Honestly AOC and Crockett should be in charge of social media. They are very good at refuting the GQP lies with facts and not just that; how they are hurting even the GQP crowds. Medicare and SS are hot buttons for seniors. USAID is hitting farmers. Immigrants do jobs that Muricans won’t do and the ramifications of how food costs will rise not just from agricultural labor but restaurants as well. (People LURVE their fast food!)
We need to step up our game or we face a very bleak situation in the US and abroad. Get that info out INTERNATIONALLY TOO.
"Captain Chaos"? Seriously? Butters's supervillain alter-ego from South Park? I know that's "Professor Chaos" but it's the only visual that springs to mind.
The “get the f off twitter” plan would be better. And it should include every online platform that cannot maintain the same standards of behavior and content that we take for granted in the physical world. There is no percentage in combatting trolls and jerks online in any way other than by boycotting platforms that welcome them. This is because bullshit is infinite, valuable content is not, and the internet makes the theoretically infinite nature of bullshit close enough to a practical reality. It is clear enough that people cannot sort out bullshit on their own and if exposed to it will be bamboozled. It is also clear that these platforms cannot succeed without “our” patronage. So, boycotting platforms that welcome nonsense seems like the best strategy. I left gmail and google maps last week. It did not hurt that much.
We shouldn't forget or discount "Conservative" radio. There are stations - multiple in some places - that spend all day trashing Democrats and extolling the Right (hate this name. Usually just type RW because they are not "right"). People who drive to work - that's a lot of the country - listen to this. When I was in Cincinnati I took an Uber to where I was going. Driver had on a station that trashed Democrats. When the station went to a commercial, he switched to another that did the same. The Democrats don't have this. And even if they did - and this works for all media - Dems would push positive messages, which doesn't work the same as the negative disinformation. What so many people believe is completely untethered from reality, thanks to decades of brainwashing. Saying something first, saying it loudest, means something to too many.
Air America was objectively worse than conservative talk radio. I think you need to acknowledge your enemies’ strengths if you wish to compete against them. Limbaugh was a great broadcaster -- just evil, of course. Whenever listened to Air America while in a cab, I was put off by the snideness.
Yep—the fact that a venture was done poorly dies not mean it couldn’t have been done differently and successfully! Look at how successful right wing media manages to prosper, and adjust for your core audience.
Ok, we don’t like Rogan—but acknowledge he’s very successful and has a huge reach. Ask what he’s doing right and whether we can do the same (and no it’s not “he does bigotry and we don’t want that, so call it all off—that’s another cop out).
I should add also that a lot of the liberal communication challenges reminds me of the struggles with marketing in the performing arts. There is a tendency to be stuck in the 1990s frame of “great review in the local paper from noted critic” even though that’s just not how people make choices about seeing performances anymore, especially younger audiences. There is a clear aversion to reaching out to the online influencers -- even though they might objectively have a bigger audience than the local paper.
I’ve come to see the issue with Rogan as reflective of the Democrats’ shrinking tent. Believe me, guys like Rogan have voted for Democrats in the past (Bill Clinton, Obama). There were very obvious reasons why BC or Obama would appeal more to them than a Romney or even McCain.
Instead, we have insisted for the past decade that guys like that suck. They’re just the “bros.”
I’m not the math whiz my son is but I do get basic numbers. We can’t survive as a party that is viewed as hostile to men (and don’t respond that “most Black men and Latino men vote Democrat” -- not only is that number *decreasing* and among *younger* men, a worrying trend, we are a *minority.*)
I felt like 2024 should’ve been the wakeup call as we couldn’t defeat a toxic male ticket. I’d hoped that enough women would break from the GOP to counteract any gains among men but that didn’t happen.
Yep—and we’re also not making up that deficit with women voters, not by enough. Clearly a lot of them (particularly non-college, older, etc) are sticking with the toxic make ticket despite what Democrats call their best efforts. There’s a large swath of voters (not just white, not just male) that we’re missing and we can’t write it off to bigotry. Our message just isn’t resonating.
I wonder if people are thinking about the fact that social media reach is also governed by algorithms juiced for rightwing engagement?
Also I need to point out that social media is only one (important yes) component of the rightwing media human centipede. And of course all that reach takes a lot of money. It's not just that they can post a lot. It's that the posts are legitimized through legacy media. It's also that there are numerous affinity networks for rightwingers. There really is none for liberals because this costs money.
The rightwing media empire is funded by pocket change by billionaires. You have to consider this too when talking about diminished reach for Dems.
We had one of the most terminally online campaigns ever for Democrats in the Harris/Walz effort. But not only did we not get reach (also because Dems themselves don't share the shit), there's also the freelancing that comes in with the Democrats (because Democrats are elected in different environments and what plays in South Dakota doesn't play in safe districts in the Bronx). There's also the fact that we are outnumbered 30-1 with influencers.
I am heartened that I'm seeing more Democrats do things like get on to Brian Tyler Cohen's show. Saw several interviews of Dems with him and I think that's great. They need to do MORE of that.
But also please don't diminish the fact that a lot of people are wanting to believe fanfiction. There are a LOT of people out there who aren't inhabiting reality, and there are consequences when Democrats are even *accused* of lying. I remember what happened when Democrats were sounding the alarm about Project 2025.
All of this has been warned about and people didn't want to listen. It's kinda like truth doesn't matter.
This. That isn't intended to rebut the original post, which I could not possibly agree with more, but people also have to realize that Dems are stepping into an uneven playing field. And a lot of the reason is money, not talent. Trump is genuinely talented as an entertainer, but no one else in the Republican Party is.
Thank you for pointing out that Trump, is in fact, a good entertainer. Whenever I mention his charisma people look at me like I've got an extra head. What they don't understand is that he's got the charisma of a carnival barker or a wrestling tout. It's not highbrow suave like Cary Grant. It's pure old-school showmanship, and Barnum was right.
100%. I've been saying that since 2015. Like it or not, Cheeto knows how to work a crowd.
It's also how I knew Ron DeSantis' presidential bid was doomed from the start. That guy is a black hole of charisma. Same with VP Couchfucker, that's why his pissy "jokes" never land.
Material Safety Data Sheets are funnier than Jizzy Divan. Every time this guy makes a "joke" flowers wilt. You can hear the souls of rats die. He makes Mike Huckabee look like Richard fucking Pryor.
