General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsDemocrats aren't going to win elections again until they build a well-oiled information ecosystem
** Fox is religion for the masses.
Democrats arent going to win elections again until they build a well-oiled information ecosystem that extends to podcasts and every social media platform and can pierce the right-wing propaganda bubble . It doesnt matter if you delivered on the economy or we are actually safer if people are being pummeled by domestic and foreign disinformation that crime and inflation are up. Its an information war at this point.
Link to tweet
unblock
(54,115 posts)We have met the beast. Now how do we kill it?
unblock
(54,115 posts)Good propagandists discredit anyone who disagrees with them, so it's hard to reach those in its grasp, if you can even reach them.
One thing's for sure, with need a huge financial investment in something to compete/counter their propaganda machine. Not sure where that money comes from though....
uponit7771
(91,584 posts)... out there is NOT an accident
Elessar Zappa
(15,658 posts)But yeah, we need to counter them on all fronts.
TheFarseer
(9,476 posts)Something like 18 out of the top 20 political podcasts are on the right. Thats a lot of misinformation being put out there.
AZSkiffyGeek
(12,570 posts)How many people here knew about the Haitian dog thing before the debate? That shit was percolating in NAGA social media for several days Before the debate - but it seemed like Trump crazy nonsense to us. Musks takeover of Twitter gave them a huge echo chamber with him controlling the information being shared. And he made sure the chuds and incels got all that straight to their eyeballs
oasis
(51,585 posts)Phoenix61
(17,548 posts)In the past information was the radio and newspapers. Then news reels at the movies and later tv. Both parties utilized all of it to further their platform. Remember Rush? The beginning of hate radio. Followed by Fox News. That it spread to the internet shouldnt come as a surprise. She is right. We have to effectively compete for media access. Im just not sure we can.
OnionPatch
(6,208 posts)Their goal for decades has been to lie and spread propaganda far and wide, and theyve been quite successful. The Dems have done very little to counter this. I honestly believe disinformation/lack of information is our main problem.
And it's happening again with courting the hispanic community with the hispanic conservative radio stations.
OnionPatch
(6,208 posts)I dont care if they have to subsidize it to keep it going. (Which the right has done.) I dont think they realize how many working people, mostly men, still listen to the radio while working or driving to work. Its ALL OVER THE AIRWAVES. And the Dems do absolutely nothing to counter it.
Lonestarblue
(11,678 posts)CNN used to be close to a reliable nonpartisan outlet, but they have moved too far to the right. MSNBC is perceived as too liberal, which means we need a new voice in a cable channel with online access also that presents facts and truth. Thats a costly proposition. Are there any billionaires willing to fund such a venture? Is there a way to start as a grass roots operation? Im thinking of podcasts here and I know there are several good ones, but are they all heavily associated with each party. For example, Robert Reichs newsletters and podcasts are excellent but associated with Democrats alone.
flamingdem
(39,866 posts)Can imagine some of them are thinking about this.
They can't all be just thinking about retiring...
SoFlaBro
(3,192 posts)bucolic_frolic
(46,736 posts)All along they thought they were doing the right thing. At least that's what they told us.
We catered to suburbs. Somehow our outreach and rallies for union and workers didn't deliver young males.
johnnyfins
(1,306 posts)I just hope all those "young males" dont regret this vote. It's those "young males" who will eventually suit up for this dictator, and die for him. That IS where this leads.
Lemon Lyman
(1,477 posts)How TF can we have our own version of a LW media be successful like theirs is, even if you had the $$ to do it? They spew nonsense and lies and whitewash what their people do and say. The left would never stand for that. It wouldn't work on our side.
A LW version of Fox News wouldn't work. A LW Joe Rogan wouldn't work. Our side doesn't get behind incel conspiracy theory bullshit. Or that we should run con man who can manipulate the media...our own version of Trump. It wouldn't work. That POS would've gotten bounced out of our party long before he belittled the disable reporter.
OnionPatch
(6,208 posts)We just have to find more ways to get information to more people.
Okay, so we need more liberal networks and the larger reach that comes with those. I do wish Soros & Cuban and others would do that. I still don't think it works from our side. Let's say MSNBC is very liberal and honest and good. Does MSNBC having a bigger reach get us more votes? Their way of doing it is so much more entertaining and appealing....with the lies and racism/sexism/etc... How do we compete when we're spitting out facts and they're giving racist nuggies to one another?
Take the young guys in gen Z. They love that Rogan incel shit. I have no earthly idea how you counter that when they just want to take the red pill. The want to be the nazi youth.
flamingdem
(39,866 posts)Racist and sexist nuggies galore!
Elessar Zappa
(15,658 posts)After all, conservatives arent inherently interesting yet, as you say, they entertain millions with their media.
