Built for a Different War, Pt. 2: What it Really Means to "Go Low"
How cultural intelligence can help us make meaning in an information war
MoreRich, a campaign we launched in support of WorkMoney, used cultural intelligence to “go low” and quickly find resonance with diverse audiences.
When I wrote Built for a Different War, it struck a nerve. Some agreed, some pushed back, and others asked questions.
One came from a close friend: What does it actually mean to “go low”?
It was a challenge to get specific—to go beyond critique and define what it looks like to shift our attention and resources toward a strategy that matches the scale of the threat. So here goes.
We Are Losing the Information War—Because We Refuse to Fight It
While we debate messaging strategy and over-invest in ad testing, the White House has quietly become a content studio for the far right. According to The Washington Post, Trump’s campaign is embedding far-right influencers inside the White House, using social media to normalize Trump as king, rather than a president. Their playbook is familiar: volume, emotion, cultural relevance, always-on storytelling.
And it’s working.
They aren’t just winning elections—they’re shaping the very idea of democracy. While we polish statements no one hears, they are winning attention, reshaping narratives, and building an alternate reality that feels inevitable to millions.
The moderate and progressive left are still treating politics like a debate. The right is treating it like a power struggle—and they’re winning.
What Is Cultural Intelligence?
Cultural intelligence is the ability to understand how people make meaning, where influence lives, and how to intervene at the right moment with the right message. It’s the opposite of assuming ideas spread because they’re smart. They spread because they’re repeated, emotional, and embedded in places people already trust.
![[NewWorld x Ad Age] Why cultural intelligence is replacing traditional brand marketing](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_140,h_140,c_fill,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep,g_auto/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8f6c4a66-50d7-4b18-aa12-5211a480f59d_1284x856.png)
The right gets this. They’ve built an ecosystem—digital influencers, meme pages, fitness bros, “trad wife” bloggers, self-help gurus—that packages ideology as lifestyle, identity, and entertainment.
MAGA fitness influencers crank out sets while pushing neo-patriarchy. Mommy bloggers frame gender roles as #tradition. Black empowerment influencers fuse conspiracies with conservative talking points, framed as pride and self-determination.
This isn’t accidental. It’s strategic. A decentralized, always-on network that isn’t built for elections but ends up shaping them.
They spend less during elections because they invest between them—flooding the zone with narratives that are emotionally sticky and culturally resonant. Meanwhile, we retract dollars and lower our voices as soon as votes are cast, under-resourcing the local leaders and creative voices who can actually break through.
We’re playing the wrong game.
How People Actually Make Meaning
Persuasion isn’t about facts. It’s not about distraction either. It’s about saturation. People believe what feels familiar, what they hear from multiple sources, and what resonates emotionally.
Psychologists call this dual-process theory:
Central route: Deep engagement (reports, podcasts, essays—like this one).
Peripheral route: Quick, emotional processing (memes, music, visuals, vibes).
Both matter, but most people engage peripherally first before moving toward deeper cognitive processing. Yet, our side still treats “going low” - taking the peripheral route - as unserious, even though low-barrier engagement is what actually creates meaning and moves most people. The right understands this implicitly and structures their entire communication strategy around it. Rather than total control, ideological discipline, or even aesthetic value, we need volume, emotional resonance, and actual trust.
So What Does It Mean to “Go Low”?
To “go low” doesn’t mean abandoning our values. It means showing up where people actually are, speaking their language, and embedding meaning in the culture that surrounds them—not the one we wish existed.
It’s not just about being clever on social. It’s about listening deeply, understanding how people form meaning, and building trust at the speed of culture.
That’s how the More Rich campaign I mentioned up top was born. It was developed through qualitative and quantitative research into how diverse audiences—especially young, working-class audiences—are making decisions, forming trust, and navigating a political system they often feel excluded from. That research uncovered not just messaging preferences, but emotional realities: the desire for dignity, for a specific brand of economic freedom (not just security), and for the feeling of being truly seen and heard.
The result was a culture-first campaign rooted in real insights—not just vibes. It was designed to meet people where they are and offer something of value before making any demands. The strategy centered on connection over conversion, participation over performance.
And it worked.
The campaign reached more than half a billion people, exceeded engagement goals, and demonstrated that when we apply cultural intelligence to our work—not just in theory, but in execution—we can break through. More importantly, it showed that trust can be earned quickly when the message aligns with people’s lived experience and the messengers are those they already believe.
This is just one example of what “going low” looks like: not lowering standards, but lowering the barrier to connection—without compromising on clarity, values, or vision.
What Do We Do Now? Two Ways to Go Low
1. Move the Money
We know what works. We just don’t fund it.
Foundations and political organizations are still spending big on policy briefs and performance marketing while under-resourcing the infrastructure needed to win before the debate even starts. That means:
Research that identifies neglected but persuadable audiences;
Innovative content strategies designed to reach those audiences in surround sound;
Agnostic, always-on distribution systems inside organizations that replace the limited scope media relations and digital teams of the last era. These are especially critical in the countless moments of crisis and opportunity between election cycles. At NewWorld, we’ve designed a model to pop up war rooms designed to complement existing comms teams, giving them extra capacity and creativity to “win the Internet” on their issues, similar to the More Rich example. It’s not “always influencers”. It’s not “never advertise”. It’s having a team that can move nimbly between all of these to do what is required;
Funding incentives tied to supporting collaborations that move the conversation, rather than picking a few winners who could never do it on their own in this environment.
These models exist. The talent is out there. We need to be bold in resourcing them at an unprecedented scale.
2. Build a Political Home for Cultural Power
Cultural resonance without political infrastructure amounts to influence but not real power to shape lives. Right now, if you’re not a MAGA Republican, your political home is weakened.
Trumpism gave the GOP a coherent identity. Even weak candidates now get brand lift just by being part of MAGA. Meanwhile, Democrats have become a vibe vacuum—seen as elite, inconsistent and, according to polls, increasingly untrusted, even in “blue” states. NewWorld’s research on trust released in January showed that Gen Z respondents nationally trusted oil and gas companies more than the Democratic Party.
There are a lot of reasons for that, but the point is we have to forge another path. The Working Families Party is a great example of what it looks like to have sophisticated electoral and political strategy but pivot to a “go low” approach. They are increasingly taking the case directly to multi-racial working class voters: rooted in values and unafraid of clarity. They are building the kind of political brand that can leverage cultural demand for change that can then become an asset for the best candidates during election cycles.
If we want to win elections and have a mandate to govern in a way that really improves people’s lives, we need political formations willing and able to see, invest in, and co-opt cultural movements and moments when the rest of us create them.
When They Go Low, We Go…Lower?
Michelle Obama gave us one of the most iconic political messages of our time: When they go low, we go high. She was right in an important sense: We need to stand on our ideals.
But it also subtly reinforced a silent but deadly form of left elitism that keeps us from winning.
When they go low, we don’t only need to go high—we also need to outmatch them on their own battlefield. Keep our values—but insist on winning over people who don’t listen to podcasts, read the New York Times, or in fact, any traditional media at all. That means developing a serious aversion to being high-minded but ineffective. It means going as low as necessary to reach people, build trust, and win on a battlefield that’s already shifting beneath us.
Spring Is a Good Time for a Paradigm Shift
It’s been bleak out here, and it wasn’t just the lack of daylight saving time. But we can do this differently. We can decide we’re willing to treat meaning-making as the core terrain of politics—and invest accordingly.
Cultural intelligence isn’t a luxury. It’s the cost of power in a chaotic media environment. And the future belongs to those who know how to shape it.