Where are the constructive threads on the 2016 campaign?

[JCanete]

7. I don't know that voter rationale matters. Voter rationale is largely a product that is churned out

by our corrupt fourth estate.

People who say our platform was good and progressive as it came together for 2016, aren't exactly off-base, although that doesn't invalidate the argument that we need a better economic message. It does, from a strategic angle, make that point moot though. The problem isn't with the democratic party's ability to see and to channel the pain of suffering constituencies into their message.

The problem is their unwillingness to go after the entrenched mechanisms of that illness. The problem is trying to play nice with the virus as if that will ever get us progress. It has only ever been an icy bath to keep the fever down, which I agree, is a whole lot better than the pox ridden blankets the GOP wants to give out, but the virus has only been getting stronger.

Either we call out the fourth estate as corporately owned peddlers of pro-billionaire propaganda, or we can continue to smile at the fuckers and play nice and hope they don’t stab us in the back when we turn around.

Basically our leaders are continuing with a strategy of selling just a little social justice to the people, and just a little economic justice, and with that dangling there, going to our corporate masters and saying, “They really want and need this and we think you should give it to them, for the sake of your own political expedience.” And their answer to that is “oh why not…assuming our first draft pick doesn’t beat you in tryouts.”

Its time for us to stop playing this game on their terms. It is rigged. We are kissing their corporate asses and they are responding with “but the GOP tosses our salad.” People here calling for us to approach corporate regulation and taxation with the balanced hand of actual statesmen need to start appreciating that the way you get to that balance is by scaring the fuck out of the people who are putting their thumb on the scales, not by asking them politely behind closed doors to give their thumb a rest, but by suggesting that they might lose it. (yeah, a little overdramatic).

The power of the upper echelon of the 1% is largely exerted through our media and through our seats of government. Trying to reason with our media is making the mistake that it can be reasoned with. Asking it to do a better job without simultaneously shouting from every megaphone we can still get our hands on that they are bought and paid for, is not going to be sufficient, and never has been.

The funny part is that the media itself, not to mention the GOP, has already done a lot of that work for us. It has told people that it can’t be trusted. It has told people that it has an agenda. A liberal agenda yes, but that isn’t so hard to turn. how many people can simultaneously hold onto the reality that these mouthpieces are owned by rich megacorporations, and aslo, that these megacorporations want to hurt American Business interests like their very own, through liberal policy? Admittedly some, but I’ve gotten a lot of confused looks from republican voters by pulling at this thread with them. We should be telling them “yes already, you’re right! the media IS absolutely bought and paid for. It is selling you 100% garbage, just like you already thought. And look at who owns it. I wonder what they want.”

We call out the media, and it will circle its wagons, try to make the Democratic Party a laughing stock of sore losers and conspiracy theorists, etc. And maybe we lose this fight. It isn’t exactly a fair one. Thing is, we’re losing it anyway. Thankfully social media has emerged, so maybe there’s a chance of winning. If we could just get to a tipping point, the media will have to react in order to regain some air of respectability, so as to not wholly dismantle its levers on public perception.

But hell, as I said that might all be fantasy. Even if Democrats prosecuted that kind of anti-media campaign in solidarity, which they won’t, we could get clobbered for it…entirely blown out of the next mid-term. But there is no overcoming the media’s impact without actually fighting the media. Obama is an exception, and we might have more presidents who break through, but he had to reach far across the aisle to make concessions that were gleefully slapped away. Down-ticket, he had but 2 years of a mostly friendly majority. The rest of the time he had to stave off a republican house and Senate. This is an attrition that is not going to get better for us the more we lose.