If you paid attention to any of the hashtags or ads during the 69-hour partial government shutdown, you’ll notice a rare victory in communications: Republicans won the battle of messaging.

Republicans in the digital age have been historically bad when it comes to having a cohesive message that resonates with the public. Some of it is due to party infighting, but a lot of it has to do with liberal-leaning media outlets outnumbering conservative-leaning ones. Congressional Democrats don’t have to put in a whole lot of effort to propagate and recycle Democratic talking points because the mainstream media was there to help.