I recently did a diary making the broad point, the battleground is the media — how that outweighs the issues in ways in influencing voters. Link at bottom).
Now, I’d like to reinforce the point with some specifics.
The idea of democracy is that the 99% can outvote the 1%. The idea of the 1% is, we’ll find a way around that. How do they do it? Here’s a big way.
It’s by distorting issues. If that sounds obvious, let’s look at some examples.
In 1980, with the economy suffering, the country was very ready for messages against debt.
It was part of a “fiscal responsibility” message. Suffering in the economy, who will fix it? Why, the pro-business, competent, responsible Republicans and a big message for them was anti-debt.
Now, we know a big reason for that — it goes back to the radical Grover Norquist cult of using anti-debt preaching to shrink spending in ways the democratic process alone would not allow.
It would give Republicans the argument, ‘hey, we don’t like denying those babies healthcare, but we just don’t have the money.’
But here’s the thing. Factually, Democrats had little to be ashamed of on the debt — the country had never had huge debt during peacetime.
Until Reagan.
What he figured out was that he could have his cake and eat it too. He could TALK against the debt and get votes — and then be the first president in history to run up massive debt, debt that gave him further political benefit, used for everything from his massive tax cuts to weapons spending and other spending that did buy something of a recovery put on the credit card.
The national debt *tripled* under Reagan, from under $1 trillion to $3 trillion.
And he got re-elected by 49 states.
It’s a nice trick. You don’t have to pick a side of an issue, and get the votes from one side or the other — just get both. Looking very sincere doing it as a corporate spokesman helps sell it.
Now, look at trump. He was able to again seize on an issue popular appeal — caring for the little guy, jobs for the working class. He was their self-appointed champion.
Now, he’s going to be terrible for the issue. He’ll have a few big claims about things he did — like his lies and distortions already claiming he ‘saved’ a Ford factory and prevented Carrier moving to Mexico — and a lot of excuses. He’ll have his cake and eat it too, winning on a stolen issue and getting all the benefits from the plutocrats for actually supporting them, as already becoming clear from his appointments and policies such as *another* all-borrowed tax cut for the rich (mandatory for Republican presidents since Reagan, when you count Bush 41 as continuing Reagan’s).
Whether he has voters turn on him by 2020 or be fooled as they were with Reagan remains to be seen. But the point is, he was able to win on an issue he had no business winning on.
And that’s because of messaging. Not his — he’s a child with a keyboard. I’m referring to the huge right-wing propaganda machine telling voters every day how bad Democrats are for them.
Ironically, perversely, George W. Bush was able to sense the country would respond well to the message that besides that staple of Republican fiscal responsibility (which lasted until his first state of the union, promising to pay off the national debt within 10 years before exploding the deficit immediately), he’d be a peace president — he actually ran to the left of the Clinton/Gore administration, promising that unlike those warmongers with their war in Bosnia, he would have a more “humble” (the word actually came out of his mouth) foreign policy. No ‘nation building’.
Of course, he had already planned before his campaign to be a ‘war president’, somehow, as he all too honestly explained early on, because a war president has more political power.
For the first 8 months of his presidency, his ratings did nothing but plummet. It was clear he’d be a one term mistake the way things were going -until his plan had an opportunity.
And that’s how we know 9/11 gave him the opening — the same day his ordering his staff to find a connection to Iraq — for his war. And those hugely increased approval ratings. And re-election.
Because Democrats weren’t able to compete in the messaging to convince voters Reagan would EXPLODE the debt he was such an opponent of, to convince voters Bush would lead them to a disaster like the Iraq war rather than being that pro-peace guy, to convince voters that trump would be terrible for the working class.
And so, again and again, the Republicans win on issues they have no business winning on, by simply misrepresenting themselves, and the voters keep falling for it.
I could go on with examples. Nixon, in 1968, won because of the Vietnam War, promising to be the candidate who would end it — while he treasonously sabotaged LBJ’s peace plan, and then instead — with no clue how to end the war — doubled its casualties for years and secretly, illegally expanded it to Cambodia, giving them the Khmer Rouge atrocity.
Democrats are much more into why their policies are better, but not doing well at the war where it’s happening — in the messaging, allowing Republicans to win on lies.
In 2020, perhaps a Republican will win by convincing the public that THEY are the candidate who will protect the climate, unlike those fossil-fuel-loving Democrats. Or that THEY are the anti-bigotry side.
Whatever the issue is that is effective with voters that election, look for the Republicans to hijack it.
To combat this, we could use a media that does better at that. How is that going? What is the Democratic answer to Fox news and talk radio?
What we need is a media strategy. So that we can start having elections more about actual issues and positions, and not the lies the Republicans can sell so well.
Two more anecdotes to support my point that are very specific incidents.
Reagan had been the national spokesman against Medicaire, and his ideology was very much against things like Social Security, and those were popular programs, so advantage Carter, right?
No. With one line in the debate — pre-planned as the Reagan team had a stolen debate book from the Carter team —“There you go again”— the headlines were, Reagan destroyed Carter.
Al Gore was recognized as the politician who did more than any other to create the internet — something incredibly popular, arguably our greatest advancement since the moon landing, which had just given the country years of economic growth (and helped with that elimination of the deficit).
So, the internet would be a HUGE advantage for Gore over that doofus Bush who had done nothing but tell dirty jokes at a board meeting he was at for being the president’s son, right?
No. Republicans were able to distort one Gore quote and attack him by claiming he’d overstated his role in creating the internet so that the political effect was for the issue to hurt Gore.
That is nothing but a messaging issue.
If we can’t have the leading politician in creating the internet get credit for that, how do we defeat Republicans again?
Maybe they’ll accommodate us again by timing another Great Recession just before the 2020 election, as they did in 2008. We can hope.