Culture Wars

Disinformation and grievance-based narratives are dominating politics today. Voters are being targeted with strategies designed to trigger their fears and anxieties, particularly with our audience of moderate women in rural, small-town, and suburban America. Our current focus includes attacks on LGBTQ+ rights, critical race theory, reproductive freedom, and book bans. Take a deep dive below on the current backlash to racial and gender equity, particularly in public schools, and check back for updates as we continue to take on the latest culture war issues.

Attacks on Trans and Nonbinary Youth

Research

• Our analysis of the 2022 midterm election, conducted in partnership with Mindbridge, found that attitudes towards people who are transgender was highly predictive of moderate white women’s vote choice. 
• In the fall of 2023, we tracked a dozen digital transgender attack ads to get a snapshot of what our audience was seeing. We found that over a half million moderate white women households in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Ohio were exposed to these ads in just one month. 
• Our audience is being inundated with these messages and disinformation that taps into many of the same fears—like a lack of control over their child’s education—as other culture war issues. Many moderate women do not yet have fully formed opinions about the topic, creating a real opportunity to reshape the narrative as an inoculation strategy.

Messaging Insights

Tips to consider when messaging to this audience:

• Utilize relatable parents as messengers who emphasize that you don’t have to be perfect or get it all right to treat people with respect.
• Frame treating all children well as central to the role of being a good mom to tap into compassion and in-group care. 
• Highlight personal stories of positive interactions between cis and trans children that are both gratifying and not a big deal (i.e., kids are kids!).
• Tap into values of compassion and in-group care.

Critical Race Theory

Research

• With our partners at GQR, we studied how white women are being targeted with disinformation and found that critical race theory was one of the top narratives they were seeing and finding believable. In fact, 77% of those surveyed responded to disinformation narratives on the topic as either very or somewhat believable. The messaging they are being inundated with is designed to trigger fear and it has done just that, particularly among women with sons and those residing in suburbs.
• They are concerned about a lack of control over their child’s education, fear that their kids will be made to feel guilty or be disadvantaged because of their race, and they worry that talking about racism will cause more violence.
• We then conducted audience understanding surveys to learn how our audience feels about state laws banning schools from discussing the ongoing effects of racism or discrimination in the US. Many do not yet hold strong opinions on the topic and describe being “on the fence.” These women highly value respect and honesty. Those who are more likely to oppose school bans value responsibility and equality, making it important to speak to those values in messaging.
• Many moderate white women are motivated by a desire to treat everyone equally and be “color blind”—the racial ideology that assumes the best way to end discrimination is by treating individuals as equally as possible, without regard to race, culture, or ethnicity.