BannonsLiver
(17,780 posts)Its dead or dying as a driving force in elections. What the OP is talking about are podcasts and content creators on YouTube and TikTok and the like. The right has an endless supply of these and it creates an echo chamber they use to indoctrinate, young men in particular. Its also about learning the art of information warfare which they use to great effect. Throwing hands up and saying everything is impossible is a sure fire way to lose w whole bunch of elections moving forward.
FloridaBlues
(4,355 posts)SoFlaBro
(3,192 posts)Lovie777
(14,794 posts)voters will change course and vote for Democrats, then the Dems will help fix it, then GQP will be voted back in and fuck it up again.
Island Blue
(6,255 posts)again (which is doubtful), then yes this is probably true.
I predict , The draconian MAGA/2025 stuff is going to get
really, really, SUPER UNPOPULAR as peoples' lives get MUCH
worse than under Pres Biden.
oldmanlynn
(299 posts)At this point we had everything looking in our favor short of inflation. It did not matter.
If GOD were in the race against the devil and the devil had the level of propaganda that the right wing has, GOD might be ousted.
Im super disappointed but i dont see light at the end of the tunnel. We just got our butts kicked by a felony convict who looks better to Americans than us and we tru to do the right thing.
Sunsky
(1,871 posts)EarlG
(22,514 posts)I think we are in a situation now where the public at large has come untethered from traditional information sources, but that's not necessarily a win for Republicans.
It seems to me that the onslaught of information created by social media and addictive algorithm-driven news feeds over the last 20 years has caused a scenario where, more than ever, people are less interested in macro issues and are more interested in the things that affect them personally (whether those things actually affect them personally or not), and are specifically interested in the things that scare them.
The right-wing's propaganda network is powerful, but I think it only succeeds when things are going generally well for large chunks of people. That's because if you're in no danger of losing your job, and your wages have gone up, and you don't have any problems getting health care (all things that Democrats have improved for people in recent years) then you're not going to give credit to the politicians who made that happen -- you don't even think about it. Instead, you just have more time on your hands to read your news feeds and panic about your kid coming home from school a different gender.
Think about January 6, and how so many of the rioters weren't desperate poor people trying to overthrow a brutal, repressive government -- they were realtors, dentists, middle-class professionals, who had been duped into believing their vote had been stolen. The reason that Republicans kept harping on about how they were like "tourists" is because many of them acted that way -- like they were just cosplaying a revolution, but really, it was all a bit of "fun" for many of them.
But I think this goes both ways. If whatever Trump does next really does tank the economy, and people really do start suffering "temporary hardship" as Elon Musk puts it, then I think you will see large chunks of the electorate swing back, hard. There's a reason Barack Obama won a massive landslide and Democrats took 60 Senate seats in 2008, and it wasn't because we "pierced the right wing propaganda bubble" -- it's because George W. Bush did that himself, by starting an unnecessary war in the Middle East that got thousands of US troops killed, and then presiding over the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.
As ever, the public turns to Democrats when Republicans fuck things up, and then turns back to Republicans after Democrats fix their fuck-ups. It seems to me that once again, that's what's happened.
The question now is what will be left of the country to fix after Trump is done with it this time around.
flamingdem
(39,866 posts)And true that the untethering from main stream media has created a real challenge. We can expect the lies to continue and dems have to strategize to use podcasts and other non traditional forms of media as well as the other side does.
Yavin4
(36,029 posts)They're dinosaurs and completely insignificant.
Elessar Zappa
(15,658 posts)social media and podcasts are more influential than anything on TV, including Fox News. We need to have far more voices on those non-traditional platforms than we currently have.
mopinko
(71,652 posts)it was infiltrated by rwers from the start, and it became a lesson in how what u say is impossible.
except its not. what we need is radio. the rightward slant of npr has rly hurt us. theyve done as much sanewashing as nyt. but they r the closest thing to left wing in a lot of red states, ie wis. which informs those voters about what candidates stand for. they make them look sane, and us look weak.
ya know, the msm leans towards those who buy the most ads. or at least they bend over backwards for them. dems need to find any not-rw radio stations and start running ads there. now. so by 2026, we have a base.
Bobstandard
(1,650 posts)Daily Kos is, with DU, one of the few active progressive blog sites. It used to rely on ad revenue. That model is no longer sufficient so its turning to readers for support. Unfortunately, thats not working either and they have had to let excellent staff writers go. Id be surprised if they last another year.
If you havent already, resubscribe here and subscribe to DK and any others you value.
Easterncedar
(3,398 posts)GaYellowDawg
(4,861 posts)Fox News got built in an era where people trusted the news, in the absence of opposition to what they were doing. It was a virgin field epidemic of disinformation. To build a similar "information ecosystem" now, you'd have to build it with a well-established Fox News opposing it at every turn. It's just not going to work. Until the Fox empire and its malignant outgrowths in social media are burned to the ground and that ground is thoroughly salted and irradiated, there will be no ecosystem that has any hope of being legitimate opposition.
