Reframing the narrative: Netroots Nation panel explores how to build a winning coalition across race and place

Hel­lo from Chicago!

Net­roots Nation 2023 is now under­way in the Windy City, with break­out ses­sions exam­in­ing press­ing issues fac­ing our coun­try and world.

One of those ses­sions, titled A Work­ing People’s Nar­ra­tive: Build­ing a Win­ning Coali­tion Across Race and Place delved into the expe­ri­ences of spe­cif­ic com­mu­ni­ties in Amer­i­ca regard­ing vot­ing. The pan­el explored how chang­ing the nar­ra­tive could influ­ence peo­ple’s vot­ing habits and choices.

One of the key take­aways from the dis­cus­sion was the need to reframe the nar­ra­tive sur­round­ing anti-pover­ty ini­tia­tives. Tra­di­tion­al­ly, anti-pover­ty pro­grams were viewed as gov­ern­ment inter­ven­tions to res­cue indi­vid­u­als from pover­ty. How­ev­er, the pan­el empha­sized the impor­tance of rec­og­niz­ing the harm of improp­er­ly framed nar­ra­tives like that one. Instead, they sug­gest­ed uti­liz­ing a frame cen­tered on pro­gres­sive val­ues. For instance, a call to action could be “uti­lize the fam­i­ly tax cred­it to sup­port and pro­vide for your family.”

The words cho­sen, in oth­er words, should evoke a frame of fam­i­lies tak­ing con­trol of their cir­cum­stances rather than being pas­sive recip­i­ents of assistance.

Ter­rence Wood­bury, the Direc­tor of HIT Strate­gies, was one of the pan­elists. He shed light on the econ­o­my as the pri­ma­ry dri­ving force behind vot­ing pat­terns, with a par­tic­u­lar focus on Black vot­er turnout. Wood­bury high­light­ed a sig­nif­i­cant dis­par­i­ty in con­fi­dence and vot­ing out­comes between Demo­c­ra­t­ic and Repub­li­can vot­ers, show­ing an 18–21% dif­fer­ence. These sta­tis­tics under­lined the sig­nif­i­cance of eco­nom­ic con­cerns among black vot­ers and their impact on polit­i­cal pref­er­ences. Wood­bury con­clud­ed his com­ments by not­ing that old­er vot­ers and women vot­ers, irre­spec­tive of race, tend to vote more frequently.

Anoth­er pan­elist, Kris­ten Wheel­er, exam­ined the vot­ing behav­ior of white women who iden­ti­fied as bicon­cep­tu­als (“mod­er­ates”) or remained undecided.

Despite Don­ald Trump’s his­to­ry of misog­y­ny, racism, and cor­rup­tion, and the Repub­li­can Par­ty’s cur­rent feal­ty to him, Wheel­er iden­ti­fied sev­er­al fac­tors that influ­enced white women to vote for Repub­li­can candidates.

These fac­tors includ­ed eco­nom­ic anx­i­ety, feel­ings of social insignif­i­cance, racial resent­ment, and neg­a­tive atti­tudes towards trans­gen­der individuals.

The insights shared dur­ing the pan­el under­scored the impor­tance of under­stand­ing the intri­cate dynam­ics at play when build­ing win­ning coali­tions across race and place. The speak­ers did an excel­lent job empha­siz­ing the need for polit­i­cal cam­paigns to reassess their mes­sag­ing prac­tices and word choice.

Flip­ping the nar­ra­tive and refram­ing could prove instru­men­tal in help­ing cam­paigns res­onate with a broad­er spec­trum of voters.

The folks who came to this pan­el had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to deep­en their under­stand­ing of the com­plex­i­ties sur­round­ing vot­er behav­ior. Hope­ful­ly, atten­dees will become ambas­sadors for the idea that a win­ning coali­tion must be built on a foun­da­tion of empa­thy, inclu­sion, and an unwa­ver­ing com­mit­ment to address­ing the eco­nom­ic con­cerns that impact the lives of work­ing people.