In the thread downstairs, there was some talk about how Democrats face a permanent media disadvantage since there’s no equivalent of Fox News that serves the left side of the political spectrum. A propaganda outlet that favors the Democratic Party probably won’t happen for a variety of reasons.
But I do wonder if it would help if Dem-friendly donors funded “investigative reporting” books on Republican opponents that could be released exclusively to big media outfits. Wingnuts do that routinely, as y’all know. One prominent example is Clinton Cash, written by a disreputable wingnut hack. The NYT ate it up and then crapped it out as narrative-setting stories, to disastrous effect (for Democrats).
It’s possible MSM outlets wouldn’t be interested in tearing Republicans down since the GOP is generally better for their owners’ bottom line. But I don’t believe that’s always the controlling principle. In 2020, MSM outlets mostly passed on the Hunter Biden laptop stuff, probably because the Trump clowns were dumb enough to aggressively push it instead of letting the Beltway types discover it at a respectable remove.
Imagine an exposé on a prominent Republican (say, Ron DeSantis) authored by someone independent enough not to be immediately dismissed as a political operative. If the material it contained was salacious and/or damaging enough, maybe a book like that could get legs. Heck, we could do the wingnuts one better and hire an honest-to-dog investigative journalist instead of a washed-up Sarah Palin hagiographer/stalker.
Maybe there have already been attempts to replicate that unfortunately effective tactic for good rather than evil, but I can’t think of an example that really took off and shaped narratives the way Clinton Cash did. It seems like the trick is to get out in front of political movements so the book can take advantage of Beltway journo laziness by providing a pre-fab framing. What do y’all think?
Open thread.
Roger Moore
One should not underestimate the laziness of DC political reporters. Providing them with a salacious story on a platter could have very good results, especially if it isn’t directly from one of the campaigns.
Lyrebird
I know you have a day job, esteemed Ms. Cracker, but if YOU wrote the book it would be both factual and hilarious.
ETA: also sordid and depressing, but the hilarity would help the reader keep going
LeeM
The problem is the right wing isn’t especially interested in The Truth. It’s more about their agreed upon narrative, so anything that conflicts with their narrative is dismissed as false. People of a liberal bent can juggle conflicting narratives in their minds.
lowtechcyclist
I don’t think the Dems need a propaganda outfit, but even a news outlet that did what the FTFNYT should be doing, but doesn’t, would be a huge boon for the Dems. Good factual reporting, and opinions based on those facts. No bothsidesing. Actually covering what Dems as well as Republicans say Talking to the clientele at a barbershop in Atlanta as well as the folks at a midwestern diner. Above all not hanging out with the other media people and coming up with the same damn storyline as everyone else. Not having a predetermined narrative that they try to make their stories fit into. Not chasing after every damn ball that the GOP tosses out there. Hiring reporters who graduated from state schools and know what life looks like for average Americans. I could go on.
Yarrow
Dems definitely could benefit from working the refs more.
@LeeM: Agree with this. The far right is concerned with power not truth.
oatler
ABC’s Sunday morning news show’s official guest schedule mentioned a “GOP panel” Not even trying to be coy.
Baud
I don’t think the NYT needed much convincing to incorporate Clinton Cash into their coverage.
Scout211
Since this thread is open . . .
California Attorney General Bonta sent a letter to the city of Woodside to inform them that their scheme to declare their town a mountain lion habitat to avoid complying with SB 9 is illegal.
Suzanne
I’m not sure it would be as effective as we’d hope, digging up salacious dirt. Among the crazy, they see it as a feature, not a bug, to be gross.
What I do think might be effective AF would be finding things that specifically make them look weak and nerdy, like Ted Cruz going to Cancun with his dumb rolly suitcase.
I also think that we should pretend to dig up dirt on our own side but instead have it be stuff that makes our side look cool, like AOC’s video of her dancing in college where she looks hot, or Beto O’Rourke with his band.
justawriter
I guess I have two points, one is that right wingers seem to be fungible. Take one down and pass him around, there will still be 98 right wingers on the wall. The other is I’m sure the scripts are already pre-written about how disgusting it is to go after these creep’s personal lives, and besides, have you seen the pictures of Biden and kids? (I have explained to one good friend several times that picture was with his grandson at Beau’s funeral, but she still brings it up every time we talk politics. fml) So I am not optimistic it would work to move public opinion as a whole. However, humiliating right wingers is a good thing in its own right.
Baud
@Scout211:
I didn’t know sex-obsessed older women had become endangered.
Brachiator
Is there salacious stuff about DeSantis?
Who would these books be targeted to? Democrats hate DeSantis anyway, for good reason. Conservative true believers would not care.
There was actually a considerable body of reporting clearly pointing out what a fraud Trump was. Media sources may have been bad and lazy in bringing it up again. But at a certain point the myth of Trump was bigger than the truth of Trump.
People are funny. Sometimes they want to believe lies. There is not much you can do about it.
ETA. The weird thing about the Hunter Biden stuff is that no matter how you sliced it, even if somehow you could show that Hunter was the most corrupt evah, it didn’t have anything to do with Joe, except for die hard right wing fools.
And here, the truth of Joe Biden as a fundamentally decent guy was immune to the lies that the GOP tried to push.
Suzanne
@justawriter:
Repeated for emphasis.
But the things that they find humiliating will not be the things we think. Thinks that make them look wussy or effete. Like Dijon mustard and arugula!!!
trollhattan
“Media Matters” “Crooks and Liars” and the like do good jobs bearing witness to Republican shenanigans, but with minuscule audiences of the already converted don’t move the dial any.
What Republicans did so well was to first tar ALL existing news media as de facto “liberal” whatever that means, teeing up their folks for willful acceptance of Fox News and their imitators. Zucker was let go from “The Liberal CNN” not just CNN.
No idea how to stuff that genie back into the bottle. Republicans would run media like PRC does today, if they could accumulate enough power to make that happen.
ian
The problem is that Democrats are open minded and question things, conservatives happen to like it when they have stories presented to them that make them angry and reconfirm their worldview.
Left wing fox news would probably not work, and as was suggested last thread, we probably would not want it to anyways.
trollhattan
@Baud:
You should go there. Women of “a certain age” prowling in their Maserati SUVs, lookin’ for a little. Scandalous!
(BTW, California mountain lions are about as endangered as seagulls. Just because you don’t see them doesn’t mean they aren’t there.)
Still, nice try, Woodside.
J R in WV
A quick update on Wife’s condition, as of when I came home late last night.
She is still in her ER bed 11 slot, which is an actual room with a door and a toilet, admitted but still no bed for her up in the actual hospital.She has been promoted to a room and had hot coffee, which made her a more happy person.It is a great facility, a teaching hospital affiliated with the WVU med school up in Morgantown. They decided that she almost certainly did not have a stroke, which leaves them puzzled about what she does have.
She can walk if supported for balance, like into the toilet. Has trouble speaking, not enunciating her words, but selecting the words she intends to say. Most worrisome yesterday was soaring blood pressure 191/145 at one point. Her RN administered first a pill, 30 minutes later an IV drug, then a second pill, which finally got her down to 144/101, still a concern but better.
Yesterday there was a new patient admitted to a bed in the hall outside Wife’s room. He’s wired up to monitors and receiving medical care, but miserable, in the hall. This is part of the Covidiot Catastrophe. I knew about it of course, what jackal does not, but up close and personal in my face is one hell of a learning process. This morning I discover Wife and I are both eligible for our forth Moderna shot, which I will ask for when I hit town. Don’t know if Wife should have one given her already shaky condition.
The staff at CAMC Memorial ER is a cluster of heroes. They are still calm and helpful, as short-handed and overwhelmed as they are. And the ER isn’t really equipped for long term support of patients — up in the actual wards there are refrigerators full of snacks, microwaves, hot meals, showers, etc, etc. So glad she was moved upstairs.
