'Powerful motivator': Sociologist explains ways 'fear-based messaging' keeps GOP in power

15 March

Republican Donald Trump's narrow victory over Democrat Kamala Harris in the United States' 2024 presidential election was far from the "historic landslide" that Trump and many of his allies claim it was. Trump, according to the Cook Political Report, defeated Harris by roughly 1.5 percent in the popular vote — which is a close election, not a double-digit landslide by President Ronald Reagan in 1984 or President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1932.

Nonetheless, the 2024 election results — including the fact that Trump carried key Rust Belt states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan — remain a major source of frustration for Democrats. And for Democratic strategists, a nagging question is: Why do Democrats keep losing races they think they should be winning?

Sociologist/author Jessica Calarco addresses that question in an interview with journalist Paul Rosenberg published by Salon on March 15.

Republicans, Calarco stressed, can be very effective with messaging, while Democrats often drop the ball when it comes to getting their message out.

Calarco told Salon, "Democrats and people on the left often have very little leeway. You might be able to get one thing through. A lot of political capital has to be spent to pass anything, so there's disagreement about which problems to prioritize first. Do we focus on universal basic income or do we focus on child care? On raising the minimum wage or on health care?"

The sociologist/author continued, "I would argue that any one of these in isolation, especially given what we know about the structural roots of social problems, is often not enough on its own to really make a difference…. If we really want to address the biggest challenges that we face as a society, we need not only a single structural solution, but layers of structural solutions."

Democrats, according to Calarco, "can do a much better job of helping to articulate ways that governments can help people."

During the interview, Calarco noted that Republicans are great at scaring Americans into voting for them.

"There is a long history of conservative fear-mongering," the sociologist/author told Salon. "Fear is an incredibly powerful motivator. It is one of the best ways to spark people to action and also one of the best ways to push people to inaction if you don't want them to operate. You have to give them something to fear, and something to do about what they fear, which is sometimes to do nothing."

Calarco added, "Fear-based messaging is incredibly effective, and once you start to see a fear, it becomes very easy to see fear in more places."

Salon's full interview with Jessica Calarco is available at this link.

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