Anxiety, Aspiration, and Agency

Message from the Executive Director

Why this project and why now?

Raising taxes on the rich is not only necessary—it’s popular! Yet, we continue to see a gap between this overwhelming support for making the rich pay what they owe and the appetite for policy change. This project examines that gap and seeks to answer the question: how do we get more Americans to be in our camp?

EWDi enlisted Wonder: Strategies for Good to help us discover promising messaging strategies that could move a persuadable person to support progressive tax policy and disrupt excessive wealth accumulation.

One of our key findings–and an important distinction for advocates and movement builders–is that the messages that inspire and motivate our base are not the same messages that convince persuadable Americans to join our fight. In fact, these base-building messages often alienate persuadable folks who are not already part of our base audiences.

This eye-opening research has the potential to transform the way we fight for economic justice. We invite you to dig deeper into the messaging guide and join us in bringing about a future where the majority of Americans, not only support taxing the rich, but are willing to vote and advocate for it.

The messaging guide includes an in-depth exploration of messages that work and why they work, as well as sample materials we tested. It also provides you support to craft your own messages using our messaging checklist. We hope this guide will be an actionable resource for advocates, policymakers and anyone wishing to speak in a way that resonates meaningfully with persuadable audiences. Together we can reach a future where every American has what they need to thrive.

In solidarity,
Gabriela Sandoval

Hibba Meraay

Research Lead (She/Her)