Democratic messaging on Ukraine
In a post titled Failing at the Basics, Josh Marshall leads with this:
A new AP poll says that 54% of Americans think President Biden has been “not tough enough” on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. These kinds of public perceptions can be shaped by perceptions of a leader as much as they drive them. So you think Biden is weak as your starting point and therefore you think he’s not being tough enough on Russia rather than the other way around. Also notable, Americans’ hawkishness over Ukraine has dipped a bit from a month ago. But the first, second and third most important thing about this poll is that this is what you get when you’re not reminding Americans every day — and I mean every god-damned day — that the GOP has spent the last 7 years boosting, allying with and even conspiring with Russia.
I agree that many people who think Biden is not being tough enough on Russia are basing this on their general attitudes and beliefs about Biden rather than an evaluation of his actions on the merits. But I disagree that Biden and the Democrats should attack the GOP for it’s shameful support of Russia.
Emphasizing Trump/Republican support for Russia against Ukraine is risky – it may well lead some Republican partisans to shift their allegiance to Russia, especially if Trump continues to support Russia and Putin, which is certainly possible if not likely. The time to attack Republicans for their Putinism is in the future.
In any event, focusing on the bad acts of Republicans doesn’t do much to make Biden look like a strong leader. My two cents is that Biden should emphasize how tough he is being, and what a high price Russia is paying for this invasion. He should emphasize NATO unity and his leadership, how Putin was wrong to think that Ukraine would fold and the U.S./NATO would stand by. He should be saying this every day. He has an opportunity to mug for the cameras here, but he isn’t taking it, perhaps because he/his team are worried about putting him in front of a microphone.
(Biden should not focus his criticism on Putin, since there is nothing we can do to topple him, and in fact it is very much in our interest to negotiate a deal that preserves Ukrainian sovereignty and gives Russia a path back into the community of nations. Vilifying Putin, as evil as he clearly is, makes this already daunting task harder.)
The media needs to ask: “Should President Biden use nukes to stop Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”
The media needs to ask: “Should President Biden use nukes to stop Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”
This has been polled, people do not want a nuclear war and agree that the United States should avoid direct conflict with Russia, e.g. a no fly zone.
A no fly zone equals direct conflict. Putin’s way out is for the EU and NATO to put boots on the ground and planes in the air. Then he can boohoo that poor little Russia has been forced to withdraw by the bullies of the West. He is finished if Ukraine, with the help of the West, pushes his troops out of Eastern Ukraine.
My original comment was snark about the poll question. Biden not being tough enough with Putin.
Eric:
I think Putin is unhinged and the US should not push him any farther than what it has done with economic and political sanction, supplying Ukraine with the armament it has, and being a focal point for NATO unity.
We are a sad bunch and should not need reminding of the efforts to push back on Russia. At the same time, Biden should be reminding people that much of this boldness by Putin is the result of trump cozying up to Putin. Biden is not trump, a loud and boastful idiot.
I was focusing on just the messaging question. On strategy, if you think Putin is unhinged, what do you do? The extremes positions – let Russia win, no-fly zone – have real downsides, though either could end up looking good in retrospect. But assuming that our current muddle-through approach is about right, we need to think about how to manage potential Russian humiliation/defeat, and about domestic political constraints. Domestically, I’m worried that blasting Republicans could turn the war into a partisan conflict rather than a point of bipartisan agreement. Complicated!
Eric
I think you are right. Somehow we need to educate the public that “looks tough” is not as useful as “gets the job done” (without getting everyone killed).
I think Biden is doing it about right. My own instinct is to send in the air force and make short work of the invaders inside Ukraine. Better of course if Ukraine can do that itself (with a little help from its friends). But letting Putin get away with this is just the fools path to worse yet to come.
I was trying to understand WTF Putin’s rational for the invasion. All I can come up with he is very sick and the invasion is his last chance to make Russia great again. Hearing voices in his head.
dilbert
Unless you are deleting your own comments, I pulled these comments out of trash. The system is trashing you.
Innocent as charged. Don’t delete my comments.
You were there again. I check it when I see someone there. At least, you are not in spam.
