Great news for 2023 in most places and gearing up for 2024

Hi friends,

Congratulations on all your work to help Dems win across the country. While we didn’t win everything in Indiana, we made some great gains in Indianapolis, South Bend, Terre Haute, Evansville, and beyond. Now it’s time to go all in on 2024…since our opponents are doing so already.

Each week going forward (usually Thursdays, but not always), I’ll be sharing at least one important stories from the week and providing some tested messaging care of the Research Collaborative and Anat Shenker-Osorio (you can go back and listen to my interview with Anat for an overview of freedom-based messaging).

READ: Over the Veterans Day weekend, Four times indicted, twice impeached former President and current candidate Trump referred to his political enemies as vermin and vowed to imprison immigrants if he becomes president again. This is Nazi language, verbatim, reminding all of us that our country is facing destruction if he wins. We already know what MAGA Republicans are doing in statehouses like Indiana’s. This is next level. Here’s a gift article to read about what from The Washington Post.

Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a historian at New York University, said in an email to The Washington Post that “calling people 'vermin’ was used effectively by Hitler and Mussolini to dehumanize people and encourage their followers to engage in violence.”

And an image of the Truth Social Post that boils it all down:

MESSAGE GUIDANCE: Don’t make process arguments (talking about the MAGA madness in the US House, MAGA hypocrisy, MAGA in disarray). These arguments don’t work because they feed the “all politicians are crazy/dishonest/ineffective” storyline. Instead, focus on outcome arguments which is pretty easy in Red States. Talk about what freedoms MAGA has taken away, and which ones they’re planning on destroying next. Base your arguments around freedoms, not process!