For those of you who started reading this newsletter recently, you probably ask why the hell is it called “Message Box?” The main reason is that I am infamously bad at naming things. My inspiration stems from the concept of a “message box” which is an exercise every campaign should do at the outset. It’s a simple quadrant filled out to understand the message your campaign and your opponent’s campaign will communicate.

While a little lost to time, a message box is still the fundamental building block of a successful campaign strategy. The best campaigns run every ad, tweet, speech, and statement through this filter to ensure they advance their message and undermine their opponent’s.

For nearly a decade of running against Trump, Democrats have struggled with the lower left quadrant. We never really settled on a consistent argument about Trump. One of my maxims for politics (and life) is that the only thing worse than a wrong decision is no decision at all. That was the collective error our party made when it came to our anti-Trump message. We never picked one.

However, I am happy to report that the Biden Campaign chose its anti-Trump message, and it’s very good.

The Challenge of Defining Trump

Campaigns are billion-dollar exercises in storytelling. The press and activists tend to obsess over messages and slogans that fit on a bumper sticker or in the confines of a tweet. But what a campaign truly needs is a larger story that connects the dots of all the major issues and specific flaws of the candidate. When Obama was running for reelection, there was an obvious story to tell about Mitt Romney — he was a rapacious private equity executive more interested in helping rich people like himself than middle and working-class families. It connected the unpopular parts of Romney’s story with his policy agenda and addressed the public’s concerns about the economy.

Choosing one story about Trump is hard. The guy is so flawed in so many ways that it can be hard to choose a critique. It’s like ordering dinner at the Cheesecake Factory with their War and Peace-sized menu.

Is he a crook, a clown, a dictator, an asshole, an idiot, a racist, or a Russian sleeper agent? All of these have elements of truth, but they also conflict. Trump has unpopular policies, committed crimes, overturned Roe, tried to overthrow an election, and says and does incredibly crazy things all of the time. Connecting those in a coherent, compelling, believable way is a challenge.

However, the Biden Campaign found a way. They settled on an essential truth that is obvious to everyone who has ever seen or heard Donald Trump — he only cares about himself.

Trump the Selfish Narcissist

The Biden Campaign officially launched their message last week with a high-profile attack ad.

The part of the ad that called Trump a “convicted criminal” received the bulk of the attention, but the more interesting part was the explanation for why Trump committed his crimes:

This election is between a convicted criminal who is only out for himself and a president who is fighting for your family.

Referring to the ad, one Biden adviser told the Washington Post:

It is about why he is a felon. He doesn’t care about the harm that he causes as long as he serves himself.

Now, I will admit to a little bit of confirmation bias. This is the message I have been arguing for in this newsletter and on Pod Save America for months. To be clear, I am not taking any credit. I was one of many like-minded people.

I think it works for several reasons. First, the best messages are the true ones — and Donald Trump putting his interests first is true to all but the willfully blind. Trump is a classic grievance politician in the mold of George Wallace and Pat Buchanan. But with Trump, more often than not, the grievances are personal. The Deep State is after him; the press is unfair to him; the courtroom is too hot; etc. If elected, Trump has pledged to go on a revenge tour against the people who wronged HIM. It’s always about Trump.

Second, it connects Trump’s personal foibles with his policy agenda. Yesterday, the Biden Campaign released another ad that shows how you can use the
”Trump only cares about himself” frame to explain his economic policies.

Third, the most important question in political campaigns — especially presidential campaigns — is “Which candidate is going to fight for me?” This sense of advocacy is more important than positions on individual policy issues. By painting Trump as a self-interested narcissist, the Biden Campaign confronts this question head on. Trump must choose between helping you and helping himself, and he will choose himself every time.

Finally, I will bring this back to the message box exercise for a second. The best contrast messages are the inverse of positive messages. In other words, you want to exploit your opponent’s weakness while amplifying your strength.

Joe Biden is not perfect, but he is a decent, empathetic man more interested in helping others than himself. I saw this up close for years. Biden’s empathy — even in the face of immense personal tragedy — is his political superpower.

I expect that we will hear Biden make this argument early and often in tomorrow night’s debate and that’s a very positive development. 

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