He is definitely a racist carnival barker, and that's why he did so well with the scuzzy WWE. He knows how to play for an audience. And he has the sway of millions of very terrible people.
I wanna piggyback on this because THIS is also something I think is a critical thing Democrats need to change, and in my opinion it doesn't get enough attention. I've said this several times before but I'll say it again:
One of the major ways the Democratic Party hobbles itself is that it demands that the party leader or candidate convey ALL of the party's message AND ideology AND legislative goals. This is also part of Murc's Law where only Democrats have accountability...and also Democrats are responsible to enact promises made by OTHER politicians or candidates.
This is not a feature of the Republican Party even as it has an effective top-down structure. The two parties are structured entirely differently.
But I digress: President Klan Robe isn't the intellectual leader of the Republican Party; he can't be. He doesn't articulate clear visions as far as policy; he barfs out sadopopulist shibboleths. You can easily post-turtle him into a tantrum just by sustained followups (but that doesn't get you lucrative anti-Democratic clicks.) His rambling, batshit soliloquys aren't even consistent from performance to performance, nor is there any coherent principle except for hurting a vulnerable minority. President Klan Robe is just the carnival barker to get the cultist butts in the seats. None of the other post turtles they have for politicians can do this because yes, Klan Robe is a gifted entertainer. He knows how to play to a camera. But it's important that he is also protected from consequence for the shit he says because it is in the financial interest of media owners to sanewash and give him a pass. You know, "grade on a curve" as Brian Tyler Cohen says.
In addition, rightwing/fascist NGOs write their model legislation. This is a critical difference between the parties as you need a whole different set of skills to be a Democratic politician.
Think about why you see so many Know-nothing influencers on the Republican side; that's because their work is already done for them. To be elected as a Democrat you have to have actual receipts in governance. You have to have actual skills in legislation. Take Jasmine Crockett for example. Jasmine Crockett is KILLER on the media and she has a real down-to-earth style (and is great at code-switching). But what isn't getting attention is that Jasmine Crockett is an actual real lawyer, AND is a great legislator too. And this is true of a lot of folks on the Dem side.
But the job is harder because there isn't a billionaire-funded influence network ala Heritage or ALEC to write model legislation, and Democrats also do not have the top-down structure to dictate that "You all must vote this legislation or else." People shit on Schumer and Pelosi a lot but they got great legislation shepherded through a numerically worse Congress than the Obama years. (And I am old enough to remember the HELL we went through just to get Obamacare.)
Nevertheless we need to change the structure somehow where we are not demanding the candidate also be the ideological communicator of the entire party.
Exactly. You can't sell something to people that they don't want. Apparently they wanted fascism. Or at least thought they did. Or didn't know what they wanted but were more attracted to the big explosions and the big talk. Democrats would have to start lying more and creating their own Conspiracy theory network to get that kind of person's attention. But that's antithetical to our principles. I don't know what the answer is
It's going to take the money people digging deep and we have to claw things back in the trenches where there are reachable people. The problem is some of the "reachable" people believe fanfiction about the Democrats, that's aligned with their principles.
This is kinda like those people who claim "Democrats spent more time worrying about pronouns than groceries," when that wasn't even true. A number of people are kinda dancing around the point that there's maybe a very large bigot component that was amenable to rightwing fanfiction. There were several people in my Substack mentions claiming that Democrats need to cut trans people loose, for example. (My response to them is we leave nobody behind because we're Democrats, and we protect people who are trying to just live their lives, fuck off.)
My thing is we have to get ready for that revelation because it changes a lot of stuff. I have even maintained that this may be a case of how post-Taney Court we had to wait generations for the American electorate to upgrade.
I'm on a non-profit board and our constituency is LGBTQ youth. I cannot get the ED to use a platform other than Facebook to promote our events and work. Facebook! In 2025! No one under 40 is there, and certainly not the kids we need to reach. It drives me crazy.
But also the Harris campaign tried to get her on shows like Hot Wings and were rebuffed because they didn't want to get political. I believe Rogan himself declined to book her under the same circumstances that he booked Trump, no? Part of the challenge is that there isn't currently something comparable to Joe Rogan on the left, a place where people go for apolitical content but that is also left-coded and willing to platform and endorse Democrats.
People need to hound Brian Tyler Cohen to get Chorus Media up and running. It's a start. But we need more of those. And those so-called lefty billionaires need to dig deep and get started too. If it is profitable to get lefty media going let's show it unless they're also gunshy about Air America and Current.
ETA: This also was another way that Howard Stern, of all people, had the most integrity and had Joe Biden on I think (I don't recall if he interviewed Harris too).
Democratic leadership thinks because MAGA hates smart communicators like Kamala, AOC, Katie Porter, Bernie, Secretary Mayor Pete, and the brilliant Jasmine Crockett, they must be sidelined. They think the solution is to bring out the boring, off putting stiffs like Schumer, Booker, and Jeffries.
The actual reason MAGA hates our smart communicators is because they FEAR them. MAGA knows they can't compete with their ability to win over voters. Now if we could get the Democrats to stop smothering our best communicators we might have a chance.
But our best communicators are already out there communicating. I don't really see the fossil set putting a damper on any of that. It's just that the minority leaders in the house and Senate need to be someone different than Schumer and Jefferies. The people in the top positions within the Democratic Party need to be better communicators.And how do you get around the algorithms that give people what they want to hear instead of what they need to hear? It's also disheartening
Democratic party leaders (Pelosi, Schumer) actively work against promoting younger Democrats to leadership roles. AOC asked to be ranking leader of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Pelosi, through her sock puppet Jeffries, blocked that appointment and made sure Gerry Connally got the leadership role instead - he's the guy doing such an awesome job in the video SER linked above. The poor old guy, who is a decent person (but a shitty communicator) is also dealing with terminal cancer. So I don't want to add to his burdens, or pile on.
Politicians are all egomaniacs, some much worse than others. It's why they just can't imagine another person doing the job they are doing. The gerontocracy cling like grim death to all the leadership positions and stand in the way of younger, stronger Democrats who aren't afraid to speak up and speak out.
Some of these folks are able to speak up and speak out too because they're in safe districts. Because there were very good people taken out too (such as Sherrod Brown). I guess since Connolly has terminal cancer, the problem of him being Old is going to sort itself out. And, well, if folks want to primary Jeffries and Pelosi, now's the time to do it.
