By Rev. Donald L. Perryman, Ph.D.
The Truth Contributor
Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves. – Carl Jung
As the dust settles on local elections, where political outcomes were largely as anticipated in Lucas County, a more profound reflection demands attention from Democrats nationwide.
While stalwart figures like Marcy Kaptur hold their ground in close races and local Democratic Party politicos like Pete Gerken and Anita Lopez demonstrated their electoral reliability, the broader election results exposed the cracks in the Dem’s strategy that helped give the keys to drive democracy over the cliff to a candidate who openly expressed misogyny, racism, Stone Age patriarchy, and authoritarianism.
These cracks spotlight the Party’s urgent need for a collective self-examination, particularly regarding how it conveys its messaging in the 21st-century’s informational warfare for the mind.
Whereas the Party’s traditional political methods — door-to-door canvassing, ground-game strategies, and reliance on name recognition still hold value, they flounder to counteract the Republicans’ tidal wave of misinformation, emotionally charged rhetoric, and digital disinformation campaigns that dominate modern electoral politics.
Metaphorically speaking, the Democrats entered the 2024 elections armed with brass.
Volunteers deployed from the Dems’ extensive network of field offices in key swing states went out and passionately rang doorbells, armed primarily with clipboards. They engaged in logic-based conversations, attempting to persuade undecided voters or energize the base sincerely.
In blunt contrast, the Republicans wielded iron – where social media platforms became a battleground for voters’ minds, and echo chambers became their campaign offices. Instead, they used carefully calibrated algorithms to ensure that once Republicans engaged voters, they stayed engaged. The Republicans then fed their voters a steady diet of tailored messages to align with and confirm their pre-existing beliefs or biases, thus solidifying their allegiance.
By weaponizing tools like Facebook and Elon Musk’s Twitter (X), the Republicans exploited their base’s existing discontent to magnify perceived injustices and drive engagement using AI to elicit strong emotional reactions, provoking outrage or anxiety.
True, the Republicans used misinformation and disinformation as their primary weapon.
For example, they painted the economy as collapsing despite record-setting steady economic growth, exaggerated crime rates to stoke fear, falsely blamed inflation and renewable energy for high costs rather than massive corporate price gouging, and amplified baseless claims about election fraud and cultural threats.
These AI-driven narratives tailored to voter biases not only reinforced their supporters’ fears and deepened social and political divides but were also far more effective while requiring fewer resources than traditional Democratic outreach.
While the Democrats succeeded in maintaining high turnout among most (not all) of their loyal base in urban and suburban strongholds, they struggled to win over swing voters and other demographics like Hispanic voters and men in key battleground states. Their reliance on traditional canvassing methods couldn’t compete with the Republicans’ targeted messaging, which infiltrated voters’ daily lives and dramatically shifted voters’ perceptions.
Indeed, the outcome was as if two armies were fighting, one armed with tradition – ornate but inefficient and outmoded bronze swords that required constant care and resources despite having outlived their usefulness, the other with durable iron blades that were sharper, stronger, and more widely available.
As it stands, the 2024 election serves as a testament to Benard Ighner’s classic song “Everything Must Change,” which he wrote and performed on Quincy Jones’ best-selling 1974 album, Body Heat. Just as iron usurped brass and reshaped the ancient world, AI has begun to reshape our social and political landscape. Those who possessed iron in the transition from the Brass to the Iron Age ascended to power and dominated just as those who can master AI – for good or ill – today will dominate the future.
But as history shows, progress is rarely reversed. Once the superiority of iron over brass became transparent, societies that failed to adapt found themselves powerless, left behind, and eventually extinct.
Only through collective self-examination and a willingness to innovate and adapt to the modern era can the Democratic Party maintain its relevance and secure victories — not just in Lucas County but across the nation.
Contact Rev. Donald Perryman, PhD, at drdlperryman@enterofhopebaptist.org