At the end of the day I think the Biden Administration is doing a very good job given the partisan nature of Congress and the Judiciary by following the simple principle of trying to do the “right thing”. I fear political pressures from the extremes and the chattering class will cause a change. As matters stand,I will have no difficulty in voting for Democrats in the midterms and for a continuation of the Biden administration in 2024 based on competence in addressing major issues— foreign policy, the domestic economy and the pandemic. I fear my view may not be shared by the majority of the middle and more importantly the left who may have forgotten what it was like under Trump and the GOP. I guess I do not see a particular need to play up the Russian take over of significant parts of the GOP— the GOP’s general incompetence in governing despite a good deal of competence in playing to the ideology of the extreme right, should be enough. If not we get what we deserve.
While you are engaged in critiquing the current messaging probably a good idea to keep in mind that the NYT has, over the past months, essentially said the following: “Funny thing about Trump/Russia that we ground on over the course of years, but a whole heck of a lot of that was an alcoholic ex-Brookings guy yammering with folks, plus sum tech exec working for Clinton used his connections to fake another big part of it. Another funny thing is that the NY Post got that Hunter story right.” So Russia and Ukraine are not exactly the easiest subject areas for the Biden administration to feel confident of a messaging plan.
Eric
I can’t tell who you are addressing… who is “critiquing the current message”
but i am pretty sure that if Biden takes care of current messaging, past messages by others will be forgotten.
The title of the piece includes “messaging”, so it is everyone responding – me included. Yes, it is possible that things will be forgotten, but Russia and Ukraine have some unique challenges for Biden and Democrats in that they actively want people to forget. There is a track record of working hard so that Americans did not have an accurate understanding of many quite important things that specifically involved these two countries. and even Democrats pretty much understand that now – even if many think there were noble reasons for having done so. But the blinkers are increasingly off that Democrats absolutely have and might continue to lie about really big stuff. I have commented in the past about how “fractional credibility” was a tough sell in conjunction with COVID, and Russia/Ukraine has this same problem in a major way. One thing for sure is that getting a messaging that works for the Angry Bear community is practically meaningless as far as a guide to what Biden and Democrats ought to be doing in 2022 with midterms coming up. If they have lost any of the regulars here, it is curtains for them (me aside and maybe one or two others).
Eric
Not sure why I had to approve either of your comments.
messaging:
for the impatient skip to minute 16.
vindeman is no churchill as a speaker, but he is right as to the dangers of being “risk adverse.”
better to watch the whole 18 minutes.
Well at least he is not an official spokesperson for the administration, but I think this is an example of what to get away from. The message is weird really. He places a major emphasis on the influence of people who did not handle Afghanistan so well, but once the interviewer cues him not to forget to trash Trump, circles back to Jan. 6, 2021, as if that was what set this in motion. In a real sense he throws away an opportunity to influence the broadest possible audience simply to give the interviewer sort of the correct dogmatic response of his peculiar church. Who does that? He might have just said, well former President Trump is exactly a former President, and this is about here and now.
i would have thought that the ones who set up the exit from Afghanistan did that at least a year before the exit was done. since the agreement for that existed before Biden took office, and that agreement pretty much said the US shall leave on a certain date. we could say that many over estimated what the Afghanistan army could actually do. course we did the same thing in Vietnam in that our training we provided, was fine, but we didnt let those we trained to actually get experience, which lead to both failures. and that was done over the entire we were in both countries. had nothing to do with the trainers, they werent allowed to do kore than explain how to do the work, not to provide that experience
Eric
this is not so much to disagree with you, but to say i don’t follow you at all.
my perspective:
whatever happened re Afghanistan withdrawal is calked up to best laid plans of mouse and man. the newssource response to it seemed to me entirely partisan: lets destroy Biden. I am not a 100% fan of biden, but I think I can tell partisan BS when I smell it…even when the partisan is officially “non partisan.” and as you say, that was then, this is now.
second..i am on record as saying putin was offering a reasonable compromise before he actually invaded. since then he has revealed himself to be a liar and a damned liar at that. as well as extremely dangerous to US. Vindeman is not only not an official spokesman of the administration, he was explicitly criticising the administration.
etc.
btw
i don’t think much of leadership that depends on polls.
nor do i think it is suprising that Dems sometimes lie.
at least half the electorate is insane and all of it is uninformed. lying to them…i did nothave sex with that woman…is the only way you can get them to give you a chance to do something. hopefully something good rather than something bad. if you lead them, they will follow.
right now the Dems are suffering from “risk aversion”.