American voters’ feelings are evolving so fast that politicians and their advisors can’t keep up with them. They started at “prices are too high,” briefly alighted on “our economic system is broken” and leapt right ahead to “because our government is working for the mega-rich and not for us.” Candidates have been told that voters are mad about the cost of living and hate data centers. If they’re not talking about WHY, they risk getting caught pandering to public opinion (following) rather than articulating what voters are feeling but have not yet put into words (leading).
“There go my people, I must find out where they are going so I can lead them.”
~ Alexandre Auguste Ledru-Rollin
We who think about politics all the time rarely have a good handle on what’s going on in the lives and minds of those who do not. That’s what makes focus groups so fascinating. I usually see voters holding on to conventional thinking and subconsciously absorbed conservative talking points, and I have to figure out how to communicate with them in ways that open their minds to the possibility of bigger change. This year, I walked in hoping to find a little more awareness of the system-wide nature of our economic dysfunction, and not only were voters already there, they had continued on to the wholesale corruption of government. As a lifelong campaign finance reform advocate, I had resigned myself to the idea that voters weren’t ready to “go there” when it came to money in politics, but much to my absolute delight, they have arrived! And they are waiting for candidates, consultants and Party officials to catch up.
Thank you for reading Reframing America! My work is completely financed by subscribers like you! All content is free, but many people choose to become paying subscribers to help support this mission of improving how we communicate!
Use this link to subscribe or upgrade! Thank you!
The American Dream is fundamental to our society. In 2024, people in my focus groups responded extremely positively to language about economic fairness, particularly the idea that we were promised a certain quality of life in exchange for our willingness to work hard and that while we held up our end of that deal, our economic system has skipped out on its end of the deal.
How do we talk effectively about rising costs? Are you only talking about helping people pay for things? Or are you also talking about the system being fundamentally broken and making the economy work the way people were promised it would work? People do not just want handouts. They want fairness.
From Farmers backed Trump. Now some say they’re losing patience. The Washington Post, June 19, 2026
“Farmers don’t want government handouts, which Trump is proposing to give money back to people,” Cooke said. “They want stable marketplaces to be able to sell their goods to the world.”
When I came back to voters in 2026, they had fully adopted the position that our economic system was fundamentally broken and they were thoroughly pissed about being lied to and betrayed. But they had also worked out why it was broken, and had turned their anger on politicians of both parties.
According to a recent poll by the Brennan Center for Justice,
“More than 9 in 10 voters (92 percent) — including supermajorities of Republicans (90 percent), Democrats (93 percent), and independents (93 percent) — believe corruption is a big problem in politics and government.”
When I first saw that corruption was rising in importance to voters, I thought, “Great! This is awesome for Democrats. We can spend all day talking about how Trump is abusing his office to line his pockets.” Then I saw polling saying that voters thought Democrats were just as corrupt as Republicans, if not more so. I needed to find out why.
When the voters in my focus groups talked about “corruption,” they defined it more broadly. They also meant that our economic system works for wealthy elites, not the American people, because our government is under the influence of, if not the control of, wealthy elites. Those who have accumulated extreme wealth have used it to “rig” the economy to their advantage. And my focus group voters were not alone. According to the same poll, while 97% of voters understand “corruption” in the usual sense of “officials using their position for personal gain,” 94% also defined it more broadly as “prioritizing the interests of billionaires and big corporations over those of the public.”
How do we talk effectively about corruption? Don’t shy away from the broader definition, the idea that prices keep rising and wages don’t keep up because the whole system is rigged - working for the rich and not the people.
“The Mar-a-Lago mafia has taken American corruption to spectacular new heights. But corruption in America runs a lot deeper than Donald Trump. American politics is coin-operated. Money goes in, favors come out. And that’s why spectacular wealth buys an ever-greater share of power over our national affairs while the “mere citizen” is treated with contempt.”
Language like that is why Jon Ossoff is taking off.
CANDIDATES: You know that more than 70% of Americans oppose the building of data centers in their communities. People may state all sorts of reasons, but on a deeper level, they are using your position on data centers as a litmus test, because it is the clearest available indicator of whose side you are on.
How do we talk effectively about data centers? Voters don’t just want to know that you will prevent their electricity and water bills from spiking. They want to know whether you will be using government to serve big corporations or the American people. American voters are not entirely opposed to AI. They are opposed to the private sector being allowed to unleash something into the world that could permanently damage the balance of power between workers and employers, and they are mad at our government for not making us all slow down and think first about the damage this could do to people.
We know “takers are gonna take.” We don’t have high expectations for the morality of the private sector. Here is what voters believe that they have not yet put into words: that our government is supposed to belong to us, it is supposed to be looking out for our interests. Government is supposed to be fighting the power of amassed private wealth on our behalf, because our collective power is the only thing big enough and strong enough to do so.
If you think this is a “progressive” or fringe lefty position, think again. According to research by Senator Chris Murphy, Democrats, Republicans, and Independents agree that the government isn’t doing enough to take on corporate power.
Net “strongly or somewhat agree” with the following statements:
You can get a good reaction from voters by talking about bringing prices down, making things like housing and healthcare more affordable, and opposing data centers because they use too much power and water. But if you want to catch fire with voters, if you want the kind of historic overperformance that wins mandates and puts the brakes on dictatorships, you need to talk about the feelings behind the positions, about the way things should be. This “right and wrong” talk is where you get agreement numbers in the 80 and 90 percent range. Ultimately, this is what voters need to hear from you:
~ Our government exists for the people and answers to the people, not just the rich.
~ Our economic system exists to meet the needs of people, to make it possible for people to support themselves and their families.
~ Innovation and technology are supposed to make people’s lives better, not worse.
~ It’s our government. We have every right to use it to make our economic system work as promised and to make technology serve our needs.That is where voters are headed. If we hurry, we can lead them there.
Thank you so much for reading this. I hope it is of use to you in your work and activism!
In solidarity, always,
Like this post, but not ready to become a paying subscriber?
Leave me a tip of any amount you like at my tip jar! Thank you!
Contact me at antonia@antoniascatton.com or (202) 922-6647
The American people have been subjected to fifty years of gaslighting that “everything is working just fine,” implying that, if people are struggling to get by, it must be their own fault. For decades, economists have claimed that “household income has risen to meet or exceed the rate of inflation,” but sometimes they define their terms in ways that hide critically important information. This framing completely disguises the facts that it now takes two-and-a-half full-time jobs to make up a “household income” when it used to take just one, and that the way we measure inflation does not include the most expensive things in our lives, like housing, education and healthcare, all of which have gone up many times the rate of inflation. No wonder people are pissed.
Idealism and American Promise
·
Apr 13
We’re 250. It’s time we made the case for core American values. We can unite our fights for economic fairness, freedom and equality under the common narrative of making our country live up to it’s potential – to become what it was always supposed to be – and that includes making good on the
How to Be a Populist Without Sounding Like a Socialist
·
August 21, 2025
People are tired of competing for an ever-shrinking number of slots in the middle class. They just want our economy to be fair. There is a contract inherent in the American dream: you work hard, they pay you enough to raise a family on. But corporate decision makers are not holding up their end of that deal, and people need
A.I. is the New NAFTA
·
Jun 9
Data centers are a proxy for the mega-rich and politicians making huge decisions without thinking through what happens to workers, just like they did with NAFTA. Big Tech may even be a repeat of 2008: the rich tanking the economy, getting bailed out, and nobody going to jail for it. Both of those happened on Democrats’ watch and contributed to our losse…
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.