Democratic voters need to be consistent with the message, "No more old or people with health issues in leadership! Or in office! The old people are our problem, we need young people only." With Democrats in the nadir of their power, this is also the time to do it. One can even leverage the right wing media human centipede to do it, just like how Democrats shoved Joe Biden on an ice floe. The others should be easier.
They can definitely compete though because all of the things they were saying before the election they're saying now, and America decided to punch them in the face. I think the problem was Democrats weren't cosigning their fantasy of "rabid caravans coming to kill you" or "Haitians are eating the dogs and cats" or "Teachers can trans your kids" or "The Green New Deal banned meat." Oh yeah one of the biggest ones: "Klan Robe has nothing to do with Project 2025, Democrats are just lying and exaggerating." All for their privilege and sometimes even clout.
It seemed to me that Kamala and Tim came out of the gate saying all the right things. I loved it when Kamala said, as a former prosecutor, and AG, she knew people just like Trump, and had put them in jail where they belonged (paraphrased).
Then all of a sudden the Third Way/David Plough/only-Republican-votes-matter-so-don't-try-to-appeal-to-liberals campaign managers took over and started watering down the message. All of a sudden Kamala couldn't run on her own merit, she had to run as Joe Biden in heels. It made no sense. Joe Biden was headed for a landslide defeat, so why did David Plough, et al, insist she run as him? I know she was his VP and couldn't undermine his policies, but when asked how her administration would be different from Biden's, she said it wouldn't. That statement alone was enough to cost her the election. Now, I don't believe she said that because she meant it. That was pure David Plough bullshit message management.
MAGA did spew all the crap you mentioned. But, once Plough started diluting the message and forbidding any substantive pushback, it conceded the race and hindered two solid campaigners, who both had excellent communication skills from communicating the facts.
They did say the right things but there is no message if people aren't inhabiting reality and want to believe something else!
Also the other issue is...is Kamala Harris needing to say that all the policy Joe Biden (and she) shepherded is for naught? "Never mind, it's bad, Joe Biden sucks!" That would be a self-own!
If she were to lie and say it were different, what would she even realistically change? We got life-changing legislation out of that admin. I think that was unwinnable. And again Kamala Harris, unlike President Klan Robe, would be facing accountability for her positions. That's something that only happens to Democrats.
I don't doubt that Plouffe had some effect, but I also think that people knew what was on the table. I didn't even watch legacy media and I knew the score; I get my news through alternative means. I believe people just needed a plausible reason to vote for their privilege, or they thought it was too far to have a Black woman as President.
Thank you for your thoughtful response. I agree that Kamala didn't need to say Joe Biden sucks. But, I hoped she would distinguish her support for reproductive rights from Biden's squeamish refusal to even say the word abortion. Biden did nothing whatsoever to support abortion rights. I think Kamala had a strong plan to address Dobbs, but she was discouraged from articulating that plan, in deference to Biden. I also believe the decision to exclude, what would have been a mild pro-Palestinian voice at the convention (also in deference to Biden's rabid support for Netanyahu), was a huge self own.
I understand you support Biden, and believe he should have been the candidate in 2024. I usually agree fully with your comments, and respect your singular POV. But, I respectfully disagree re: Biden. Not because I hate old people (hell, I'm an Old), but because, in my opinion, his age related infirmities made him completely unfit for the job.
Biden’s approval rating was abysmal. The best chance Democrats had was to run away from him, represent true change. If Harris couldn’t realistically do that as his VP, then that was the argument for not having her as the nominee, fair or not.
It was just a bizarre logic loop: “Biden is very unpopular but his VP is the only who can run and she can’t dare distance herself from the administration and so on.”
I mean political science is itself in a bizarre logic loop and that ain't on the Democrats. Logic would say that you can't win if you throw away your vice presidential running mate or have your supporters try to lynch him. Logic would say that having good metrics would be great.
Kamala Harris ended up with a higher favorability rate than President Klan Robe, that was another thing - we were all told about how favorability is very important. It isn't.
Logic says, if Biden has to be knocked out in a bad debate, President Klan Robe should've been ended with Kamala Harris vivisecting him in their debate. Klan Robe hasn't even been close to coherent since.
Logic says if Being Old is Bad, that should mean President Klan Robe should be on the ropes. No, he has a high approval rate now because Americans cosign this ruin. They think they're going to just have the minorities they hate hurt.
Logic says you can't win as a politician if you're a 34-count convicted felon. You can't even get a job in most places with a rap sheet like that.
Logic says you can't threaten to torment entire states and hold back disaster aid because of who they voted for as a President. But there is Murc's Law for you...only Democrats have political agency. And worse yet, as I said before, Democratic campaigns have to be perfect. Republicans only need excuses; all the institutional (and media) deference does the rest.
Biden got shoved on an ice floe because Democrats don't protect their own, and there's all kinds of bad faith actors in the party who want to be the top dog. Sandbagging Biden was the way. Because all the shit that made Biden unpopular was ginned up and Dems fell for it. And now that's the model going forward to break the back of any of the new faves coming forward.
If Dems want to just lay it all at Biden's (or any other Old's) fine. Let's see what happens when this same bit of manufactured outrage destroys the next one. We know that person will have to be 'young and hip,' and frankly I'm all in for AOC 2028. My red line is no more talented Black women being shoved off a glass cliff. Because I know at least more people are willing to stick up for AOC than they are for Kamala Harris.
Thank you. But, come on. Biden is hardly on an ice floe. He will live out his life in comfort few of us can even imagine, let alone experience. I admit to being appalled when Biden announced he was running for a second term. He should never have done that, which would have allowed for an open primary, which, IMO, Kamala would have won, running away. And we are 100% on the same page about not collectively shoving talented, brilliant Black women off the glass cliff. It fills me with shame, despite my personal (misguided) hope that THIS time it will be different. I now know it will never be different in this ugly, evil country.
Biden showed so many frightening, live examples of age related infirmities throughout his time in office. So did Trump, who was always an idiot, but his galloping dementia only made things worse. MAGA doesn't care because he a useful idiot for all the worst people on the planet.
As a (now retired) provider, Biden's decline was obvious to me. I know you disagree, and I respect your opinion. Bernie Sanders is also Old. But the difference between Bernie and Biden is undeniable. I don't support putting everyone who isn't young and hip on an ice floe. But I don't support denying younger, stronger - or even older, stronger candidates an opportunity to lead.
