Content blaming Trump for taking food from American families is highly persuasive.
2. Argentina and the Ballroom
Amplify videos explaining that Trump doesn’t care about helping American people at home but is willing to spend $20 billion bailing out Argentina. Clips from elected representatives tested in the 80th percentile for Democratic favorability.
3. No Kings and D Electeds on Pods
No Kings was a win on engagement and persuasion for Democrats, Trump’s sh*t-posting backfired, and a recap of high-profile Democrats on recent podcasts.
SNAP and the Shutdown
As the shutdown continues, we tested content in anticipation of the looming SNAP cutoff on November 1st.
In the top-performing clip, Gov. Maura Healey (D-MA) explained that this is the first time in American history that a president has cut off food assistance to American families (+2.8ppTrump disapproval, 97th percentile, 6 million views). Creator @millennial.mia increased Trump disapproval by +2.0pp (93rd percentile, 779k views), explaining how states are fighting back against the SNAP withholding. An explainer video from @dutchdeccc broke down how much SNAP cutoffs hurt Americans across the entire economy (+1.0pp, 65th percentile, 5.5 million views).
An ad from @democrats explaining that Democrats are holding the line on the shutdown to prevent healthcare premiums from doubling while Trump and Republicans want to fund tax cuts for billionaires (+1.9pp, 93rd percentile).
An ABC clip highlighting that Trump is cutting public benefits while furloughing and firing federal workers (+1.9pp, 92nd percentile, 4.1 million views).
Trump Doesn't Care About You: Argentina and the Ballroom
Comparison: Engagement Trends by Topic: Argentina vs. Trump Ballroom. Chart courtesy of Resonate.
Argentina
Democratic content framing Trump’s $20 billion bailout of Argentina as a betrayal of the American people had an average effect in the 74th percentile for Trump disapproval.
In the most persuasive video on Argentina, a Trump supporter criticizing the bailout as a bribe to a friend, and contrasting the foreign bailout with domestic stimulus payments from Obama, Biden, and Bush, moved Trump disapproval by +2.2pp (95th percentile, 1 million views).
In another persuasive clip, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries emphasized that Trump is choosing to spend billions bailing out Argentina instead of extending ACA tax credits for more than 20 million Americans (+1.8pp, 91st percentile, 11k views).
Commenting on the shutdown, Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) noted that Trump and Republicans have enough money to bail out Argentina, fund Kristi Noem’s $173 million jets, and demolish the White House, but not enough money for “you,” the American people (+1.3pp, 75th percentile, 3.8 million views).
The clips from Jeffries and Schatz also had effects above the 80thpercentile for Democratic favorability.
Other persuasive content on the Argentina bailout included:
The Trump Administration has officially demolished the East Wing of the White House to make room for a big, “beautiful,” ballroom.
The best-performing post in our testing on Trump disapproval and Democratic favorability was from creator @pissedoffbartend3r, contrasting the construction of the ballroom with the cost of living crisis for regular Americans (+1.7pp, 89th percentile for Trump disapproval and +1.6pp, 95th percentile for Democratic favorability).
Other posts tested about the ballroom performed at or below the median on Trump disapproval and Democratic favorability.
Criticism of Trump’s Argentina bailout drove Trump disapproval but generated fewer engagements than other topics. Per Resonate, in the last week, left-leaning posts on Trump’s ballroom received 36 million engagements, with an average +0.9pp effect on Trump disapproval among tested posts, while left-leaning posts on Argentina received 21 million engagements (+1.3pp average effect).This is a great opportunity to amplify videos explaining that Trump cares more about bailing out Argentina than helping the American people.
No Kings, Podcasts, and more!
The nationwide No Kings Protests drew an estimated 7 million people on October 18th, and according to Resonate, the protests drew significant engagement online, earning 63.3 million engagements, the most of any topic that weekend.
The official @Democrats TikTok account posted a montage of the protests set to Beyoncé and Dolly Parton’s “TYRANT”, and despite not being very specific, the post was persuasive on Trump disapproval (+1.5pp, 81st percentile, 2 million views).
The Daily Show made fun of Trump sending troops to Portland the week leading up to the protests, going mega-viral (34 million views on TikTok alone) and increasing Trump disapproval by +1.0pp (64th percentile) and Democratic favorability by +1.3pp (81st percentile).
President Trump’s Truth Social account posted an AI-generated video of himself flying a fighter jet above the protests. This video of Trump’s plane backfiring backfired, increasing Trump disapproval by +0.8pp; the post has 21.2 million views on the Daily Mail’s TikTok repost, higher than 99% of posts from the high-view Daily Mail account.
Several clips of high-profile Democrats on podcasts were viewed widely in the past week:
Gavin Newsom talked about the gutting of the Voting Rights Act on All The Smoke and implored Democrats to do more. While the clip didn’t dent Trump disapproval, it increased Democratic favorability by +1.1pp (69th percentile, 1.8m views).
The RNC clipped Bernie Sanders’ saying, “Trump did a better job. I don’t like Trump, but we should have a secure border. It ain’t that hard to do. Biden didn't do it.” on Tim Dillon’s podcast, getting 9.3 million “views” across posts on X, which increased Trump Disapproval (-0.9pp).
As the high cost of living continues to make life harder for Americans, there has been a consistent pattern online of popular videos complaining about grocery store prices:
This week, creator @helloamericasup toured a grocery store’s meat section, increasing Democratic favorability by +1.5pp (93rd percentile, 36k views), but did not affect Trump disapproval.
Previously, Doppler has reported that TikTok user @thehatlady talking about the price of ground meat (270k views) increased Trump disapproval by +1.6pp (85th percentile) and Democratic favorability by +1.3pp (85th percentile).
A nostalgia-themed nonpartisan GenAI TikTok comparing prices in 2000 to today (1.2m views) increased Trump disapproval by +0.6pp (44th percentile) and Democratic favorability by +0.9pp (70th percentile).
Thanks as always for reading this week. We are focused on understanding what messages work best in order to fight back against the Trump Administration’s agenda and arm policy advocates with the tools they need for these urgent battles. More to come!
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Best,
Team Doppler
Ben Bortner, Gaurav Shirole, Lilah Penner Brown, and Thomas Brennan
Future Forward USA Action, 611 Pennsylvania Avenue SE, #143, Washington, DC
