‘Put the posters in charge’: Inside the Democrats’ secret strategy to flood the internet with clips
The national party decided to take a more combative tone, and to lay off its own brand.
By January 2025, the Democratic National Committee faced a significant challenge in its digital communications strategy. The party had suffered a second loss to Donald Trump, and a new alternative media ecosystem had helped Republicans circumvent traditional gatekeepers. The DNC's online creator strategy had been limited to a single group chat with around 20 left-leaning creators, and its brand had suffered since the 2016 campaign.
At a weeklong offsite meeting, Paulina Mangubat, the head of content and creative, presented the criticisms the DNC was receiving on social media. The committee decided to adopt a more combative and personal tone, mirroring the mood of Democratic voters. They changed the Republican party logo to "pedo protectors," referencing Trump's connections to Jeffrey Epstein. The DNC also started posting more frequently, shortening the back-and-forth approval process to just 15 minutes between drafting and publishing.
The committee reoriented its internal leadership structure, empowering its online staff to make decisions with less oversight from traditional political operatives. They put the "posters in charge," as DNC senior strategist Tim Hogan put it.
To address the party's toxic brand among some audiences, the DNC relaunched its rapid response online efforts under the new brand, @FactPostNews, an account designed to look like an independent news aggregator. Researchers were hired to dig up negative material on Republicans, and the committee created a clip library.
The DNC distributed embarrassing or damaging clips of Trump or other officials to its group of unpaid influencers, who decided how to use them. This approach helped elevate the profiles of Democratic candidates like Jon Ossoff, whose campaign quickly shared produced clips from his rallies to the Signal chat. The DNC also began producing original longform content for YouTube, creating mini documentaries about farmers impacted by Trump administration decisions and chopping them up into clips for distribution across social platforms.
Written by urgent.news from Semafor's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