Leaving now for town. Do wish her luck, she needs it. You all take care, you don’t want to go to even a great hospital right now if you can avoid it.
Betty Cracker
@Suzanne: Good point, and I didn’t really intend to imply the entire enterprise should be about weird kinks, which “salacious” kind of does, so I edited the sentence to include “damaging.” The Clinton Cash thing was about alleged corruption.
With DeSantis (and probably most Republicans) there is plenty of actual corruption to explore. The Florida dailies have done a decent job exposing a lot of it, but maybe if someone tied it all up in a neat, well-sourced package with a pre-fab narrative about an alleged populist who’s actually a greedy elitist, some outfits would run with that. I don’t know. Just an idea
ETA: It might also be crucial to deliver such a book during a primary. That way, the target’s same-party opponents could make hay off it too, giving an imprimatur of credibility. Unfortunately, as we know, that happened with Clinton.
Baud
@J R in WV: Good luck.
VeniceRiley
@Scout211: I worked at The Gorilla Foundation up there. What a lovely place in the forest. Beautiful views from the house all the way to Half Moon Bay. The little deli next to the gas/auto repair shop at Skyline and La Honda where I bought the most delish pierogi every day. This was before the new money moved in. It was like Topanga but better.
Middlelee
@justawriter: Explain please. I have no idea why pictures of Biden’s kids are political. I admit I’m uninformed and politically inept.
Lyrebird
@J R in WV: All good thoughts going out to Mrs. R, to you, and to the medical team!
They can do so much more now than in decades past.
So good that you got her to a good hospital ASAP.
Benw
@J R in WV: hoping for the best for you both
schrodingers_cat
@Yarrow: As long as Republicans remain the party of white supremacy the press will not be on our side. Just look at who runs the media houses and who are its biggest stars.
ian
@Middlelee:
There is a film clip making the rounds on RW twitter of Biden kissing his grandson. All the ‘proof’ they need that all libs are pedophiles, Q-anon prophesy fulfilled. Not sure if that is the exact one # 10 is talking about, but the that’s the theme of these things.
Steve in the ATL
Cloth mask question: now that we have upgraded to N95 masks, what do I with this now useless pile of cloth masks?
schrodingers_cat
@J R in WV: Thanks for the update. Hoping for a speedy recovery.
trollhattan
@J R in WV:
Oof, hope you get answers, good ones, soon on what’s going on. Fingers and toes crossed (easy in this pantsless, shoeless WAH world).
4th Moderna? Did not know that was a thing yet in the States, so good, get that!
Snarki, child of Loki
“Imagine an exposé on a prominent Republican (say, Ron DeSantis)”
Suggested title: FLORIDA MAN
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: IMHO engaging with RWNJs is a waste of time. Their aim is to get a rise out of you and waste your time and energy. So even if you are engaging to ridicule them you are only wasting your time. This has been my experience of dealing with pro BJP RWNJs in the family and on Twitter since 2019.
We need to activate our voters and make sure that our supporters outnumber their at the polls. Everything else is secondary
Roger Moore
@Suzanne:
The kind of people who see things that way are probably lost to us anyway. But there are people on the margins who are at least potentially persuadable, and they probably will respond to salacious dirt. What’s really important is that it needs to come out regularly and on everyone we can find dirt on. Only part of what we’re doing is to attack specific people for their failings. The other really important point is to create the perception that the Republicans are a bunch of crooks and in the pockets of billionaires. That won’t necessarily help with any individual campaign, but it will hopefully convince people who haven’t made up their minds that they don’t want to be Republicans.
trollhattan
@ian: It truly is like a world run by middle school boys. “Beavis and Butthead” was a documentary.
burnspbesq
There are probably at least 20 people in Woodside who could buy up all the buildable land in town, cover it with conservation easements, and donate it to the city for use as parks. The place will remain a techbro hideaway, and there isn’t a damn thing the state can do about it.
J.
What the Dems need is better PR — or a PR firm/publicist with press connections who can get the positive stories more airtime or newsprint — not necessarily exposes of Republicans. However, the bigger problem is that good news or no news doesn’t sell. Dirty laundry does.
Baud
@trollhattan:
Butthead apparently got a big contract with Spotify.
Roger Moore
@Steve in the ATL:
I packed mine up and put them with my other rarely worn clothes. My thought is that even if we get COVID completely under control to the point we don’t need to wear masks regularly, I may still want to wear them occasionally, and cloth masks might be good for that.
trnc
I’m having trouble imagining such a person, considering how lifelong republicans like Cheney and Romney are treated like democrats when they step out of line.
Betty Cracker
@Brachiator:
Ultimately, mainstream media outlets, as suggested in the OP. They tend to set the narrative for discussions that occur downstream, all across the fragmented media landscape.
If the laptop content as reported at places like NY Post is real, then we definitely dodged a bullet on the story. Trump’s big fat mouth, the attempted extortion of Ukraine, etc., made a narrative that would have benefited Trump too toxic for the MSM Beltway to latch onto, which must have been a big disappointment to people like Ken Vogel of the NYT.
mrmoshpotato
I seriously doubt they’d eat up a boatload of actual oppo research on Rethuglicans like they eat up bullshit fed to them by RWNJs.
They’re wired to jerk off Rethuglicans and crap all over Democrats.
Kay
“One of the low quality hires I brought in attacked a 17 year over a Tweet that dared to criticize me, and that person will continue to be employed and paid by me”
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: HRC does a masterful job at tweaking both the press dudebros and RWNJs on Twitter https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/status/1490732135854096388
Starfish
@Brachiator: The books would not have a target audience of beltway journalists and would not have to sell well. You would get some campaigns to buy the books to inflate their popularity. Have someone review it so no one has to read it because reporters are lazy.
Betty Cracker
@J R in WV: Yikes — hope she recovers quickly and completely!
UncleEbeneezer
@Roger Moore: Thank you. Focussing on wing nuts is a waste of time, but there is a significant amount of Independent/NPA ie, Swing Voters, that often default for voting for GOP but will vote for Dems when the GOP candidate (like Trump) is terrible. Those are the people we are trying to reach. Trump-to-Biden voters and people who didn’t bother to vote in 2016 etc. And I agree with Betty that tis is something that has to be done without counting on the NYTimes/MSM to suddenly start reporting accurately and with context (they won’t). We could absolutely benefit from some anti-Republican books (with truthful reporting) being out there to shift the narrative. But we would also need our side to amplify them relentlessly the way wing nuts do. This is something I worry about because our side spends way too much time publicly griping about Dems than actually using our words to change the overall perception of the GOP. I mean, a nontrivial amount of people on our side get seemingly more outraged by the completely anodyne message of “Vote Blue, no matter who” than they do about the actions of the Fascist GOP. So I’m not real optimistic.
mrmoshpotato
Haha! Stalking the Queen of the Iquitarod and wondering how it got to this point.
Roger Moore
@burnspbesq:
The thing they’re worried about is that SB 9 makes it possible to put multiple houses on an existing lot, and in some cases to subdivide lots. So you can’t prevent housing expansion just by buying up existing open land; you need to find a way to prevent people from putting extra units on their existing residential parcels.
Yarrow
@schrodingers_cat: Sure. That’s the baseline. Also plenty of misogyny that impacts coverage and decisions.
Tarragon
I guess I better stock up.
mrmoshpotato
@Kay: What was the exchange?
Roger Moore
@Starfish:
You wouldn’t necessarily expect beltway journalists to read the books. What you want is for newspapers to excerpt the books in a way that drives news coverage. That means writing sections that serve a political purpose and are nicely and easily excerpted.
Yarrow
@J R in WV: Goodness. Glad she’s okay and sending good thoughts for continued improvement.
