Winning The PR War: Fiscal Conservative Messaging Strategies

The entire concept of winning the PR war against big government Socialism comes down to the concept of what is popularly called a meme.

 A meme is defined as an idea that spreads from person to person and lives or dies based upon its ability to “stick” within the minds of those exposed to it.  Just as genes transmit biological information through DNA, memes transmit ideas from mind to mind through information channels such as speeches, blogs, cable news, books, and multimedia.

Just like genes, memes are capable of self-replicating, mutating and responding to targeted pressure.

Memes also evolve by means of natural selection via the processes of mutation, variation, and competition.  In short, strong memes can reproduce from mind to mind, will weak memes become extinct.

The Democrats are very effective at using the meme idea. With most media from newspapers to magazines to cable news leaning left of center to hard left, the media of transmission of memes for liberal ideas is solid.  This is beginning to change with the rise of the Tea Party, existing conservative talk radio infrastructure, and pressures on typical liberal media memes via contradictory pressures such as the collapse of economies in Europe from Socialist countries, images of riots in Europe with youths vocalizing that they are “showing the rich people we can do what we want”, and here at home the S&P downgrade, the stock market crash, exploding deficits, ObamaCare, etc.  All of these are ideas that work against the existing meme information stash used by the media.

“Tea Party Downgrade”.  Three words, easy to replicate and pass on, easy to understand, that play into the hands of some independents and whip up the liberal base.  The fact it ignores the S&P statements that entitlements are the number one reason for the downgrade, this meme has the ability to stick.  How can it be fought?  If we look around us, as of today 8/11/2011, I have personally read many articles from liberal writers that are beginning to question the competency and leadership of Obama.  Why would they do that?

To understand the reasoning behind this we must understand that liberalism is a set of memes set in stone in many of these writers minds.  When faced with admitting that their ideology is wrong given all the evidence, and given that memes define a person as much as genes do and entrench themselves into a persons very being, the only other option is to blame the one who should have been successful in proving out the ideas that makeup your meme set.  It is a defensive mechanism.  Much as a immune system will attack a foreign object, the more the world falls apart because of Socialist policies and the more pain we feel here at home, the more Obama will be seen as a foreign object.  Pushed to the limit, when logic itself takes over, a meme set can collapse under its own unsustainable weight as the ideas which so easily propagated before begin to whither and become extinct.  This is the point of greatest fear for – in this case – liberals, and the greatest opportunity to strike the killing blow.

“Tea Party Downgrade”.  It’s still there, so how to counter it.  By messaging, as liberals do, over and over and over.  Messaging what?  Messaging the contradiction.  Always look for the contradictions that point out flaws in the other side’s memes.  If this is a “Tea Party Downgrade” then why did Obama and other liberals attack the S&P and blame the agency for jumping the gun?  The very words “Tea Party Downgrade” imply the acceptance of the S&P decision and a subsequent blaming of the Tea Party for the decision.  When the Senate begins to investigate the S&P – or threatens to – this is a prime opportunity to kick the meme machine into high gear on talk radio, Tea Party events, fax blasts to Congress, and other creative methods so the message gets out there to compete with the enemy meme.

The message is this:  “Hey guys, you can’t have it both ways.  You can’t blame the S&P and state their conclusions are wrong and then turn around and blame the Tea Party for the downgrade.  Which is it?”

Instinctively people will understand that when two mutually exclusive memes are placed in competition from the same meme generator (the liberal communication juggernaut), then something is amiss – the contradiction tells us something.  It tells us that liberals are implying they are scared to death they will get stuck with the blame and the need to deflect attention from them is so enormous that the pressure causes them to panic.  The very fact the messaging in contradictory should tell those in leadership positions within the conservative movement that the enemy is in panic mode and our messaging should begin in earnest.  Keep the message simple and don’t stick to just one, but don’t use too many.  In the above example one could add:

“Why are you ignoring the elephant in the room – entitlements, which are main reason for the downgrade as S&P has stated?”

“Look at Europe – is this your vision for America?”

Rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat, retool, tweak, repeat.

Get conservative writers to push these memes.  Find Facebook links to articles and share them on your wall.  If you can, talk about it on talk radio or as a guest on a cable news station or pass it on to somehow who has this access if you don’t.

That is what this group is about.  A place to exchange ideas, bumper sticker slogans, showcase your own bumper sticker designs.  Heck, feel free to link to places where they can be purchased.  A single bumper sticker goes nowhere.  A good idea on a bumper sticker multiplied tens of thousands of times gets the message out into the “memosphere”.  We need to create a loosely consolidated super group of people who propagate memes by attending rallies carrying signs with strong meme messages, and coming up with ideas of their own, debating them, fine tuning them, and then setting them loose to see if they stick.  From this we can learn what does and does not work.

Please join me on the Facebook group dedicated to this topic.

Please join me in winning back America.