As it turns out the Broken Record PSA is somewhat controversial. Suggesting that voting for the Democrats is an alternative to self-immolation does not play well in some corners. But I wasn't talking to those guys. It was the youth audience I was after. The kids who reportedly are disenchanted and not inclined to vote. They don't want to be condescended to. And they know BS when they see it.
Over the past several years I've had numerous conversations about how inept the Democrats are at messaging. They leave it to the Republicans to frame the debate and then, at election time, spend huge amounts of time and money trying to unframe it.
I see it as a combination of naivetà © and old school idealism. It reminds me of those scenes in the movies where row upon row of English Redcoats march in perfect formation into a wall of enemy fire and are picked off one by one without getting off a shot themselves.
The Democrats have operated under the assumption that if they have a good idea all they have to do is explain it in great detail and the public will think it's fantastic and support it. Unfortunately this doesn't work.
The Republicans on the other hand are masters at speaking to the "reptilian brain" -- the part that is non-intellectual and swayed by emotion. Few on the left wanted to hear this kind of talk until Drew Westen published his book, "The Political Brain", which explains the entire process in scientific terms.
http://www.thepoliticalbrain.com/videos.php
Now it's now it's okay to state the obvious.
I crafted Broken Record as a shot across the bow of the right. It uses humor and exaggeration to dramatize the results of four decades of right wing economic propaganda that even some Democrats have come to believe.
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