Antonia Scatton is a political strategist, and expert in messaging and framing, with more than 25 years of experience working with and training political party committees, campaigns and advocacy organizations.
Antonia worked extensively with George Lakoff, messaging guru and author of the best-selling book Don’t Think of an Elephant, to develop practical strategies for reframing the public debate.
President, ASDC
Chair, MN DFL Party, Vice Chair, DNC
NEW PARTNERSHIPS!
I am delighted to announce a new partnership with George and Lisa Greene of the Connections Lab and the Association of State Democratic Committees with its President, Ken Martin.
We are working together to bring full-day, in-person messaging and framing workshops to the state and local leadership, staff, candidates and others in key target states, along with video training and other supporting materials.
Contact me if you are interested in learning about how to bring these workshops to your state!
ReframingAmerica.Substack.com
Most Recent
MAY 22, 2023
GOP Holds the World Hostage to Help the Mega Rich
The GOP is desperate to overturn the Biden Administration’s biggest accomplishments.
President Biden and the Democrats have done two things that the mega-corporations can’t stand: crack down on tax evasion and jumpstart the renewable energy transition. Republicans don’t have the votes to repeal them, so they are threatening to hurt people and destroy everything unless their mega-rich pals get what they want.
In the News
JAN 26, 2023
Framing the Debt Ceiling
The honor of America is at stake.
What does raising the debt limit have to do with masculinity or patriotism? To many people, “being a man” means doing what you said you were going to do. We know that this has nothing to do with gender and everything to do with integrity, but might the myths of machismo and patriotism give us a way to frame this public debate to conservative voters?
Series: What Democrats Believe
OCT 30, 2022
Part 1: What Democrats are FOR: Our Values
We need to help people see the better world we want to bring about.
If we want people to think of us as good people, we can’t just argue that our opponents are bad people. We have to express to people why we do what we do, how our policies reflect our values and beliefs, and help create a vision of a world they would want to live in.
NOV 29, 2022
Part 2: What Democrats Believe: Economies are for People
There’s no such thing as a free market.
Democrats are better on economic issues, but the myths of market fundamentalism still dominate the public debate. We have to recognize and expose these myths and give the American people a better explanation of the role our economic system plays in our society and why it can’t function without government.
DEC 19, 2022
Part 3: What is Democrats’ version of “free markets, low taxes and strong defense?”
Big themes and elevator speeches.
People know what Republicans believe in because they group all of their issue positions under a set of larger themes, primarily about what government should or shouldn’t do. We have our own beliefs. We just need to express them in terms of larger values-based themes.
JAN 4, 2023
Part 4: What Democrats Believe: The Role of Government
Grouping our policy positions into big categories.
Democrats like to talk about policies, but if we want people to understand WHY we support those policies, we have to group them into larger categories that connect them back to our bigger themes.
Most Read Issues
AUG 12, 2022
Teacher Surveillance: How to Culture War
This time, we can beat them at their own game.
APR 26, 2023
Moral Operating Systems: How Swing Voter’s Brains Work
Democrats run on BlueOS. Republicans run on RedOS. Swing voters have two phones.
AUG 29, 2022
They Light Dumpster Fires. Stop Adding Oxygen.
How to stop getting played by the Right-Wing attack machine.
MAY 6, 2022
How to Reframe the Abortion Debate, Part One: the Good Frames
How we talk about it, how we should be talking about it, and how to re-set the agenda.
FEB 8, 2023
How Republicans Attack
Deconstructing Republican message strategy
OCT 11, 2022
The Prosperity Gospel: The moral code that binds corporate and Christian America.
It’s not just a marriage of convenience.
JUL 6, 2022
We Need Supermajorities. Here’s How to Get Them.
We expand our pool of potential voters by expressing the universal values behind our issues.
What is Framing?
Framing is about using language to get people to see a particular issue from our perspective, and getting people to use our values as the criteria to judge right and wrong.
Learn more
Blueprint for a Better Party
The Blueprint is a process to build capacity, improve services to candidates, develop leadership at all levels, increase volunteer participation, develop year round community presence and voter engagement, and improve the party brand both internally and externally.
I developed this Blueprint in 2018 with the leadership of the state Democratic Party of Arizona, to be deployed through the 2020 elections. Learn more
“We need more folks like Antonia working on revolutionizing the way we campaign. If we are going to continue to pull in newer generations of voters, we must think outside the box and find new and different ways to reach the growing and ever-changing electorate.”
– Sally Boynton Brown
Executive Director, Democratic Party of Florida
President, Association of State Democratic
Executive Directors
Antonia Scatton 