I didn’t know anyone could get a fourth vaccine. Interesting that you both qualify and hope it’s easy to find and get.
narya
@Steve in the ATL: I wear one over the N95. Also, if I’m in a less-infectious setting, I can swap out the N95 for the cloth one more easily. I have a stretchy thing tied to the cloth mask ear loops so it can hang around my neck when I’m not using it.
Kay
None of these people are “economically left” but sure, just make stuff up and insert to support your theory. The invented part does make it hang together better, though! Too bad it’s not true.
Betty
If it challenges the status quo, it will be seen as partisan. There is investigative reporting happening on many scandalous issues. Even moderate Dems tend to dismiss the work of Mother Jones and the American Prospect unless it is picked up later by the Times or the Post.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
?
Almost Retired
@Suzanne: This is so right. Conservatives wouldn’t care if DeSantis was exposed as a corrupt, puppy-strangling grifter (“Liberals love puppies….way to own the libs, Ron”).
But get a picture of him in a robe with cucumbers over his eyes while getting a pedicure, and his approval rate with conservatives would plunge.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@J R in WV:
Make sure to get a neuro consult.
Kay
I think it’s a good idea, Betty. They could start with DeSantis. He’s corrupt as shit. Tons of material to work with there.
Do the work for them and serve it up. Maybe they’ll bite.
SiubhanDuinne
@J R in WV:
Sending all the strongest healing thoughts I can muster to your wife and you.
I’m glad to know the medics don’t think it’s a stroke; hope they can find an accurate diagnosis soon. Not just so they can properly treat it/minimise the chance of its recurrence, but because it’s always easier to grapple with something if you can put a name to it. I don’t know why that is, but it’s true.
Baud
@Kay: Rogan is anti-GOP?
schrodingers_cat
Modi was ranting against the Maharashtra state government (non-BJP government) in the parliament yesterday and blaming them for spreading COVID-19 to the Hindi heartland. He is truly shameless
The Moar You Know
Clinton Cash is just…absolute despair. I’ve got my bio parents and my stepparents, two of ’em vote Dem now, but ALL FOUR of them think every word in that goddamn tome is God’s truth.
“If all that wasn’t true he’d be sued of out existence for slander”
Fuck. My blood pressure spikes every damn time I even read the title of the fucking thing.
Tazj
@J R in WV: I’m glad she finally got a room and I’m hoping a speedy recovery is next.
Roger Moore
@narya:
The only thing a cloth mask over the N95 really adds is style.
Kay
Florida still has local newspapers and they cover corruption. Hire away one of the people who are already following DeSantis corruption and pay them.
MisterForkbeard
@Roger Moore: They don’t appear to have an appetite for salacious stories about Republicans, though.
“Republicans are corrupt, sexual assaulting rapists who are also blatantly racist” just isn’t news and they don’t care. But “Democrat did something legal but could be bad if you squinted at it and lie a lot” is HUGE.
Yarrow
@Almost Retired: Get a picture of him getting Botox or a pedicure.
SiubhanDuinne
@Steve in the ATL:
1. Make a patchwork quilt of them.
2. Open an Etsy store.
3. PROFIT!!!
Leto
Open thread? Ottawa terrorists (“protestors”) attempt to burn down an apartment building. CCTV still footage shows the two perps. Maybe the Ottawa PD will finally do something? (I crack myself up)
Betty Cracker
@schrodingers_cat: That is awesome — retweeted! :)
MisterForkbeard
@Scout211: Woodside is the WORST.
There is literally a moat on the left side of it to keep the lower classes of Redwood City out, and they fought for years to keep train stops from town until they realized their housekeepers and janitorial staff needed a way to get to their estates.
@Steve in the ATL:
You wear them over your n95 as decoration. OR you throw them out. OR turn them into a quilt, or something.
Soprano2
@lowtechcyclist: In this comment you have hit on exactly what I was talking about promoting. If the other side has an outfit that is constantly pushing their point of view out into the ether, it’s not surprising when eventually all the other press organs pick up on that and run with it. If that’s mostly what’s out there, then they think that’s what’s legitimate to talk about. That’s how the Clinton hate was formed; it actually started with right-wing outfits in Arkansas. It’s old but good, a book about the Clinton impeachment by Joe Conasan and Gene Lyons called “The Hunting of the President” is well worth the read. Lyons is an expert on Arkansas politics, so there’s a lot of stuff in there about things that happened before he campaigned for president.
The Dangerman
I don’t think it would matter that if there was a salacious lefty news outlet. There could be video of Trump with a dead girl, live boy, or married Family member and the only person that might care would be Jared (sorry, Dude). The assholes on the Right would ignore that behavior as quickly as the grabbing them in the nethers; they just don’t give a shit as long as they get their judges and their tax cuts.
Brachiator
@Betty Cracker:
Again, some folk think “messaging” and “narratives” are a big deal. Not always the case.
I have never seen that there was a story here, and nothing that had anything to do with Joe Biden.
MisterForkbeard
@Leto: I have been seeing a lot more attention on how awful the “protest” is, though I’ve also seen news that they’re trying to take them (canadian) nationwide. And also some here in the US later this month.
But yeah – the Canadian government appears to be losing patience. The GoFundMe thing was part of it – the local government told GoFundMe they were assisting a criminal enterprise, basically. I think Trudeau started talking about how they crossed the line and aren’t “protesting” anything, just damaging the city and fucking around while everyone else is trying to actually live their lives.
Soprano2
@Betty Cracker: That’s a good idea. You have to tell people a story that they can relate to. Story telling is key to a lot of communications.
trollhattan
Hockey mom turns down tongue hockey session with Jabba the Hutt.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: I believe that Trump’s people thought that the laptop story would blow Biden out of the water. Instead it flopped. I thought about this a couple days after the election, when it became apparent that Biden had won a close election. With two weeks to go, Trump’s team chose to use up valuable messaging bandwidth pushing a story that got no traction. There was an opportunity cost there.
Now that Ukraine is in the news they’re trying to flog the laptop story some more, and it’s kind of pathetic.
Roger Moore
@MisterForkbeard:
I don’t know about that. They were more than happy to print excerpts from books on Trump’s shady behavior, and there’s a story today on Trump illegally taking presidential records with him to Mar-a-Lago. So there’s definitely a willingness to report on stories that put Republicans in a bad light. What there isn’t, or isn’t yet, is a willingness to dig deep into those stories and turn them into the kind of daily drip, drip, drip that really sets them in the public imagination. If the Democrats really need to learn anything, it’s how to manage that.
I’ll admit that the media isn’t primed to accept that kind of thing about Republicans, but I think the Democrats could improve their chances by seeing how the Republicans do it. But as I said above, part of the way this works is long-term seeding of a specific image in the public imagination. The attacks on Hillary worked as well as they did because they were the culmination of decades of demonization, both of the Democrats generally and the Clintons more specifically. If the Democrats want this kind of attack to work, they need to lay that kind of groundwork. We need to have a negative image of Republicans in the public consciousness, so when we find specific malfeasance we can tie it in to that existing narrative.
Cameron
Every Democrat running for office – whether President of the United States or Supervisor of Animal Control Officers of Asswhup County – should always publicly appear – whether on TV or in front of a live audience – with two large posters behind them: one a photo of the 1/6 creatures assaulting LEOs and one of the RNC statement about said creatures’ “legitimacy.” I wouldn’t talk about the economy, I wouldn’t talk about foreign affairs, I might mention COVID, but I would for damn sure beat those treasonous dogs into the ground.
Kelly
@J R in WV: Wishing you both good luck!
Regarding don’t do anything to land in the hospital just now I’ve been putting of cleaning my Mom’s 30 foot high rain gutter for two years. My wife, brother and Mom all think maybe at 65 its time I hired the task done. I’m not completely careless. I had roofers install safety anchors and I have a UIAA certified rope to tie into them with. Been going up there for 20 years kinda hard to think I’m too old.
catclub
@Betty Cracker:
and those mainstream outlets have the ability to cast any scandals about Trump as old news, not interested. Rick Scott and medicare fraud are also old news. In the UK, the scandal de jour is guding contracts for epidemic healthcare supplies to cronys. I bet that happened under Trump.
