Bulwark Takes - Social Media Strategy for Dems Needs a Major Upgrade

Episode Date: March 10, 2025

Lauren Egan is joined by Sam Stein to discuss her twice-weekly newsletter ‘The Opposition’ following the state of the Democratic Party, this week covering the Democrats cringe attempts at authenticity. Read Lauren’s The Opposition, ‘The Democrats’ Authenticity Trap’

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apply. Hey guys, it's me, Sam Stein, Managing Editor at The Bulwark, here with Lauren Egan, who's got her first edition of The Opposition. I know, how does that feel? It does, yeah. Okay, first edition of the opposition newsletter, that's Lauren's twice-week newsletter on the state of the Democratic Party. And it's, as of now, difficult efforts to regain its footing. Lauren, tell us about this edition. What do you write about? This edition is about Democrats just trying to figure out how to be themselves on social media and like not be cringe and awkward uh which they're really struggling with they've been you know like we saw last week with state

of the union stuff just like they cannot figure out how to be organic and be themselves and break through this new media environment um and it's showing so okay the problem they have is there's this new media environment um trump's very good at it uh mag is very good at it um the election was a demonstration of uh the fact that democrats have a deficit on it and as i understand it and correct me if i'm wrong the party kind of emerged from the election and they're like we're definitely going to try and break through we're gonna get on all these podcasts. We're going to build up our social media networks, might acquire some. But we know we have a problem and we're going to fix it.

And it's been four months. And have they fixed it? Absolutely not. Yeah, they definitely came out of the last election and were like, this is bad. We know we are bad at this. This is no longer a problem we can ignore because Republicans have just like dominated this space so much. And when we talk about like how the vibes were in 2024, the vibe election, how Trump and Republicans just have so much more cultural capital than the Democratic Party does right

now, there is very much a recognition that like, you have to play in these spaces. You have to be willing to go into, you know, podcast interviews that maybe might feel like a little bit more uncomfortable, a little bit less scripted, a little bit more unpredictable. You can't stick to your, you know, your messaging points. Yeah. Like you have to be able to like sit there for two hours and like have a conversation with someone. They said they needed to do that. No, that's the thing. Like obviously the big conversation this past week has been about Gavin Newsom and his new podcast, which has gotten a lot of attention, uh, most notably because of the comments he made about trans women playing in youth sports. Would you say no men and female sports? Well,

I think it's an issue of fairness. I completely agree with you on that. It is an issue of fairness. So it's deeply unfair. The thing with that is that what I consistently heard from Democratic staffers, even some people that used to work for Gavin Newsom, is that cool. Like, it's great that he's doing this, but like, who's going to subscribe? It's going to be people that are already diehard Democrats or reporters like us who are just junkies and have no life and are going to listen to this.

Wait a second. Hold on a second. I have a life. Yeah. Okay. Sam, it's a Sunday afternoon and you're talking to me. It's a job, but I also have a life. Okay.

So that was my issue with the newsome thing i actually personally think it's fine and actually probably healthy to build out these networks and try new things and i actually he booked charlie kirk who is sort of this nauseous mad personality if you don't know him already i don't have a problem with that i think that's fine i think it's fine to talk to people like that i think the issue that people in the operative space are getting at, which the people you talk to, is that the goal here, the end goal here, is to open up new audiences for you, right? To reach new people who otherwise wouldn't consider you. And to do that, you kind of have to go on Charlie Kirk's show. You don't have to invite Charlie Kirk onto your show. Now, you might get benefits from having Charlie Kirk on your show in that Charlie Kirk thinks you're more of a human and he has more of a relationship with you and he's more

less likely to malign you when he talks about you. And, you know, you can maybe he'll play clips of you and maybe, you know, like, I don't know, like, he's got his own shtick that he's probably going to stick to still, you know, I don't know. Right, right, right. I just think there's something to the idea that like, if you meet someone on a one-on-one basis if you have a conversation right right you're like less likely to be like oh he's an asshole he's a communist or whatever but that's not what the point is the point has always been open your open up new spaces to the democratic party and that requires you to go on theovon joe rogan Now they might not invite you, right? Yeah, I think it's about going to apolitical places, right?

Where people aren't coming there initially for politics, but that sometimes can like be political adjacent. I think there's still a deep sense of just fear and Democrats as like the party as a whole, it's just so ingrained in them to be so cautious, so risk averse to sit there in like a conference room and, you know, do a cost benefit analysis on like every decision that they make instead of just having sort of like a little bit of thicker skin or like the gut for being like, okay, we're going to do this because we have to,

it might not go well. It might be really uncomfortable. We might like say some weird shit at first, but like we got to do it and handle whatever blowback we might get and just be a little bit more willing to like put yourself out there. Yeah. Well, there was an interview that Tim Walz, Minnesota Governor-former, V.P. Keney gave to our old colleagues at Politico where he said this. He was like, we were just too bubble wrapped.

And I thought that was kind of an interesting confession. First of all, the consensus was he was the safe choice pick. But secondarily, there was like a little bit of questioning in the moment about whether they were too bubble wrapped. And they insisted that they were not, them being the Harris campaign. Right. They said, you know, we're doing Call Her Daddy. Like, to be fair to them, they did do some things. But the whole point is like,

you can't do one interview on one podcast and be like, oh, we checked the box. Like, this is a thing you have to consistently do over and over every day. So you buy this idea that you have to be ubiquitous in today's politics. Totally, totally. And I think a lot of the Democrats I talk to agree with that. Like, they all agree that, like, it's not just a – I think there's totally a sense that, like, okay, we did our TikTok video for the week. Like, we're good. You know, we don't need to deal with this again until next week. It's like, no, you've got to be constant. Well, that's the thing.