Biden's enthusiastic "Welcome home!" greeting to Trump on Inauguration day was a clear indication of senile dementia. Having cared for aging family members who blurted out inappropriate greetings, which were completely out of character for their pre-dementia behavior, I recognized it right away. I know he is a very wealthy man, surrounded by people who love him, and will ensure that his declining years will be safe and peaceful. Unfortunately, as we enter the extreme terror and misery of the #MumpJunta, most of us will not enjoy that same security.
Thanks, Stephen. I think this is the most important lesson Democrats need desperately to learn, and SOON, before it’s too late. The Democratic party already has one foot in the grave. It’s not very far behind the Republican party in devolving into irrelevancy.
It’s the age-old communication adage of “show, don’t tell,” and also the cliché that a picture’s worth a thousand words. Mediagenic celebs and politicians understand this, and who wouldn’t rather look at (and thus listen to) AOC than Gerry Connolly? As a rapidly-aging Boomer, I don’t need anymore tiresome platitudes from milquetoast geriatric career politicians who are even older than I am. Thank you for your service, Dem dinosaurs, now GTFO of the way already and trust that young ‘uns like AOC, Jasmine Crockett, and a handful of others to know how to do this better than you do now.
Democrats have to realize that even in politics the viewer wants to be entertained. Trump did this in 2016, and dominated his party opposition. But Dems were so turned off by Trump that they didn’t realize his tactics worked, and can be used by a non-bigoted dipshit traitor as well.
Fire the political consultants and hire comedy writers, use advisers from advertising and entertainment, figure out how to sound like a normal person and not some focus grouped robot. If you can’t do that, because you’re too odd, outsource messaging to someone who can.
And there is definitely demand for liberal media—a smart entrepreneur (even a politically agnostic one) may eventually see this and profit from it.
Yeah like the White House did the right thing for example back then by hiring the shitposter who ran the NJ state feed. More of that definitely.
Probably actually need to start hiring pro-Dem influencers (in fact the ones who freelance and critics of them claim they're getting paid by the Democrats anyway). At this point YOLO.
I'd like to see the alleged liberal billionaires pony up for this. Because we know the system on the rightwing is funded by billionaire pocket change. That is definitely the way forward, though I say an important caveat: if there are people who are not inhabiting reality, our truthful message isn't going to work.
It’s not even a matter of charity—if an entrepreneur believes there’s a demand for it, they’ll fill it just to get rich off of it. Murdoch is a right winger but he also invested in right wing media because it makes him rich. Fox News isn’t his charity case.
This is a thing I wonder though, considering efforts like Air America. Is the problem just innate to liberalism, because liberalism in the USA feels inherently decentralized. You can easily have a top-down message in a conservative environment because the base concept is "no." It's always easier to say we SHOULDN'T do something, rather than we SHOULD, which is one of the other reasons that it's significantly harder to advance liberal/progressive legislation.
And indeed we'd done so even in a numerically shitty Congress early in Biden's administration.
Nevertheless, where does their profit come from? I feel like Murdoch also gets a lot of profit because cable companies bundle Faux News Entertainment and the like by default.
I think the profit comes so long as you have big viewership—whether ads, subscriptions, cable fees—if its popular, it’ll make profits.
How exactly to make it is the tricky part—if it’s entertaining enough to pull viewers, if it can appeal to its audience, it’s fine. Air America clearly didn’t do that, nor (on the other side) did Fox News’s Half Hour News Hour. It may take some false starts to get it right. But then that’s what media professionals do every day.
Hell I'd like to see AOC, Jasmine Crockett, Eric Swalwell and Tim Walz have shows for starters. Jared Moskowitz too probably.
I do think there is a slight difference because Faux didn't need to have Half Hour News Hour as their mainline news was the perfect fanfiction anyway. The whole shebang of Air America I guess ended up flawed.
Then we also have to worry about the common thing of lefties losing the plot and breaking shit. I think of Ed Schultz and Peter Daou as examples.
This 64 year old retired woman understands that. Why don't elected Dems? There are exceptions, but they aren't in leadership positions, because Dem leaders are stuck in 1985, or maybe it's 1975. AOC clearly is good at 21st century communication; she reminds me of what I have read about FDR and his Fireside Chats during the darkest days of the Great Depression. He used the new technology of the radio to reach the nation and to sell his New Deal.
Tim Walz even did this too. We had a lot of great video hits during the campaign too. But if you don't have people inhabiting reality there's no countermeasure to that. We're trying to engage with people in reality.
I still love how Walz's nice spots with the truck (about Project 2025) came across. That was effective stuff! I also love the great message in Kamala Harris' ads. But people gotta share them all and people need to also not prioritize their own goals I suppose.
That was such a great moment (and wasn't that also the video where he went "Who's this jerkwad?" about Tony Hinchcliffe?). Tim Walz was a god-tier VP pick and his policy was and is unapologetically progressive. I rather wonder if he'll run for Senate since he is termed out as governor and Tina Smith is retiring.
They damn well better.
Honestly AOC and Crockett should be in charge of social media. They are very good at refuting the GQP lies with facts and not just that; how they are hurting even the GQP crowds. Medicare and SS are hot buttons for seniors. USAID is hitting farmers. Immigrants do jobs that Muricans won’t do and the ramifications of how food costs will rise not just from agricultural labor but restaurants as well. (People LURVE their fast food!)
We need to step up our game or we face a very bleak situation in the US and abroad. Get that info out INTERNATIONALLY TOO.
"Captain Chaos" was Dom DeLuise's character in the Cannonball Run films. Great topical reference, Rep. Jeffries!
"Captain Chaos"? Seriously? Butters's supervillain alter-ego from South Park? I know that's "Professor Chaos" but it's the only visual that springs to mind.
The “get the f off twitter” plan would be better. And it should include every online platform that cannot maintain the same standards of behavior and content that we take for granted in the physical world. There is no percentage in combatting trolls and jerks online in any way other than by boycotting platforms that welcome them. This is because bullshit is infinite, valuable content is not, and the internet makes the theoretically infinite nature of bullshit close enough to a practical reality. It is clear enough that people cannot sort out bullshit on their own and if exposed to it will be bamboozled. It is also clear that these platforms cannot succeed without “our” patronage. So, boycotting platforms that welcome nonsense seems like the best strategy. I left gmail and google maps last week. It did not hurt that much.
