Star spangled or not, messaging is a challenge
In democratic politics, just when you think you have ‘messaging’ under control, you realize you’re not conveying your intentions
As political message-making goes, the image of Vice President Mike Pence surrounded by American flags at Fort McHenry hardly qualifies as subtle.
But that’s the way these things work. Mount Rushmore. The White House. What, did they forget the Old North Church and Independence Hall?
Settings (circumstances) set the message and, man, do Democrats — including those presently operating in Richmond — need to absorb this reality.
Years from now, perhaps, those looking back upon this moment may scratch their heads and wonder why Virginia Democrats undertook the lawmaking required to enact serious criminal justice reform on the eve of a highly charged and divisive national election.
But back, for a moment, to the rocket’s red glare: It was Pence’s honor, he said, to be standing where “our young republic heroically withstood a ferocious naval bombardment from the most powerful empire on Earth.”
That would be Great Britain, of course, whose troops the night before had merrily burnt down the nation’s capital and eaten the White House meal left on the table by the quickly departing American President, James Madison.
The details of the War of 1812, I suppose, might have complicated Pence’s message on American bravery, security and military competence.
A grievous shame, too, was Pence’s failure to recall that Fort McHenry was commanded that celebrated night by 34-year-old Virginian George Armistead.
The commonwealth erected an historical marker at Armistead’s birthplace a decade or so ago and you can find it off Route 301, a little ways south of Bowling Green in Caroline County. He didn’t live a long life and was buried in Baltimore.
But Armistead lived long enough (by the way) to have a nephew by the name of Lewis Armistead, who famously, on July 3, 1863, rose his hat on the end of his sword and led his brigade up the slope toward the Union center at Gettysburg.
Audacious Lewis died at the “high water mark of the Confederacy” and Pence didn’t mention that either. These are the oversights that can lose you elections.
Or not. It’s hard to say in democratic politics. Just when you think you have the “messaging” under control, you look up and realize that you’re not conveying your intentions at all.
Such is the dilemma of the Democrats, bless ’em. Clarity of a political message — its simplicity, directness and timeliness — always counts and can determine close electoral outcomes.
Generally speaking, you don’t want your purposes muddled.
Responding to the anger of repeated tragedy — Black Americans needlessly shot to death in encounters with local police departments — the Democrats wish to “do something” and clearly imagine themselves to be storming toward the fall election with truth, justice and the American way on their side.
Circumstance can turn in unfair, even politically unjust directions, however, as a story on the front page of Thursday’s
New York Times pointed out.
As reported by Sabrina Tavernise and Ellen Almer Durston, the account centers on “the politically calculated warnings of President Trump and the Republican Party about chaos enveloping America should Democrats win in November.”
Based on video recordings of events in Kenosha, Wisconsin, which followed but another killing, the term “chaos” appears appropriate.
“While many demonstrators have been peaceful, others have set fire to buildings. At least four businesses downtown have been looted. Men armed with guns have shown up to confront protesters, leading to the shooting of three people, two of them fatally,” the story recounts.
The reaction, closely reported, involves not only the Democratic nominees for president and vice president, but also professional athletes, who dramatically refused to play, and countless average Americans appalled that another pointless killing occurred.
It’s all understandable, but the reaction also involves another broad condemnation of police departments, expressed frequently in racial terms. A young commentator appeared on TV to say that “order,” as a social objective, constitutes a racial “dog whistle.”
Meanwhile, as you struggle to absorb the messaging involved there, the General Assembly, at the urging of Democrats, are debating what constitutes an assault on a police officer and whether mandatory jail time should result from such offences.
Such penalties can often be disproportionate to the crime, no question about it. But have Democrats found the worst timing possible to be asking such questions at all? Their agenda in
Richmond, while admirable in many respects, conjures up the phrase “silver platter.”
As in, serving up to their political rivals a historically powerful political issue — law and order — that may readily echo right into next year’s Virginia elections.
After writing editorials for the Daily Press and The Virginian-Pilot in the 1980s, Gordon C. Morse wrote speeches for Gov. Gerald L. Baliles, then spent nearly three decades working on behalf of corporate and philanthropic organizations, including PepsiCo, CSX, Tribune Co. and the Colonial
Williamsburg Foundation and Dominion Energy. His email address is gordonmorse@msn.com.