The Hard Lesson the 2024 Election Taught Us About Communications

Two weeks after the 2024 Presidential Election, there already has been a flood of hot takes about what went wrong – or right, depending on where you stand. But let me add one more take that’s relevant to those of us in the business of communications:

We need to completely shift how we talk to people.

This isn’t just about politics. It’s true across the board. But the election is illustrative.

Democrats fell into a trap that’s all too familiar to public relations and marketing professionals —believing that having the facts on our side was enough. And we learned the hard way that simply delivering a clear and rational message doesn’t always translate to winning hearts and minds. In a world saturated with information and, increasingly, misinformation, it’s not the message you deliver that matters most; it’s how that message is received.

Take the economy, for example. By virtually every objective measure, the US economy is performing exceptionally well. Unemployment is at historic lows, wages have risen, inflation has cooled, the stock market is at an all-time high, and GDP growth has remained steady. The consultant class believed these economic figures should have translated into overwhelming public confidence. As a result, too much of the playbook involved simply highlighting these facts. There was a “we get it, so surely everyone else will get it, too” posture. But the economic narrative put forward clearly didn’t resonate with the people we were trying to reach. And shame on us for not listening.

Republicans understood and tapped into the fear and anxiety voters have been feeling. And they communicated in ways that were easy for their audience to understand. Their messages  worked because Republicans listened to their audience and were able to reflect back what they were hearing.

In politics, the adage “perception is reality” can feel cynical, but it holds a critical lesson for effective communication. While it’s important to stay rooted in facts and policy, it’s even more important to meet our audience where it is in terms of our language and the platforms we’re using to deliver our messages. We have to understand people’s hopes, fears, and aspirations – and craft messages that resonate on that level.

From a political perspective, if the Democratic party hopes to prevent this from becoming a permanent political realignment, it needs to change its approach, starting now. That begins with humility. Democrats can’t just look at those who voted for President-elect Trump or sat this election out and say “they just didn’t get it.” They have to recognize that they failed to communicate effectively.

As communicators more broadly, we have to do more than talk. We have to listen. We have to understand what people are hearing when we speak and adjust accordingly. In the end, it’s not about delivering a message – it’s about ensuring the message is received.