We shouldn't forget or discount "Conservative" radio. There are stations - multiple in some places - that spend all day trashing Democrats and extolling the Right (hate this name. Usually just type RW because they are not "right"). People who drive to work - that's a lot of the country - listen to this. When I was in Cincinnati I took an Uber to where I was going. Driver had on a station that trashed Democrats. When the station went to a commercial, he switched to another that did the same. The Democrats don't have this. And even if they did - and this works for all media - Dems would push positive messages, which doesn't work the same as the negative disinformation. What so many people believe is completely untethered from reality, thanks to decades of brainwashing. Saying something first, saying it loudest, means something to too many.
Cue the people who say “we tried Air America 20 years ago and it didn’t work so let’s just give up on the medium entirely.”
Air America was objectively worse than conservative talk radio. I think you need to acknowledge your enemies’ strengths if you wish to compete against them. Limbaugh was a great broadcaster -- just evil, of course. Whenever listened to Air America while in a cab, I was put off by the snideness.
Yep—the fact that a venture was done poorly dies not mean it couldn’t have been done differently and successfully! Look at how successful right wing media manages to prosper, and adjust for your core audience.
Ok, we don’t like Rogan—but acknowledge he’s very successful and has a huge reach. Ask what he’s doing right and whether we can do the same (and no it’s not “he does bigotry and we don’t want that, so call it all off—that’s another cop out).
I should add also that a lot of the liberal communication challenges reminds me of the struggles with marketing in the performing arts. There is a tendency to be stuck in the 1990s frame of “great review in the local paper from noted critic” even though that’s just not how people make choices about seeing performances anymore, especially younger audiences. There is a clear aversion to reaching out to the online influencers -- even though they might objectively have a bigger audience than the local paper.
I’ve come to see the issue with Rogan as reflective of the Democrats’ shrinking tent. Believe me, guys like Rogan have voted for Democrats in the past (Bill Clinton, Obama). There were very obvious reasons why BC or Obama would appeal more to them than a Romney or even McCain.
Instead, we have insisted for the past decade that guys like that suck. They’re just the “bros.”
I’m not the math whiz my son is but I do get basic numbers. We can’t survive as a party that is viewed as hostile to men (and don’t respond that “most Black men and Latino men vote Democrat” -- not only is that number *decreasing* and among *younger* men, a worrying trend, we are a *minority.*)
I felt like 2024 should’ve been the wakeup call as we couldn’t defeat a toxic male ticket. I’d hoped that enough women would break from the GOP to counteract any gains among men but that didn’t happen.
Yep—and we’re also not making up that deficit with women voters, not by enough. Clearly a lot of them (particularly non-college, older, etc) are sticking with the toxic make ticket despite what Democrats call their best efforts. There’s a large swath of voters (not just white, not just male) that we’re missing and we can’t write it off to bigotry. Our message just isn’t resonating.
Yeah, there is a direct link to talk radio and losing rural areas.
I wonder if people are thinking about the fact that social media reach is also governed by algorithms juiced for rightwing engagement?
Also I need to point out that social media is only one (important yes) component of the rightwing media human centipede. And of course all that reach takes a lot of money. It's not just that they can post a lot. It's that the posts are legitimized through legacy media. It's also that there are numerous affinity networks for rightwingers. There really is none for liberals because this costs money.
The rightwing media empire is funded by pocket change by billionaires. You have to consider this too when talking about diminished reach for Dems.
We had one of the most terminally online campaigns ever for Democrats in the Harris/Walz effort. But not only did we not get reach (also because Dems themselves don't share the shit), there's also the freelancing that comes in with the Democrats (because Democrats are elected in different environments and what plays in South Dakota doesn't play in safe districts in the Bronx). There's also the fact that we are outnumbered 30-1 with influencers.
I am heartened that I'm seeing more Democrats do things like get on to Brian Tyler Cohen's show. Saw several interviews of Dems with him and I think that's great. They need to do MORE of that.
But also please don't diminish the fact that a lot of people are wanting to believe fanfiction. There are a LOT of people out there who aren't inhabiting reality, and there are consequences when Democrats are even *accused* of lying. I remember what happened when Democrats were sounding the alarm about Project 2025.
All of this has been warned about and people didn't want to listen. It's kinda like truth doesn't matter.
"What is truth?" Pilate asked, just before he condemned Jesus to death by crucifiction.
This. That isn't intended to rebut the original post, which I could not possibly agree with more, but people also have to realize that Dems are stepping into an uneven playing field. And a lot of the reason is money, not talent. Trump is genuinely talented as an entertainer, but no one else in the Republican Party is.
Thank you for pointing out that Trump, is in fact, a good entertainer. Whenever I mention his charisma people look at me like I've got an extra head. What they don't understand is that he's got the charisma of a carnival barker or a wrestling tout. It's not highbrow suave like Cary Grant. It's pure old-school showmanship, and Barnum was right.
100%. I've been saying that since 2015. Like it or not, Cheeto knows how to work a crowd.
It's also how I knew Ron DeSantis' presidential bid was doomed from the start. That guy is a black hole of charisma. Same with VP Couchfucker, that's why his pissy "jokes" never land.
Material Safety Data Sheets are funnier than Jizzy Divan. Every time this guy makes a "joke" flowers wilt. You can hear the souls of rats die. He makes Mike Huckabee look like Richard fucking Pryor.
He is definitely a racist carnival barker, and that's why he did so well with the scuzzy WWE. He knows how to play for an audience. And he has the sway of millions of very terrible people.
I wanna piggyback on this because THIS is also something I think is a critical thing Democrats need to change, and in my opinion it doesn't get enough attention. I've said this several times before but I'll say it again:
One of the major ways the Democratic Party hobbles itself is that it demands that the party leader or candidate convey ALL of the party's message AND ideology AND legislative goals. This is also part of Murc's Law where only Democrats have accountability...and also Democrats are responsible to enact promises made by OTHER politicians or candidates.
This is not a feature of the Republican Party even as it has an effective top-down structure. The two parties are structured entirely differently.
But I digress: President Klan Robe isn't the intellectual leader of the Republican Party; he can't be. He doesn't articulate clear visions as far as policy; he barfs out sadopopulist shibboleths. You can easily post-turtle him into a tantrum just by sustained followups (but that doesn't get you lucrative anti-Democratic clicks.) His rambling, batshit soliloquys aren't even consistent from performance to performance, nor is there any coherent principle except for hurting a vulnerable minority. President Klan Robe is just the carnival barker to get the cultist butts in the seats. None of the other post turtles they have for politicians can do this because yes, Klan Robe is a gifted entertainer. He knows how to play to a camera. But it's important that he is also protected from consequence for the shit he says because it is in the financial interest of media owners to sanewash and give him a pass. You know, "grade on a curve" as Brian Tyler Cohen says.
