Republicans and Democrats don’t use PR the same way.

If you’re a Republican, your relationship with the mainstream media is almost always adversarial. They’re an obstacle that must be carefully circumvented — or directly bulldozed — but no conservative since John McCain views ‘em as an ally. At best, they’re a useful foil.

At worst? They’re your biggest frickin’ headache.

Republicans had to literally build a completely separate ecosystem — Fox News, alternative media (like this site), X.com, and podcasts — just to have a fighting chance.

Not so with Democrats. If you’re a tofu-munching liberal, the mainstream media is your ally, best friend, and collaborative partner. You vote the same way; you believe the same things.

And just as importantly, you hate the same things, too. (Namely, conservatives.)

So, it kinda makes sense that the Democratic Party would telegraph its tactics via PR: Having the mainstream media on your side is an incredible asset! 

What good is an asset if you don’t use it?

Which takes us to The New York Times’s article, “Still Searching for the Path Forward,” by Shane Goldmacher — the man tasked by the Times to “focus on the rebuilding efforts of the Democratic Party.” In it, Goldmacher interviews oodles of consultants and researchers who are responsible for the Dems’ ongoing image makeover. 

It. Is. Bonkers!

One longtime Democratic researcher has a technique she leans on when nudging voters to share their deepest, darkest feelings about politics. She asks them to compare America’s two major parties to animals.

After around 250 focus groups of swing voters, a few patterns have emerged, said the researcher, Anat Shenker-Osorio. Republicans are seen as “apex predators,” like lions, tigers and sharks — beasts that take what they want when they want it. Democrats are typically tagged as tortoises, slugs or sloths: slow, plodding, passive.

So Ms. Shenker-Osorio perked up earlier this year when a Democratic man in Georgia suggested that a very different kind of animal symbolized her party.

“A deer,” he said, “in headlights.”

Well, yeah. June 15 marks the ten-year anniversary of Trump’s foray into presidential politics. For ten long years, the Democrats have flailed hysterically against the Great Orange Menace — “He’s Hitler!” “He’s an existential threat!” “Democracy is on the ballot!” — and ten years later, Trump is still chugging Diet Cokes in the Oval Office.

When you solely “brand” yourself via your opposition to someone, you forfeit control of the agenda. You’re forced to be reactionary.

So, it makes sense that Republicans would be perceived as “apex predators” who seize control of their environment: That’s exactly what MAGA did. And it also makes sense that the Dems would be seen as their prey.

(Most Americans, I’d imagine, would prefer their president to be an apex predator rather than a slug, a sloth, or a deer.)

But the Democrats are making progress. They’ve identified the problem:

The stark reality is that the downward trend for Democrats stretches back further than a single election. Republicans have been gaining ground in voter registration for years. Working-class voters of every race have been steadily drifting toward the G.O.P. And Democrats are increasingly perceived as the party of college-educated elites, the defenders of a political and economic system that most Americans feel is failing them.

“Over a long period of time, our party overdrew our trust account with the American people,” said Rob Flaherty, who was deputy campaign manager for former Vice President Kamala Harris last year. [emphasis added]

Ah, so that’s it: Working-class voters.

Communities that Democrats had come to count on for a generation or more — young people, Black voters, Latinos — all veered toward the right in 2024, some of them sharply. And unlike Mr. Trump’s win in 2016, his victory last year could not be waved away as an outlier after he won the popular vote for the first time.

[T]he country as a whole has shifted markedly to the right. In the final tally, Mr. Trump won a nearly identical percentage of the vote in the battleground of Arizona (52.2 percent) as Ms. Harris won in the supposedly safe state of New Jersey (52 percent).

Tell me, how will the Democrats go about wooing these working-class voters?

For now, Democratic donors and strategists have been gathering at luxury hotels to discuss how to win back working-class voters, commissioning new projects that can read like anthropological studies of people from faraway places. [emphasis added]

Gathering at luxury hotels(!) to discuss how to win back working-class voters is so ridiculously on-brand for the Democrats, you almost have to tip your hat at the audacity. Well done, guys!

“No shame, no gain,” I suppose.

And you’ll never guess what liberal donors are blowing money on now:

The prospectus for one new $20 million effort, obtained by The Times, aims to reverse the erosion of Democratic support among young men, especially online. It is code-named SAM — short for “Speaking with American Men: A Strategic Plan” — and promises investment to “study the syntax, language and content that gains attention and virality in these spaces.” It recommends buying advertisements in video games, among other things.

“Above all, we must shift from a moralizing tone,” it urges.

The fact that the Dems needed a $20 million plan — complete with acronyms and a “syntax study” — to figure out how to talk to young men says it all.

It wasn’t their “moralizing tone” that chased young men away, but their policies. Articles like, “Some women have penises. If you won’t sleep with them you’re transphobic” and “Not Wanting to Date a Trans Person is Transphobic” obviously don’t help, but the Democrats aren’t a tonal shift away from recapturing the bros.

While the Dems are also throwing money ($45 million!) at finding the “next Joe Rogan,” they should probably stop and consider how the original Joe Rogan got away from them. After all, Rogan is a pro-choice, pro-marijuana, pro-gay rights true believer who once endorsed Bernie Sanders. Based on ideology, the Dems ought to have been able to at least compete for Rogan’s vote.

But y’know what Rogan isn’t? A slug, a sloth, or a deer.

Young men aren’t that mysterious. (Trust me on this.) At least 90% of our thoughts revolve around sex, food, sports, sex, friends, sex, superhero movies, and sex. (Also: sex.)

But young men are smart enough to know it’s a helluva lot better to be the predator than the prey.

Meanwhile, poor David Hogg is being booted from the Democratic National Committee after saying, “Young people should be able to focus on… how to get laid and how to go and have fun.”

Uh oh. Better commission another $20 million “anthropological study” to get to the bottom of it.

Editor’s Note: To celebrate the passage of the tremendous One Big, Beautiful Bill, we’re offering a fire sale on VIP memberships! CLICK HERE!

Join us in the fight against the radical left today and support our reporting as President Trump continues to usher in the Golden Age of America. Use promo code POTUS47 at checkout to get 74% off!