Rachel Bitecofer
“We have to separate communication, politicking, the real politics, from the governing we want to do with the power, and understand that because we are in an environment where the opposition has set up a system that is about narrative and hyperbolic narrative setting, we have to do the same, and that does require that we stop sanitizing our language.”
“Straight up with no chaser—this book is a must-read for any Democratic Party official, candidate, or consultant. Rachel Bitecofer has her finger on the pulse of how Democratic Party campaigns must evolve to respond forcefully to this era of hyper-partisanship! To protect democracy and elect pro-democracy candidates, we must go on offense, and this book is the guide to do just that.”
“From her unprecedented prediction of the Democratic Party’s Blue Wave in 2018 to her insightful strategies in Hit ’Em Where It Hurts, Rachel Bitecofer hits hard against the GOP tactics of fear and anger and the Democrats’ status quo narratives around political engagement and winning elections. Democrats and Republicans who care about democracy would be wise to pay attention to her work!”
“A packet of recommendations for selling the Democrats - and Democracy - to the American public…refreshingly stuffed with strong language…Bitecofer offers commonsensical solutions to the messaging problem…Progressive political activists will want to take Bitcofer’s well-argued recommendations to heart. ”
Rachel Bitecofer is a political scientist and election forecaster turned political strategist. She is the author, with Aaron Murphy, of Hit ‘Em Where it Hurts: How to Save Democracy by Beating Republicans at Their Own Game (Crown, 2024). Her first book is The Unprecedented 2016 Presidential Election (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017). Bitecofer’s interviews and analysis have been featured by The New York Times, The Washington Post, Salon, Politico, The New Republic, Real Time with Bill Maher, CNN, MSNBC, and many other prominent news sources. She worked with Democratic Party candidates and organizations to implement negative partisanship strategy in the 2022 midterms.
She has been a lecturer at Christopher Newport University and assistant director of the Wason Center for Public Policy where she conducted polling and election forecasting. She was also a senior fellow at the Niskanen Center, a think tank in Washington, D.C
In an interview with Salon, she was asked about the power of mockery in political campaigns: “The most important thing about strategic mockery is this: In Republican world — Earth Two — there are some truths that they find to be self-evident. No. 1, the Democrats stole the election in 2020, and Joe Biden is an illegitimate president. No. 2, there was no insurrection, Trump has never committed a crime of any type and he's just an innocent guy that we've been hounding. No. 3, the COVID vaccine is the biggest scandal ever. The COVID vaccine is far more deadly than COVID itself, and anyone who got it has tainted blood — I'm not making this up! This is Republican reality. Democrats are pedophiles, Democrats support the genital mutilation of children. This is the rhetoric that has now, after 10 years of radicalization, become the mainstream platform, the reality-anchoring world of MAGA and the majority of the Republican Party.
So it's very important for people to understand that's what we're running up against. What strategic mockery means is, don't legitimate their Earth Two reality. Make fun of it! Make them seem as absolutely ridiculous as these Earth Two claims are, because there is verifiable reality, and they're not living in it. As soon as we legitimize their reality, we're losing. So right out of the gate, I'm very pleased that the House Democrats have done such a great job in their committees. We have an Oversight Committee being run by an insurrectionist, with 11 insurrectionists on the committee, pretending that they're investigating the "weaponization of government" while they weaponize government, trying to interfere in criminal prosecutions they have nothing to do with, all their other things. So we must, at all times, be mocking the premise of Earth Two claims. “
Bitecofer graduated from the University of Oregon where she earned a bachelor's degree in political science and earned her Ph.D. in political science and international affairs from the University of Georgia. In 2015. She lives in Oregon.
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