Brachiator
@J R in WV:
Thank you for the update. It is good to hear that the care provided is good.
Please take care.
Best wishes to you and your wife.
SiubhanDuinne
@mrmoshpotato:
I am in awe.
catclub
get a serious quote on the job and ask them their opinion again. My gutters are much lower, but I don’t have all that safety equipment.
Soprano2
@Kay: I still listen to Maher’s podcast so none of you have to. At this point he’s almost indistinguishable from your average right-winger – Covid is over, why aren’t they talking about how all the people dying from Covid are old, fat and sick; being “woke” is destroying all the Democrats, they should just stop it; comedians can’t work anymore because “wokeness” is killing comedy, no college students have a sense of humor anymore. He used to have people on who disagreed with him and pushed back, but it’s been a long time since I’ve heard anyone really try to argue with him about any of these things. I wonder if they agree not to challenge him as a condition of coming on the show. Last broadcast he was talking about how maybe TFG had a point about getting rid of NATO! Fiona Hill was on, and she didn’t push back on that at all. At this point it’s almost all criticism of liberals; it’s pretty rare he actually goes after the right-wingers for any length of time. I’m wondering what he’ll do with all the book bannings and that crap.
Tom Levenson
@J R in WV: All good thoughts headed your and your wife’s way from the left coast.
Fingers x’d.
MisterForkbeard
@Roger Moore: I think that’s it. The stuff gets reported but doesn’t get attention. Where are the followups on these stories? The “document ripping” (and in a couple of cases eating) was cited in his first 5 months in office. No one cared for 4 years. The press never followed up on it, and though Democrats talked about it you couldn’t get any sort of discussion.
Likewise, they like to discuss “what’s the current Trump thing today” but never talk about it, his long term affect on the nation or the office, or even refer back to the thing he did literally last week.
They report and then move on. With Democrats, there’s a sustained attack over inconsequential things.
Kelly
@catclub: Several guys that’ll do the job for about $250 which is affordable.
trollhattan
@Soprano2:
You’ve summed up his schtick. Elements of it were always present but today he’s the complete old man yells at cloud package, having discarded the elements that once made him worth watching.
Am especially bugged at his continual attacks at college as worthless unless you STEM. He’s a fucking Ivy kid, even if he spent his time at Cornell selling weed.
Betty Cracker
@Brachiator:
People who don’t think messaging and narrative are a big deal are wrong.
Did you read the NYP excerpts? IF — and a big fucking IF it is — those emails/texts, etc., are accurate, Biden was implicated at least indirectly in payouts from foreign companies by HB’s own words, which may or may not have been bullshit anyway.
The NYT and other outlets would have been thrilled to run with that all day long. We can thank the bottomless stupidity of Team Trump for a) making the story toxic as fuck so no respectable outlet would touch it, and b) calling attention to the part that was sympathetic to Biden (i.e., that he loves and supports his wastrel son) while he (Trump) had the entire country’s attention during a debate.
In conclusion, whew!
SiubhanDuinne
@Kay:
Youngkin is so fucking craven. Think we could bring back white feathers to hand out to cowardly public officials?
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Steve in the ATL:
I sometimes use a cloth mask over a standard surgical mask when I don’t want to burn an FFP2. Of course, in Greece both surgical masks and FFP2s are more readily available.
Miss Bianca
@schrodingers_cat: Ha! Glad to see it.
Honestly, the continuing revelation that the vast right-wing conspiracy – that HRC rightly called out – included so many white douchebros in the MSM seemingly dedicated to taking her down is continuing to enrage me.
Kay
@Baud:
They had to string a lot of questionable declarations together to come up with this theory.
Anyone who isn’t formally identified as Right wing economically qualifies as “Left wing economically” – they elimate all the declared Right wingers and everyone who is not them is therefore “Left” of them, so you see how they get there.
Leto
@J R in WV: wishing her all the luck, and if you guys need anything please let us know.
@MisterForkbeard: They’re trashing the place, causing mayhem for the local populace, and that’s not even bringing up the fact that it’s mostly Nazi’s, white supremacists, and just other shitheel conservatives. Which I guess explains why the police aren’t doing anything. I’m mainly following this via Imgur, and the news articles they share there.
Shalimar
@J R in WV: Best of luck for both of you.
SiubhanDuinne
@Almost Retired:
Surely such an image could be … [whispers] … photoshopped?
Kay
@SiubhanDuinne:
You know what Joe Biden would have done? He would have apologized to the 17 year old, like a grown up. Instead we get this ridiculous mush corporate-speak. What a coward.
mrmoshpotato
@Leto: WTF? I guess being a whiny ass titty baby who doesn’t want to be vaccinated against a deadly, airborne virus causes arson and attempted murder.
JPL
@J R in WV: Wishing you both well.
Shalimar
@Betty Cracker: Talk with Adam about the Hunter Biden laptop. I think the general consensus in the intelligence community is that someone Russian took legitimate emails and planted fakes among them, making it impossible to tell what HB really said and what was fabricated.
Kay
Its fun to watch, though, Joe Rogan’s defenders finally getting around to listening to Joe Rogan.
Here is Rogan writing that he “knows it sounds crazy but I”m starting to believe Obama wasn’t born in America” while promoting a Birther book.
Which should suprise no one. Birtherism was created for people like Joe Rogan.
JPL
@Leto: What is it with everyone afraid of maga assholes. I’ve decided that even Canadians can be magas.
Rubio goes on tv and almost begs trump to like him. Republicans in congress are dismissing the riots on the Capitol, and now DeSantis is complaining if he can’t support a go fund me, for arsonists.
Brachiator
@Roger Moore:
There were people who hated Bill Clinton from early in his political career. They came to hate anyone associated with him.
Clinton was polarizing and some of his early behavior may have earned him his enemies. But yes, it was also often overblown.
Some people yearn for dirty tricks from the Democrats. This stuff bores the shit out of me. It assumes that Democrats are stupid, gullible fools, like many Republicans.
SiubhanDuinne
@Kelly:
You’re too old.
Sorry to be harsh, but the human body, from an evolutionary POV, hasn’t kept up with what modern medicine, social expectations, etc. would have us believe. Please hire a professional to do this boring, necessary, but dangerous job.
Baud
@Kay:
I have never folllowed Rogan. People defend him as having a good interview show with a wide variety of guests. Does he regularly invite progressives and mainstream Dems onto his show? The only one I recall hearing about is Sanders during the primary.
mrmoshpotato
@SiubhanDuinne: It’s from the lexicon. I remembered Caribou Barbie, but wanted to double check.
I take no credit. Governor Mooselini is in there too. ?
zhena gogolia
@Baud: Shirley Temple lived there.
patrick II
If that idea is meant to change minds, the problem is that anyone who wrote an exposé on a prominent Republican would be immediately be dismissed as a political operative by most of the people minds you are trying to change. We have all seen college professors writing and speaking about climate change dismissed as partisan. They are no longer “independent” once they say something out of line with the Republican religion. And, of course, they are just college professors doing science, not partisans driven by Democratic advantage.
I am not saying your proposal is a bad idea, it should be done. But the approach has to be broader and more fundamental, attacking the very myths that underly the Republican party and intertwining Democratic ideas with our American mythology will take years. That is what they have done to us, and it would be difficult and long.
For instance — what is freedom? Republicans have successfully corrupted the American West cowboy individualism myth, one righteous man against the world as passed down from High Noon to Dirty Harry to Donald Trump. All of those Jan 6 people saw themselves as heroes fighting for freedom. Community is for sissies.The Republicans fight the very foundation of our society and extreme individualism is the most basic. Go back and look at Gingrich’s list of words turning Democrats from respected opponents within the political ring to enemies of all that we hold dear. Democracy is being attacked at the operating system level, rewriting a few apps won’t fix it. (sorry for the computer metaphor).And they own the microphone.