In addition, rightwing/fascist NGOs write their model legislation. This is a critical difference between the parties as you need a whole different set of skills to be a Democratic politician.
Think about why you see so many Know-nothing influencers on the Republican side; that's because their work is already done for them. To be elected as a Democrat you have to have actual receipts in governance. You have to have actual skills in legislation. Take Jasmine Crockett for example. Jasmine Crockett is KILLER on the media and she has a real down-to-earth style (and is great at code-switching). But what isn't getting attention is that Jasmine Crockett is an actual real lawyer, AND is a great legislator too. And this is true of a lot of folks on the Dem side.
But the job is harder because there isn't a billionaire-funded influence network ala Heritage or ALEC to write model legislation, and Democrats also do not have the top-down structure to dictate that "You all must vote this legislation or else." People shit on Schumer and Pelosi a lot but they got great legislation shepherded through a numerically worse Congress than the Obama years. (And I am old enough to remember the HELL we went through just to get Obamacare.)
Nevertheless we need to change the structure somehow where we are not demanding the candidate also be the ideological communicator of the entire party.
fantastic observations S.T.!
Exactly. You can't sell something to people that they don't want. Apparently they wanted fascism. Or at least thought they did. Or didn't know what they wanted but were more attracted to the big explosions and the big talk. Democrats would have to start lying more and creating their own Conspiracy theory network to get that kind of person's attention. But that's antithetical to our principles. I don't know what the answer is
It's going to take the money people digging deep and we have to claw things back in the trenches where there are reachable people. The problem is some of the "reachable" people believe fanfiction about the Democrats, that's aligned with their principles.
This is kinda like those people who claim "Democrats spent more time worrying about pronouns than groceries," when that wasn't even true. A number of people are kinda dancing around the point that there's maybe a very large bigot component that was amenable to rightwing fanfiction. There were several people in my Substack mentions claiming that Democrats need to cut trans people loose, for example. (My response to them is we leave nobody behind because we're Democrats, and we protect people who are trying to just live their lives, fuck off.)
My thing is we have to get ready for that revelation because it changes a lot of stuff. I have even maintained that this may be a case of how post-Taney Court we had to wait generations for the American electorate to upgrade.
This 100%
I think Democrats were terminally online but in the wrong places and not reaching key people in the better format
I'm on a non-profit board and our constituency is LGBTQ youth. I cannot get the ED to use a platform other than Facebook to promote our events and work. Facebook! In 2025! No one under 40 is there, and certainly not the kids we need to reach. It drives me crazy.
But also the Harris campaign tried to get her on shows like Hot Wings and were rebuffed because they didn't want to get political. I believe Rogan himself declined to book her under the same circumstances that he booked Trump, no? Part of the challenge is that there isn't currently something comparable to Joe Rogan on the left, a place where people go for apolitical content but that is also left-coded and willing to platform and endorse Democrats.
Yeah that was some bad-faith bullshit by Rogan.
People need to hound Brian Tyler Cohen to get Chorus Media up and running. It's a start. But we need more of those. And those so-called lefty billionaires need to dig deep and get started too. If it is profitable to get lefty media going let's show it unless they're also gunshy about Air America and Current.
ETA: This also was another way that Howard Stern, of all people, had the most integrity and had Joe Biden on I think (I don't recall if he interviewed Harris too).
I am at least seeing some encouraging signs. I am still wondering if people are trying to figure out a way to make the message come across right.
Now I do hope Dems figure this out before AOC gets shoved off the glass cliff too.
Democratic leadership thinks because MAGA hates smart communicators like Kamala, AOC, Katie Porter, Bernie, Secretary Mayor Pete, and the brilliant Jasmine Crockett, they must be sidelined. They think the solution is to bring out the boring, off putting stiffs like Schumer, Booker, and Jeffries.
The actual reason MAGA hates our smart communicators is because they FEAR them. MAGA knows they can't compete with their ability to win over voters. Now if we could get the Democrats to stop smothering our best communicators we might have a chance.
But our best communicators are already out there communicating. I don't really see the fossil set putting a damper on any of that. It's just that the minority leaders in the house and Senate need to be someone different than Schumer and Jefferies. The people in the top positions within the Democratic Party need to be better communicators.And how do you get around the algorithms that give people what they want to hear instead of what they need to hear? It's also disheartening
Democratic party leaders (Pelosi, Schumer) actively work against promoting younger Democrats to leadership roles. AOC asked to be ranking leader of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Pelosi, through her sock puppet Jeffries, blocked that appointment and made sure Gerry Connally got the leadership role instead - he's the guy doing such an awesome job in the video SER linked above. The poor old guy, who is a decent person (but a shitty communicator) is also dealing with terminal cancer. So I don't want to add to his burdens, or pile on.
Politicians are all egomaniacs, some much worse than others. It's why they just can't imagine another person doing the job they are doing. The gerontocracy cling like grim death to all the leadership positions and stand in the way of younger, stronger Democrats who aren't afraid to speak up and speak out.
Some of these folks are able to speak up and speak out too because they're in safe districts. Because there were very good people taken out too (such as Sherrod Brown). I guess since Connolly has terminal cancer, the problem of him being Old is going to sort itself out. And, well, if folks want to primary Jeffries and Pelosi, now's the time to do it.
Democratic voters need to be consistent with the message, "No more old or people with health issues in leadership! Or in office! The old people are our problem, we need young people only." With Democrats in the nadir of their power, this is also the time to do it. One can even leverage the right wing media human centipede to do it, just like how Democrats shoved Joe Biden on an ice floe. The others should be easier.
They can definitely compete though because all of the things they were saying before the election they're saying now, and America decided to punch them in the face. I think the problem was Democrats weren't cosigning their fantasy of "rabid caravans coming to kill you" or "Haitians are eating the dogs and cats" or "Teachers can trans your kids" or "The Green New Deal banned meat." Oh yeah one of the biggest ones: "Klan Robe has nothing to do with Project 2025, Democrats are just lying and exaggerating." All for their privilege and sometimes even clout.
