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Counterprogramming
There’s a ratings strategy in television called counterprogramming. The idea is to offer the viewing public a stark alternative to what’s offered by your competition. Is there a popular drama on another network? Then move your popular comedies to the same time slot. Is the opposition appealing to men with sports programming? Then find a show that appeals to women.
There’s a version of this that’s played in politics and it’s used by both sides. If Bill Clinton is seen as a draft dodger, then the temptation is to counter with a genuine war hero in Bob Dole. If George W. Bush has a questionable record as a reservist in the Texas Air National Guard, then you offer up a Vietnam veteran in John Kerry, even if his own service is questionable (both during and after the war.)
As in the examples above, counterprogramming is not always successful in politics. Still the temptation is always there. The amateur programmers on the Republican side, those who cannot abide the fact that Donald Trump is their standard bearer, are desperately seeking to offer up something else.
The pitch usually begins with “(Baker/Hogan/Weld) are very popular in blue states!” Ok, why are they popular in blue states? It’s usually because they don’t push conservative ideas or issues, instead choosing to present themselves as efficient managers of the modern welfare state. Oh, they’re personally opposed to a lot of progressive ideas mind you, but not opposed enough to actually do anything about them.
In many cases they actively pursue policies at odds with conservatism. Maryland Governor Larry Hogan is very good at that. He can say he wants to “get the government off our backs” and then turn around and push mandatory paid leave. He “evolved” on same-sex marriage and refuses to deal with abortion. He and his backers say he’s only being “pragmatic.” Same for John Kasich. As Ohio’s governor his stance toward Obamacare was to embrace it and expand it.
In 2012 the GOP offered up the grandfather of Obamacare as the alternative to the father of Obamacare. That makes a lot of people shrug their shoulders and ask, “Why bother voting for Democrat Lite when you can have the real thing?”
The problem for this anti-Trump counterprogramming strategy is simple: Trump is the counterprogramming. He represents the rejection of the business-as-usual run as a conservative but govern as a progressive lite that has dominated party thinking since the ascension of Bush I in 1989, and fully embraced under Bush II as “compassionate conservatism.”
The Democrats are undergoing their own counterprogramming binge. While they applaud the Pelosis and the Bidens for what they’ve done in the past, they want something different, too. But what they’re embracing is more radical than anything they’ve done in the past. Intersectional, redistributionist and more authoritarian than ever, if brought to fruition their plans may even make Bill Kristol long for Orange Man. But once that show is canceled, it’s canceled. Be careful what you wish for.
Published in Politics
I agree, mostly. Your examples are good. As you note there are exceptions. GWB wasn’t the polar opposite of Bill Clinton; they both started as business friendly Southern governors, relative moderates within their parties. They were the same age, IIRC. People liked the economy of the Nineties and didn’t want that changed.
Partisans–like for example, us–may tend to overdo the idea of being the opposite of whatever the other side does. If the other side ran AOC in 2024, I wouldn’t jump to endorse Milo Yiannopolis.
I would say they’re pretty similar myself.
How about a feature film version of Will and Grace? I think they’d be pretty good.
Willfully Stupid?
That is the Dem dilemma for 2020. Directly compete with Biden, old scrapper vs. old scrapper. Or counter program with, say, Kamala Harris, someone who will look oh so different on the stage for the debate.
The problem is what they really need to counterprogram with someone who would provide “normalcy”. But sadly for them, Biden is the closest they have to “normal” and he is not.
Trump at the present time has the benefit of appearing to be able to go into 2020 asking the same question to voters that Reagan asked in 1984 — “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” Assuming there are no major downturns in the economy or sudden change in the world’s relatively stable position (sorry, Venezuela), whoever the Democrats run is either going to have to base their campaign on the domestic and world situations being historically terrible, as Walter Mondale did in 1984, or they’re going to have to connect with the swing voters based on being adverse to Trump’s personality, while schmoozing them into believing they’re not going to make many changes at all to the current domestic and foreign policies, at least as far as moving to the left goes.
That’s going to be a tough needle to thread, especially since in every election where the Democrats have lost control of the White House for the past half-century, their collective instinct has been to move left four years later, because they didn’t lose because the voters rejected their progressive ideas — they lost because the idjut they ran the previous time just didn’t campaign as enough of a progressive (Humphrey, Carter, Gore and Hillary). So Biden or Buttigieg can try to avoid playing the game of “Get to Bernie’s left” in the upcoming primaries, but it’s going to be really tough to fire up the base just on the idea that Trump’s personality is awful, but we only need to tweak the other stuff around the edges.
