Politics has always been driven by constituent segmentation. From fund raising to local canvasing efforts, the central operating model started with the audience segment – age or religion or immigration status. Then the communications platform was created from there.
This is how political campaigns work. Decide on your priority segments and appeal to that audience based on issues that this segment supposedly cared about.
If this most recent election taught us anything, it taught us it is time to relook at the political communications model of the last 40 years.
Safety topics appealed to all segments.
Financial topics was a top priority for all segments.
Strength/ America first topics overwhelmed demographics messaging customization.
The outcome of the election was clear in its implications. We are in a post demographic age of political engagement. It makes much less difference now whether Latino of Young voters are focused on a few issues.
We have crossed into a new era of political communications – the age of topic politics.
This new age is characterized by topics that affect the body politic.
This new age is defined by topics that resonate with ‘scale” audiences.
This new age is verbalized by politicians with simple (perhaps even simplistic) answers to complex issues.
In this new age, individuals run the risk of being run over by the steamroller of political topics.
This Bob Dylan song The Times They Are A-Changin’ from 1964, captures the zeitgeist perfectly:
Come gather ’round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You’ll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you is worth savin’
And you better start swimmin’
Or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’
Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won’t come again
And don’t speak too soon
For the wheel’s still in spin
And there’s no tellin’ who
That it’s namin’
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin’
Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway
Don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
The battle outside ragin’
Will soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin’
In 1964, the country was on fire. This was the year that U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War increased significantly. Martin Luther King Jr., won the Nobel Peace Prize, President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and IBM announced the System/360 computer.
It was a time of paradoxes. It was a time of turmoil. It was a time of change.
History rhymes and we will be singing from a different song sheet for a while at least.