It seemed to me that Kamala and Tim came out of the gate saying all the right things. I loved it when Kamala said, as a former prosecutor, and AG, she knew people just like Trump, and had put them in jail where they belonged (paraphrased).
Then all of a sudden the Third Way/David Plough/only-Republican-votes-matter-so-don't-try-to-appeal-to-liberals campaign managers took over and started watering down the message. All of a sudden Kamala couldn't run on her own merit, she had to run as Joe Biden in heels. It made no sense. Joe Biden was headed for a landslide defeat, so why did David Plough, et al, insist she run as him? I know she was his VP and couldn't undermine his policies, but when asked how her administration would be different from Biden's, she said it wouldn't. That statement alone was enough to cost her the election. Now, I don't believe she said that because she meant it. That was pure David Plough bullshit message management.
MAGA did spew all the crap you mentioned. But, once Plough started diluting the message and forbidding any substantive pushback, it conceded the race and hindered two solid campaigners, who both had excellent communication skills from communicating the facts.
They did say the right things but there is no message if people aren't inhabiting reality and want to believe something else!
Also the other issue is...is Kamala Harris needing to say that all the policy Joe Biden (and she) shepherded is for naught? "Never mind, it's bad, Joe Biden sucks!" That would be a self-own!
If she were to lie and say it were different, what would she even realistically change? We got life-changing legislation out of that admin. I think that was unwinnable. And again Kamala Harris, unlike President Klan Robe, would be facing accountability for her positions. That's something that only happens to Democrats.
I don't doubt that Plouffe had some effect, but I also think that people knew what was on the table. I didn't even watch legacy media and I knew the score; I get my news through alternative means. I believe people just needed a plausible reason to vote for their privilege, or they thought it was too far to have a Black woman as President.
Thank you for your thoughtful response. I agree that Kamala didn't need to say Joe Biden sucks. But, I hoped she would distinguish her support for reproductive rights from Biden's squeamish refusal to even say the word abortion. Biden did nothing whatsoever to support abortion rights. I think Kamala had a strong plan to address Dobbs, but she was discouraged from articulating that plan, in deference to Biden. I also believe the decision to exclude, what would have been a mild pro-Palestinian voice at the convention (also in deference to Biden's rabid support for Netanyahu), was a huge self own.
I understand you support Biden, and believe he should have been the candidate in 2024. I usually agree fully with your comments, and respect your singular POV. But, I respectfully disagree re: Biden. Not because I hate old people (hell, I'm an Old), but because, in my opinion, his age related infirmities made him completely unfit for the job.
Biden’s approval rating was abysmal. The best chance Democrats had was to run away from him, represent true change. If Harris couldn’t realistically do that as his VP, then that was the argument for not having her as the nominee, fair or not.
It was just a bizarre logic loop: “Biden is very unpopular but his VP is the only who can run and she can’t dare distance herself from the administration and so on.”
I mean political science is itself in a bizarre logic loop and that ain't on the Democrats. Logic would say that you can't win if you throw away your vice presidential running mate or have your supporters try to lynch him. Logic would say that having good metrics would be great.
Kamala Harris ended up with a higher favorability rate than President Klan Robe, that was another thing - we were all told about how favorability is very important. It isn't.
Logic says, if Biden has to be knocked out in a bad debate, President Klan Robe should've been ended with Kamala Harris vivisecting him in their debate. Klan Robe hasn't even been close to coherent since.
Logic says if Being Old is Bad, that should mean President Klan Robe should be on the ropes. No, he has a high approval rate now because Americans cosign this ruin. They think they're going to just have the minorities they hate hurt.
Logic says you can't win as a politician if you're a 34-count convicted felon. You can't even get a job in most places with a rap sheet like that.
Logic says you can't threaten to torment entire states and hold back disaster aid because of who they voted for as a President. But there is Murc's Law for you...only Democrats have political agency. And worse yet, as I said before, Democratic campaigns have to be perfect. Republicans only need excuses; all the institutional (and media) deference does the rest.
Biden got shoved on an ice floe because Democrats don't protect their own, and there's all kinds of bad faith actors in the party who want to be the top dog. Sandbagging Biden was the way. Because all the shit that made Biden unpopular was ginned up and Dems fell for it. And now that's the model going forward to break the back of any of the new faves coming forward.
If Dems want to just lay it all at Biden's (or any other Old's) fine. Let's see what happens when this same bit of manufactured outrage destroys the next one. We know that person will have to be 'young and hip,' and frankly I'm all in for AOC 2028. My red line is no more talented Black women being shoved off a glass cliff. Because I know at least more people are willing to stick up for AOC than they are for Kamala Harris.
Thank you. But, come on. Biden is hardly on an ice floe. He will live out his life in comfort few of us can even imagine, let alone experience. I admit to being appalled when Biden announced he was running for a second term. He should never have done that, which would have allowed for an open primary, which, IMO, Kamala would have won, running away. And we are 100% on the same page about not collectively shoving talented, brilliant Black women off the glass cliff. It fills me with shame, despite my personal (misguided) hope that THIS time it will be different. I now know it will never be different in this ugly, evil country.
Biden showed so many frightening, live examples of age related infirmities throughout his time in office. So did Trump, who was always an idiot, but his galloping dementia only made things worse. MAGA doesn't care because he a useful idiot for all the worst people on the planet.
As a (now retired) provider, Biden's decline was obvious to me. I know you disagree, and I respect your opinion. Bernie Sanders is also Old. But the difference between Bernie and Biden is undeniable. I don't support putting everyone who isn't young and hip on an ice floe. But I don't support denying younger, stronger - or even older, stronger candidates an opportunity to lead.
Biden's enthusiastic "Welcome home!" greeting to Trump on Inauguration day was a clear indication of senile dementia. Having cared for aging family members who blurted out inappropriate greetings, which were completely out of character for their pre-dementia behavior, I recognized it right away. I know he is a very wealthy man, surrounded by people who love him, and will ensure that his declining years will be safe and peaceful. Unfortunately, as we enter the extreme terror and misery of the #MumpJunta, most of us will not enjoy that same security.
Thanks, Stephen. I think this is the most important lesson Democrats need desperately to learn, and SOON, before it’s too late. The Democratic party already has one foot in the grave. It’s not very far behind the Republican party in devolving into irrelevancy.
