Ater the Conventions

From the 19th to the 21st century

Party conventions are a “blast from the Past.”  I hear the echo of torchlight parades.  They predate the internet.  Heck, they predate television.  They provide emotional speeches to large crowds of partisans.   Increasingly, however, they also resemble such modern TV as award shows and marathon fundraisers. They are professionally produced, carefully scripted, interspersed with slick video segments.

How they come across to TV audiences, how effective they are to the undecided, how well even they play to the “believer,” in these days of short attention spans, is unclear.  I’m not at all sure how an anarchism like the crowning of a “standard bearer” (a what?) affects a modern voting public. Conventional wisdom suggests that there will be a partisan boost for a few days, as polls capture the aftermath of enthusiasm.  The “likely voter” measure for the party which held the most recent convention will increase and then settle back down to what it was before.

The underlying “message,” however, and its repetition over the weeks after the “show,” may be persuasive. The Democrats pulled out one of the oldest election play cards during the event. If your opponents abandon some space in the center, move in. In the policy churn and miscommunication of a realigning process, gaps appear, waiting to be filled. The Republican candidates have been unclear about America’s leadership role in the world, its aspirational appeal, its strength, essentially its reputation as “a beacon of hope,” and leader of military alliances. There was room for the Democrats to hoist the flag and claim love of country and old-fashion patriotism.

At the same time, the America in decline theme, while often useful in elections if used carefully (Kennedy’s missile gap), is not all that inspiring, and references to the glories of the past can obscure the “Reagan era” optimism that many voters expect.

Also, the Democrats were able to emphasize the “ready to serve,” “Harris for the people,” mantras that reassure the undecided, particularly for those who saw Biden’s age as an issue as well as Trump’s stability, a problem. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised by the ability of a well-organized TV mini-series (another familiar modern type) to introduce relatively unknown candidates. Given that an audience is going to be more interested in the new than the old, the production pros still outdid themselves in creating the Harris and Walz personas.

Finally, the Democrats came down strong on the freedom theme and managed to emphasize its other side, “freedom from exploitation,” over “freedom to exploit.” The opportunity model can be used to emphasize what governments can do for the individual rather than focus on how government can limit an individual’s successes. (Both, of course, are true.)

With the Conventions over, now comes the tsunami of TV advertising and door to door appeals.  We are a tough crowd these days when it comes to the firehose of repetitious slogans and sound bites that professionals have test marketed for their emotional appeal.  Bathroom breaks and runs to the fridge will be as much escapes, as servicing needs. 

“On the street” it may be different.  We have an economy, while clearly tilting too much in its payouts, does function pretty well. 

One of the problems is that we have a partially dysfunctional consumer base. 

For the young, fresh from their educational “landings,” it is a wild west of compelling persuasive messages.  “You can have it all, and now—all that other people have. You, like those in the TV adds, can dance and sing. And you are in easy reach of a buy-now-pay-later-credit-market that provides the “yellow brick road” to unmanageable debt. 

Not of course for everyone, but within families and neighborhoods and friendship groups, there is enough real despair to fuel a high level of doubt and fear. 

For many, forty-hour a week wages provide a pay-check to pay-check life.  And things continue to cost more.  Of course, they do.  In modern societies they always have and will.  Virtually all students of the economy recognize that some level of regular price increases (two or three percent a year) is necessary for growth.  The policy goal is to get it down to this level and keep it there. You can tell people that the level of inflation is now steady and that wages are growing faster (on the whole).  That does not stop people from remembering what bread cost four years ago.  And it doesn’t stop people from believing that they deserved the raise (wage inflation though it maybe) because they are that much more valuable to an employer and deserve it, have earned it!  That is, they believe that they deserve more than break-even.

There are creditable explanations for the actual state of the present economy and there are simplistic misleading explanations.  There are concrete and practical proposals for what the government can do to encourage a more equitable and more prosperous economy over the next decade and absurd promises.  It seems to me that the more desperate you are, the more likely you will fall for the deceptions, because they seem simpler and promise a faster “fix.”   

With the Conventions behind us, the minefields of advertising spending in front of us, will we listen critically to these explanations?  Will enough of us “figure it out?” 

Talk with your friends, and acquaintance; think about what is best for yourself and what is best for the country.  While we can only control our own vote, we can help others figure out theirs. And they can help us. All it requires is a willingness to reach out and have serious conversations about our future.

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