SiubhanDuinne
@Tom Levenson:
Did I miss something? Are you no longer a Masshole? (I know you have — or had, before the fires — some property in California. Maybe you’re just checking things out.)
artem1s
Publishers aren’t going to change the way they market their products or pay advancements to write books. Go-fund-me published books aren’t going to get any MSM attention either. What exactly are you suggesting?
Op Ed Project teaches you how to get heard and has hard research on why certain voices are present in the MSM. Counter posting already written pieces on other publication sites might be a good strategy. or turning a posting into an op ed piece. Don’t waste donations dollars chasing some ad-buy scheme.
Op Ed Project
Flooding the media with the messages you want to be heard is the only way. The MSM is the mouth piece for the GOP because they have organized so many people to flood them with pre-packaged fast food. They don’t have to do any prep or research.
The GOTV postcard project is a great example of how to organize a low cost, high impact marketing campaign. It’s not a big splashy TV ad airing during the superbowl – but it works because there is at least one piece of mail that goes directly to the voter you are trying to reach.
CliosFanBoy
@J R in WV: Wishing you both luck and good health.
Kay
@Brachiator:
It wouldn’t be “dirty tricks”. It would be a book written by a Florida journalist investigating the 15 or so concurrently running DeSantis scandals with new and original reporting and all collected in one place. They’re already doing it. The information in the post Betty did the other day about DeSantis’ incredibly corrupt administration all came from Florida media outlets- a Florida blogger just put them all in one place.
Nelle
@SiubhanDuinne: I’ve had two friends who had to bury husbands who fell off their roofs during home maintenance tasks. Hire someone.
SiubhanDuinne
@Kay:
He wouldn’t have sent the tweet to begin with. You can say someone (cough Peter Doocy cough) is a “stupid son of a bitch” on the spur of the moment, and then apologise (as Biden reportedly did), but writing and sending an insulting tweet takes some forethought.
tokyokie
@catclub: I always figured that the hijacked medical supplies were stolen on Kushner’s command and routed to political cronies, but close enough.
geg6
@Roger Moore:
Read Ezra Klein’s latest in the FTFNYT. Even the liberal Ezra Klein both sides the shit going on and implies it’s up to the Dems to make GQPers feel the love.
I hate our media with the heat of a thousand suns.
Roger Moore
@MisterForkbeard:
With Trump there was definitely the issue of this week’s scandal chasing last week’s scandal out of the news, so it was difficult for any particular thing he was doing to dominate the news for any length of time. But I think an important part of it is setting the narrative. Things that fit into the narrative will stick, and things that depart from the narrative won’t. The Republicans have done a great job of creating the narratives that drive the media; that’s really what it means when we say DC is wired for Republican control. But that isn’t something that just happened. It’s the result of decades of hammering on the same points. The Democrats need to come up with a counter-narrative and be just as determined in hammering their points every chance they get. It won’t pay immediate dividends, but it’s a necessary precondition for long-term media success.
MattF
The problem is that corruption and dishonesty are the default for Trumpists- they’re all trying to be ‘little Donnies’ following the path blazed by the Leader. You’d need something genuinely scandalous, like pedophilia or atheism.
SiubhanDuinne
@tokyokie:
Rick Scott’s Medicare fraud long predated the Trump Residency, let alone the covid pandemic.
ETA: https://www.sun-sentinel.com/opinion/fl-op-col-rick-scott-medicare-fraud-20181002-story.html
eclare
@J R in WV: So, so glad she got into a room, much more comfortable than the ER. Sending you and her best wishes for a diagnosis and recovery.
Keep us posted, as you can.
Cacti
@geg6: The NYT doesn’t exactly have a glorious history of calling out fascist movements and the danger they posed.
Their first feature on Hitler was a puff piece saying he didn’t really mean all of those nasty things he said about violence towards Jews, and that all the serious people agreed it was just an act.
SiubhanDuinne
@Cacti:
“Hitler Puff” will be the name of my next band.
Too soon?
geg6
@Betty Cracker:
Is this new reporting that I have heard nothing about? If not, I am content to go with my first reaction to your comment, which is:
Seriously? It’s the fucking New York Post. The only words that aren’t lies in that rag are the words “the” and “and.”
Mike in NC
Trump illegally hoarding documents at Mar-A-Lago must certainly include all the love letters he got from Kim, photos of the two of them mugging for the cameras, etc. Crap that the public would deem worthless but he wanted to frame and display them to feed his pathetic bloated ego.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Kay:
That’s incredible weasel speak. Perp should have been named and announced fired.
Cacti
@SiubhanDuinne: (sad trombone)
Roger Moore
@Shalimar:
Yeah, the provenance of the material on the “Hunter Biden” laptop smelled like a month-old fish. I think that’s a big reason the media didn’t run with it more.
lowtechcyclist
@Kelly: Been going up there for 20 years kinda hard to think I’m too old.
I hear ya, but cleaning gutters 30 feet up, you only have to goof up once. Hire somebody.
Then get some quotes on the kind of gutters where the water goes in but the leaves and stuff don’t. We got ours installed ten or twelve years ago, and it’s been so nice to never have to clean gutters again.
trollhattan
Cancel Culture run amok–this time I mean it.
She’ often the best part of the Olympics (TM/CR/Do Not Touch)
Kay
@Baud:
Here’s the list under “politicians”:
#1657 – Mayor Steve Adler
#1630 – Dan Crenshaw
#1599 – Tulsi Gabbard
#1550 – Wesley Hunt
#1454 – Dan Crenshaw
#1391 – Tulsi Gabbard & Jocko Willink
#1337 – Dan Crenshaw
#1330 – Bernie Sanders
#1245 – Andrew Yang
#1170 – Tulsi Gabbard
#858 – Jesse Ventura
eclare
@Kelly: A friend of a friend of mine’s husband fell while cleaning gutters. He is now in a wheelchair.
Hire someone to do it.
Baud
@Roger Moore:
I agree. We have lots of good facts but we don’t tell good stories.
mrmoshpotato
@J R in WV: Thanks for the update and details on how full the hospital is.
Hoping for a complete recovery, and hopefully most recovery can be done out of the hospital.
Betty Cracker
@Shalimar: I’ve heard that theory, which sounds plausible to me, though if it’s been confirmed, I’m not aware of it. Regardless, the point I was trying to make is that if the Trump people hadn’t charged in and splashed the most salacious parts of the laptop story all over wingnut media, outlets like NYT and others might have been more likely to promote it and speculate endlessly about Biden, and it could have damaged the campaign at the worst possible time. Clinton Cash wasn’t accurate, but it still made a huge impact. So, this time we got lucky.
MisterDancer
@artem1s: Thank you for that, I signed up.
An outlet tracking to a lot of the issues Betty C. raises is Popular Info. They are my current go-to around corporate funding for elections, and esp. who pledged to not give to Insurrectionists, and then went back on it.
I think there’s a lot we, here, can do to boost these voices in various areas, as a starting point. I’m going to muse on that.
geg6
@Cacti:
I am well aware of the NYT’s idiocy around Hitler and have been since college when I took a class on fascism and Nazi Germany. I don’t expect much of them but thought a bit better of Ezra. He’s now in the “piece of shit” file and will stay there forevermore.
mrmoshpotato
@trollhattan: That’s some bullshit. Her Olympics tweets are hilarious.
susanna
@J R in WV: Strong hopes for your wife and you to get through this in the best way possible, and soon.
schrodingers_cat
@geg6: His hyperbolic coverage of Obamacare website teething problems did it for me. He used to be at WashPost then.
