Apr 3, 2018
Who’s Your Daddy? Time for Democrats and Mainstream Media to Get Smart about How to Play the Game of Power Politics
I originally wrote this story in April 2018. In February 2019, all these points apply still. However, the Democrats have taken back the House of Representatives. They have gotten somewhat stronger and need to continue getting stronger.
Here is the process that Speaker of the House Pelosi and Democrats are doing now: conducting investigations into Trump’s impeachable offenses. If the impeachment process were started now, the trial would be conducted by the GOP dominated Senate, which of course can not be trusted to conduct a fair trial. So at least for now, I agree with House Democrats, that it makes sense to do investigations which the House can control, to insure fairness.
It’s time for Democratic voters, politicians and donors to get smart about how to play the game of power politics. Our politicians need to show more toughness, resolve and vision than most of them now do. Democratic voters also need to be aware of political realities, such as the consequences of over-compromising with Republicans.
This is not about acting like bullies, as Republicans do. It’s about being strong enough that we stand up to bullies, rather being so weak that we unnecessarily give in to their demands.
The same is true for mainstream media, which have been bending over Rightwards for decades in order to avoid being accused of Left Wing bias by the Right. Mainstream media have a longstanding habit of “covering both sides” even if one side is nonsense or lies — even though the liars are trying to destroy mainstream media itself.
Media need to come up with a standard of objectivity that has to do with truth — not with “covering both sides.”
Life Imitates Bots and Trolls: Deceiving the Public through Fake Crowd Creation and Other Lies
Of course, Right Wing media always lean far Rightwards intentionally, because their owners require this.
Democratic donors also need to face the fact that media have been heavily manipulating elections and government. This is why Roger Ailes left political consulting to build a media empire — because media can be more powerful than government.
Media and social media are determining voters’ attitudes and thus the results of elections.
In the long run, Democratic donors are wasting their money on donations to individual candidates. They would do better to spend their money on creating or buying up media outlets.
Whether we face it or not, media and social media are the primary forces determining election outcomes right now.
For example, in 2016, Bannon and the Mercers’ Cambridge Analytica played mainstream media, Right Wing media and social media like fiddles, immersing them in propaganda that bashed Hillary Clinton, getting likely Democratic voters to not vote for Hillary Clinton.
The Right Wing continues to influence voter attitudes and elections. These efforts keep expanding over time.
I was reminded once again of Democrats’ failures to be tough enough to play power politics, when I recently read the following article.
Yes, research does show that voters want politicians to compromise — except on issues they care about.
The problem with much research by Democrats is that vision is absent, so the questions are wrong. The questions often determine the answers that will be given. The questions often say: “Who am I? I’ll be whoever voter whims say I should be today. What do you want me to be today?”
The answer that comes back from this research is: “Be a Republican — because Right Wing disinformation “news” has convinced me I want to vote for a Republican. You aren’t one? Then maybe you could be a DINO or something?”
Republicans, in contrast to Democrats, know who they are and what they want. They know what their vision is, and what their policies are. Knowing those things, they then look for a message that conveys their vision and policies in the way that most appeals to voters. They don’t ever run an “I don’t know who I am, so you tell me” program.
Here is a book by one Republican pollster, political consultant and messaging expert Frank Luntz, that illustrates how Republicans do this. When they do polling, they already have their vision and know their policy choices. They simply use focus groups to determine the most appealing way to construct messages. The book is called Words That Work.
If you are a timid wishy washy person asking a question — a question that advertises your confusion, uncertainty, lack of confidence and lack of vision — you will get misleading or contradictory answers. If you ask the voters to lead you, because you don’t know what to do, even when faced with actual Nazis, you will likely get confusing or contradictory answers.
Maybe voters’ first wild guess — especially Republican voters — is that you should compromise with Republicans. But that doesn’t mean that many voters of any kind will respect you or vote for you if you do.
If voters do want compromise, then why do so many of them vote for the GOP — the party that doesn’t compromise? Is it perhaps because voters hold an ideal about compromise, but don’t really want it in actual policy situations?
Democratic candidates could twist themselves into knots, trying to cater to all the many contradictory whims, ideals and specific policy and process preferences of all voters. And you know what? Voters probably wouldn’t like a party that does that, because that’s a wishy washy weak thing to do.
As Bill Maher argued in one of his recent editorial new rules, perhaps what voters want most is for someone to lead them forward with a vision for our country.
He points out that Trump said “How stupid are the people of Iowa?” when Iowans weren’t supporting him. This didn’t hurt Trump at all. Iowans then started supporting him and gave him a landslide win there.
Democrats need to wake up, stop being played by Republicans, and stop acting weak toward the public. The Golden Rule doesn’t work with Republican con artists. And being weak won’t work with a public that is looking for confident leaders. Democrats should take martial arts courses, go to therapy to become comfortable competing for and exercising power — whatever it takes to stand up for themselves and their constituents.
Below is a good example of how to deal with liars and propagandists. Here is a TV host who doesn’t treat liars as if they are expert authorities telling the truth. We need to clone Don Lemon, or at least follow his role model. He doesn’t act as if the media’s job is to “cover both sides” even if one side is lies. He knows media’s job is to inform the public. New York Times editors, and TV hosts, take note.
Also, once someone has proven themselves to be a constant liar and propagandist, they should not even be invited on news shows or hired to write newspaper columns ever again. As Lemon points out, such people waste everyone’s time at best, and create a misinformed public at worst. If more media people did this well, Trump wouldn’t have had enough believers in lies and disinformation to get him elected.
Democrats also need to get an outrage machine. Republicans have one — an outrage machine that everyone bends to, including Comey, Obama, all government officials of both parties and mainstream media. Democrats don’t have ones, so they often can’t defend themselves or their constituents, or get fair media coverage.
One of the keys to the exercising of power in politics is related to two models of governing that Lakoff has written extensively about: the Republican Strict Father Model and the Democratic Nurturant Parent Model. I agree with him on some aspects of these and disagree on others. Democrats and mainstream media have far too often looked up to Republicans, for example neocons, as if they were all-powerful Daddy figures. I’ve covered that in Part 2 of this series.
Part 2: Who’s Your Daddy? Time for Democrats and Mainstream Media to Grow Up
Some of the highly self-confident people who are looked up to by mistake, include Republican politicians and/or disinformation creators, war hawks, military officers, police officers and high ranking security agency personnel. If such people prove themselves to be truthful, trustworthy and informative, they deserve for us to listen. If they prove themselves to be habitual liars, no matter how high their confidence level or their station in life, they have no place on TV, radio or Internet news, or in newspaper columns.
To summarize, both Democrats and media need to develop more of their own independent power, toughness, resolve, vision and objectivity. Both groups also need to stop looking up to, or passively giving in to, highly self-confident people who are actually ignorant or are habitual liars.
These qualities will help Democrats to do focus group research, to win more elections and to govern more competently once in office.
Those same qualities will help mainstream media to do a better job as the free press in our society — to more often do truly objective reporting, investigative journalism, and responsible communication of important information to citizens.
However, this can only happen if mainstream media survive. They may not, without the help of large donors who value objective journalism. Otherwise, there will be no force to counteract the massive Right Wing media empire that now determines the results of our elections and the direction of our government.
For further ideas on these issues, please see my other essays at
