How the Democrats lost their megaphone and their label maker

T

he modern political era started with the Democrats in the driver’s seat as the undisputed kings and queens of crisis branding. You couldn’t oppose the Dems on policy without being branded a villain of the worst kind. Sure, it’s a free country, but if you stood up against the party, you were a headline away from being branded Warmonger! Climate Denier! and Anti-Science! It stuck, and it stung.

Each phrase was a political missile. No graphs, no data, no waiting for official stats — just a sticky, emotional label that hit the news cable. Late-night monologues were churned into trending hashtags across social media before the GOP had finished rebooting their fax machines.

Republicans, bless their charts, tried bringing an Excel sheet to a gunfight. They’d show up with Bureau of Labor stats, pie charts, and the occasional think tank white paper, waving data like a child excitedly waving the afikomen he finally found, except it’s already Erev Rosh Hashanah. By the time these Republicans were halfway done clearing their throats, CNN had moved on to the third “Breaking News” chyron of the afternoon.

One classic example is when the Tea Party burst onto the scene a decade and a half ago, waving their little pocket Constitutions and yelling about taxes. Democrats didn’t bother debating deficits or health care mandates; they reached straight for the rhetorical nuclear codes.

“Racists!” Full stop.

Never mind that the movement’s fiercest battles were over spending bills and obscure regulatory agencies; the label was pre-applied like a shipping sticker. Before many of those retirees, suburban moms, and small-business owners had even met someone from another race, they were already clad as Klan. It wasn’t a policy rebuttal, it was a character assassination shortcut.

For decades, the Dems went for the nuclear option every time. By the time Dems accused everyone from Mitt Romney to your local school board of harboring white supremacy, the public’s immune system had learned to shrug it off. What used to be a political death sentence became background noise. Eventually, it went from burn to burnout. Like the German blitzkrieg, the strategy worked… until it no longer did. Times were changing in every way except for an updated playbook.

Top Trumps

Meanwhile, Donald J. Trump, recurring celebrity-turned-political-disruptor, saw all this and took notes in the same mental scrapbook where he stores insults, grudges, and flattering lighting angles. And here’s where Trump made his genius pivot: He didn’t just steal the labeling strategy, he inverted it. Instead of using it to brand his enemies as villains, he branded his own policies as so big, so beautiful, so tremendous, that anyone who opposed them had to self-label as the villain.

Trump calls it a “big, beautiful cleanup.” Opponents are stuck saying, “Well, I’m against that.”

Translation: Hi, I’m anti-big, anti-beautiful, and anti-cleanup.

Trump brands his deal “historic peace.” Opponents mutter about technicalities.

Translation: Hi, I’m anti-peace, pro-chaos, and against history itself.

Trump declares “Peace Through Strength 2.0.” Opponents argue: “Strength is provocative.”

Translation: Hi, I’m anti-peace, anti-strength, and proudly standing on Version 1.0 of nothing.

It’s a messaging flip. Instead of calling you names (which he still does anyway), he forces you to call yourself the name by standing against whatever he’s painted in neon lights.

D.C. wasn’t experiencing fluctuating crime stats; it was in a “Crime Emergency.”

Chicago wasn’t a city with complex social and economic challenges; it was under “Takeover.”

Deploying Humvees and National Guard troops wasn’t militarization; it was a “Cleanup.”

Flip Accompli

This is where the flip became total. What Democrats once did with hashtags, Trump now does with Humvees. What they once branded with moral urgency, he brands with militarized stagecraft. Because visuals beat both labels and spreadsheets. You can’t really fact-check an image of a tank parked outside the Capitol. If the city was safe, that tank wouldn’t be there. And if you don’t like the tank’s presence, you might as well slap a “pro-crime” sticker onto your Che Guevara T-shirt.

Speed beats nuance and emotion beats expertise. By the time Democrats release a carefully footnoted press release, Trump is already moving his show to Baltimore or Chicago.

And here’s where Trump has a point. Democrats wave their FBI charts and insist “crime is down 30% in DC compared to last year,” and let’s suppose that’s correct. But why should anyone settle for today’s crime numbers if tomorrow’s can be lower still? Imagine being forced to admit: “Well, things are not as bad as they were before Trump returned to office, but what’s the point of finishing the job when we can stop at progress?”

It’s like saying, “Well, Gaza has fewer hostages than last year, so let’s call it a day.” Who in their right mind treats this year’s baseline as the finish line? Trump’s message is simple and devastatingly sticky: Don’t measure improvement against last year’s chaos, measure it against the promise of total victory.

Here’s the genius of Trump’s obsession with “beautification”: It traps his opponents in a no-win corner. If crime gets noticeably reduced (and in D.C., the sudden dearth of tents and tarps isn’t going unnoticed), Trump gets the credit. If crime lingers, Democrats take the blame. Either way, the scoreboard reads Trump 1, Democrats 0.

From Local Cleanup to Global Peace

Here’s the kicker: Trump’s “cleanup” efforts at home are the mirror image of his “peace” efforts abroad. In D.C., he sends in troops, renames the problem, and claims he alone restored order.

In Ukraine or the Caucasus, he summons leaders to Alaska or the White House, dangles a Nobel Prize, and claims he alone is ending wars.

Both are the same governing philosophy: The world is chaos until Trump arrives with a label, a stage, and a contract. At home, it’s a “zero-homicide week” in Washington. Abroad, it’s a “Trump corridor” deal in Armenia. The details blur, but the image is clear. If you disagree, that’s fine — just remember to self-apply a negating label at your own expense.

In politics, whoever names the storm gets to sell the umbrellas, and Trump is naming every storm. Trump, once ridiculed as undisciplined, has suddenly yet methodically taken control the megaphone as well as the playlist of American politics. He learned and adapted. Meanwhile, the Dems squatted down in their safe space and never checked out.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1076)