JEREMY W. PETERS: Do Democrats have a messaging problem?

When Republicans lost big in the 2012 election, the party commissioned a post-mortem analysis that arrived at a blunt conclusion about the way it communicated: “The Republican Party needs to stop talking to itself,” said the report, informally known as “the autopsy.”

Critics and some prominent liberals like Ruy Teixeira, a left-of-center political scientist, have argued that Democrats are trying to explain major issues — such as inflation, crime and school curriculum — with answers that satisfy the party’s progressive base but are unpersuasive and off-putting to most other voters.

These issues are ripe for distortions and exaggeration by Republican politicians and their allies in the news media. But Teixeira says Democrats should not dismiss voters’ concerns as simply right-wing misinformation.

“An issue is not necessarily completely invalid just because Fox News mentions it,” he said.

In an interview, Teixeira said his logic applied to questions far beyond critical race theory. “I can’t tell you how many times I analyze a particular issue, saying this is a real concern,” he said. “And the first thing I hear is, ‘Hey, this is a right-wing talking point. You’re playing into the hands of the enemy.’”

Fox News is not the only institution capable of producing this kind of reaction from some on the left — it was just the one Teixeira chose to make his point as vividly as possible.

The conservative news media is full of stories that can make it sound as if the country is living through a nightmare. Rising prices and supply chain difficulties are cast as economic threats on par with the “stagflation” crisis of the 1970s, a comparison that is oversimplified because neither inflation nor unemployment is as high now. Stories of violent crime in large cities are given prominent placement and frequent airing; the same is true of coverage about the record number of migrants being apprehended at the southern border.

“If you only heard evening news sound bites, you would think all he talked about on the campaign trail was critical race theory,” Wiley said of Youngkin. “Not so. In fact, he sounded like a moderate Democrat, with the notable exception of CRT.”

Despite the dog whistling, Wiley said, the message was effective because it was empathetic. “He was saying he understood their pain,” she said.