It’s the age-old communication adage of “show, don’t tell,” and also the cliché that a picture’s worth a thousand words. Mediagenic celebs and politicians understand this, and who wouldn’t rather look at (and thus listen to) AOC than Gerry Connolly? As a rapidly-aging Boomer, I don’t need anymore tiresome platitudes from milquetoast geriatric career politicians who are even older than I am. Thank you for your service, Dem dinosaurs, now GTFO of the way already and trust that young ‘uns like AOC, Jasmine Crockett, and a handful of others to know how to do this better than you do now.
Democrats have to realize that even in politics the viewer wants to be entertained. Trump did this in 2016, and dominated his party opposition. But Dems were so turned off by Trump that they didn’t realize his tactics worked, and can be used by a non-bigoted dipshit traitor as well.
Fire the political consultants and hire comedy writers, use advisers from advertising and entertainment, figure out how to sound like a normal person and not some focus grouped robot. If you can’t do that, because you’re too odd, outsource messaging to someone who can.
And there is definitely demand for liberal media—a smart entrepreneur (even a politically agnostic one) may eventually see this and profit from it.
"Fire the political consultants and hire comedy writers"
Bingo.
Yeah like the White House did the right thing for example back then by hiring the shitposter who ran the NJ state feed. More of that definitely.
Probably actually need to start hiring pro-Dem influencers (in fact the ones who freelance and critics of them claim they're getting paid by the Democrats anyway). At this point YOLO.
I'd like to see the alleged liberal billionaires pony up for this. Because we know the system on the rightwing is funded by billionaire pocket change. That is definitely the way forward, though I say an important caveat: if there are people who are not inhabiting reality, our truthful message isn't going to work.
It’s not even a matter of charity—if an entrepreneur believes there’s a demand for it, they’ll fill it just to get rich off of it. Murdoch is a right winger but he also invested in right wing media because it makes him rich. Fox News isn’t his charity case.
This is a thing I wonder though, considering efforts like Air America. Is the problem just innate to liberalism, because liberalism in the USA feels inherently decentralized. You can easily have a top-down message in a conservative environment because the base concept is "no." It's always easier to say we SHOULDN'T do something, rather than we SHOULD, which is one of the other reasons that it's significantly harder to advance liberal/progressive legislation.
And indeed we'd done so even in a numerically shitty Congress early in Biden's administration.
Nevertheless, where does their profit come from? I feel like Murdoch also gets a lot of profit because cable companies bundle Faux News Entertainment and the like by default.
I think the profit comes so long as you have big viewership—whether ads, subscriptions, cable fees—if its popular, it’ll make profits.
How exactly to make it is the tricky part—if it’s entertaining enough to pull viewers, if it can appeal to its audience, it’s fine. Air America clearly didn’t do that, nor (on the other side) did Fox News’s Half Hour News Hour. It may take some false starts to get it right. But then that’s what media professionals do every day.
Hell I'd like to see AOC, Jasmine Crockett, Eric Swalwell and Tim Walz have shows for starters. Jared Moskowitz too probably.
I do think there is a slight difference because Faux didn't need to have Half Hour News Hour as their mainline news was the perfect fanfiction anyway. The whole shebang of Air America I guess ended up flawed.
Then we also have to worry about the common thing of lefties losing the plot and breaking shit. I think of Ed Schultz and Peter Daou as examples.
That’s why it’s best if the entrepreneur is focusing on ratings. You appeal broadly enough, or you go under.
Notice Murdoch didn’t hold on to the Half Hour show—it sank in ratings, he cut it loose. Nothing personal, just business.
𝑰 𝒓𝒆𝒑𝒆𝒂𝒕 𝒐𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝒂𝒈𝒂𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒊𝒔 2025, 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒗𝒊𝒅𝒆𝒐 𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒔𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒍𝒚 𝒃𝒐𝒂𝒔𝒕𝒔 𝒉𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒆𝒏𝒈𝒂𝒈𝒆𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝒓𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒔. 𝑼𝒔𝒆𝒓𝒔 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒇𝒂𝒓 𝒎𝒐𝒓𝒆 𝒊𝒏𝒄𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒆𝒅 𝒕𝒐 𝒍𝒊𝒌𝒆, 𝒔𝒉𝒂𝒓𝒆, 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝒐𝒏 𝒗𝒊𝒅𝒆𝒐 𝒑𝒐𝒔𝒕𝒔 𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒑𝒂𝒓𝒆𝒅 𝒕𝒐 𝒕𝒆𝒙𝒕 𝒎𝒆𝒔𝒔𝒂𝒈𝒆𝒔 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒔𝒕𝒊𝒍𝒍 𝒊𝒎𝒂𝒈𝒆𝒔. 𝑨𝒄𝒄𝒐𝒓𝒅𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒐 𝒂 2020 𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒊𝒄𝒍𝒆 𝒐𝒏 𝒔𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒚𝒕𝒆𝒍𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒉𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒈𝒉 𝒗𝒊𝒅𝒆𝒐, 𝒗𝒊𝒆𝒘𝒆𝒓𝒔 𝒓𝒆𝒕𝒂𝒊𝒏 95 𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒄𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝒐𝒇 𝒂 𝒗𝒊𝒅𝒆𝒐'𝒔 𝒎𝒆𝒔𝒔𝒂𝒈𝒆 𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒑𝒂𝒓𝒆𝒅 𝒕𝒐 𝒋𝒖𝒔𝒕 10 𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒄𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝒘𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒕𝒆𝒙𝒕.
This 64 year old retired woman understands that. Why don't elected Dems? There are exceptions, but they aren't in leadership positions, because Dem leaders are stuck in 1985, or maybe it's 1975. AOC clearly is good at 21st century communication; she reminds me of what I have read about FDR and his Fireside Chats during the darkest days of the Great Depression. He used the new technology of the radio to reach the nation and to sell his New Deal.
Tim Walz even did this too. We had a lot of great video hits during the campaign too. But if you don't have people inhabiting reality there's no countermeasure to that. We're trying to engage with people in reality.
I still love how Walz's nice spots with the truck (about Project 2025) came across. That was effective stuff! I also love the great message in Kamala Harris' ads. But people gotta share them all and people need to also not prioritize their own goals I suppose.
I watched AOC play Crazy Taxi with Walz. It might have been the only campaign video I was interested in watching.
That was such a great moment (and wasn't that also the video where he went "Who's this jerkwad?" about Tony Hinchcliffe?). Tim Walz was a god-tier VP pick and his policy was and is unapologetically progressive. I rather wonder if he'll run for Senate since he is termed out as governor and Tina Smith is retiring.