General Discussion

but I question your explanation about our lack of a communication system to compete with RW propaganda. You mention one effort that did not catch on, Air America. So that's it? We don't even try again with another model, or with a variety of media?

I know that clear cut messaging is difficult for us because we are so diverse. But so is the RW messaging. The right's issues cover guns, race, abortion, religion, anti regulation, anti government, anti social programs. As we saw in the midterms, not all on the right agree on abortion. Same is true about reasonable gun regulations. But all groups are addressed with a variety of media outlets and messsges, some even self-contradictory, to target the variety of views. They are united by hate for manufactured tales and left wing boogeymen to fear and oppose.

The RW spends millions on propaganda messaging outlets. We do not spend nearly as much money or effort. We allow them to control the public interest and spin. We don't have the same wealth on our side but more of the wealth that does exist among us could be spent on media like our own talk radio programs and hosts that would reach people where they are in their daily lives, riding in their cars, watching news on cable. MSNBC does not come close to what we need.

We need to have popular radio and TV hosts and programs that don't mince words. We need to tell our own story and message to the working and lower middle classes. We should have been hammering back at complaints about the Afghan withdrawal, explaining how Trump sold out to the Taliban, leaving Biden no choice. We should have radio host shows that tear apart trickle down economics and explain how they hurt average people and how the right uses racism to explain it all away, blaming immigrants, the outsider, the left to distract people from what billionaires are doing to them. We should have been daily hammering at how the cost of living increases are directly due to tax cuts at the top pushing the burden of costs on the bottom. We needed to explain that public services are NOT socialism or communism. They are the normal responsibilities of good governance to meet the needs of the people with education, police, fire departments, public libraries, etc. to maintain democracy and civilization.

We have dropped the ball completely. Roosevelt knew the necessity of maintaining communication via the media of his times, the radio fireside chats. He could not have succeeded without doing that. He kept the people on his side and they responded by giving him the Democratic Congress that he needed.

We need more local grass roots emphasis on reaching people where they are. And national level of constant communication to lead the grass roots.