Messaging Brilliance of Harris-Walz Shows Democrats How to Finally End the Era of the Ruthlessness Gap
15 years ago I coined the term, "the Ruthlessness Gap," to name the most significant new dynamic in U.S. politics—the rising ruthlessness of the Republican Party. Are Democrats finally fighting back?
Well, well, well… it looks like *somebody* spent summer break hiring new messaging and comms consultants! Looking at you, Democratic Party!
The messaging from Vice President Kamala Harris and her team has been PHENOMENAL.
Both the tone, frequency, humor, and toughness of the written releases, and the tone and rhetoric of the speeches from Harris and Walz. I can’t wait to see next week’s convention.
As someone who, for 15 years, has harped on what I call “the Ruthlessness Gap”—and more recently, “the Messaging Gap”—it feels like Dorothy stepping from sepia into technicolor.
In short, Harris, and now Walz, are showing the long-floundering, hapless, Charlie-Brown Democratic Party how to mitigate the Ruthlessness Gap, i.e., how to stop the Republican Party politically, by trouncing them in elections; and how to mitigate the Messaging Gap by going on offense with bold, energetic, enthusiastic, and—when needed—forceful messaging. (And, really, when wouldn’t that be needed? Have you seen the Supreme Court lately?)
Most importantly, Kamala Harris is demonstrating that the Democratic Party can mitigate the Ruthlessness Gap without becoming “just like” or “just as bad” or just as ruthless as the Right-Wing, fascist/authoritarian Republican Party.
Likewise, VP Harris and her team are showing—pretty much impeccably so far—how the Democratic Party can *mitigate* the Messaging Gap without lowering themselves and the discourse to the level of pathological LYING, hate, propaganda, and “rattfukking” that is the trademark of the GOP.
Appropriately, this whole new approach to mitigating the Ruthlessness Gap and the Messaging Gap is encapsulated in the phrase, “JOYFUL WARRIOR.”
Knowing how to win the ‘story wars’ and how to win elections; knowing how and when to be steadfast, even fierce, is conveyed by “warrior.”
BUT, not becoming ‘just like the Republican Party’ is conveyed by “joyful.”
The entire crux of our political lifetime, and the reason why I coined the term, the Ruthlessness Gap, fifteen years ago is this:
How do we stop Right-Wing Republican Party authoritarianism, and win elections and legislation, and win back the SCOTUS, while *maintaining our principles* (because if you lose those, you’ve already lost) of love, inclusivity, interconnectedness, creativity, humor, positivity, truth, justice, and universal compassion?
*That* is a question, and a job, for JOYFUL WARRIORS. And in this incredibly perilous knife edge of a tinderbox in a Hall of Mirrors on top of a morass that we are privileged to call our historical-political moment, Vice President Harris and her team are showing how the Democratic Party can win elections.
And remember, we need not just a squeaker, but a landslide; a blowout, if such a thing is still possible. It we get stuck with a divided government, the Republican Party will gridlock everything, try to shut down the federal government again, and hold endless carnival hearings into “Kamala-ghazi.”
So—as always now—Democrats must trounce the GOP and get a clean sweep of the House, the Senate, and White House in order get anything done once in office. (Remember what McConnell said when Obama was elected; the Republican’s “number one priority”? … Not to mention all the other reasons We Need a Wave to Win by a Whisker, including another attempted Republican Party coup; their new ploy to simply refuse to certify elections and slates of electors, etc.) Oh, and if you want to have any hope of a Democratic president being able to fill vacancies on the Supreme Court, Democrats will need majority control of the Senate. If that sounds unprecedented and unconstitutional and wrong, see “the Ruthlessness Gap.”
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To reiterate in conclusion, Vice President Harris and team have thus far given a masterclass in how to mitigate the Ruthlessness Gap and the Messaging Gap—at a time when the stakes for democracy, the Rule of Law, and the planet couldn’t be higher.