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7 Rules for Narrative Discipline in the Time of Trump
We need to focus on helping people to see that the current administration is not on their side, to see the damage being done, and to see that there are alternative policies that actually would meet their needs.
Jan 31, 2025
The next period in U.S. politics will be won on the battlefield of narratives. The recent presidential election was lost on that battlefield.
As Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is always pointing out, the American people support progressive positions on many issues: Medicare for all, funding education, taxing the rich, gun control. And yet those were not issues in the recent election. Winning elections will involve creating and disseminating narratives that speak to those who don’t always already vote for Democrats.
Our country is roughly divided into three groups. First are those who have fully bought into the MAGA narrative, often for reasons having to do with white nationalism and a politics of resentment. As white cultural hegemony is declining and people feel a loss of a sense of themselves as the center of our national identity, few in this population are likely to be moved by anything our side does.
We are living in a time of an epistemological crisis, where it is very difficult to keep a clear sense of what is actually going on in our world.
Then there is the third of the population who voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris. That is a wide-ranging group made up of people who truly believe in the neoliberal agenda of the mainstream corporate wing of the Democratic Party, people who believe in “the system” and wanted to save it from fascism, and those in the progressive wing of the Democratic Party and on the left who voted pragmatically against U.S. President Donald Trump. That third votes reliably and always for Democrats.
Finally, there is the third who didn’t vote for president in the recent election, or who might have voted for either party, but who are not entrenched in their support. Many of them are against “the system” and don’t like either major party. Some see both parties as catering to the rich, to the global capitalist elite, or to the military-industrial complex. Many don’t vote because the whole election conversation doesn’t speak to them in ways they find compelling. That is the population that needs to be focused on if we are to defeat the right at the ballot box.
And winning them requires that we have narratives that speak to their interests and concerns. We need to engage with media in ways that don’t just flatter our own sense of righteousness, but rather that engage people in that moveable third.
Our opponents are very effective at using narrative and social media. Look at the TikTok war. Trump started it as a piece of anti-China rhetoric. Democrats and Republicans worked dutifully to come up with bipartisan legislation to ban the popular app. Then as the new administration was about to come into power the president said he would save TikTok. Users of the app got a menacing message saying it would go dark in the U.S. Then they got one saying that Trump had saved it. Now millions of people in the anti-system third of the electorate have Trump to thank for something tangible in their lives.
Similarly, I expect that as soon as the immigration raids continue, they will get a lot of publicity. People who care about immigrants will be horrified and heartbroken by that news. People on the other side will see the raids as a victory. And forgotten will be that immigration raids happened regularly under the Biden administration as a routine part of mainstream policy. But that won’t matter. The new administration will be seen as doing something bold to rid our country of people who have been vilified by the right and ignored by the liberal mainstream.
Immigration is one issue where progressives are deeply out of step with the mainstream. It is probably one of the biggest narrative failures of the recent election. Rather than reminding people that immigrants contribute positively to the country, that U.S. foreign policy and the climate crisis make people’s home countries unlivable, or even, on the anti-immigrant side, that former President Joe Biden had cracked down on immigration in his last year in office, Democrats rolled over and allowed the scapegoating narrative to take over.
And in mainstream and social media it was worse. The vicious and slanderous story told against legal immigrants who helped revitalize Springfield, Ohio was repeated over and over in the mainstream liberal media and on the comedy shows. In mocking its slander, liberals spread its vicious images and associations further. Some on our side tried but did not have any breakthrough narratives about the positive impact that Haitian immigrants have had on their community, and our country as a whole.
Even when we spread our outrage at the absurd statements of the current administration, we can inadvertently feed their power. The president’s absurd statements are compelling. We love to hate them. And that is why they exist. They feed the sense that the president can say and do whatever he wants and is unconstrained by any social structure, history, norms, or common sense. That image of him as transgressive actually enhances his power. And, the more we are outraged, the more those opposed to us take joy in the fact that someone has “owned the libs.” While absurd statements are candy for the outrage centers of our brains, they are distractions from the things that actually shift the balance of power and resources and impact people’s lives in this country.
