Winning message wars
Two communications innovations propelled Trump to the Presidency: reality TV and Twitter. Now three Democrats – wildly different in age and style – are pioneering the next wave.
• Nancy Pelosi, 78, is the star of the Shutdown Showdown. She’s tough, stylish and sharp. She’s turned the West Wing press scrum into performance art. She said Trump’s wall was “a manhood thing.” She told him “No,” and he threw a temper tantrum. When he offered to make the wall out of steel slats instead of cement, she mocked him: “Now he’s down to, I think, a beaded curtain or something.”
• Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 29, is out-trolling Republicans and right-wing trolls. They tried to shame her with a dance video from her college days. She posted a video dancing into her congressional office. She’s fresh, fierce and feisty. Trump might be from New York, she told Stephen Colbert, but “I don’t think he knows how to deal with a girl from the Bronx.” (Is she too far left? She had a good comeback to that.)
• Beto O’Rourke, 46, is running for President by not running for President. When Trump gave his Oval Office speech on The Wall, O’Rourke went live on Facebook. For an hour and a half, he and his wife walked through their hometown of El Paso, visited friends in their homes and talked about life on the border. He accused Trump of stoking fear: “We need to meet that fear with the truth, with our ambition, with the best traditions of this country, a country of immigrants, and with the example of El Paso and Juárez.”
Different as they are, all three do what cautious, stage-managed, boringly predictable politicians don’t. They’re raw, real and authentic. They react in real time. They speak plainly, not political-speak. And they’re not afraid of the fray.
Winning message wars
Two communications innovations propelled Trump to the Presidency: reality TV and Twitter. Now three Democrats – wildly different in age and style – are pioneering the next wave.
• Nancy Pelosi, 78, is the star of the Shutdown Showdown. She’s tough, stylish and sharp. She’s turned the West Wing press scrum into performance art. She said Trump’s wall was “a manhood thing.” She told him “No,” and he threw a temper tantrum. When he offered to make the wall out of steel slats instead of cement, she mocked him: “Now he’s down to, I think, a beaded curtain or something.”
• Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 29, is out-trolling Republicans and right-wing trolls. They tried to shame her with a dance video from her college days. She posted a video dancing into her congressional office. She’s fresh, fierce and feisty. Trump might be from New York, she told Stephen Colbert, but “I don’t think he knows how to deal with a girl from the Bronx.” (Is she too far left? She had a good comeback to that.)
• Beto O’Rourke, 46, is running for President by not running for President. When Trump gave his Oval Office speech on The Wall, O’Rourke went live on Facebook. For an hour and a half, he and his wife walked through their hometown of El Paso, visited friends in their homes and talked about life on the border. He accused Trump of stoking fear: “We need to meet that fear with the truth, with our ambition, with the best traditions of this country, a country of immigrants, and with the example of El Paso and Juárez.”
Different as they are, all three do what cautious, stage-managed, boringly predictable politicians don’t. They’re raw, real and authentic. They react in real time. They speak plainly, not political-speak. And they’re not afraid of the fray.