Fight Fire with Fire: A New Dem Strategy is Needed

The Democrats need a change in strategy: fight fire with fire! Learn from the social media strategy of the other side.

Sure, like always, “it’s the economy, stupid” applies. But as far as the 2024 election result, it wasn’t the percentage, which everyone is fixated on, it was the totals, stupid. 

In this election post-mortem, all the analysis on the left seems to be about percentages: Democrats “lost ground” in every area. But the problem was totals, not percentages! Bring your total turnout back up to where it was in the last election, and the percentages would fall into more expected ranges.

To wit: fewer people voted this year (150 million) than four years ago (158.5 million). Republicans had basically their usual turnout, as Donald Trump won with a bit more votes (76.3 million) than he garnered in losing (74.2 million) four years ago. But a huge number of Democratic voters simply did not bother to cast a ballot. Harris received far fewer votes (73.6 million) than Biden (81.3 million) did in 2020. Crazy, I know, and it explains why Dems got swept. 

Now, the hope is that — just like in Trump’s first term — it is likely that the population will be highly motivated come the midterms to elect a Congress that will stand up to him. As the votes for initiatives across the country showed, Democratic policies are very popular, even in red states, even though that didn’t translate to votes for Democratic candidates. Initiatives to protect abortion, boost minimum wages and child care support, among others, did well, even as voters seemed not to realize that the candidates they voted for will fight against those very policies.

There’s a strange disconnect in our national politics, and I’m convinced it is because we now have a majority of “low-information voters” in this country. 

This is why Dems need a change in strategy. Sources of good information, it seems, are not “entertaining” enough to get much attention in this age of algorithm-driven link bait, full of tantalizing videos, conspiracy theories and overall mindless vacuity. Young people 18-35 years old, especially, don’t get their news from reputable news sources, and are susceptible to the falsehoods and outright lies all over social media. Too many older adults, afraid of “fake news,” put themselves in a silo of right-wing media – awash as it is in actual fake news. 

There is a lot of debate about the lessons that need to be learned by Democrats from this election. But I haven’t heard anywhere what I think should be the main lesson. It may sound quite controversial and perhaps even sacrilegious to liberal principles, but I believe Democrats need to fight fire with fire. They need to take note of what’s working for the other side, and mimic it, yet from a liberal perspective. They must learn the techniques that trigger online algorithms to promote posts, videos and podcasts, and thus reach millions they aren’t reaching now. 

Republicans are quite adept at stoking fear through social media, and through traditional advertising as well. This year, thanks to Elon Musk’s PAC funneling over $200 million to Trump’s election effort, a multipronged false-flag campaign targeted liberals, Jews, Muslims and Black voters with brazenly false ads, effectively pushing Harris’ numbers down. 

Yes, today’s “GQP” knows that stoking fear drives algorithms. But liberals don’t need to make up lies like the other side, they can use the very real fears of fascism, climate change, internment camps, abortion bans, etc – there are plenty! They just need to do it effectively.

So, go ahead, Democrats, take a page from Republicans, and stoke that fear! Create videos that go viral, that people who don’t watch the news or read newspapers will see. You could even make stuff up, I personally wouldn’t mind, because this is a fight for survival. But reality is scary enough.

So, maybe create a video of a Hitler-esque Trump and his evil clown-car of cabinet picks, driving up the steps of the National Archives museum and plowing right through the Constitution display case. Show Matt Gaetz hitting up 17-year-olds outside of their school. Or show Trump palling around with Jeffrey Epstein on his private jet, which he did for years.

The point is, we’ve got to fight them where they are. Sure, Dems use social media platforms, but in a way that is too “normal,” too staid, and yes, even too factual! In other words, too boring to compete with the fantastical crap the other side is putting out. Democrats need to fight fire with fire. We need VIRAL content, people!

James Israel
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