Why do Democrats constantly get beat in the messaging game? How can they do better? It's the subject of a new book by Dan Pfeiffer, ex-Obama aide & current podcast mogul. We talk through how it got this bad & what Dems can do to save themselves (& US democracy).
Good conversation. I was a little surprised there wasn't any mention of folks trying to solve the megaphone problem like Tara McGowan and the stuff she is doing with Courier Newsroom.
In Michael Kazin's recent book about the history of the Dem Party he talks a lot about the Democratic newspapers and the influence they had over the political conversation. When you were talking about the Old Media days where everyone had a shared sourced of truth; I think in some ways that collection of newspapers is pretty similar to our podcast + newsletter ecosystem we have today. Although of course different audience penetration I think there are still some useful parallels about where we need to go is actually just returning to where we started.
Last thought, when Dan was talking about younger generations being less susceptible to online misinformation... You only have to spend a little time on TikTok to understand that's not true. Digital natives are equally likely to fall for mis/disinformation - you just need to deliver it different from how you trick a boomer. A mainstream example you'd probably be familiar with is the Wayfair trafficking nonsense, but I'm sure your kids could explain hundreds more. Gen Z is in a lot of ways highly reactionary and is a new threat to Democracy to be managed - not some panacea.
"The big picture: The findings dispel the notion that Russian influence on domestic extremism happens through coordinated bot campaigns.
Instead, they suggest that even a small number of stories from Russian state media can spread very quickly among a huge ecosystem of interconnected extremist communities.
"It turns out that we’ve all got it wrong," Johnson said.
'What this study shows is you don't need a huge organized campaign of bots to influence these types of groups and movements," he said, but rather "just a sprinkling" of stories from Russian media to feed a sprawling network of hate communities that will spread the divisive messaging on their own."
Hi David great episode as always. I do wish the corruption of the Democrats came more into these conversations. The media landscape is, as you discuss, quite bleak, but the bigger problem is that the leadership is actually not in favor of things like BBB as it goes against the will of their donors who are in fact their primary constituents.
Manchin and Sinema are target rich environments for both carrots and sticks for anyone in power who actually cares about passing BBB, but they proceed as though there's nothing they can do.
The pod-save guys, Chris Hayes, and David Yglesias are generally happy to whistle past this problem, but if the Democrats keep trying to cut Social Security, Medicare, leave promises about $15/hr minimum wage to never again be mentioned and otherwise execute popular policy on national television, it doesn't really matter how big your megaphone is.
In that scenario, the megaphone just papers over the lack of movement in delivering on people's material needs--which, admittedly, Republicans do quite well. But that feels like the wrong goal, or at minimum can't be the primary one.
David Sirota (who was deeply involved in Don't Look Up) is, in my view, one of the better folks to speak to this and also is quite fluent in climate concerns.
Yay! I am looking forward to this discussion, as obviously it's critical to our world going forward. Crooked Media is such a breath of fresh air, I am grateful for all the work and insights.
Good conversation. I was a little surprised there wasn't any mention of folks trying to solve the megaphone problem like Tara McGowan and the stuff she is doing with Courier Newsroom.
In Michael Kazin's recent book about the history of the Dem Party he talks a lot about the Democratic newspapers and the influence they had over the political conversation. When you were talking about the Old Media days where everyone had a shared sourced of truth; I think in some ways that collection of newspapers is pretty similar to our podcast + newsletter ecosystem we have today. Although of course different audience penetration I think there are still some useful parallels about where we need to go is actually just returning to where we started.
Last thought, when Dan was talking about younger generations being less susceptible to online misinformation... You only have to spend a little time on TikTok to understand that's not true. Digital natives are equally likely to fall for mis/disinformation - you just need to deliver it different from how you trick a boomer. A mainstream example you'd probably be familiar with is the Wayfair trafficking nonsense, but I'm sure your kids could explain hundreds more. Gen Z is in a lot of ways highly reactionary and is a new threat to Democracy to be managed - not some panacea.
I'm really surprised this finding hasn't gotten more coverage, this is IMO a really big deal:
https://www.axios.com/2022/06/07/russian-media-online-hate-extremists-racism
"The big picture: The findings dispel the notion that Russian influence on domestic extremism happens through coordinated bot campaigns.
Instead, they suggest that even a small number of stories from Russian state media can spread very quickly among a huge ecosystem of interconnected extremist communities.
"It turns out that we’ve all got it wrong," Johnson said.
'What this study shows is you don't need a huge organized campaign of bots to influence these types of groups and movements," he said, but rather "just a sprinkling" of stories from Russian media to feed a sprawling network of hate communities that will spread the divisive messaging on their own."
Been SCREAMING about this for DECADES, as has Sam Seder & TYT😡
Hi David great episode as always. I do wish the corruption of the Democrats came more into these conversations. The media landscape is, as you discuss, quite bleak, but the bigger problem is that the leadership is actually not in favor of things like BBB as it goes against the will of their donors who are in fact their primary constituents.
Manchin and Sinema are target rich environments for both carrots and sticks for anyone in power who actually cares about passing BBB, but they proceed as though there's nothing they can do.
The pod-save guys, Chris Hayes, and David Yglesias are generally happy to whistle past this problem, but if the Democrats keep trying to cut Social Security, Medicare, leave promises about $15/hr minimum wage to never again be mentioned and otherwise execute popular policy on national television, it doesn't really matter how big your megaphone is.
In that scenario, the megaphone just papers over the lack of movement in delivering on people's material needs--which, admittedly, Republicans do quite well. But that feels like the wrong goal, or at minimum can't be the primary one.
David Sirota (who was deeply involved in Don't Look Up) is, in my view, one of the better folks to speak to this and also is quite fluent in climate concerns.
Yay! I am looking forward to this discussion, as obviously it's critical to our world going forward. Crooked Media is such a breath of fresh air, I am grateful for all the work and insights.