter, and ALL of Trump’s base. He goes at them at a 4th grade level, and they love it. Especially when he’s vile, disgusting, emotionally over-the-top, and low-brow in attacking people who don’t kowtow and kiss his blubbery orange butt, or women or girls who are smarter/kinder/more decent/fiercer/did-I-mention-smarter? than he is.
Bottom line, with Trump supporters/cult members/worshippers, it’s his language, his unrehearsed extraneous speech and authoritarian bombast they love. It’s how he talks to them — like he’s having a conversation, even if it is only with himself.
He plays to the worst of their natures — we all know that. His childish words, his self-absorption (which he provides a window into, like any toddler who has had no boundaries set or punishment for misdeeds) — gives them permission to act the same. Like good parents, we may have to lead them back to the light, like we do our children. But how?
I reject any notion that we need to channel anything of Trump, but what I’d LIKE to see is for us to ‘dumb down’ the language level we use (my choice of words) with which we engage people, talk to them like they’re our friends and neighbors instead of talking at them in our customary, over-rehearsed, stilted talking points manner. We should not talk so much, listen more, relax, use shorter declarative sentences in red-leaning areas and pay close attention to the response — see if that gets us somewhere.
Maybe if we talk to his followers like we talk to our little ones, informally, like when we’re listening to them and allowing them to make choices that we have still carefully mapped out. Don’t treat them like children, but allow them to be who they are, within bounds. But above all, listen and respond to what they say, with words, not talking points or campaign slogans. What can it hurt? And what we could gain may be everything.
That’s essentially why Warren, Harris, and Klobuchar have been doing so well in local meet-and-greets — it’s all in how they connect. Bernie and Joe are more in-your-face, but they do it as well. Anyone who’s had kids or worked with them closely (teachers), knows you adjust your language to a level your audience can understand and SLOW DOWN. Stump speeches and sound-bites as currently formulated, don’t allow for the effectiveness we’d like to see, with audiences we need to persuade, the way we need to persuade them, the way we need them to listen.
There’s a study quoted in an article from 2015, Esquire Magazine, that presents a graphic showing all the candidates on a scale of language/communication level. CAVEAT: the study analyzes in terms of word length, complexity, and sentence length, thus it is not error-free.
So here’s that graphic: there’s not much to say, other than to think back to 2015, what you saw, what you heard, and think about it. Who was connecting, who wasn’t, who the front runners were.
I think they have Bernie dead wrong, for example — just LISTEN to him. Unless he’s discussing policy details where’s he’s DEFINITELY at 10th -12th grade level, his language is plain and simple; even if he does use complex words, the concepts and sentences are simple and focused. He’s fierce, he’s THERE. It’s Joe’s appeal as well (as the anti-Trump) — he sounds like a regular guy working the union line. Good old Joe.
The key: plain language, single syllable words, concepts presented in short, focused sentences. Listen to Madam Speaker. She knows how to talk to and reach the Cheeto-faced fool.
And none of our guys and gals are in love with their own voices the way Trump is, except Gabbard maybe.
A Daily Mail article from last year compares the last 15 presidents and their language skills — Trump, as expected, is dead last (4.6). The most popular of these: FDR, Kennedy, Reagan, Clinton, Eisenhower, Obama, range from 7.4 to 9.7, respectively, behind the most erudite of them all: Carter and Hoover (10.7 and 11.3).
Here’s the money quote from the article (nearly identical to the same thing said in a related Newsweek article):
'By every metric and methodology tested, Donald Trump's vocabulary and grammatical structure is significantly more simple, and less diverse, than any President since Herbert Hoover, when measuring 'off-script' words, that is, words far less likely to have been written in advance for the speaker,' Factbase CEO Bill Frischling wrote.
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Despite such a relatively poor performance linguistically-speaking, researchers in found that the way Mr Trump speaks mirrors the average conversation - which connected with supporters. [Emphasis, mine]
So how do we fix this? How do we reach them? Ask Liz, Kamala, Amy, Nancy, Bernie. Or Joe, William Jefferson Clinton, Oprah, or Michelle. Better yet, listen to them work a room in front of an audience in a venue that is NOT scripted to a fare-thee-well.
We do best being ourselves, and our candidates should do the same. No rehearsals, no scripts, lose the need/desire/requirement to spit out XX amount of canned talking points in a time slot. Answer and respond HONESTLY, not the way we think will further our agenda. If we believe in what we say, all of us, we don’t NEED to be scripted. We can stop trying to stage-manage people like they are a herd of cows who must be pushed/manipulated/managed. Dumb down our language, and maybe they can hear and understand us regardless of how they respond. We be honest, say what we feel, look our antagonists in the eye (because that what Trump supporters are to us, right now), and help them see us not as a threat, but allies, even if that honesty requires you to say no/I don’t agree/I believe you are wrong and here’s why/I don’t know/I haven’t made up my mind.
Again, look at Madam Speaker — how she communicates. She’s a woman of depth and conviction when it comes to party and country. She takes nothing from NOBODY, especially that Orange-hued fool squatting in the White House. She has stopped letting him have the last word. She speaks plainly, and from her heart. We all need to follow THAT lead. Now and until the election, 2020, it’s crucial that we do so.
How do we reach people who don’t think, don’t question, communicate on a low level of comprehension and have been conditioned to hate us, who want to hurt us? We speak to them, in plain, simple language, stick to our guns, engage, don’t let them anger us, because if they piss you off, they win.
We offer our messaging at 4th grade level (simple sentences, simple words), and at our usual levels for our own constituents, and take a page from the campaigns of Warren, Harris, and Sanders (who do it better than anyone else).
We don’t have to be Trump, but he’s got something we can learn from: how to reach people who simply cannot — and will never — be reachable by anyone using truth and logic as an argument. At least, not the way we rational normal people express and use it.
Like Trump, maybe we can appeal to their emotions by telling them — and showing them — in plain language, how we can make life better for them and their kids, show them how, for whatever gross profit their firm makes, per $100 in profit that the firm makes, at least 90 dollars goes to the top earners (executives, while the lowest paid worker makes about 31¢. That’s something we can hammer away at, for example, so that they begin to see Trump and his billionaire buddies as what they are, parasites keeping them poor and sick while working them to death, especially since it now seems the GOP is poised to finish staking the ACA. Because, make no mistake, Trumpers know, better than most, that they work damned hard to earn the company profits that the 1% suck up like thirsty camels after a 12-day trek.
Whether Trumpers respond positively to us or not, they will, at least, hear us and recognize us as being human beings, the same as they are, in time.