Roger Moore
@Brachiator:
This isn’t about dirty tricks. This is about establishing an accurate public perception of who the Republicans are: willing tools of the ultra-rich, in bed with racists, and utterly feckless in foreign policy. We need to keep repeating those points until they seat themselves in the public imagination. Once the public starts to accept them, then pointing out that some specific Republican is guilty of those things will be way easier.
Kay
@Baud:
Here’s the list under “political commentators, so no, in answer to your question he does not.
He definitely likes Ben Shapiro and Bari Weiss though.
Part of the anti-cancel culture grift is they all promote one anothers shows and writings. Then they invite each other back, interview one another, etc. They’re mad that Joe Rogan’s coporate owner, Spotify, pulled Joe Rogan episodes because they all appear on Joe Rogan episodes, where they tell each other how brave they are.
Brachiator
@Betty Cracker:
Ha! OK.
One day I may pay attention to messaging and narratives. Today is not that day.
If Biden and the party want to spend more time on this, OK by me.
If and may or may not have been. OK. Biden is a crook. But he is our crook. I am fine with that.
And somehow, the majority of people who voted for Biden didn’t care. Maybe we got lucky. Sometimes that is all you need.
Baud
@Kay:
Haha. I didn’t mean for you to do research, but since you’ve done it, haha.
I had wondered where Tulsi had gone off to.
Kay
@Baud:
Looking at that list, add “libertarian” to the bunch of bulshit these people tell themselves.
So not “economically left”, not “anti-GOP and not even “libertarian”. They’re Right wingers who think it’s uncool to associate with the Republican Party, basically.
Just an endless, endless rebranding effort that always somehow ends up a “Republican”.
Baud
@Kay:
I thought that’s what libertarianism was.
lowtechcyclist
@Brachiator:
Maybe, but my anecdata at least is that people among my wife’s Florida relatives who were merely somewhat disgusted with Bill Clinton, hated Hillary with the heat of a thousand supernovas.
Sure Lurkalot
@Roger Moore: Nope. If you have a small face, the N95’s don’t fit so well and my cloth mask tightens it all up.
Gin & Tonic
@J R in WV: Wishing good luck to both of you. I know when my dear wife was hospitalized, it is an ordeal, albeit of a different sort, for both parties.
Suzanne
@J R in WV: Hugs and best wishes to you and Mrs. JR!
Gin & Tonic
Just watched a mixed doubles curling match. I am shallow and perhaps sexist, but both of the women (one on each team) were really cute. That is all.
lowtechcyclist
Harry Truman is said to have responded to “Give ’em hell, Harry” with “I just tell the truth about ’em, and they think it’s hell.”
And this bunch of GQPers makes the GOP of 1948 look like a church picnic. The truth about these clowns is more than enough to tear them down in the minds of anyone who isn’t a True Believer.
Brachiator
@lowtechcyclist:
Why did they hate her? Did they hate her as much when she was just First Lady?
Betty Cracker
@artem1s: I used Clinton Cash as an example of how people with an agenda (in that case, a right-wing agenda) can get MSM outlets to broadcast narratives favorable to their cause because I figured folks here would be familiar with it. It had a respectable publisher, IIRC. The NYT was the worst offender, but WaPo also jumped on the ready-made story line that was offered to them in an exclusive deal.
Maybe NYT and WaPo wouldn’t bite on something similar that was unfavorable to Republicans because “the media is wired for Republicans” blah blah blah. But do we know that for sure because we’ve tried it? That’s a real question. I don’t know.
Roger Moore
@Sure Lurkalot:
I guess I could see the cloth mask helping in that case. You’d probably be better off searching online for a mask that fits properly, though. These things really do depend on a good fit, so the manufacturers know they have to make them in multiple sizes. It would probably be worth hunting around some to find one that’s right for you.
mrmoshpotato
@Gin & Tonic:
And this distracted you from all the high-action curling?
zhena gogolia
I ordered KN95 masks from the site recommended by the New York Times (Bona Fide Masks). They were supposed to arrive Feb. 2. The “tracking number” gives me the same information it did weeks ago — that “a shipping label was prepared” on Jan. 28. I’ve written to the e-mail address three times and all I get back is an automatic reply about how important my order is to them. I am disgusted.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
Agree. DeSantis is perfect too because they’ve already designated him as Trump’s successor. No one gives a shit about Mike DeWine so while Ohio is horribly corrupt now too there won’t be any books about it.
mrmoshpotato
@Brachiator:
Her lack of cookie baking?
Roger Moore
@Brachiator:
What I remember from volunteering on the Clinton re-election campaign was that Hillary was more popular with the campaign workers than Bill was, largely because she was perceived as more liberal. I’m sure some of that was that she didn’t have to deliver on policy in the same way. I think Bill’s instincts were just as liberal as Hillary’s, but he had to delivery on concrete policy, which necessitated compromise. The flip side was that people who weren’t so liberal hated Hillary even more than Bill. Of course her being a strong, unapologetic woman didn’t help matters, either.
JoyceH
@Roger Moore:
I remain unconvinced that there even IS a laptop, much less that it originally belonged to Hunter Biden. Why on earth would anyone take a laptop to a repair place on the other side of the continent from where they live, and then just leave it there? When laptops croak, don’t people just, y’know – buy a new one?
Eunicecycle
@The Moar You Know: I remember being so pissed about that book. I worked in nonprofits for over 20 years and knew that a lot of what was supposed to be scandalous were either outright lies or a misinterpretation of how nonprofits are run.
Spanky
@JoyceH: Well there ya go, bringing logic into it! Do I have to get Chuckie Todd to mansplain it to ya?
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Betty Cracker: I’ve often thought that Jame O’Keefe style salacious videos released going after GOP corruption, misogyny, and racism would be a fine thing for group of disgruntled progressives to spend their time and energy on. I feel like the social media propaganda is pretty anti-Democrat, but these guys never seem to get fully called out while they do all this damage. Talk about a rich set of targets!
mrmoshpotato
@JoyceH:
To get to the other side! Duh!
Kelly
Thanks for all the good advice. I’m gonna call the guy that painted Mom’s house a couple years ago.
Betty Cracker
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: Yep! There’s a woman doing that now; I can’t remember her name off the top of my head, but she brought some media glare to one of the coup plotters — Eastman, IIRC. She goes to MAGA events and pretends to be a fellow traveler, then chats up officials and gets them to admit things on camera (I think her +1 is wired). She’s attractive, which loosens their tongues.
Roger Moore
@JoyceH:
IIRC, the story was that Hunter wanted to get the data off his hard drive, which I guess wasn’t properly backed up or something. That kind of makes sense. But there are a whole bunch of things that don’t make sense about the story:
So there’s no way of definitively tying the computer to Hunter, and there are plenty of reasons to be extremely suspicious of the story. I won’t say for certain that it was a dirty tricks operation, but it looks more like one than like a serious attempt to get a computer fixed.
Tony Jay
@Gin & Tonic:
Was one of the teams Italy?
Original Lee
Maybe we should package investigative reporting on Republicans as “What’s too shocking for Fox News to tell you,” or “10 things Disantis doesn’t want Floridians to know,” etc. Think about what attracts MAGAQ eyeballs and present it in a way that slithers past their biases.
Brachiator
@Roger Moore:
Americans will be fighting the Matilda effect for some time. It’s too goddam bad.
ETA: Matilda, daughter of Henry I. British nobles would not accept her as his heir. They didn’t get over it until Elizabeth I.
Gin & Tonic
@Tony Jay: Indeed it was.
MisterDancer
I’d agree, except: In GOP of 1948 were already cozying up to Dixiecrats. In a couple more years, the then-GOP chairman would openly try to recruit Strom Thurmond and the rest of those folx, the people who enforced Jim Crow and tried to not only derail the New Deal, but when they failed at least managed to keep Black folx from getting as many of it’s benefits as possible.
