@ezraklein.bsky.social's whole thing, which drives me nuts, is to blame Dems for the rise of Trump because of some "messaging" thing. The perfect Message™ is not gonna fix it. It's a bandwidth problem to fight back against the RW propaganda machinery, not a message content problem. That's what he /1
The media is just utterly failing to meet this moment. It’s wild to watch them just lay down and capitulate under some false premise of having to portray “both sides.” How about this: when it’s been democracy and fascism there aren’t two sides that both deserve the same coverage
💯 I think it's 1) a consequence of habit formed when neither side was completely batshit crazy / fascist. They can't adapt to the new reality. 2) Fear of retribution, & 3) takeover by RW oligarchs or oligarchs who have decided to trade principle for "safety" - being on the good side of the fascists.
Agreed. I’ll just add that journalists are also more hyper-aware of their image and reputations than they used to be before the onset of the internet and online media etc. These days they’ll be called a “liberal shill” all over X if they dare to show a hint of balance in their coverage.
Yeah, that's part of the "fear" I'm talking about and also a by-product of the RW propaganda machinery dominating the info environment.
And access “journalism”. Which really isn’t journalism. If it’s noon on a sunny day, you don’t report Trump’s view that it’s noght as an alternative opinion.
💯 See Haberman, Maggie.
This, exactly! No party is perfect, but objectively, Harris ran a far better campaign than Trump. Dems have a far better message than Repubs. But they have the bandwidth. Because grifts work for a reason. Dems don’t grift, it doesn’t work on their supporters. The GOP does.
💯 Kamala's / Tim's message was fine and there were lots of concrete proposals to address real problems - healthcare, cost of living, climate change, murderous dictators invading sovereign lands, etc. Trump had tariffs and "mass deportation". No one can tell me it was a message problem for the D's.
I am SO sick of this. Harris/Walz ran an excellent campaign. The crowds were HUGE. Voter suppression won the election, and there are questions re: voting anomalies also. It's called CHEATING. www.gregpalast.com/trump-lost-v...
He also pushed anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ messages. Scare tactics. I remember the barrage of anti-trans ads during NFL games last Fall!
Yes. I think Ted Cruz's entire senate campaign was predicated around opposition to the 3 trans people in the US playing women's sports. 🤦🏼♂️ And he easily beat a good candidate - former NFL player Colin Allred. Fearmongering, othering - sadly it works. As a country, we need to do so much better :-(.
Why does the GOP grift work on Dem voters? You see my point?
But it doesn’t. It works on people that don’t vote. There is a handful of Obama/biden voters that voted for Trump. But there’s a much larger share of non voters (especially rural and lower education) that never voted before, and voted for Trump 3 times. What happens when Trump dies though?
If your grift keeps people from voting it worked. Same as Russian Intelligence kept people from voting in 2016.
The Russians never stopped working against Dems from the inside though. That’s different from the republicans grift. Podcasts still only get advertisements that lean right. Home security, hangover cures, testosterone crap. That’s why no left podcast has taken off, we don’t listen to them as much
This is another challenge. The RW propaganda machinery is fed not just from domestic sources / RW oligarchy, grifters, etc. *but also* foreign actors, *especially* Russia. This is why I say we need a *moonshot* counterpropaganda offensive. It's a moonshot because it's *hard*, we're way behind, & /1
the RW has so many advantages - RW oligarchs, the natural popularity of grievance, racism, and conspiracy, foreign actors, etc. It's a helluva uphill battle but we either fight it or we're toast. /2
The things is, the RW propaganda machinery operates not just on the right but also on the left, *from* the left. They're always trying to find wedges to split the left. That's what the '16 DNC hack was about. They're at it again. This is about impersonating left voices to amplify anti-Dem sentiment.
I 100% agree. And that’s harder to combat.
I'm pretty sure it's pretty active on BlueSky. There are legitimate gripes about the D party - it's far from perfect, but it's gotten really vicious. If you post one positive thing about D leadership you're liable to get an avalance of negative and oftentimes personally insulting comments.
Even AOC is catching heat on blue sky… I’m beginning to ponder getting back on the hell site
Well, that's what the trolls want us to do - to give up on BlueSky. The RW, including of course the foreign trolls, play dirty, and look to stifle any momentum on the left. If I suspect a troll, I'll either block or mute.
