FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Gov. Ron DeSantis has sold himself as a warrior against “COVID theater,” championed and got the Legislature to pass his “Stop WOKE Act,” and pushed the narrative that his leadership has produced the “free state of Florida.”
A master political messenger, DeSantis is adept at wielding concise, easy-to-digest phrases, crafted to sound popular and resonate with his political base in Florida — and across the country — as he contemplates a run for president. A side benefit (for him) is frustrating his critics.
In recent months, however, he and other Republicans have found themselves in an unfamiliar place: on the political defensive as a result of adept messaging that originated with LGBTQ activists.
Starting in January, LGBTQ activists became alarmed by the language in a DeSantis-supported bill that banned instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in grades K through 3. They feared the bill would stifle any conversations about such topics, and labeled it the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. Over the course of the next two months, the slogan became a widely used shorthand for the measure — agitating the governor and other Republicans.
“They’re doing what he does, and he doesn’t like it. Who does?” said Charles Zelden, a professor of history and legal studies who specializes in politics and voting at Nova Southeastern University. “He’s good at it, which is probably why he’s so unhappy that it’s being done to him — it’s been turned around on him — because he knows how effective it can be.”
It was DeSantis who launched the successful push for his legislation to restrict discussions of race and racism in schools and employee training programs by labeling it the “Stop WOKE Act.” The measure would prohibit teachings and training that make people “feel guilt, anguish, or other forms of psychological distress” for past wrongs committed by others of their “race, color, sex or national origin.”
Normally, said Joshua Scacco, an associate professor of political communications at the University of South Florida, DeSantis is “very good at this sort of strategic messaging.”
Significance
Language matters, political strategists and analysts say.
“DeSantis is very good at marketing. And he’s learned, or I guess he’s watched the master marketer, who is Donald Trump,” said Stephen Gaskill, a political communications consultant who is president of the Florida LGBTQ+ Democratic Caucus. “I think the product is shoddy, but the marketing itself is great.”
Zelden said a phrase, even just a few words, can have an outsize impact.
“It really does matter because people think in sound bites,” Zelden said. “Most of us, when we think about politics, we think about it under the heading that we see in the news or people talking about it. A good phrase catches the air, and people repeat it. But it has to have something that they can connect to.”
When it works, it can have an impact. One of the most famous examples of political marketing via catchphrase that produced a big change came from Republicans. Through repetition and smart word choice starting in the 1990s, they rebranded the estate tax levied on the upper class the “death tax.” Once rebranded, it became much easier for Republicans to scale it back, and was temporarily repealed. Scacco teaches his students about the mastermind of that rebranding, Frank Luntz.
“The idea that an estate tax is a death tax — there’s enough of a connection that people start using the catch phrase instead of the actual name for it,” Zelden said. “This is Politics 101. What you’re trying to do is to get people to think about things through your lens.”
A phrase can also be weaponized.
“Defund the police,” the call that emanated from the protests over the 2020 killing of George Floyd, a Black man, by white Minneapolis police officers, was a push by some progressive activists to take away funding from police departments.
Though the vast majority of Democrats didn’t call for reducing funding for police, the phrase was a gift to Republicans, who used it effectively against Democrats in the 2020 election. Democrats were reduced to explaining it didn’t really mean what it said, that its objective was to allow police officers to concentrate on what they are most equipped to handle, while using other government agencies to provide assistance such as mental health. By then it was too late.
Republican advantage
It’s widely agreed that Republicans are better than Democrats at coming up with the kinds of phraseology that works, and sticking to it.
“They’re better at putting a sheen on it and selling something,” Gaskill said. “Republicans have long been much better at effective marketing, with easy-to-understand, easy-to-popularize messaging. Democrats often stumble.”
Republicans are more cohesive and have better message discipline, Zelden and Scacco said.
Usually Republicans are better at offering a simple, clear, brief message, “to essentially boil down policy to very easily remembered things,” while Democrats respond with nuance and detail, Scacco said.
“Oftentimes Democratic messaging is all over the place and nuanced and lost in the weeds of detail,” he said, explaining that those aren’t the kinds of things that will capture people’s attention and aren’t as likely to get picked up by journalists who prize pithy soundbites.
“Republicans have simply been better at it in terms of simplifying policy,” Scacco said.
In the case of the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, it was LGBTQ activists and Democratic opponents who “made it very black and white in terms of its messaging,” Scacco said, while Republicans responded by telling people to read the details of the legislation.
“If you’re explaining you’re losing,” Scaddo said. “When someone like the governor is saying, ‘read the bill,’ or ‘it doesn’t say that in the bill,’ you’re explaining — one of the few [times] where the messaging has gone away from them.”
