Democracy’s getting fragile.
That’s what I’ve been reading, in the news.
In the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, there’s an editorial, about “talk of a civil war.” Holy mackerel!
Now… imagine a team of PR experts is burning the midnight oil, figuring out, in these possibly perilous moments, some messaging that might save democracy and freedom. And one of the experts is tossing around words, like ‘undermining democracy,’ and ‘the assault on democracy,’ and someone else is saying… “I don’t know. Do we need a little more oomph?”
“A word like ‘attacking,’ would that do the trick? ‘Attacking democracy?’”
“We’re getting closer,” chimes in someone else, “but instead of ‘democracy,’ maybe we switch to ‘liberty,’ with a word like ‘creeping?’ Creeping up on liberty? So folks will start visualizing someone undermining democracy, as a creep?”
“I’m liking it,” says another PR expert on the team. “Have you heard, by the way, that Trump may be holding a press conference, probably at Mar-a-Lago, on the first anniversary of the Capitol riot. And he’ll probably be grousing, again, about the 2020 election?”
“Isn’t that getting kind of old?”… adds someone else.
“Okay, ‘creeping up on liberty,’ let’s get back to that… shall we give it a whirl,” asks the team’s most senior teammate.
“Why not,” others chime in, reaching a consensus.
And, then, just when the meeting is about to conclude, someone’s wondering… “When we were all kids at school, does anyone recall hearing about a Marine general, Smedley Butler? A book’s just been written about him, and I read something about the book — and the general — on Amazon.
Retrieving the information on her phone, she begins sharing with the group:
“The book is Gangsters of Capitalism, by Jonathan Katz,” she notes. “It describes, among a number of historical events, a ‘business plot’ that was aimed at FDR’s New Deal. Major General Smedley Butler ‘was the most celebrated war fighter of his time,’” she goes on to say. “He served ‘in nearly every major overseas conflict from the Spanish War of 1898 until the eve of World War II…”
“…From his first days as a 16-year-old recruit at the newly seized Guantanamo Bay, he blazed a path for empire: helping annex the Philippines and the land for the Panama Canal, leading troops in China (twice), and helping invade and occupy Nicaragua, Puerto Rico, Haiti, Mexico, and more. Yet in retirement, Butler turned into a warrior against war, imperialism, and big business, declaring: ‘I was a racketeer for capitalism.’”
Then, she shares another article, in Rolling Stone, which notes that “a coup to sideline Roosevelt was…discussed,” and General “Butler’s name was floated to lead it,” but “Smedley Butler drew a line,” and said “My interest…is maintaining a democracy.”
“Knowing something about General Butler’s stand on ‘maintaining a democracy,’ may be helpful, for all of us, on the team,” she explains.
“Good God!”… says someone else. “There was all that creeping up on liberty, back then?”
“I’m getting even more convinced those words — ‘creeping up’ and ‘creeps’ — may, very well, resonate with a lot of folks,” adds another PR messaging teammate.
Harvey Radin is former senior vice president in charge of corporate communications and media relations, Bank of America Western Region. He makes his home in Redwood City, CA.