We are living in a time of an epistemological crisis, where it is very difficult to keep a clear sense of what is actually going on in our world. Our shared sense of reality and ethics has been brutally undermined by the current tech-oligopoly dominated social media hellscape. When we focus on the absurdities and illusions rather than on real things that impact people’s lives, we are feeding the trolls.
The first few days of the administration being in power saw much attention to the president’s executive orders. I was surprised that in my feed there was very little on the overturning of Biden’s lowering of prescription drug benefits. I wanted to see devastating memes about the price of prescription drugs.
A Republican plan is circulating that would pay for the president’s tax cuts by cutting Medicare for 600,000 people. I want memes, satire, and news about that. We need to focus on helping people to see that the current administration is not on their side, to see the damage being done, and to see that there are alternative policies that actually would meet their needs and build livable communities.
If we are strategic and disciplined in how we communicate, we can help shift the common-sense notions people have of what is going on in our world and we can create counternarratives that help make the world make sense for our perspectives. We need to be smart about how we communicate on social media and in legacy media.
Here are Seven Rules for Narrative Discipline in the Time of Trump:
- Don’t respond to the absurd things that people in power say;
- Don’t give any more attention to the president as a person and personality than is necessary to make a point;
- Amplify and spread news of the terrible things the administration does: policies that are changed, rules that are violated, money that is spent. Focus on ones that impact people’s everyday lives;
- Amplify and spread news of our victories in the courts, on the streets, and in our communities;
- Remember that the future belongs to those who speak to those who didn’t vote for Democrats, but who might;
- Create and spread counternarratives that shine a positive light on the things you support; and
- Above all, don’t feed the trolls.
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Alarm Bells Sound as Trump Gets to Work on 'Extreme Authoritarian Agenda'
"Trump isn't king, but if Congress capitulates, he could be," warned the leaders of Popular Democracy.
Jan 21, 2025
Since U.S. President Trump's return to office on Monday—at an inauguration ceremony full of American oligarchs—as the Republican has issued a flurry of executive orders and other actions, progressive leaders and organizers have expressed alarm and vowed to fight against his "authoritarian" agenda.
On his first day back at the White House, Trump issued 26 executive orders, 12 memos, and four proclamations, plus withdrew 78 of former President Joe Biden's executive actions, according to a tally from The Hill. Those moves related to the fossil fuel-driven climate emergency, the death penalty, federal workers, immigration, LGBTQ+ rights, prescription drug prices, and more.
"In the last 24 hours, Trump has passed dozens of executive orders—many beyond his powers," said Popular Democracy co-director Analilia Mejia and DaMareo Cooper in a Tuesday statement. "Yet, not one of them has lowered prices or made life better for Americans. Instead, he's focused on eroding democracy, attacking constitutional rights, and spreading fear, cruelty, and chaos.
"Trump has taken aim at the 14th Amendment's rights of equal protection and citizenship—the fundamental American right to live and participate in our democracy—with an executive order targeting birthright citizenship," they noted, referencing a policy that is already facing legal challenges from immigrant rights groups and state attorneys general.
Announcing one of the lawsuits, ACLU executive director Anthony Romero said that "this order seeks to repeat one of the gravest errors in American history, by creating a permanent subclass of people born in the U.S. who are denied full rights as Americans. We will not let this attack on newborns and future generations of Americans go unchallenged. The Trump administration's overreach is so egregious that we are confident we will ultimately prevail."
Mejia and Cooper said that "his ineffective and inhumane executive orders targeting immigrants misuse military power and double down on damaging our communities."
The group America's Voice similarly expressed concern over Trump's "authoritarian notions of deploying the military on U.S. streets," with the group's executive director, Vanessa Cárdenas, saying that "this is an attack on American families and our American values. Trump's framing of our nation being 'invaded' coupled with the attacks on birthright citizenship and policies that will throw our immigration system further into chaos show that this is a hateful campaign to justify a nativist agenda that seeks to redefine 'American' and move this nation backwards."