I mostly agree–hey, your stuff is usually brilliant; I’d be crazy not to–and I agree that if 1968 and 2016 were the Great Historic Moves to the Left that Never Happened, then 2020 could well turn out to be 1972 all over again. The Democrats nominate a McGovern and the Republicans win an historic landslide. To invoke the climax of WarGames, the digits are starting to fall into place. But we might not get there this time. To, uh, war game this out, consider:
Nixon was hated just as much as Trump (I know that seems extremely hard to believe, but I think the other old folks will back me up on this) but he was feared and respected for his cunning; Cardinal Richelieu even when he was merely the Bishop of Lucon, so to speak, in the 1950s. Even his enemies were wary of him. I could see this happening for Trump, but it hasn’t happened yet. He hasn’t won the kind of political loyalty that could survive a setback.
Any of you fortune tellers here willing to predict how Trump would handle a 9/11? Better than Bush? Worse than Bush? How about another Katrina? There’s a year and a half until the election.
People like many parts of the Trump Era a lot. They don’t have to like Trump to want it to continue. But his margin for error is thinner than we think.
Very, very true.
Completely agree that Trump’s wholly dependent on things staying collectively as good as they are now, and even then his personalty could cause just enough voters to decide it’s not worth the aggravation and go with a Democrat who at least promises not to rock the boat too much. But most of the Dems won’t do that.
There are also a lot of people who somehow manage to think that things are going fine, and they could elect Elizabeth Warren or even AOC and it would just continue on, PLUS they’d get all the FREE STUFF being promised, etc. It’s crazy stupid, of course, but they believe it.
Regarding Milo:
I read his book. The guy is utterly irreverent and a troll / gadfly. However, he is orders of magnitude more intelligent than AOC. I wouldn’t vote for him for president (I think him trolling Putin might get us nuked…) but he’s got some interesting ideas. He also recognizes that his role is not replacing the intellectuals, but getting people to the place where they are willing to consider conservative arguments.
He’s also much more mentally tough – anything he can dish out, he can take. He specifically allowed his likeness and voice to be used in the ultra-violent video game Postal 2, so you can do ludicrous levels of virtual violence to him.
The voters are counterprogramming against the status quo of the last 30 years. One group looks at DC and sees a swamp. Another looks at DC as not being powerful enough. And a third group is comfortable with what they had. Putting Trump in the White House was akin to canceling Gunsmoke. Yeah, it was predictable as all hell but they like predictability.
The anti-Trump people are basically arguing that the President is a flawed man and therefore not their ideal of a politician. And the pro-Trumpers totally agree. And that’s exactly why they find him attractive. Irritating all the right people is a selling point. The more they whine about him, they more satisfied they are with their choice.
To further the television analogy, the 17-person field for the GOP in 2016 and the 21 Democrats declared for 2020 are the equivalent of the 500-channel universe. The fractured nature of the parties is going to make coalescing behind a single nominee harder and harder. It also makes it easier for the parties to lurch from one extreme or the other.
Strategically, hating on the President from the right doesn’t work. Worrying about a Stormy tempest in a teapot or declaring an Evangelical jihad against his base is just stupid, no matter how much better it makes you feel about yourself.
And if you hated your binary choice in 2016, you’re probably going to hate the one you get in 2020. And you can’t change the channel.
Because Democrat Lite is not as bad as full-strength Democrat? (Isn’t that the entire raison d’etre of light beer?)
Decorum. George Will’s column on National Review on Sunday was, if not an endorsement, at least a shout-out to Joe Biden, because he would restore the decorum in Washington without veering too far to the left. It’s far more about the manners than the policy (Will famously labeled George H.W. Bush as a lapdog, primarily because Bush 41 as Reagan’s VP threw some tough talk at Geraldine Ferraro after the 1984 debate and at Mario Cuomo in 1986. Not rocking the boat inside the Beltway is more important than actually doing things that advance the conservative agenda, to where if t he right type of person isn’t heading the effort, the effort isn’t worth attempting.)
I like almost everything that Trump has done or trying to do. In my mind, he’s the most conservative President we’ve ever had.
Having said that, I’ve never met a man who is as flawed in his character as Trump. Have you?
I mean, the man’s a braggart and a liar. He’s vindictive and a boor. He’s vain and petty. I really hardly think of a personality flaw that Trump doesn’t have. Before the election, I saw signs of this, but the full extent of his flawed personality didn’t come out until after the election. I thought winning the election would rein in his character flaws. Instead, it magnified them.
I had a terribly obnoxious uncle. No, I mean terribly obnoxious. But he couldn’t hold a candle to Trump.
Trump has some endearing traits: He seems to love his country (as Democrats don’t seem to), he can be ingratiating when he tries, and most importantly, he’s got more guts than any politician I know of. But my goodness, have you ever met a man with Trump’s bundle of character flaws?
There is no modesty or truth about him.
I’m going to vote for him again, because I think what he is doing is far more important than whether I would like to have him around me.
So, basically a politician in other words.
I’ll be voting for him again because what I think he’s doing is important, but also because the people who oppose him have thus far seen no reason to modify the behavior that would cause me to vote for him in the first place.
