Schumer had to vote for the CR because he didn’t get his message out beforehand. That needs to change.

If you think this is too critical I ask you: where are the ads slamming Trump now? How many do you see on YouTube? On Hulu?

For the crowd who says I criticize Dems too much:
Booker’s speech was good. Van Hollen’s trip was good. AOC and Bernie’s tour is good. But we need MUCH more media strategy from Dems.

Everyone is waiting for Trump to self-sabotage and for the tariffs to have an effect.

That is a bad strategy! We should be running a full court press now, just as Republicans did on the economy four years ago: they put stickers on gas pumps even.

The real battle for the 2026 midterms is being fought right now and the institutional Democratic Party has given up, and is abdicating the field.

The big Democratic PACs are not spending money on ads attacking Trump.

Big Dem donors are on the sidelines.
1/

I’m often surprised at how people want to dismiss the role of media and info environment, and use class as an explanation for politics.

Marx was smart and forward-thinking.
But too many today are still locked in his class-first analysis.
We need more information-first analysis.

Good for Paul Waldman and Thomas Schaller. They are defending their book. And they are right.

https://newrepublic.com/article/180570/trump-rural-white-resentment-honest-assessment

“When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross, and the New York Times Opinion section will say we are all overreacting.”

Updated for 21st century America.

The problems with our media in one headline

“Climate activist Tom Steyer.”

While Reuters doesn’t call Manchin or Koch or Uihlein or Wilks or Murdoch activists for fossil fuels.

Just endless headlines attacking people trying to do good, while coddling corrupt actors who do selfish things. It’s maddening.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/bidens-staying-lake-tahoe-home-climate-activist-tom-steyer-2023-08-19/

My god. The New York Times Opinion section is giving space to full-on fascist Chris Rufo to push his agenda — to push lies in service of, yes, the F word: fascism.

Look, I try to be measured. But this is a five-alarm fire for US democracy. This is like publishing Goebbels in 1934.

This is as bad as publishing Tom Cotton, and the Opinion editors should lose their jobs for it.

NYT has ten million subscribers, and approximately 9.99 million do not have time to read media criticism in depth. /1

@JoshuaGreen @WashingtonMonthly

This off-the-record moment by Chait explains so much of his frequent negativity towards Biden:
He sees it as entertainment.

Chait said he’s “deadened his [own] emotions” as to the stakes of politics.
Chait said he was happy that Trump won.
Chait drew parallels between looking at “the whole world” as “entertainment” and his job as a writer.

He said this at a talk with @rtraister. FYI @tzimmer_history. #chait #journalism #news #chait
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/jonathan-chait-trump-won-election_n_5b58e32ee4b0fd5c73cb5236

NPR bears great responsibility for pushing the US toward autocracy.

NPR has been unable to accurately convey, without bothsidesism, the dangers we face.

The effect is that NPR listeners are falsely reassured—they don't learn about how dangerous the moment is, how extreme conservatives have become. Because NPR doesn't state that clearly.

Related: A lot of NPR's income today comes from corporate ads.

@shoq #sotu
https://mastodon.social/@shoq/109829663312375828

I increasingly think that “freedom” is the most important word to take back from the fascists.

In rightwing hands, freedom often means
“no rules to allow billionaires to accumulate all the profits and power” or “privatize and destroy societal services” — schools to healthcare.

Real freedom is freedom from want, freedom to pursue happiness without worry about healthcare bankruptcy and with good schools for all.

#democracy
Extremely smart thread by @mattsheffield.

It’s our dose of optimism for the next year:
The generation that lived through the last big wave of oligarchy and fascism — around the 1940s — didn’t vote for the party of big money for the rest of their lives, and we got the 1950s-1960s era of restraint on #oligarchs, workers’ rights, and civil rights.
If we can beat back this neofascist wave we face, we can do even more.

Happy New Year! #2023 #newyear

https://mastodon.social/@mattsheffield/109610603541964412

Musk’s winning on Twitter. He’s influencing people.

That’s shown by the Tate mess.
Musk let him back on. And so, for two days when we should have been focused on #Trump’s tax returns and Ginni #Thomas transcripts, instead the whole news cycle has been about the travails of an incel misogynist influencer.

I hope Tate pays consequences for his crimes and also his hateful rhetoric is banished forever. But Musk and Thiel are succeeding in using Twitter for rightwing goals.
#Twitter #media #pizza

And Murdoch has gotten ample return on that monetary investment in the NY Post:
Murdoch helped Reagan in the 1980 election (w/o Murdoch, Carter might have been president).

In return, #Reagan helped Murdoch neuter the FCC, buy more media, and build a bigger, more monopolistic, media empire.

👉Fix our media: revive media policy. Strengthen the #FCC, break up huge media #conglomerates, and constrain #billionaire /Wall Street #media ownership. 1988 AP: https://apnews.com/article/31b2da07c9c821c0b7bdae9e1483f51f

In the 45 years since Murdoch bought the New York Post, it’s very likely he’s lost $1 billion in today’s dollars.

That’s not a loss. It’s an investment.

It’s a Murdoch’s investment in lies, division, hate, and helping Republicans in elections.

(Lowball estimate $20-30M, in 2013: Joe Pompeo.)

@aaronhuertas And rapid hearings on Ginni Thomas too— could have cowed SCOTUS into less intervention to help Republicans.
I’m a TR fan: his motto was “Get Action.”
Democrats, do that.

This history anecdote is so important for our time. It’s from ex-political consultant Bob Schneider, about Lyn Nofziger, one of Reagan’s longtime top aides.

“[Had we] opened a Pandora’s Box by [courting] religious zealots?”

“Lyn looked at me like I had just lost my mind. He turned to me and said, “Do you know how many people Jerry Falwell reaches per week? We want their votes. We can control the useful fools.”

#Reagan #theocracy #religion #misinformation https://web.archive.org/web/20180121150714/http://www.chicagonow.com/politics-now/2017/12/the-gop-despises-the-trump-base-and-so-does-trump/

Here’s more on the Rhetoric of Reaction.

(Thanks to @drvolts
for turning me on to it and Perversity, Futility, Jeopardy. Once I learned about it, I now see it regularly.)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rhetoric_of_Reaction

In 1933, there were 500,000 Jewish people in Germany, of a total population of 67 M. That's a bit less than 0.75 percent.

Today there are an estimated 1.6 M adults in the US that identify as transgender: about 0.5 percent of US adults.

It doesn't take a large group to serve as targets for fascist hatred and violence.

A small minority can play that role just fine.

#fascism #USpol #trans #murdoch cc @parkermolloy https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/germany-jewish-population-in-1933

https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/publications/trans-adults-united-states/