Popular Democracy's leaders also called out various other items from Trump's first day that are expected to face legal hurdles—though the Republican spent his first term working with GOP lawmakers to pack the federal judiciary, including the U.S. Supreme Court, with far-right appointees, so the effectiveness of such suits remains to be seen.
"Trump's rollbacks of critical climate policy sell out future generations to the profit of oil and gas polluters, and further endangers the poor, Black, brown, and Indigenous people who have been at the frontlines of climate disaster," they said. Trump not only repealed various Biden-era policies but also declared a "national energy emergency" to "drill, baby, drill" for fossil fuels.
Climate campaigners slammed Trump for invoking "authoritarian powers on Day 1 to gut environmental protections," in the words of the Center for Biological Diversity. The organization's executive director, Kierán Suckling, vowed that "no matter how extreme he becomes, we'll confront Trump with optimism and a fierce defense of our beloved wildlife and the planet's health."
"The United States has some of the strongest environmental laws in the world, and no matter how petulantly Trump behaves, these laws don't bend before the whims of a wannabe dictator," Suckling stressed. "The use of emergency powers doesn't allow a president to bypass our environmental safeguards just to enrich himself and his cronies."
The president's attacks on health are expansive. As Mejia and Cooper detailed: "Trump's sweeping changes to healthcare will rip away access for millions, line the pockets of Big Pharma, and undo strides in reproductive rights. They also single out trans Americans, denying them lifesaving healthcare and the right to live freely and authentically."
Imara Jones, a Black trans woman, CEO of TransLash Media, and an expert on the anti-trans political movement, said in a Tuesday statement that "Trump's recognition of only 'two genders' means a war on trans people, as well as any cis person with a gender expression outside of the gender binary."
"This is not political theater, this is the beginning of a potential authoritarian takeover of the United States, one that starts with targeting one of the smallest and most vulnerable groups: transgender people," Jones emphasized. "They seek to erase trans people from public life and want to see if they can get away with it, as a prelude to much more. This should worry all of us."
Another development that provoked intense worry—and even
led the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Studies and Prevention to issue a "red flag alert for genocide in the United States"—was Elon Musk, the richest person on Earth and a key Trump ally, twice raising his arm in what was widely seen as a Nazi salute during a post-inauguration celebration.
Trump's Monday night decision to pardon over 1,500 people who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, an insurrection incited by the president himself as he contested his 2020 electoral loss, elicited similar warnings.
"By granting clemency to these individuals, who sought to overturn the peaceful transfer of power, Trump is signaling that political violence and the rejection of democratic norms are acceptable tactics in service to his authoritarian agenda," said Our Revolution executive director Joseph Geevarghese. "This is a direct threat to the foundations of our democracy and the safety of our communities."
The leaders of Popular Democracy highlighted that "undergirding this extreme authoritarian agenda is a claim that Trump has a mandate to act like a despot—no such mandate exists, much less is acceptable to the American people."
"Trump isn't king, but if Congress capitulates, he could be," they warned, just weeks after Republicans took slim control of both chambers. "Popular Democracy is prepared to push back against Trump's assault on our communities. We will stand up against an unconstitutional power grab, and hold our representatives accountable in this fight."
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A Modest Proposal From Two Longtime Defenders of the Common Good: Let Us Join DOGE
"We can offer views that are untainted by the appearance of corruption or self-dealing."
Jan 13, 2025
Public Citizen co-presidents Lisa Gilbert and Robert Weissman on Monday requested to serve on U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's Department of Government Efficiency "as voices for the interests of consumers and the public who are the beneficiaries of federal regulatory and spending programs."
Shortly after Trump's November victory, the Republican announced that he asked billionaires Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to co-lead DOGE, a presidential advisory commission that he said would work "to dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies."
Since then, numerous watchdog groups, Democratic lawmakers, and others have sounded the alarm about DOGE and its leaders, blasting the commission as a thinly veiled attack on federal programs—including Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security—connected to the GOP trifecta's effort to pass more tax cuts for wealthy individuals and corporations.