In most cases, such as the “Stop WOKE” legislation, DeSantis has an advantage because of his enormous megaphone as the state’s governor, with news coverage helping him spread his talking points, Scacco said. It’s difficult for Democrats to break through.
Legislation
The measure dealing with LGBTQ issues in schools, which passed the Florida House and Senate with the support of almost all Republicans, is formally known as the Parental Rights in Education Act.
It prohibits instruction on sexual orientation in kindergarten through grade 3 — or at any level that is deemed “not age appropriate” under state standards. It would also allow any parent to sue a school district over such matters.
There’s complete disagreement over the legislation’s intent and its effects.
Proponents said it would shield children from content they’re not ready to hear, and ensure parental primacy in decisions regarding their children. Opponents said it would stigmatize LGBTQ children or those who have two mothers or two fathers. LGBTQ youth — who attempt suicide much more often than straight children — often find empathy in teachers.
How the phrase took off
Jon Harris Maurer, the public policy director at Equality Florida, who other LGBTQ community leaders credited with coming up with the term, said it seemed obvious from the beginning.
Within two days of its introduction in January, Equality Florida issued an email blast to supporters decrying “dangerous bills” up for consideration in the state Legislature’s annual session. First on the list: “Don’t Say Gay.”
About a week later, an Equality Florida tweet about a legislative hearing on the measure caught the attention of Chasten Buttigieg, the husband of U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. Chasten Buttigieg went on to become a prominent opponent of “Don’t Say Gay” on social media and on cable television interviews.
News accounts in Florida, then national media outlets began using the shorthand, typically explaining that was what the bill was called by critics. Google Trends began showing spikes of interest, culminating in a surge of in-state and national searches for “don’t say gay” as the measure headed toward final passage in Tallahassee.
“It’s a simple, resonant message. It rhymes. It’s purely memorable in that way. And it’s short,” Scacco said.
Zelden termed it “brilliant.”
“It gets the point across very strongly,” Zelden said. “In three words it summarizes what they want people to think about the bill, about the law. And to the extent that we’re all using it, it’s been successful.”
Frustrated proponents
DeSantis is clearly riled by the phrase’s success.
When a reporter from WFLA-Ch. 8 in Tampa asked him about it, DeSantis erupted. “Does it say that in the bill? Does it say that in the bill? I’m asking you to tell me what’s in the bill because you are pushing false narratives. It doesn’t matter what the critics say,” DeSantis said, accusing the journalist of not being honest in asking the question.
The legislative sponsors chafed at the terminology as did U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, the Florida Republican up for reelection this year. “To call it ‘Don’t Say Gay,’ which is what people have done, is ridiculous,” he said in an interview with Full Circle Florida.
Christina Pushaw, the governor’s press secretary, said via email that the widespread use of the label demonstrates “progressive activists and their allies in the mainstream media pulled out all the stops to push a false narrative about this bill.”
“Regardless of political party, gender, or orientation, most people who actually read the bill (rather than the inflammatory headlines and tagline) agree with it – it’s just common sense. Let kids be kids!” Pushaw said.
The reaction from DeSantis and Pushaw shows the effectiveness of the “Don’t Say Gay” label. Politicians who have to respond to opponents’ messaging, Sacco said, “are in treacherous territory because they’re losing control of the narrative.”
Message win, legislative loss
Opponents lost the big battle over the legislation, which DeSantis is all-but-guaranteed to sign into law.
“He is a father of young children, and he will always fight for child protection and parental rights. Nobody who opposes the bill has been able to explain why it’s so important to be able to instruct young children about mature topics like transgenderism, without parental consent or knowledge,” Pushaw said.
And, she said, opponents of the legislation weren’t able to turn public sentiment against the legislation.
A Morning Consult/POLITICO nationwide poll this month showed “banning the teaching of sexual orientation and gender identity from kindergarten through third grade” was supported by 50% and opposed by 34%. A University of North Florida poll in February showed 49% of the state’s voters disapproving and 40% approving of the legislation.
Pushaw said it was “surreal” to see “the entire Florida and national media using the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ branding for a bill named ‘Parental Rights in Education,’” which she said is “misleading and inflaming” the Democratic voter base. “Stunts like this do not convince independents or conservatives, and may even backfire on Democrats by eroding trust in mainstream media.”
The only openly LGBT member of the Florida Senate, Shevrin Jones, a Miami-Dade/South Broward Democrat, rejected that analysis.
“The Republicans, they got beat at their own messaging game. And now all of a sudden they’re upset,” he said. “They’ve done it so many times to discredit the Democrats on many different instances, and all of a sudden because you lost the messaging game, all of a sudden you’re upset? Come on.”
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