Originally published at: Democrats Need To Compete In The New Media Landscape — Or Keep Paying The Price - TPM – Talking Points Memo
As always happens after a bad election loss — and is compounded when that loss is sweeping, and to the man who launched a coup against the country — the losing side is in full panic mode. I’ve seen people musing about tossing out Democratic party leadership, overhauling the language, the policies, the messaging. I’ve…
“They still depend heavily on traditional media sources that simply don’t operate the same way these right-wing PR arms do.”
Many of those sources are owned by people as transactional as Trump is too.
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I agree. Fox, X, Trump Media, Sinclair broadcasting, and many more. They dominate, propagandize, and are the only show in most towns. It’s all people hear or see in major portions of the US.
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I don’t want to be (more) negative, but isn’t this a little late?
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Yes, I think that Democrats need to go where the voters are in the media landscape and that keeps shifting.
That said, we still have a small problem. Voters need to be open to the message. The Republicans have managed to seal off a large swath of voters from that. And sometimes those voters even insist on their own reality, which Republicans and billionaires hawking their sites are willing to cater towards.
This is a tad complicated and I wonder if we might be witnessing a mass breakdown in societal communication? Any machine can be broken, any edifice torn down. If so, can we recover?
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This is spot on. And besides covering all of the media modes you mentioned, we need to be sure that our focus is also on whatever the newest media fad is - fighting the last war is always a losing battle. AOC has shown that she’s currently on top of whatever today’s fad is, as well as being able to master the older ones, and we should listen to her to see what we need to master next, while at the same time keeping our eyes open for anything she might have missed.
Given the disinformation industry that nourishes MAGA and poisons the minds of citizens in general, we also should find ways to disable, if not eliminate, that disinformation industry completely. An ill informed electorate will never lead to a well functioning democracy, and trying to fight fire with fire will only be partially successful at best. We need to put the fire out.
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@davidn @doncoolidge I think it was Pro Publica that recently showed Fox in the lead at 13% for where people get their cable or broadcast news. CNN was about half that and other MM were lesser so. Most of the news sources where social media. My son attends OSU (Oregon) and the college folks were mad as hell that Dems had little social media presence. True or not?
As for demographics, AP VoteCast surveyed 120,000 voters nationwide and came up with good graphics, e.g.,
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We need to monetize our grievance. We need to make a Democratic media machine a money-maker.
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People are wondering what we do now. Here’s what:
Nothing but praise for President Biden until his final minute in office. Then, on Day 1, let the Bitching Olympics begin!
No credit to no Republican for nothing good whatsoever. Nothing but scorn, derision and unequivical, 1,000% blame on the Rump and every other Republican, every day, for every little thing that goes wrong, everywhere.
Every time gas goes up a penny, where the hell are my half off gas prices you promised??? Every time it goes down a dime, crickets. Every woman who dies of a miscarriage was murdered by every Republican in her chain of governance. And the bitching should be competitive, diffuse and widespread. We should be one-upping each other how cleverly we can blame anything and everything on specific Republicans by name, whether it’s really their fault or not. Not just anonymously on social media and comment pages, although that’s a start. The medal winners should be going by postal mail, in writing, to elected officials’ offices, appointed officials offices, letters to the editor, shoot. Write little notes on the outsides of postage-paid, pre-approved credit card offers and mail it back. Keep it up nonstop for 2 years Olympians!
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Nice to see an image of Kamala for a change instead of the Criminal doing a pointy finger salute that’s damn close to seig heil salute
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I’ve been amazed for years at how the imbalance between the two parties media landscapes gets such little attention. Legacy media is clearly not what the leaders at the top of party apparatus think it is. If they can’t see it now, they never will. If they won’t finance a wider media system to help get our messages out to where people actually are, that’s a huge mistake. Establishing one from the ground up will take some serious money.
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Republicans have been the party of crapping in the pool and bitching about the chlorine for long enough to call it an arc of history.
