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Posted: 2017-12-13T19:07:02Z | Updated: 2018-01-11T18:08:12Z Everything Counts but Nothing Matters: Roy Moore & the Strange New World of Public Relations | HuffPost

Everything Counts but Nothing Matters: Roy Moore & the Strange New World of Public Relations

Everything Counts but Nothing Matters: Roy Moore & the Strange New World of Public Relations
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jerrykiesewetter.com

Theres a story that outlines, in crystal clear terms, the strange new world that the art of modern public relations inhabits.

Its a story that just keeps going: the endless parade of powerful men being exposed as sexual predators and serial harassers. Its beyond unnecessary to give the rundown; we all know the big names, and as their numbers grow, it becomes a torrent thats pointless to try to keep up with. And the unmaskings have reached Congress as well, having already felled Democrats Al Franken and John Conyers and Republican Trent Franks.

Rather than catalog those numerous accusations, which have dominated the news for weeks (a rare feat in the news firehose that is 2017) and with which we are all familiar, I want to take a different course and ask a question Im not seeing discussed elsewhere: which party is handling this situation better and whether or not, from a political and public relations standpoint, it even matters right now.

That last question isnt one Im especially thrilled to be tackling, so lets start at the top; are the Democrats or the Republicans handling this ongoing crisis better? The answer you may immediately be jumping to that its clearly the Democrats might prove surprisingly incorrect, because were not asking a moral question. We witnessed over the course of the 2016 election that stubborn, intransigent denials can work marvels, and obvious evasions can successfully deflect questions almost indefinitely. Less than a month after the grab em by the p*ssy tapes leaked, Donald Trump was elected president; the news cycle moves quickly, and the lesson the Republicans learned is that mastering it means winning the day , not the point. From a PR perspective, modern politics operates in 24-hour increments (if that).

We need only look, again, at last years election for proof; the drumbeat of scandal that plagued the Trump campaign meant that all it had to do was ignore a problem long enough for it to go away, while the Clinton administration couldnt avoid the day-in day-out reminders of a single scandal. Trump knew that all he had to do was win the day and hed be fine; tomorrow, hed sort out that day. Its media-driven public relations more than politics itself, focusing on evasion over confrontation on a daily basis.

And heres the kicker: it works . It demonstrably, obviously, disturbingly works. Treating every news cycle as a battle with a winner and a loser, where the only truth that matters is the story of the day, has been proven effective. That, by the way, is what everyone means when we talk about a post-truth world; where facts simply dont matter from day to day; instead, its the ever-shifting explanatory story. And the beauty of that ever-shifting story is that its impossible to nail down and therefore impossible to effectively dispute.

The Democrats have taken the high road ; when Al Franken a long-beloved figure on the left faced accusations (from a right-wing pundit, no less) of sexual misconduct, the Democrats didnt close rank and accuse his accuser of partisan motive; no, they stood by their #believewomen ideals and successfully called for his resignation. The same happened with Conyers. Its part of an overall strategy to get a handle on the cultural moment were in by becoming the party of accountability and respect for women, and to ride that train to electoral success. Its not a bad strategy, assuming that theres a critical mass of center voters who will respond to it.

The GOP, on the other hand, has been following the news cycle; when Roy Moore was first accused, the GOP withdrew all support, assuming hed fall as Harvey Weinstein, Louis CK, and Kevin Spacey did before him. It was obvious, wasnt it? Allegations of sexual predation of children is a big deal, and proven or not, throwing support behind so egregious an accused predator, they feared, would be political suicide. And for a time, that seemed to be true, but then the tides began to shift back. The party suspected he might win, and then gone with the wind was Mitch McConnells call for Moore to step aside; the race was neck and neck, and the seat the victory, the vindication meant more. As always, the end goal is to win the day. Stepping back, forcing Moore out, delaying the election, staging a write-in campaign for a new candidate these are all good strategies, but every single one of them is in some ways an admission of failure.

Which brings us to that last question: does it even matter which side is handling this better? Because thats the dark side of this entire conversation, the nagging, incessant notion that nothing matters beyond how many points you scored for your team, that political tribalism has gotten so intense, so flatly and uncompromisingly locked that it ultimately doesnt matter what you say or do so long as you support the agenda, the basic set of cultural benchmarks pro-life, pro-gay marriage, anti-immigration, anti-war, whatever that we all seem to be fighting over.

This remains the nasty little problem at the heart of things, something that makes doing PR profoundly more complex than it used to be; what do you do with a candidate like Roy Moore (who has an open record of saying inflammatory things ) when hes gaining in the polls despite the allegations? Because thats a good case study of the same problem as above; why apologize or manage the damage when you can stand defiant and let the internecine warfare of partisan politics buoy you up (beyond having basic human decency and even the slightest moral compass, that is)? When you have a dedicated cadre of partisans as intense as any who will believe no ill word about you , you are free to do essentially whatever you want, traditional PR be damned.

Which brings us to last nights election in Alabama, where Doug Jones pulled off a surprise upset, becoming the first Democrat the southern state sends to the Senate in twenty-five years. Its absolutely stunning that a deep red state like Alabama might break with decades of effective one-party government. Its also painfully clear that it took the GOP nominating a woefully unpopular and controversial figure with child predation charges dogging at his heels to do it, and even then, it was an utter nail-biter. A race that, in any sane world, should have been a blowout for Jones. That is the depth of the divide were dealing with: a civil rights attorney had a difficult time communicating a message convincing enough to draw away support from an accused pedophile.

PR doesnt work when nobody can be convinced, when opinions cant be swayed, and when theres no message powerful enough to override the tribal split between left and right.

And this goes well beyond electoral politics; Ive written elsewhere at length about the difficulties Uber has faced for breaking with the left consensus, and companies like Papa Johns Pizza, Hobby Lobby, Chik-Fil-A, Twenty-First Century Fox, and others have become political shibboleths, participation with which can make one unclean in liberal circles. The two sides cant even agree on the same set of facts and listen to entirely different news media; what message can you communicate when everyone is taking sides, and even things as simple as where we go to lunch indicate deeper political loyalties?

This is the strange new world we inhabit. Where everything counts, but nothing matters.

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