(And here’s what we do about it.)
Have you ever wondered why otherwise career-ending scandals and heinous wrongdoing have almost no effect on Republican electoral chances? Have you wondered what is supposedly so bad about Democrats that even people with fundamentally tolerant and democratic views often see the Republican as the lesser of two evils?
Hint: It’s nothing that Republicans are doing better while in office, and it’s nothing that is particularly atrocious or repugnant about Democratic policy positions.
It’s the media. It’s our damnable news media — and I’m not talking strictly about the mainstream media, though the MSM’s culpability is indeed great and is now greater than ever.
Sharing in the blame are the alternative media whose toxic misinformation permeates the online experience of every American who spends time online, especially on social media.
Hate propaganda media is pervasive. Its poison penetrates every corner of social media like toxic war gas. The metaphor is accurate, because to MAGA, this is war against the rest of us. It is astroturfed by billionaires who fund hate propaganda websites by the hundreds and content creators that disseminate the hate through innumerable cloned “news” outlets that have different names but serve as conveyor belts for the same destructive, mass-produced message.
The poison is dangerously close to crowding out real news
The Sacramento Bee reports, “They look like ordinary California news websites. Their backers: Conservative operatives.” The Sacramento Bee story continues, “Far from being a traditional information source, the Sacramento Standard is part of a nationwide network of nearly 1,300 sites backed by a collection of conservative think tanks, political strategists and public-relations executives. According to a recent investigation by the New York Times, the sites dispense with the unbiased coverage that’s the hallmark of mainstream journalism. Instead, they feature stories orchestrated by conservative operatives and, in some cases, are paid for by corporate clients attempting to gain publicity for a particular issue. Such “pay-for-play” tactics are considered well out of bounds in traditional news reporting.”
Nearly 1,300 astroturf hate sites. Is it any wonder that Democrats struggle while Republicans are nearly immune, when our media landscape is so heavily saturated with astroturf hate sites that normal, decent people can easily mistake the propaganda for truth? “Look at all the news organizations covering this!”
A good example of such an astroturf hate site is “Presscalifornia.” Dripping with hate, it doesn’t reveal its ownership easily. Clues appear, however, in the site’s unusual habit of linking to gambling sites and casinos. (A way to lure in suckers, perhaps?) Media Bias Fact Check rates the site as “extreme right, questionable source” and “very low” on factual reporting.
Another widely cited astroturf site is “California Globe.” Similarly coy and not forthcoming about its funding, Media Bias Fact Check rates it as “center right” which I think is generous, with medium credibility and a mixed rating in factual reporting.
Damaging news for Trump? This massive astroturf hate network begins its PR repair operations
And they invariably succeed in bending public opinion back to where it was before the damning news made its dent in Trump’s approval ratings.
The right wing lie and hate machine immediately gets to work, developing a falsified or distorted narrative that, as always, shifts the blame or responsibility for the scandal or incident to Democrats or to some vulnerable group of people that MAGA seeks to harm and injure.
Once the lie-based alternate narrative is developed and refined, the hate machine pushes the lie out to the vast right wing astroturf network. The lie seeps into the public consciousness via social media and casual conversations at the water cooler or checkout line. Before long, the lie-based narrative becomes the narrative.
So, what do we do about it?
Since the products of the right wing astroturf lie and hate machine seep into the public consciousness mostly via social media, social media and upstart left wing content creators are the venues where the battle against evil must begin.
Make no mistake; it’s an uphill battle, but we can do it.
Because of the immense size and power of the right wing hate machine, the Democratic Party has a hard ceiling of about 55% approval. But we can work against that.
Our own cross-pollinating online media network is starting to grow. If you have knowledge, strategy, or expertise to contribute to freedom’s war effort, join the fight with a website or YouTube channel of your own. We outnumber the fascists and we always will. Continue to build our own information metworks, promote them, popularize them, and we can begin pushing that hard ceiling to 58%, then 60%, and someday even higher.
Just stick with fact-based coverage; don’t invent false claims, don’t overplay truthful claims, don’t drive your audience to despair with doom and gloom, don’t tranquilize your audience with false hope or unfounded certainty (e.g. Trump DOES NOT have one foot in the grave!), and fact-check like hell, because doing so will help prevent the poison from infecting more minds.
Do that, and good will prevail over evil. Because evil is peculiarly stupid, and mass stupidity is easy to outwit.