"Public Citizen has concerns about DOGE's structure and mission," the group's co-presidents wrote to Howard Lutnick and Linda McMahon, co-chairs of Trump's transition team. "In structure, an advisory committee led by individuals such as Messrs. Musk and Ramaswamy who hold financial interests that will be directly affected by federal budgetary policies presents substantial conflict of interest concerns that threaten to undermine public confidence in the committee's recommendations to the administration."
"Mr. Trump and OMB should take steps to ensure that DOGE's advice and recommendations take into consideration the viewpoints of the consumers and citizens who would be directly affected."
Musk, the world's richest person, has leadership roles at companies including Tesla, SpaceX, and X. He has often been at Trump's side in the lead-up to next week's inauguration. Ramaswamy, who ran for president in the latest cycle before ultimately backing Trump, has founded a pharmaceutical company and an investment firm.
Gilbert and Weissman wrote that DOGE's mission to advise the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) "on how to 'slash excess regulation' and 'cut wasteful expenditures' puts at risk important consumer safeguards and public protections, because it focuses only on eliminating rules and spending without considering the other half of the picture: more efficiently regulating corporations to better protect consumers and the public from harmful corporate practices, and making sound and efficient public investments."
"In light of the significant influence that DOGE is expected to have on the administration's fiscal and regulatory policy," they argued, "Mr. Trump and OMB should take steps to ensure that DOGE's advice and recommendations take into consideration the viewpoints of the consumers and citizens who would be directly affected by the regulatory and spending proposals that DOGE will advance, not only the viewpoint of wealthy businesspeople."
The pair made the case that their appointment to the commission "would not raise conflict of interest concerns."
Before Gilbert joined Public Citizen, she was an advocate at the U.S. Public Interest Research Group and worked as a campaign director to pass legislation on social justice and environmental issues for various organizations. Weissman previously directed the corporate accountability group Essential Action, edited the magazine Multinational Monitor, and worked as a public interest attorney at the Center for Study of Responsive Law.
"Unlike Musk, neither Rob nor I, nor Public Citizen, has a financial interest in federal government contracts and spending. In bringing the consumer and public perspective to DOGE, we can offer views that are untainted by the appearance of corruption or self-dealing," Gilbert said in a statement.
Weissman emphasized that "all signs suggest the nonrepresentative DOGE co-chairs aim to use 'efficiency' as a cover to drive a pro-corporate, anti-regulatory agenda, and an ideologically driven social service cuts program. This would constitute an anti-efficiency agenda."
"On the other hand, Lisa and I are prepared to offer a range of evidence-based efficiency proposals—to slash drug prices, end privatized Medicare, reduce the wasteful Pentagon budget—that would save American taxpayers and consumers hundreds of billions of dollars every year," he explained. "We also have recommendations for smart, efficient public investments—in human development and to address climate change—that will have a positive monetary return for the government and society."
As the letter highlights, Public Citizen—which "has worked to hold the government and corporations accountable to the people, including by focusing on research and advocacy with respect to regulation of health, safety, consumer finance, and the environment" since its founding in 1971—has already offered DOGE some recommendations.
"Consistent with Public Citizen's mission—and that of DOGE—Public Citizen on December 20, 2024, sent Messrs. Musk and Ramaswamy a letter proposing two measures that would save the government and taxpayers billions of dollars, while improving health and access to medicines: authorizing generic competition to anti-obesity medications and implementing the Medicare drug price negotiation and inflation rebate programs to lower drug prices," Gilbert and Weissman wrote.
They also noted that appointing them to DOGE "would be an important step towards compliance with the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), which requires 'the membership of the advisory committee to be fairly balanced in terms of the points of view represented and the functions to be performed by the advisory committee.'"
In addition to outlining concerns about Musk and Ramaswamy, they detailed that "DOGE member Katie Miller's background is in handling press relations for government officials. William McGinley worked as a lawyer for various Republican Party groups and big law firms. Other people reported in the media as connected with DOGE also appear to have corporate backgrounds. These individuals lack the consumer and public interest perspective needed if Mr. Trump expects DOGE to have any hope of complying with FACA."
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