BannonsLiver
(17,780 posts)The bro culture that turned out for Trump doesnt watch it. Legacy media, even Fox, is waning in influence. Its the social media platforms that are going to kill us.
SomedayKindaLove
(1,070 posts)Its all digital now. Trump kept saying were winning the internet. X helped spread over a billion lies during the election cycle. We might have laughed at Musk paying 44B for Twitter, but Im guessing hes now pretty pleased with his purchase.
NNadir
(34,533 posts)William Seger
(11,020 posts)Deep State Witch
(11,218 posts)It's the blogosphere. It's TikTok. It's podcasts like Joe Rogan. Yes, we have Charlamagne Tha God, but he's a rarity. It's things that we can't control easily.
tulipsandroses
(6,166 posts)Hate and anger sells!
It is psychological warfare and that is not hyperbole.
People stay online longer and engage more with negative information.
The people pumping out these videos, podcasts or whatever, know this.
You can post tons of videos on YouTube distorting the truth and get paid for it.
The same folks that will say they don't trust " the news" because they are paid to tell us what to think, trust people selling lies on YouTube.
Go figure.
I'm not sure if a news organization, or online presence is the remedy.
It sucks, but we have to be prepared to make this a long term project. The republicans are good at that. They know how to play the longe game. We need to follow suit.
I would like to see year round face to face engagement by democrats in as many neighborhoods as possible.
Plan events just like we were doing. From town halls, to community events to engage directly with the public. Explain how things actually work. Aside from the bigotry that has brought us here, stupidity, ignorance also brought us here.
If you are mad about the high cost of housing, understand what contributed to this and what can be done about it.
valleyrogue
(1,006 posts)something they are not responsible for. Just stop it.
Jmoncada
(2 posts)Except you even have Democrats out of New York telling us we lost because we followed the progressive agenda of the far left wing of the party. Do we really have to move to be more moderate to win elections? Every one of our major stronghold cities shifted right. This is getting scary!
BannonsLiver
(17,780 posts)Also clear: most people in the thread dont seem to get it.
muriel_volestrangler
(102,389 posts)You oil machines, no ecosystems. This makes me think the writer is pumping out hot takes without sufficient thought to be worth reading.
keep_left
(2,329 posts)And that really means more than the one network we tried (Air America), which was not the total failure that some have made of it--Air America launched the careers of a number of personalities, and many of them continue to this day either on other networks or as self-syndicated shows. But the most important thing is that these networks must be supported by both the listeners and the Democratic party. That needs to be seen as an ongoing investment for many years. How long did it take for Fox News to become profitable? And how long did Rush Limbaugh "suck wind in Sacramento", as Randi Rhodes put it? (Her answer: 15 years!).
Here's a little story, and I'll try to make it brief. Some here may have noticed that I pay (maybe too much) attention to the insane radtrad faction in the Catholic church. Of course, that's because I have a personal connection. For example, I watched in horror as one newly-appointed radtrad priest single-handedly destroyed a Newman Center ministry at an upper Midwest university within a year's time. It turned out that this was not the first university that had a "wrecker priest" destroy their campus ministry; in fact, it looked like this was an actual strategy by the radtrad clergy. I then became aware that radtrad billiionaires like Tom Monaghan were buying up radio stations to spread "supply-side-Jesus"-style Catholicism to the masses. All radtrad, all the time, and forget about the Beatitudes or the Social Gospel. (In fact, anyone who mentioned those things was fired).
So it turns out that these stations are often so low-rated that they can't even generate an Arbitron number. I discovered that because our local paper at the time was still serious about journalism, and they had a reporter with a personal connection to the Church who noticed the same things I did. The bottom line is that these stations (and now cable TV as well, like EWTN) don't make any money. They are usually guaranteed money-losers. However, they pay off when it comes to electing idiots (Trump being just the latest). It also is about doctrinal control and Google-bombing. These networks all link to each other and similar like-minded organizations, which triggers the Google algorithm to give them priority in web searches. Over the years, this has been refined and perfected so that nowadays any search for Catholicism-related topics nearly always means that one or more far-right organizations is at the top of the list. That's what they're paying for.
We need to wise up and start creating our own media infrastructure which isn't dependent on MSNBC or other existing organizations. And yes, it needs to be multimodal--it probably is true that radio is a dying format, and podcasts and the internet are the future. However, radio isn't dead yet, and there are still good stations that soldier on (like KTNF in the Twin Cites), often producing their own local content as well. The Democrats need to support these stations, as do other organizations like labor unions and NGOs. Otherwise, I fear we'll continue to be rolled by Fox News and their imitators for years to come.
ibegurpard
(16,845 posts)No we don't but we DO need some kind of messaging infrastructure that pumps our message out where people actually ARE 24/7.