Because they haven’t a single good idea between them, Republicans get power just long enough to royally foul everything up. People get sick of it and throw them out. Democrats inherit the mess and retain power just long enough to clean it up, while Republicans do nothing but bitch the whole time and stand in the way of the cleanup.
It’s infuriating! We keep giving the kids who did nothing but bitch about the chlorine for four years another chance to crap in the pool. Again! We barely got the water clear! We never got a chance to enjoy it, let alone to actually work on making it a little bit nicer.
But the pattern is so consistent, it would’ve been unprecedented if Rump had lost, having had his mess mostly cleaned up in a single term!.
No matter how much we feel like we did when the other plane hit the south tower, on Day One we need to let the Bitching Olympics begin. Every issue, every day.
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Thanks for drawing more attention to this problem that is crucial if we’re ever going to get proper control of Congress and the Presidency again. But you’re missing a few crucial points.
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Republicans have been programming immigrants to fear Dem policies with YouTube videos and radio ads for years making them believe they’re the same as the socialist dictators they fled like Mao or Maduro. We need to target immigrants in their own language and deprogram all of the immigrants because we’re losing critical ground in Florida and Texas which are becoming close to being unobtainable for us. We need to stop this magical thinking that Latinos are going to magically come around and vote for us without doing any continuous outreach or organizing.
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The reason why podcasts and YouTube videos etc have taken off as news sources among Trump voters and millions of other people. Because they’re Free/cheap and easily accessible. It’s the same reason how AM radio was able to brainwash a generation with Rush Limbaugh. Just a few ads between you and the show that’s not blocked by a Paywall.
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Maybe a dumb idea, but I have thought that Dems need to do Youtube or other videos talking about their accomplishments (maybe they already do some of that), like FDR’s Fireside Chats, explaining things to people or highlighting their accomplishments or programs. Joe might not have been good at that but Kamala or others might have been. Joe, whom I love, was too focused on getting stuff done, but didn’t talk about it afterwards. Make them fun and informative. Get your message out there every day. The Trump message was simple - Make America Great Again, even though it’s a lie. Trump = lower taxes, more oil, deportations, blah, blah. Simple messages that are easy to grasp.
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Frankly, I don’t think the Dems are capable of it.
Having the Goppers in complete and total control of the government means we aren’t the problem.
There are far too many selfish and immature fools in this country, who seem perfectly willing to burn the place down and then beg for help from the place they’ve just left a smoking crater.
The only way I can see that changing is to hit rock bottom. FDR didn’t end the Great Depression I, World War II did. I don’t know what will end the Great Depression II, I’m pretty sure it ain’t gonna be Trump or Musk or Miller or Bezos or Thiel though.
How many votes were cast in innocent ignorance, how many for other candidates, how many just didn’t bother to vote, how many voted for a perfectly inspiring and wonderful woman who could have been a great President?
More than voted for that malignant asshole, yet we all are going to suffer the consequences.
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early
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While you’re technically correct, it’s more complicated than that. FDR’s New Deal actually started a swift climb out of the Depression, but he then caved in to deficit hawks who insisted that he cut back his programs to reduce the deficit, pointing to the country’s increased prosperity as a reason it would be a safe thing to do. The country immediately fell back into depression. From which it finally fully emerged, as you note, with increased Federal war spending.
I have no illusions about being able to do anything about the disinformation industry until the Democrats regain power, if then. That may take a very long time if Trump implements much of his authoritarian plans to dismantle the government and the Constitution. It may never happen. Or it could happen in four years, when the nation is once again fed up with his incompetence, malice, personal greed, and endless lies, as it was in 2020. Here’s hoping for a Democratic control of both Houses in 2027, and a final end to Trump’s reign of terror in the 2028 election.
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Best take I’ve seen! Well put. I’m convinced that Dems’ message isn’t the problem. It’s the medium!
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All on point. But everyone keeps saying Dems expect Latinos to vote for them. I have expected Latinos to basically go 50/50 since the year 2000. In NJ they are about split regularly. I don’t think Dems still hold any illusions that Latinos are about half and half D and R. We can certainly improve our cultural outreach, however.
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Absolutely on point!
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