Strategy Memo #2: Understanding the Attention Economy

Welcome to the second Message Box Pro strategy memo. We are just two weeks into this new initiative, and the community that has been created has already blown past my wildest expectations. We have local candidates, people running grassroots organizations, and staffers and consultants of all stripes and levels. I'm so pleased to see so many of you connecting in the Message Box Pro community on Discord.

If you haven't yet joined the community, I'd encourage you to do so. If you're having technical troubles, email me at [email protected] and I'll find someone tech-savvier than me to sort it out.

Last week's memo was a primer on message development and some thoughts on what a comprehensive narrative might look like for the midterms. If you missed it, you can view the full archive at messageboxpro.com.

This week's memo is about how I think about communicating in the most difficult, chaotic, and challenging media environment in history. Political strategists and pundits are always saying that politics is a war for attention — and they're right. One reason Democrats have struggled so mightily in the Trump era is that we keep losing the attention wars.

That's true. But these folks rarely tell Democratic politicians, candidates, and communications staffers how to actually win attention. They point to AOC, Zohran Mamdani, and Barack Obama and say, "Do that." Well, whatever you think of those politicians, you have to admit they are generational communication talents. Telling people to emulate them is like showing highlights of Michael Jordan and LeBron James to someone who wants to learn how to play basketball.

One of the main reasons I wanted to start Message Box Pro was to give people practical advice on how to communicate more effectively — not just what to say, but how to make sure people actually hear it. In general, Democrats spend 90% of their time figuring out what to say and 10% figuring out how to make sure people hear it. That's a fatal error.