The Democratic Story

 My God this has been frustrating to watch. Yes, I admit it I was disappointed and let down that it wasn't a blowout. I'm pissed that good Americans threw away millions on Senate races in South Carolina and Texas that really didn't have a chance. Also, that Democratic elites lit another giant pile of money on fire trying to fight the wonderturtle, #MoscowMitch himself, with an incredibly flawed candidate who was no one's choice. And of course, the funding and imprimatur of legitimacy to never trumpers and the Lincoln Project. How many seats will these republicans be taking that could have gone to actual liberals on TV? How did some segment of elites stamp get out of jail free cards for those republicans with TV spots, book deals, and laundered reputations?

Even though it now looks like Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are going to the White House and the Democrats will remain in control of the House of Representatives, somehow, against all common sense and logic more people actually turned out to vote for doughfacedonny than in 2016. This is great news that Democrats will be able to replace all the corrupt fascist pricks currently infesting the executive departments. No more corrupt ideologues will be put on the federal bench, and no more tax giveaways for the rich. But that smug turtle-faced scumbag McConnell will still be running the Senate, even if with a reduced majority. That means no reforms, no budget, no making the rich pay back some of the filthy lucre they have stolen, no really going after foreign and domestic hackers or other enemies of democracy and the rule of law. #MoscowMitch will probably be so emboldened by this that he won't allow votes on any permanent cabinet secretaries or any other executive positions. Gridlock rules, republicans broke the government at so many levels and somehow they gain all the support from public cynicism and dance around like savages when the political press blames "Washington" or "Congress" for that gridlock.

On the latest TPM podcast Josh Marshall criticized liberals who, like myself, are upset that so much money was spent on those Senate races because we have to try, Democrats cannot just cede all those races to fascists. He said we have to spend money in places like Kentucky and the Carolinas to build infrastructure in those places so next time Democrats will be a little more competitive than last time. I'm skeptical, was any of that money spent to actually build infrastructure? Or was it all spent on useless TV ads? Is there anything left behind to base an election campaign on next time? A few months back Ed had a liberal activist from Kentucky on his Mass for Shut-Ins podcast and they spent almost an hour talking about how elite donors buried a progressive candidate for the Democratic nomination for Senate there under an avalanche of money so Amy McGrath could stride in and claim it. I have no personal knowledge of McGrath or the state of politics there but the guest had nothing good to say about her, that she was a trump-supporting Democrat and had no backing of any kind from anyone but somehow they got stuck with her. Let's set aside Progressive or Liberal infrastructure, did McGrath's campaign leave anything behind that is an alternative to republican fascism? 

Instead of setting giant piles of money on fire to run ads on TV, maybe, just maybe, it's time to take those piles to build things. Democratic Party local offices open year round, with paid staff and resources to keep liberal and progressive ideas in the public view. Local media with truth as their focus instead of balance, that's a worthy investment, credentialed reporters able to call liars out for what they are. I think I have mentioned Drew Westen's The Political Brain a few times on this page, but his prescription bears repeating. Politics is a story, humans respond to stories, and when the story is not being told or refreshed regularly people will lose interest or find other political narratives to follow. Democratic Party politics lack this consistent story, there's no baseline narrative, so every 2-4 years we start from scratch and republicans run circles around Democrats in the story because they pound their narrative into their supporters constantly. The worst part of it is that the republican story is not only self-sustaining but highly profitable through fox news, hate radio, right-wing websites because high RWAs will sit and consume their lies along with a healthy dose of ads for dick pills, reverse mortgages, and any other stupid thing they can sell the rubes. 

Democrats have nothing like that. The mainstream, corporate, media and dedicated political press in this country is not on the side of Democrats anywhere regardless of the shrieking on the right. No matter how unpopular they are, no matter how many lies they tell republicans get half of the time to sell the story already laid out by the right wing noise machine for the broader public. So liberals are naïve to think that somehow the networks and NYTimes are going to act as referees. So, the prescription holds that this country needs a partisan liberal media outlet with enough reach to counter the RWNM. It's not even a new idea, newspapers used to be partisan all the time from the revolution until radio and television came along and needed the broadest audience possible to make the capital intensive mass media work at scale. This is still the default liberal mindset, the need to sell ads to the most eyeballs made media drop their bias and actually professionalize journalism. Now, Roger Ailes was an evil man and I hope the torments of hell are making him repent, but he figured out that cable was a different animal and that he could build a niche network catering to a smaller but more loyal and active audience of conservatives. He turned generations of milquetoast old fart conservatives into rabid, authoritarian monsters and donald trump was his finest creation. 

This is a long-winded way of saying that rich liberals need to stop lighting giant piles of money on fire every 2-4 years and instead invest it into a permanent, self-sustaining liberal ideas network that can keep the story going. How to convince someone like Michael Bloomberg or George Soros that this is the way to go is the key to unlocking a real balance in politics. And if the fascists had to fight on an even playing field they lose, and that key could unlock solutions to all the other problems in America.