If someone had commissioned an Onion-style parody article about the Democratic Party’s efforts to broaden their appeal ahead of the midterms, it might have looked a lot like what Politico reported this week.
Democratic officials and politicians have been huddling with a loose organization of some three dozen Hollywood influencers at the Los Angeles headquarters of a high-powered public relations firm to strategize about their messaging.
“The group has discussed targeted voter-registration programs with visiting Democrats, as well as the party’s framing of issues ranging from abortion rights to gun control,” Politico reported. “In one recent meeting, a Midwestern senator sought advice about how to discuss gun control with conservative-leaning voters in his or her state, multiple participants said.”
To reiterate: A Midwestern senator sought advice from Hollywood on how to discuss gun control with conservative voters. The anecdote serves as some bizarre confirmation of all the cliches about Democrats losing touch with communities between the coasts — and being so out of touch, they don’t understand the problem with seeking advice from the industry that probably understands those communities least of all.
Described by one member of the group as a “messaging strike force,” the organization, which reportedly includes actresses Alyssa Milano and Helen Hunt, has also been asked by House Democrats for “help on speechwriting and overall messaging.”
“One of the first things we were at least talking about in the beginning meetings was how to improve upon the message as to what does the Democratic Party stand for, what does that represent,” participant Andrew Marcus told Politico. “When the Republican Party or [President Donald] Trump is able to say ‘Make America great again’ and nobody that I know can tell you what the DNC or any of the leading candidates’ slogans [are], I think that’s a marketing problem.”
Again, Democrats and Hollywood joining forces to better message what the party stands for is oddly (and, I suspect, inadvertently) perfect. To many of the voters with whom Democrats are struggling to reconnect, the party “represents” Hollywood’s interests far more than their own.
“One of our strengths is an incredibly creative community that knows how to message and knows how to reach people and can come up with hopefully some kind of messaging for the DNC and others that can help going forward,” member Craig Zisk noted. “We do it for movie posters, we do it for TV Guide slug-lines, and we want to be able to do that for the DNC.”
According to Politico, “participants are acutely aware of the backlash the Democratic Party has long endured for its ties to Hollywood — exacerbated by sexual harassment scandals that have tarnished the industry.”
“Look, the world knows they don’t necessarily need Hollywood telling people what to do,” Veep executive producer David Mandel said. “I have no desire to tell people what to do.”
Unfortunately that flash of self-awareness is contradicted by basically everything else in the report, which indicates the group’s express purpose is for Hollywood to tell Democrats what to do. It’s hard to blame the group for wanting to help the party out— it’s really the party’s decision to take them up on the offer that appears to be tone-deaf.
Why did the short lived “Roseanne” reboot do so well? Partially because it was genuinely entertaining. But the big ratings the show put up suggest the demand for programming that treated families like the Conners with fairness was much higher than the supply Hollywood had been providing. There is little evidence the entertainment industry understands or empathizes with the struggles of voters the Democratic Party is losing.
Then again, it can be done. The person who has best mastered the art of using entertainment marketing skills for political purposes is surely Trump himself, and he’s in the White House.