It's like they had that whole viral. They went with the Choose Your Fighter theme for their TikTok is Democratic female lawmakers this week. And I mean, it was widely mocked. And I think that gets to your point, which is that when it's apparent that you're checking off a box and being like, oh, this viral theme, we got gotta do that then it becomes and i also i don't know and this is this is a lot of us being like sort of theater critics right like what do we know um but maybe i'm sure that speaks to someone but yeah it was like well i guess my question didn't didn't speak to me personally but my point is that um democrats get encouraged to try a lot of things and do new things and experiment more. And then when they do, they also then get criticized instantaneously for looking cringy and trying too hard. Right. And so it's a little bit hard to find. And then they kind of retreat, though, you know, like then. It's a vicious cycle.

Yeah. And so like a lot of the strategies I talk to are like it's it is a vicious cycle. You know, they feel like they're held to sort of a bit more of an unfair standard. Um, but they're like, we kind of just have to keep going. Like when I talk to people after that, uh, that TikTok, they're all like, I really hope that they don't wait like another week to do something else. The whole point is like muscle through, keep putting shit out there. And eventually like, you'll feel more comfortable and not come across as like so try hard you know like it's just the irony was is that aoc was on that silly tiktok and she's the one she's actually good at this stuff yeah the stuff she does that's

good though is like her doing some instagram live thing where she's cooking like twitch yeah like she's good on twitch because like yeah well she's like an actual gamer so like it doesn't feel like forced when she's on there because you're like oh you like right i don't really game but like you're like oh you know this stuff and like it shows and like right this feels real i think that's a part of it like the authenticity stuff okay so that gets me to this and this is my theory of the case and tell me if i'm wrong but like authenticity right like 99 of these people in the democratic party are inauthentic on these platforms because they're older they're just unfamiliar with them and so anytime you put them

on there it's going to feel inauthentic um and in fact you should just probably like you know let them do their own thing and like tape them doing it and then post it like whatever they can read their like non-fiction books and you can talk about it with them and that would probably feel more real. Trump, by contrast, the most authentic version of Trump, is being on TV and in the spotlight at all times and being a constant – the most authentic version of J.D. Vance is being a troll, an online troll. That's who he is. This is who Donald Trump is. And so naturally they feel more seamless and authentic in these forms because this is who they are. And so they have an advantage. That's my theory of the case. I don't think that that's wrong. And then when you talk to on the Dem side, when you talk to people in the party, like mostly off the record, they'll be

like, yeah, we do need younger leadership. Like we need younger people at our office. Like sure. But Trump's not young. No, but he, like he grew up in front of the camera. Like he's, yeah, he's an animal. Yeah. Like it's not like part of it is an age thing,

but like, I don't know if Chuck Schumer had been on TikTok for forever and like clearly like played on the you know like played in these apps then like maybe it'd feel real but it doesn't it's just kind of like well let's see like chuck schumer has spent his life in front of cameras too but he's not a different kind of camera he's a different beast yeah it's a different kind of thing yeah if i were chuck i would just like you know play the i know he plays or play the accordion when he was young but like do stuff that's very chuck schumer-y and like just like be chuck right like just don't try to like do you know that's the thing it's like just don't right it's almost like again yeah it's it's it's so try hard to the point where it just feel you can't i should i should be clear i know chuck schumer plays or played the accordion

when he's young because he once told me that his childhood accordion instructor was named sam stein and we bonded over that and he then he showed me how you guys have that it was a it was a very weird it was a very weird interview uh that we conducted yeah um like wait what instrument does tim kaine play because that was an example example. What does he play? Tim Cain plays some instrument and someone did bring that up. Like, oh, when he's just like being himself and playing. Like Mark Warner. Like Mark Warner, for instance, made a nasty tune about once on video and they're like going viral.

But like that's like do shit like that. If you're like if you're a dad and you have dad humor, just lean into that. Like that will be like that's fine. That's you. That's, just lean into that. Like that will be like, that's fine. That's you. That's my life. I know. I know. I constantly have to reject your edits when you put dad jokes into my

coffee. No, that's not true. You always accept them and you love them. All right. So what's the upshot here? Are they going to figure it out? Do they need to figure it out?

well, they have to figure it out. Like this is the way the world is moving. This is how like politics is going. Like they, they have to figure it out. Will they figure it out? And on what timeline? Like, I don't know. I think they will eventually, but we're working on a timeline. Yeah. And there's always the question of, well,

would they, could they build out their own infrastructure? And I've seen nothing. I don't know if you've seen anything about like Democrat donors investing money in democratic media ventures. Now maybe it will happen, but it's been, you know. Yeah, I think there's a lot of conversation about that and a lot of anxiety about we need to do this. But again, going back to our earlier point, I think some of that energy and anxiety is a bit misplaced. Like, sure, you can have a Democratic version of whatever, but the whole point. Twitter, blue sky. Yeah.

You can have blue sky, but you're just talking to yourselves there, basically. Again, it's still missing the point that the apolitical spaces are what matters, and you can't build that. You have to go there. If you build it, it's not apolitical. And you have to go where some of these swing voters are. If you want to just have more cultural currency, you have to get out of these political – It's just straight politics, man. You've got to reach people who aren't already converted.

All right. Well, it's a great piece. It's a great first edition for the newsletter. I'm so excited for it. I'm excited to launch this thing. I encourage people to sign excited for it. I'm excited to launch this thing. I encourage people to sign up for it. I encourage people to sign up for our YouTube page where we're going to do supplementary discussions like this and have you on all the time and break down news.

Lauren, thanks so much for writing it. Appreciate talking about it and we'll be in touch.