One of the massive failures in American media and historical recollection, is to not have seen these forces now animating the GOP as long-standing and eager for power at any cost. A large part of why they were more-or-less blindsided by the Civil Rights Movement is that they thought they had, in fact, constructed their ideal state(s) via Jim Crow, and only had to maintain it like Grandpappy did the plantation. They held so much political power, via the same veto mechanism we’re seeing the modern GOP use today, that they never imagined it could be overthrown.
At least, that’s how I see some of the past. At a minimum, though: too many involved in the GOP back then just was slavering at the mouth to be the GOP it is, today. The main difference was the so-called Rockefeller Republicans; those did, indeed, get exterminated by the Dixiecrat-loving asshats in the party, and that did influence the all-hands-in-the-filth approach we see, today.
Gravenstone
@Baud: No one cares where Tulsi got off to. Probably not even her family.
Original Lee
@Steve in the ATL: I double over my N95s with them. For me, the cloth mask helps hold my N95 to my face better, with less chafing and less need to readjust frequently. It’s probably the shape of my face, but an N95 all by itself just doesn’t feel very secure.
Eunicecycle
@Roger Moore: I think one of the biggest narratives we should try to counter is that Democrats are bad for the economy. It’s been shown over and over that Democrats are always better for the economy. Next go after the narrative that we are worse on national security.
Anyway
@Kay:
Huge part of their identity is anti-Dem. Somehow they’re always in opposition to everything the Democrats are for.
Ben Shapiro, Tulsi G, Bari Weiss …
Eunicecycle
@Sure Lurkalot: that’s what I do, too.
JoyceH
@Original Lee: Cloth masks are good for household chores that kick up dust, like dusting and vacuuming. Also good for when you brush the cat.
Anyway
@Betty Cracker:
I totally get you re Clinton Cash. FTFNYT showed its ass by using Clinton Cash for oppo research without any independent vetting. The POS “reporter” that made big bucks writing about her experience covering the HRC campaign was shameless about this.
The wounds and trauma of 2016 go deep for me.
sab
@Brachiator: My RWNJ brother hated/ hates her. Aside from her politics in his case it is mostly just misogyny. When we were coming up there weren’t yet many young women professionals that he had to compete with. Their appearance was a shock.
He likes to say because she just married Bill because she lusted after power. Of course every young woman lawyer who has managed to get on the staff of a major Senate committee drops it all and runs off to Arkasas with a talented nobody because she is wildly ambitious. Her getting a job in a top Little Rock just proves it. Just what she dreamed of when she was growing up in suburban Chicago.
Kay
Phony ordered to shape shift into something else by his financial backers – but what’s left? Maybe he can be John McCain next.
Brachiator
@sab:
Aren’t politicians supposed to lust after power.
But I take your point. America has to learn to deal with women who enter the political arena because of their own ambitions.
And some of the fear and condemnation comes from other women. The weird thing is that some of these women forget their own workplace struggles.
Some men are just insecure assholes.
But Hilary won the popular vote. This suggests that people am learning.
Kent
I haven’t read through the entire thread, but I think a good model would be something like Pro Publica which does very good investigative reporting. A similar organization that focuses on politics and government would be excellent. One wouldn’t necessarily need to target specific pols like DeSantis, but do it by targeting state government corruption in Florida that ties back to Desantis.
The trick is to produce turn-key ready investigative reports that mainstream media can pick up and quote or turn into their own articles easily.
You also don’t want to say the silent parts out loud. So you wouldn’t announce you are targeting certain politicians, but the editors in chief would have a master strategy in terms of how they allocate resources and stories. You wouldn’t for example waste much time targeting Republicans in WA or CA because they are mostly powerless. You target the powerful ones that are potentially beatable.
Geminid
@Kay: What’s left for Vance? Maybe a fleece vest. But vest or no, Vance won’t turn this around
It looks like Mandel, Gibbons, and Timken will fight it out. Dolan could surprise everyone, but I doubt it.
I’m starting to wonder if Governor DeWine might be a goner. I never thought of Ohio Republicans as nice people, but they seem to be getting meaner.
billcinsd
@Kelly: I’d look into Leaf Filter or something similar
https://constructioncoverage.com/gutter-guards
Gravenstone
Presumes he had it, in the first place. For all his blatant pandering, how many of them really thought he was the the one to continue Trump’s legacy for Ohio?
Soprano2
@Kay: I finally listened to that clip and yeah, I know that guy. He wasn’t interested in getting any new information, he only wanted to call a woman stupid for his dudebro listeners.
Falk
Ive been wondering how hard it would be to get tucker or some other right wing media type in a lather by creating a post lamenting a new olympics event of same sex doubles figure skating. I think it would be very illustrative
Salty Sam
I’ve been busy until now, just read BC’s post, and skimming through the comments. I feel like many/most of y’all are missing what the real power of the Rightwing smear machine is- it’s not really to affect Dem voters in any way (although we famously get our feeling hurt by the bs, which make them laugh), IT IS TO FIRE UP THEIR ORCS AND GET THEM TO THE POLLS.
And while there really are mor of us than them, the the most effective strategy we could have would be to FIRE UP OUR VOTERS AND GET THEM TO THE POLLS! Betty’s original question answers itself in that light, IMO.
Geminid
@Gravenstone: No one in that race has gotten much separation. Vance was running second to Mandel, but opposition ads replaying his old criticisms of Trump exposed Vance as the hypocritical opportunist he is.
Jinchi
The left-wing media that exists seems to spend most of it’s time echoing right-wing talkingpoints. Sure they do it in a ‘Listen to the horrible thing Tucker Carlson just said.’ way, but the end result is that I’m more likely to know what Tucker or Hannity or any of the numerous RWNJs just tweeted, than to know what any of the Democrats are working on day to day. There’s a reason people like Trump and Dennise Prager advertise on liberal media and Neo-Nazis sit for interviews with the NYT. Even negative coverage is good for your agenda. Getting your message out is rule number one.
The left needs to start platforming its own voices, not just reacting to the latest RW atrocity.
CarolPW
@J R in WV: Sending intent wishes for the speediest best outcome for her, and please take care of yourself (and the beasts) too. It is easy to forget self-care when amid all the worries for another.
@Gin & Tonic: My husband sat around the waiting room during my surgeries and visited me in the hospital during recovery for 7 or 8 big ones. A few years ago I, for the first and so far only time, waited around during his surgery for a very serious issue and visited him in the hospital during his recovery. I found it is a lot easier for me to be the one under the knife, rather than enduring the helplessness and worry of being the bystander. It was awful.
Baud
@Jinchi:
Agreed.
Roger Moore
@Geminid:
Vance’s problem isn’t that he’s a hypocritical opportunist. If Republicans weren’t willing to vote for hypocritical opportunists, they’d have a lot of blank ballots. He’s just too obvious about it.
Gvg
@Brachiator: yes. Misogyny. It was irrational looking to me from the beginning. They hated her for working and her husband for being proud of her. I always took it personally because the attacks could have been against my mother. There was nothing wrong with mothers working and I hated them because they clearly thought and said that there was. It was always more anti Hillary than Bill.
They kept it up more than 30 years so that younger liberal generations actually thought she was crooked. I wanted Obama over her because I knew they would go nuts against her. I allowed myself to forget that in 2016 because so many people seemed to support her before she was running again.
younger less politically aware people didn’t know the corrupt reputation was all sexist bullshit.
Another Scott
For hard hitting straight news from the reality-based side of the news world, there’s ProPublica.
https://twitter.com/propublica – almost a million followers. (MSNBC has 4.5M).
There are folks out there doing the work, but they don’t get as much visibility as they should.
Dunno the solution. :-/
Cheers,
Scott.
