Catching Up: Thirty-Nine Good Stories about Digital Politics & Advocacy
News, strategy and perspectives that define this digital-politics moment
Follow Epolitics on Substack, Bluesky, Threads, or Twitter/X. This post was also published on Epolitics.com.
Launched in 2006, Epolitics is written and edited by Colin Delany, who has helped nonprofits and political campaigns use digital tools in effective and creative ways to achieve their political, policy and organizational goals for almost three decades. He is also the author of How to Use the Internet to Change the World – and Win Elections, now in its eleventh edition, and a regular speaker and trainer. To start a conversation, contact him at cpd@epolitics.com.
Welcome, new readers! Be sure to check out my six-part 2025 digital politics training series, now live on YouTube. On with the show.
Quick Hits: September 7, 2025
Welcome to the waning days of summer! As usual, Trump’s been barraging us with so much madness that it’s hard to keep up. I’ve started at least three articles in the last couple of weeks that I’ve had to shelve because events overtook them. Fortunately, plenty of our peers have been on top of things. Let’s dive into a curated selection of excellent stories related to our digital-politics moment. More to come.
Political Ad Spending Expected to Hit Nearly $11 Billion in 2026.
Democrats spotlighting inflation as they target vulnerable House Republicans in Labor Day weekend ads. “The DCCC [was] launching the five-figure ad buy in 35 districts it says are ‘in play.’ The ads [ran] on Instagram and You Tube and [were] aimed at young men between the ages of 18 and 44”.
White House launches TikTok account with Trump saying ‘I am your voice’.
White House’s New TikTok Push Epically Backfires. Hahaha: “Less than 24 hours after the White House launched a TikTok page, its videos have been inundated with comments about the Jeffrey Epstein scandal.”
Why Everyone Should Stop Freaking Out About Gavin Newsom’s Social Media, as Team Trump Responds to Newsom Trolling With Sad Mad Men Meme.
Preposterous ICE videos have a holy war to sell you. “Religious-themed government videos portray a grim, never-ending battle between us and them.” At the same time, The Trump Administration Is Using Memes to Turn Mass Deportation Into One Big Joke.
Trump’s pick to lead BLS ran Twitter account with sexually degrading, bigoted attacks, and An Account Using the Same Name as Trump’s BLS Pick Posted Red-Pilled Conspiracy Theories.
So Far the Only Thing Trump Has Won From Russia Is More Ridicule.
Amy Klobuchar: What I Didn’t Say About Sydney Sweeney. Deepfake!
Super PAC aims to drown out AI critics in midterms, with $100M and counting.
Can AI Help Fundraisers Create Deeper Connections With Donors? Following up after Quiller.ai gets acquired.
The Single Word That Explains Why Chatbots Sound So Human. One word for you: pragmatics.
The Trump administration is trying to suppress public input. What should advocacy organizations do? Shutting down the API that helps orgs deliver rulemaking comments.
Spam PACs Raise Money by Deceiving Seniors. “One 89-year-old woman made 7,532 donations totaling $68,666.”
BREAKING: Only a $5 Gift Can Stop the Lies About Mothership! And, Bad News and Good News on the Fundraising Front.
Maine Democratic Senate Candidate Sits at Nexus of Spam PAC Network.
Chinese Hackers Pretended to Be a Top U.S. Lawmaker During Trade Talks.
When podcasts do what the legacy press won’t. “Unconventional hosts are cornering politicians in ways legacy outlets rarely attempt”.
Everyone Hates Him. Why Is His Podcast so Popular? Surprise! It’s Ted Cruz.
Stop Chasing Gimmicks: The Case for a Permanent Progressive Media Structure.
Video Briefing: How to Reach Working Class Voters Through the Platforms and Media They Use Most.
Why the Democrats’ Digital Strategy Is Doomed to Fail. “What happens when you produce content so tightly controlled? So desperate for heart emojis? It feels flat and sterile, devoid of any of the qualities that helped Zohran’s videos break through.”
We Can’t Talk to People That Way. “Professionalized language has bled into our public-facing communications and isolated us from the people we need to be reaching”.
Canvassing Giant Progressive Turnout Project Buys Into New Tech. Moving away from VAN.
The Party Outside the Party. “Understanding the Democratic PACs working around rather than in the Democratic Party”.
Rethinking Canvassing: From Knock-and-Go to Layered Organizing.
Democratic voter-registration strategies may not be working, as some traditionally Democratic voters move away from the party. C.f. Democrats Need To Get Serious About Partisan Voter Registration.
How Techno-Fascists Are Engineering Our Surrender. “They’ll target our identities, our values, our pain. And they’ll dress it up as principled resistance.”
On American exceptionalism: “America is exceptional not because God wills it so, or because it has the strongest military, or because capitalism is the best economic system on Earth (although it probably is). We are exceptional because we aspire to an ideal that we know can never be met.”
– cpd
Image by Iván Tamás from Pixabay
Thank you for your attention to this matter.