The right has a giant propaganda machine that utterly dominates the worldview of millions & heavily

[soothsayer]

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David Roberts
@drvox
All day today I have been having the vertiginously weird experience of trying to convince Democrats that the fact that the RW has a giant, coordinated messaging machine & they don't *matters*. To no effect! I can't even get people to acknowledge & discuss it.

And yet every single Dem, from center to left, is eager AF to discuss "messaging" & "framing." They'll all spend hours lingering over various word combinations, poring over focus group results, convince that just the right phrase is the key to the kingdom. Argh.

Politics is about money & power. Messaging is part of politics & therefore ALSO about money & power. The cleverness or stickiness or virality or whatever TF of individual phrases is not what wins messaging battles. Money & power win them.

You win messaging battles by developing the capacity to ensure that your message is repeated again & again, in multiple media, in such a way that it *reaches your target audience*. How do you develop that capacity? Money & power.

You can run all the focus groups you want, come up with the cleverest, catchiest, most perfectest phrase that was ever phrased ... if all you do is say it at a press conference & hope the media transmits it, intact, to your target audience ... you will lose. Repeatedly.

The right has a giant propaganda machine that utterly dominates the worldview of millions & heavily distorts even "mainstream" media. The left doesn't. That simple fact fundamentally shapes all of US politics. I'm gonna beat this damn drum until I die.

[Phoenix61]

1. Australia understands this which is why

Rupert Murdoch was/is treated very differently there. We could learn a lot from them.

[JudyM]

10. They saw the profound impact and acted intelligently on it. Dems need to figure out how to

deal with hate radio being ubiquitous in our rural areas as well as faux.

[whathehell]

2. This is an interesting, much needed discussion. n/t.

[texasfiddler]

3. This is the most important issue in my opinion. Above Climate Change, Health Care, Etc...

Without addressing this, you don't address the others. It is sort of like COVID and the economy.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

4. Truth!

And there's posters here who have repeatedly argued that nothing can or should be done about it.

One of them had a negative-image of a person as their avatar. Maybe that person finally left DU or got banned? Bye-bye!

[JHB]

5. This is of paramount importance, because it's the driver for everything else

We need to

1) Actually create and alternative that can reach people nationwide without them having to seek it out, and

2) Look for ways to disrupt and break up the conservative machine.


This means using old technologies (i.e. radio) and newer ones, it means not throwing up hands and saying "it was tried" just because Air America was mismanaged and failed, and it means getting rich liberals to actually fund things the way wealthy righties do. Patient money, feeding it for years, for decades, and realizing that it may not be a sexier cause, but without it all the work of any other cause will be overwhelmed.

[soothsayer]

6. Counter brainwashing is needed

[octoberlib]

7. I have personal experience with it.

Jaime Harrison had some great ads on tv about ensuring everybody had healthcare and a bunch of other issues. Graham ran ads on MSNBC and elsewhere saying that Harrison's far left radical medical plan would bankrupt SC hospitals in small towns and rural areas and cause them to close. Which is stupid and doesn't make sense but his message stuck even though Jaime made a good rebuttal. It's a red state and most of them were going to their rw sources. This is why it's hard for Democrats running in red states.

[west michigan]

8. I agree

The machine the right has built is pretty tight. Rush or some version of him all day on the am dial. Fox News during the day and all night. Facebook memes and Facebook driven stories/attacks. I notice the new talking point when 4-7 of my Facebook friends who lean conservative are all on point with the latest story. For the most part their common denominator is me. They are from different walks of life and not connected to each other on a daily basis. Yet, the message is the same until it fizzles out and the new point replaces it.

You are correct. We do not have that. We have nothing structural to combat it. At least nothing to mimic it and drive our message 24/7 like they have. They can create their own reality by repetition it seems. We who live in reality can speak up and say otherwise.

[judesedit]

9. So we have to distribute exaggerated, biased information to get people on our side?

Good point. Maybe that's exactly what we should be doing. That is what makes dems different from repubs though. We usually want to take the high ground. It wouldn't hurt to throw a little spice in there now and then though. Lincoln Project was doing a good job I thought, but I think most of what they were saying was true. And it was small scale. We have to convince a wealthy person to buy up some media companies like Murdoch has, find a few convincing actors to pound it all home. But, you're correct, the right wing seems to have a monopoly on it. I think you should talk to Bloomberg, Soros, Gates, Turner, Spielberg. Some already have media companies. And I just thought of Al Franken and Stephanie Miller as hosts for starters. They are smart, funny, and would probably love busting some balls and would draw people in. Keep saying what you're saying until some people listen. It is a wonder how that rightwing machine has been ignored for so long to let it get so big. Way stupid, too.

[Poiuyt]

11. Donny Deutsch has marketing advice that could win it all for the Democrats.

Donny Deutsch is suggesting that Democrats tag every Republican with the "ASSAULT" moniker. As the party that is a protector of the ability to have assault weapons while not protecting healthcare and other life-saving social efforts, it is a pejorative that fits the bill.

Unlike Republicans making the word "LIBERAL" a pejorative that does not live up to the hype, "ASSAULT" does because one lives and sees the effects of their assaults in blood, flesh, tears, and pain.

Donny Deutsch suggests a campaign built with the following bullet points. It is simple, easily understood, and does not require a lot of processing. People can see every point in their own lives or the lives of their families and friends.



Donny also has the bullet points that define the Democrats. When making the arguments in real-time, I think the points defining the Republicans implicitly defines the Democrats as saving citizens from the evil. As such, we should start the narrative with Republicans being the predator.



https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/8/30/1882483/--Donny-Deutsch-has-marketing-advice-that-could-win-it-all-for-the-Democrats

[radius777]

12. We get destroyed on social media

which pumps all types of anti-Dem propaganda 24/7.

Dems should create a cyber team that combats disinfo online. We can no longer just let the RW/Russians/anti-Dem LW have social media all to themselves.

AM radio - we need to do better with this but liberals really don't seem to listen to AM radio. But we do need to create some good liberal shows that get national syndication.

Cable news are not much of an issue. Cable news has caught up - we have MSNBC now (as the liberal counterbalance to FOX) and CNN even didn't run with the Hunter conspiracy stuff.

Social media and online sites are really where we need to catch up.

[Duppers]

13. +1000

[pat_k]

14. Yes. We have allowed them to dominate since the rise of talk radio.

We have a fundamental problem. We are not hellbent on spreading propaganda. Spreading truth is generally not as sensational.

But some truths are. Like the distribution of wealth. We talk about income inequality, when the REAL horror is the distribution of wealth. There are "sound bites" that convey that truth.

And many other truths that can be conveyed more simply and with greater effect than we ever seem to do. We get lost in details too quickly.

One thing. We need to push the principle that "Freedom of Speech" does not mean "Freedom of Reach." Denying bold faced liars the reach of Facebook is not violating their free speech. They can spout all they want through other means they can raise funds for. They aren't being "muzzled" -- just denied access to a network that chooses to police itself. (If we can ever make this happen.)