The right has a massive information advantage

[octoberlib]

Link to tweet

?s=20


GOP billionaires prop up right-wing rags like The Federalist, Breitbart and Real Clear Politics. They aren't real businesses. They're political weapons. There's just no equivalent infrastructure on the left. This + Fox is a massive information advantage.

From the article:

For three days after every major news organization declared Joseph R. Biden Jr. the victor of the presidential election, one widely read political site maintained that Pennsylvania was still too close to call.

That site, Real Clear Politics, is well known as a clearinghouse of elections data and analysis with a large following among the political and media establishment — and the kinds of political obsessives who might now have all the counties in Georgia memorized. It markets itself to advertisers as a “trusted, go-to source” admired by campaign and news professionals alike. Its industry benchmark polling average is regularly cited by national publications and cable news networks.

But less well known is how Real Clear Politics and its affiliated websites have taken a rightward, aggressively pro-Trump turn over the last four years as donations to its affiliated nonprofit have soared. Large quantities of those funds came through two entities that wealthy conservatives use to give money without revealing their identities.

Real Clear’s evolution traces a similar path as other right-leaning political news outlets that have adapted to the upheaval of the Trump era by aligning themselves with the president and his large following, its writers taking on his battles and raging against the left. As the administration lurched from one crisis after another — impeachment, the coronavirus, a lost election the president refuses to concede — Real Clear became one of the most prominent platforms for elevating unverified and reckless stories about the president’s political opponents, through a mix of its own content and articles from across conservative media.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/17/us/politics/a-popular-political-site-made-a-sharp-right-turn-what-steered-it.html

[liberal N proud]

1. It takes every bit of it to trample the constitution

And the truth

[TheRealNorth]

2. Plus you have similar organs on social media

like PragerU and the American Enterprise Institute (AEI also reaches into traditional media as well).

[Nevilledog]

3. DISinformation...fixed it.

[SoonerPride]

12. I was just about to reply the same exact thing.

Great minds think alike and all that

[Nevilledog]

13. ...

[Kid Berwyn]

4. Where they got the idea.

The Powell Memo (also known as the Powell Manifesto)

The Powell Memo was first published August 23, 1971

Introduction

In 1971, Lewis Powell, then a corporate lawyer and member of the boards of 11 corporations, wrote a memo to his friend Eugene Sydnor, Jr., the Director of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The memorandum was dated August 23, 1971, two months prior to Powell’s nomination by President Nixon to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Powell Memo did not become available to the public until long after his confirmation to the Court. It was leaked to Jack Anderson, a liberal syndicated columnist, who stirred interest in the document when he cited it as reason to doubt Powell’s legal objectivity. Anderson cautioned that Powell “might use his position on the Supreme Court to put his ideas into practice…in behalf of business interests.”

Though Powell’s memo was not the sole influence, the Chamber and corporate activists took his advice to heart and began building a powerful array of institutions designed to shift public attitudes and beliefs over the course of years and decades. The memo influenced or inspired the creation of the Heritage Foundation, the Manhattan Institute, the Cato Institute, Citizens for a Sound Economy, Accuracy in Academe, and other powerful organizations. Their long-term focus began paying off handsomely in the 1980s, in coordination with the Reagan Administration’s “hands-off business” philosophy.

Most notable about these institutions was their focus on education, shifting values, and movement-building — a focus we share, though often with sharply contrasting goals.* (See our endnote for more on this.)

So did Powell’s political views influence his judicial decisions? The evidence is mixed. Powell did embrace expansion of corporate privilege and wrote the majority opinion in First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, a 1978 decision that effectively invented a First Amendment “right” for corporations to influence ballot questions. On social issues, he was a moderate, whose votes often surprised his backers.

CONTINUED...

http://reclaimdemocracy.org/powell_memo_lewis/

[octoberlib]

5. +1 for the Powell Memo.

They have massive amounts of corporate and billionaire funding and this makes a difference. Democratic/progressive thinktanks and sites like Mother Jones say it's hard to compete. They're always struggling for funding.

[Kid Berwyn]

6. Money talks.

If you appreciate Mother Jones, you might like TUC Radio pieces on Alex Carey — Noam Chomsky’s inspiration.

Time of Useful Consciousness...

Alex Carey said that the people of the US have been subjected to an unparalleled, expensive, 3/4 century long propaganda effort designed to expand corporate rights by undermining democracy and destroying the unions. Carey’s unique view of US history goes back to World War I and ends with the Reagan era.

https://tucradio.org/podcasts/newest-podcasts/alex-carey-corporations-and-propaganda-part-one-of-two/

And Part the 2nd:

https://tucradio.org/podcasts/newest-podcasts/alex-carey-corporations-and-propaganda-part-two-of-two/

[octoberlib]

7. Thanks for the links!

[coti]

8. THAT is why 2020 wasn't a bigger Dem win.

It wasn't "the message." It was control, of both the message and larger culture.

[octoberlib]

10. Yes and Dave Wasserman mentioned that the R's went out and registered

twice as many people as Democrats and this probably affected a lot of Congressional races. Dems weren't doing much ground game because of the pandemic. But the messaging is a big thing and always has us at a disadvantage.

[CrispyQ]

9. Decades ago, the right created think tanks to craft their message &

bought up radio stations to broadcast it. Our side, OTOH, was running as fast as it could from the word "liberal" because a two-bit actor poked fun at it. We are 40+ years behind the 8-ball on messaging. We need a marketing department, stat!

[octoberlib]

11. Totally agree. The right is now expert at FB and Youtube to reach potential voters.

They microtargeted young Black and Latino men who'd never voted before and had zero interest in politics and sent them messages that the Democratic party uses them and takes advantage of them and pointed to the crime bill.

We need to get on this stuff. They're expert at disinformation.

[cbdo2007]

14. I'm a data analyst and would love a job helping Dems annihilate the Repubes.

But yeah....don't see anything available anywhere.

That's what it is going to take though is some billionaire who wants to create a liberal data research firm and get about 100 data analysts on the payroll and really commit to creating a game change. Just takes tons of money.

[dickthegrouch]

15. Propaganda advantage

It is NOT information that they are pumping out.

[Thekaspervote]

16. I would add..it's not fooling as many voters as it used to. If it were we wouldn't win anything

Plus, the tech savvy, used to being bombarded with that kind of crap youth vote into Instagram and tictok don’t go for the fuckbook bs or fux.

They voted in big numbers this time, we need to keep that going

[Baked Potato]

17. Republican "billionaires" get a return for their investment into

dis-information operations. It’s an investment vehicle for them. Democrats need to find a way to reward the fat cats who back Democratic strategic information operations.

And, just do it out in the open. Americans understand what needs to be done to fight back.