Bill Arnold
Republican political operatives who couldn’t/wouldn’t keep their mouths shut were making it clear that Hunter Biden “scandals” of some sort would be a big Republican pre-2020-election play close to a year in advance. This was plenty of time for the press to prep/be prepped to be suspicious of any such pre-election disinfo/misinfo drop. (And yes, there was some gentle prepping of the investigative parts of the (non-RW) press, which also had their own duping by the obviously-carefully-timed (Roger Stone style) DNC/Podesta email drops prior to the 2016 election on their minds.)
It also appears that the mostly-closed information system that many RW operatives live in blinded them to the potentials for press suspicion. Some of them seemed genuinely surprised about the lack of uptake(/gullibility).
Plus, Giuliani’s involvement made it easier because he was making lots of mockable mistakes.
The net is that the Republicans wasted a bunch of the limited pre-election news cycles on fizzle, and the Democrats did not.
Roger Moore
@Bill Arnold:
They shouldn’t have been. Nobody who watched the Tara Reade business fall flat should have been surprised that the media was actually interested in doing some basic investigation during the 2020 campaign.
Gretchen
@Roger Moore: and somehow, although Hunter never went back to the no-name store to collect his laptop, the owner decided to give it to Rudy Giuliani. It would be more suspicious if Roger Stone just gave a laptop to the NYP, but not much.
Kathleen
@schrodingers_cat: I just ordered my mug!
Betty Cracker
@Salty Sam: Maybe I’m overthinking this, but it’s the wingnut media outlets, most prominently Fox News, that fire up the Orcs and get them to the polls for Republicans. My proposal is aimed at getting MSM outlets to introduce negative framing for Republican candidates in the same way they reliably do for Dems. It’s not really aimed at the base but rather at the mushy middle.
There are left-leaning outlets (MSNBC, MoJo, etc.), but I don’t think Democrats will ever be able to create a media ecosystem that is purpose-built to champion a single political party and demonize its opponents. There are many reasons for that, and to extend your analogy, two of the most salient are that the realms of men are less homogeneous and have competing priorities. It’s pretty easy to wind up Orcs. Herding the cats of Rohan, Gondor, etc., is hard work! :)
Kathleen
@J R in WV: Prayers to you and your wife.
Kathleen
@Baud: He endorsed Sanders, who enthusiastically accepted it.
Gretchen
Julie K. Brown is a local Florida journalist who broke open the Epstein story. Gaetz was buddies with DeSantis when they were both in the state legislature, along with his tax-collector wingman who is cooperating with the feds. She could possibly extend her expertise in investigating sex trafficking of underage girls in that direction. DeSantis is sleazy, and he hung out with known sleazy people.
Kathleen
@Anyway: Me as well. Still seething after all these years.
Kathleen
@Kay: When did he ever have support of Trump followers? Everything I’ve read from the established Ohio Rethuglicans blasts him for hating Trump then liking Trump. They do not trust him. Though if push came to shove they’d vote for him if they had to.
Betty Cracker
@Gretchen: True. Gaetz and DeSantis were close when they were both backbench nobodies. I’ve heard that DeSantis isn’t sleazy in that particular way, i.e., hookers and blow, but he has created an astoundingly corrupt and anti-small-d-democratic administration.
Kathleen
@Geminid: Just got this email today from Ohio Democratic Party:
Kathleen
@Geminid: And Trump has yet to endorse any of them. (Law & Order Thnk Thnk)
Geminid
@Kathleen: I’ve read reports that Trump is afraid of endorsing a candidate who then loses. Trump brags about the loyalty of his base, but he is not confident that he can deliver it to a favored candidate.
Shana
@Brachiator: I’m not sure it matters to the GOP anymore. Back during the 2009 Creigh Deeds vs. Bob McDonnell campaign for governor of Virginia the WaPo published a big story above the fold front page of the Sunday paper about how McDonnell had advocated for policies and laws that prioritized married couples over “cohabitators, homosexuals or fornicators” and argued that working women and feminists were “detrimental” to the family in his 1989 master’s degree thesis. Didn’t make a damned bit of difference and was probably thought to be a feature not a bug to his voters.
And was also a harbinger of things to come.
Shana
@Steve in the ATL: Make a quilt out of them, like people do with old tshirts.
Roger Moore
@Geminid:
Trump is smart enough to understand that he’s a leader only in the sense that he’s the guy who saw a parade and got in front of it. When he goes against what the base thinks, e.g. by endorsing vaccination, they boo him. He has enough credit with them that he doesn’t immediately become an unperson for failing to go along on one thing, but he understands that he will only stay leader if he takes them generally where they want to go.
Shana
@mrmoshpotato: How have I never heard “Queen of the Iquitarod” before? Brilliant.
sab
@Geminid: Good luck on picking the surviving crab out of the Ohio Republican Senate primary. I am rooting for Mandel because he is an idiot. Moreno is gone. Vance is flailing. Timken scares me because she is very smart, but she is a woman and this is Ohio. I would love to see her explaining packing up and shipping her husband’s steel factory to China when debating Tim Ryan.
sab
@Shana: I laughed when I saw that.
sab
@Shana: To make quilts out of old t-shirts or knit face masks! you have to get that iron on backing to stiffen them up enough. Knits stretch forever. I had a friend who was a rock music roady and stage tech for 50 years and he had the most amazing t-shirt collection. He asked his sister about a quilt and she said forget it and pitch them, so he did. Sigh. Just needed the iron on fabric backing.
Another Scott
@Brachiator:
I think I see an opening.
Encouraging confusion and arguments on the opposing team is one of those Sun Tzu rules for victory, I think.
(via Popehat)
Cheers,
Scott.
Jinchi
Convince Trump that his only way to keep Desantis off the presidential debate stage is to have him lose re-election this year. Then sit back and watch the fireworks.
Citizen Alan
@Brachiator: Agreed. DeSantis is literally murdering Floridians by the thousand and no one on the Right cares! What could anyone possibly put in a book about him that would change anyone’s mind?!?
Citizen Alan
@ian:
YES! THANK YOU! This is why I get physically angry when people tell me to show sympathy and compassion to Trumpsters because “they’ve been lied to.” BULLSHIT! Donald Trump isn’t Svengali and Fox News doesn’t beam mind control waves through the TV. These assholes seek out people who will tell them the lies they want to hear!
Another Scott
@Jinchi: Or, perhaps, given a certain VVP that remains in the news, imagine:
:-/
I’m not actually a believer in great hidden conspiracies, but am a believer in powerful people acting on what they believe to be their self-interest…
Cheers,
Scott.
Citizen Alan
@Brachiator: Yes, they absolutely did. It was visceral.
Middlelee
@ian: JFC. Thank you.
Citizen Alan
@Gvg:
My biggest reason for supporting Obama over her is that if she’d been President after 2008, everyone would have blamed the RWNJ freakout on “Clinton fatigue.” But because it was Obama and they freaked out just the same (albeit with racist memes instead of misogynist ones), thereby proving that it didn’t matter. They would pathologically hate any Democrat so reaching across the aisle was pointless and counterproductive.
jnfr
@J R in WV:
I’m so sorry to hear about the hospital stay. Thanks for the update. Our hospitals are in a sorry state right now, all over.
Shana
@sab: Aaarrghh! What a loss!
Dopey-o
I think today might be a good time to recalibrate your risk management strategy. $200 to an experienced handyman with insurance vs. an expensive trip to the hospital, chance to catch Covid, and a cast or two?
Dopey-o’s Second Law: It’s cheaper to Just Pay the Fvkkin Mon
key!Marc
@zhena gogolia: I ordered a package of KN95 masks from them in early January, they arrived roughly two weeks after the supposed delivery date. For all of $11 total I received ten high quality, comfortable, legitimate KN95 masks. The last batch I bought from our local Ace Hardware were three times the price and basically unusable (and still sitting on a shelf). Some patience is needed as they’ve clearly been hammered due to the NYT recommendation.
They are folded flat, I use a AA battery to reform the wire for a better fit.