Note: I originally wrote this to post on yesterday's blog, but by the time I finished, today's blog was already up. I guess it's still on topic, so I'll post it here.
Why did Kamala Harris Lose?
The answers vary wildly, depending on who is pontificating: The Left says she needed to be more on the left; the right says she was not right enou…
Note: I originally wrote this to post on yesterday's blog, but by the time I finished, today's blog was already up. I guess it's still on topic, so I'll post it here.
Why did Kamala Harris Lose?
The answers vary wildly, depending on who is pontificating: The Left says she needed to be more on the left; the right says she was not right enough; and the center says she should have focused exclusively on the center.
Some say that her principal message should have targeted the concerns of middle-class workers and their families, even though ninety percent of her campaign speeches did just that. Maybe, in the remaining ten percent, she harped too much about Trump being a fascist nutball fcking idiot; then again, perhaps she needed to attack him even more aggressively.
Others criticize her for having devoted too much of the campaign's energy to the abortion issue — never mind that it was foremost on the minds of most women and many men, as shown by their overwhelming support for state ballot initiatives to decriminalize abortion.
The Joe Rogan types of manly men with no college degrees insist she should have addressed their sense of whiney victimhood in an economy that increasingly requires a college education. (Regardless, they wouldn't vote for a woman to be president, no matter what she says. No way in hell!)
Most Democrats of nearly all stripes think that an unpopular Joe Biden should have bowed out much sooner or not attempted to run for a second term in the first place, giving Harris or some other candidate additional time to mount a more effective campaign.
While some of these arguments and many more have merit and will be discussed ad nauseam for years, most miss the main point: Shameless Republican liars, supported by a ruling class of right-wing plutocrats who hate common-sense regulations and paying their fair share of taxes, have hijacked our media environment and will lie about Democratic messaging no matter what it is, how truthful it is, or how vitally important it is in the lives of everyday Americans and for the very survival of small-d democracy itself.
The fact is that Kamala Harris ran an almost flawless campaign in the short three-plus months she had. Her messaging was right on; she connected with millions of ordinary citizens on issues that mattered to them. She only lost by a whisker because of Republicans' unrelenting campaign of outright lies and widespread voter suppression and disenfranchisement on an industrial scale, egged on by Russia and our other foreign enemies who hate democracy.
Also, to correct another despicable right-wing lie, Biden is a great President who will go down in history for shepherding the nation out of an economy ravaged by a once-in-a-hundred-year pandemic grossly mismanaged by a criminally negligent *REPUBLICAN* president, someone who committed uncountable serious felonies in and out of office.
For sure, the Democratic Party can tweak its messaging in many ways and certainly will in response to its latest loss to Republicans, the party of the filthy rich. But it should never alter its overall position or lose sight of its north star as the party of the common man and woman.
The biggest challenge for truth-tellers in the future is to create, sustain, and expand a popular media environment in the electorate's mind that can counteract the omnipresent right-wing lie machine for the long term. Franklin Roosevelt accomplished that by talking to ordinary people primarily through the radio. In his day, Thomas Jefferson had to rely on pamphlets to get the word out.
In the modern world, it will have to be a full-court press, using every available medium, including print media, radio, TV, the internet, and, yes, pamphlets if necessary. (Liar Tim Sheehy won his Senate race in Montana primarily by flooding everyone's mailboxes with large splashy fliers that simply outnumbered and overwhelmed Jon Tester's mailings.)
Throughout history, democracy has been a war between lies and truth. Today, for the most part, the Democrats are on the side of truth — if people can hear them through the storm of Republican lies.
Hi Eadie. I'm not trained in law, so will defer to Daniel on that matter. But I do firmly believe that whatever counteraction people undertake there must be a groundswell of support to be effective, which means small-d democrats must break through by every means necessary the wall of right-wing media that has gripped our nation, steering us toward fascism and autocracy. This is a war for the minds of citizens.
Note: I originally wrote this to post on yesterday's blog, but by the time I finished, today's blog was already up. I guess it's still on topic, so I'll post it here.
Why did Kamala Harris Lose?
The answers vary wildly, depending on who is pontificating: The Left says she needed to be more on the left; the right says she was not right enough; and the center says she should have focused exclusively on the center.
Some say that her principal message should have targeted the concerns of middle-class workers and their families, even though ninety percent of her campaign speeches did just that. Maybe, in the remaining ten percent, she harped too much about Trump being a fascist nutball fcking idiot; then again, perhaps she needed to attack him even more aggressively.
Others criticize her for having devoted too much of the campaign's energy to the abortion issue — never mind that it was foremost on the minds of most women and many men, as shown by their overwhelming support for state ballot initiatives to decriminalize abortion.
The Joe Rogan types of manly men with no college degrees insist she should have addressed their sense of whiney victimhood in an economy that increasingly requires a college education. (Regardless, they wouldn't vote for a woman to be president, no matter what she says. No way in hell!)
Most Democrats of nearly all stripes think that an unpopular Joe Biden should have bowed out much sooner or not attempted to run for a second term in the first place, giving Harris or some other candidate additional time to mount a more effective campaign.
While some of these arguments and many more have merit and will be discussed ad nauseam for years, most miss the main point: Shameless Republican liars, supported by a ruling class of right-wing plutocrats who hate common-sense regulations and paying their fair share of taxes, have hijacked our media environment and will lie about Democratic messaging no matter what it is, how truthful it is, or how vitally important it is in the lives of everyday Americans and for the very survival of small-d democracy itself.
The fact is that Kamala Harris ran an almost flawless campaign in the short three-plus months she had. Her messaging was right on; she connected with millions of ordinary citizens on issues that mattered to them. She only lost by a whisker because of Republicans' unrelenting campaign of outright lies and widespread voter suppression and disenfranchisement on an industrial scale, egged on by Russia and our other foreign enemies who hate democracy.
Also, to correct another despicable right-wing lie, Biden is a great President who will go down in history for shepherding the nation out of an economy ravaged by a once-in-a-hundred-year pandemic grossly mismanaged by a criminally negligent *REPUBLICAN* president, someone who committed uncountable serious felonies in and out of office.
For sure, the Democratic Party can tweak its messaging in many ways and certainly will in response to its latest loss to Republicans, the party of the filthy rich. But it should never alter its overall position or lose sight of its north star as the party of the common man and woman.
The biggest challenge for truth-tellers in the future is to create, sustain, and expand a popular media environment in the electorate's mind that can counteract the omnipresent right-wing lie machine for the long term. Franklin Roosevelt accomplished that by talking to ordinary people primarily through the radio. In his day, Thomas Jefferson had to rely on pamphlets to get the word out.
In the modern world, it will have to be a full-court press, using every available medium, including print media, radio, TV, the internet, and, yes, pamphlets if necessary. (Liar Tim Sheehy won his Senate race in Montana primarily by flooding everyone's mailboxes with large splashy fliers that simply outnumbered and overwhelmed Jon Tester's mailings.)
Throughout history, democracy has been a war between lies and truth. Today, for the most part, the Democrats are on the side of truth — if people can hear them through the storm of Republican lies.
Why. Russian psy ops.
Deepspace, Daniel Solomon suggested civil litigation. Do you know how that can be done?
Hi Eadie. I'm not trained in law, so will defer to Daniel on that matter. But I do firmly believe that whatever counteraction people undertake there must be a groundswell of support to be effective, which means small-d democrats must break through by every means necessary the wall of right-wing media that has gripped our nation, steering us toward fascism and autocracy. This is a war for the minds of citizens.