Good idea
doesn't get. And also, it's always the Dems fault, as if the R's have no agency in the matter of their own behavior. 🤦🏼♂️ /2
Totally agree. It's a unified effort of deception vs. a diversified analysis for balanced consensus. Guess which one wins? People are lazy and the right provides a convenient simplification.
The right wing lie machine, mostly Fox News has set a new reality in America: "heads we win and tails you lose." Also left is now right, down is up and white is black. I'm not sure how anyone can ever fight them, or reason with them again.
I agree we probably can’t reason with them. But we sure is hell can fight with them.
I think a lot differently. I do not want to fight them, I want to ambush them and end it in one fell swoop.
I hear what you're saying, Seth but it doesn't help us to bicker amongst ourselves. People like Ezra should be shown how they're not helpful, or even wrong, and then those established voices will be more powerful influencers.
To be very clear, Dems ARE partially to blame. Not majority to blame, but they definitely bear some. One example: ALL the policies that WE wanted & which they failed repeatedly to pass or even propose into legislation. Another: Failing to LISTEN to US for YEARS, instead, working for their donors.
At this point it doesn’t really matter. At this point, if nothing is done, we will never have an honest election again.
It does matter because we will NEVER fix what’s been damaged until we fully acknowledge & understand exactly what’s been damaged & how it became so damaged! We’ve NEVER fully atoned for our genocidal & slavery past. Because of that, people still suffer greatly from those failings. It does matter.
I meant it doesn’t matter who is to blame because this can’t be fixed by what’s been done before otherwise we wouldn’t be in this position. Their actions have been ineffectual.
Agree. We have a LOT of damage to fix. Old, new, insidious & antiquated. Some of which is partly due to our own apathetic, complacent & negligent making. It starts with electing people-centric Progressive candidates. If we keep doing the same old shit, we will keep getting the same old shit.
Exactly.
No, the main problem with not getting more stuff passed is that we didn't vote enough real D's into office. Manchin and Sinema proved to not be real D's, and they torpedoed lots of legislation that the Biden administration had proposed.
Who is "us" and what policies? Those of the radical Left?
No one should listen to that guy. He’s not as smart as he thinks he is.
Now, the GOP has also been spewing their propaganda and building their info networks for decades and Dems have just sat quietly. It was clear back in 2000 that we needed left-wing media infrastructure & Dems did nothing.
The RW propaganda machinery was driven mostly by RW oligarchs, not the R party. Plus, it's the sad truth that fearmongering, racism, and conspiracy sells. Truth does not. It's an uphill battle but it has to be fought or we're toast. There's no other way out. And yet we *still* have endless /1
about "the Message™". As I keep saying, we're trying to solve the wrong problem. Sure do the best with message content, but that's not the problem. No one's getting *any* message because there isn't nearly the bandwidth to compete with the RW propaganda machinery. It's gonna take a moonshot /2
Not just the D party, but we need folks like $$$$ who care about democracy to step up, and we need grassroots involvement. All of those things. /3
It’s the neo-fascist Christians in power who are implementing Project 2025 who are allowing America to fall. That they happen to be republicans is because they infiltrated that party.
They’re all members of a prosperity religion and taking advantage of Trump and his mental illnesses in order to implement their agendas. He’s fine with them as long as they pretend he’s a perfect president making perfect phone calls and he can continue to grift off his position and not have to work.
They are NOT Christians in the New Testament way. They are only pretending. They do not follow the words of Jesus Christ!
Yes, that’s right.
Yes, the Dems need a unified message with talking points put out daily for all D elected officials or candidates. That message that will sell now is strong gun safety regulations. The public supports them by a wide margin. Mock Rs as tools of the NRA.
I agree, but what I'm saying is that the Dems / left do not have the bandwidth or infrastructure to get their messages out to people such that they are heard above the RW propaganda machinery. The RW propaganda machine dominates the info wars. That's the root problem that has to be solved...somehow.
They don't just dominate, they own it outright. We ceded basically all media: legacy, digital, and public spaces to them. It's waaaaaay past time to build our own.
Gotta try though or we're toast - i.e. it's all over. That's why I call it a "moonshot" - it's a massive undertaking and it would take nearly a miracle to succeed. But the only other choice is that our country, our democracy, fails for good. Problem is we can't even get people to agree that this /1
is the root problem. There is just endless hand-wringing about TheMessage™. Whatever TheMessage™ is, no one's gonna hear it unless we start to find ways to blunt the RW propaganda machinery. /2