That is to say, the voting will continue until morale improves.
Clever allusion in the last line, Matt. I wonder how many of your readers will catch that allusion (he said while patting himself on the back).
I think people are more sanguine about Warren, or Bernie, or pick your poison because the reality is they won’t really accomplish that much even when in power. They will make their supporters feel good about things, and annoy the other side but actual legislation that greatly alters the status quo? Seems unlikely. I mean look at Trump and the Republicans. What have they achieved that is long lasting and concrete? The judges (but a judges are always getting nominated the numbers will balance out in the long run), the tax cuts (well at least half of them are permanent the other half are due to sunset in eight years), and …. am I missing something? He’s done regulatory reforms, and picked his favorite winners and losers in the government handout game. But next Democrat in and all that swings the other way.
Under Obama we had straight economic growth for about 7 years, with unemployment steadily going down from the height of the recession and the stock market climbing steadily. So far under Trump’s policies annual GDP growth hasn’t been all that different from what we experienced under Obama. Last year was particularly good, but Obama has similar growth in 2015. So it is yet to be demonstrated that anything Trump has done policy wise has mattered. Likewise it is arguable that nothing Obama did really mattered that much. Seems to me the default assumption should be to assume the Null Hypothesis is true until it can be disproved.
Following 2010 Obama was basically a lame duck domestically, and following 2018 so is Trump. In both cases thanks to divided Government. What makes anyone think that Warren or Bernie would get more than 2 years (if even that) to legislate anything. My conclusion is that we are in fact only fighting for the aesthetics which are determined by partisan leanings. If a Republicans is in charge Republicans will discount bad results and emphasis good outcomes (all irrespective of causality) and likewise with Democrats. In essence in 2020 regardless of what the economy does on its own you need a Republicans to be able to feel happy about it. Most normal people don’t care either way.
Trump’s mitigating character trait over the past 40-plus years in the public spotlight has been he’s always wanted to show the elites that the masses liked him more than they liked the elites. That went from the bridge-and-tunnel crowd in NYC in 1977 to Flyover Country in 2019, and it explained his pre-2016 ideological shifts, because he was always trying to be where he thought the swing voters were, because they were always in the majority. That’s why I’ve been happily surprised that Trump hasn’t moved back towards the left following the midterm election results, though the Democrats’ vitriol towards him made have made that type of move impossible.
Well I already knew that “most people” aren’t particularly bright. After all, “most people” have an IQ of 100 or less, by definition.
What’s overlooked here is that Democrats are sneaky , it doesn’t matter who the Democrat President is, most of the damage is done via regulation, ‘sue and settle’, ‘dear colleague letters’ and lawfare, deep state regulators get judges to issue orders that are beyond the scope of Congress to implement socialist policies. So it doesn’t matter who’s in the Oval Office, the damage is done by the bowl weevils they bring in to run the administrations plus the media which refuses to publicize these intrusion on our liberty. AFFH anyone? It mandates that every small town must IMPORT poor people into their town and then provide low income housing for them with the intent of turning every town into a mini-Detroit. I don’t know if that has been rescinded yet but it should have been by 12:30 Jan 20, 2017.
That’s the point I keep trying to make. Any Democrat is an unacceptable alternative to any Republican — even Trump with all his character flaws. And, it just so happens, we conservatives struck gold with Trump and his keeping his (conservative) promises.
I will be forever grateful to God or the fates or whomever if we manage to turn this country up out of its socialist/leftist nosedive because of Trump. If not, I’m grateful for the temporary reprieve. God bless the Orange Man.
I am unable to ‘like’ posts , I get a complete white screen. I’m using safari. , I first said I’m ON safari which would put me in Africa .
The button is having problems and Max is working on it.
Thanks, I would like that comment if I could but….
Ditto. And you being on safari, too.
Amen.
I am a Trump supporter but do find myself wondering where was his mother when she was supposed to be teaching basic good manners to her children. That said, I also find myself cutting him slack as the daily barrage of attacks continues in a media gleefully misinterpreting or criticizing every single thing he does and wonder how in the world he maintains his sanity. As time goes on, the character flaws of various individuals in the MSM begin to outweigh his — significantly.
This seems to be substantial evidence that George Will is either: (1) out of his mind with Trump Derangement Syndrome, or (2) descending into dementia.
I know that this is a severe criticism. I would expect Will to remember the Bork nomination. Here is what Joe Nocera (a Left-leaning NYT columnist at the time) said about the Bork hearings: “The Bork fight, in some ways, was the beginning of the end of civil discourse in politics…The anger between Democrats and Republicans, the unwillingness to work together, the profound mistrust—the line from Bork to today’s ugly politics is a straight one.” (Quoted from Wikipedia here).
Guess who was the Senate Judiciary Chairman presiding over the Bork hearings? The very Joe Biden who Will now praises as a model of decorum.
Perhaps both?