Fox News is increasingly a relic... where are young men getting the messaging that's radicalized them 36 points since 2018? That's where we need to be.
Our policy prescriptions are popular.
Our messaging not so much. But the real problem is no way to get the message out there.
Bernardo de La Paz
(50,821 posts)IrishAfricanAmerican
(4,146 posts)We have nothing to counteract the reinforcement the "church" provides. That's really the nail that drives all of their propaganda home. And, for the most part, it's not the pulpit that's doing the reinforcing. It's the other people who suck at the disinformation firehose all week reinforcing the bullshit in each other! I know because I saw it first hand for decades.
What will we use to counteract the churches??? I would say education but, whoops, that's fucked now too.
kwolf68
(7,866 posts)The national media, major media outlets are owned by the exact people and companies those media outlets should be watching over. A strong part of the Democratic Party message is we need a media free from the corruptive influence of oligarchs. Ditto for that influence in the political system. Which is the difficult part as many Dems also benefit from that same model, but it's corrupt to the core and inspires the idea both parties are "the same". We need to break that mold somehow, show how we are different and why it's better.
Short of that, yes getting the information out there is important, but the bottom line is TRUMP SELLS. He's a horrific pile of shit, but that's all anyone talks about and the reason he won is he understood his "celebrity". In the world of entertainment there is NO such thing as bad publicity. Rock stars who drink milk and lay in a hammock don't get run, but if they smash up cars or hotel rooms, make some insane comment or go streaking down Broadway they are IN THE spotlight, that's all you need to do. Again, the only thing worse than bad publicity is no publicity.
Trump understood that, just keep his name out there. Do whatever you can, say anything, the wilder the better, because if this comment offends 12 million people not to worry he'll just make another crazy comment tomorrow and the comment from yesterday goes poof. The end result? Everyone is still talking about Trump. Again, no such thing as bad publicity. Our election has now become a contest of "who will you remember" when you go into the booth. For the badly informed or lazy voter, they will mark in the box for the guy that has been pushed into their brain on a constant basis.
To see all the ballot initiates and even "policy" polling that both show a VERY STRONG favor toward the policies of the Democratic Party, WHY then do we lose? American people time and time again say they support our policies and most often by wide margins, THEN elect someone who would resist or reject those policies. In short, the Presidential election is not really about policy at all.
orange jar
(851 posts)Today's RW propaganda is spread via the internet (especially on places like TikTok, Twitter, YouTube, or Reddit). Fox is about a non-factor to people who aren't already Republicans.
The other problem is that popular LW influencers also criticize and demonize Democrats. On Twitch, the most popular LW streamer is Hasan Piker (Cenk Uygur's nephew, for those who don't know). He is constantly influencing LW youth to go against Democrats, and that combined with RW fearmongering propaganda targeting easily-scared Independents creates an environment that genuinely makes it difficult for Dems to reach the audiences we need.
Demovictory9
(33,651 posts)happy feet
(1,072 posts)oldreliable_one
(6 posts)The Dems need to appeal to simple things. Affordability. Gas prices. Food prices. These things matter to the vast majority of Americans. Talking about statistics and percentages and how the economy is so great and wonderful means nothing when you're struggling. It makes you sound elitist and out of touch; the term "limousine liberal" comes to mind - the wealthy lecturing the poor that everything is all hunky dory.
People may not like Trump but he says things that relate to them about prices. Trump is a monster and so is the GOP; but politically inactive people are willing to look past that since he talks about things that relate to them. Of course he is full of crap and won't help them at all, but he and the GOP have an excellent ground game. Bernie Sanders is right - the Dems have the perception of being a party out of touch with the working class.
James Carville said that the Democratic Party seems to be turning into the party of "preachy women" - and like it or not, talking down to people about graphs and charts and statistics from some university people haven't heard of is not a way to convince them to vote for you.
bucolic_frolic
(46,736 posts)We are not penetrating social networks.
Republicans are in power now. We should help them make things worse, not better. Then blame them.
The beatings will continue until morale improves. Foundational motivation.
Irish_Dem
(56,001 posts)Fox News has been everywhere and relentless for decades.
TheFarseer
(9,476 posts)because of their media and Im mostly talking about podcasts even more than Fox and Newsmax. I saw a clip where they asked voters why they were voting for Trump and they said because gas is sky high and they cant afford gas anymore. Of course gas is the lowest its been since the pandemic and something inflation hasnt really touched.
I think you can have lefty podcasts. Look at Brian Tyler Cohen, Pod Save America, David Packman, TYT, Luke Beasley, Kyle Kulinski. They have lots of subscribers so it can be done. What you cant do is have a meltdown when they disagree constructively with the party establishment. It has to be organic. You dont think Joe Rogan touts the R party line 100%, do you?