The reality of American political process is that it takes at least a billion dollars to run a Presidential campaign. (Thanks, SCOTUS) That kind of money doesn’t come from unions, social activists, or proletariat donors. It comes from corporations and billionaires, and those people don’t like revolution.
Until someone can demonstrate that you can get more votes with progressive, worker-friendly policy proposals than with a well funded propaganda machine, the DNC is going to keep chasing the less conservative billionaires. And no third party will even be relevant.
Idk, Harris vastly outraised Trump (over $1B in 3 months) and it… didn’t move the needle.
Progressives need to distill their ideas down into smart, easily repeated ideas (Billionaire bad, union good) that can spread via social media, aren’t inflammatory (defund the police, etc), and aren’t based on fear and loathing but rather a message of hope.
Money doesn’t win the election, it’s more of an entrance fee, and campaign financing is more complicated than just ‘the campaign.’ You have to account for PACs, party, and all the free messaging from sympathetic media outlets. Bernie pinned his hopes on going viral on social media, and mostly demonstrated that it’s not a viable strategy, at least at the Presidential level. Might work OK for smaller races, like AOC, in a geographically small, relatively young district, but not nationally. Most people actively avoid political messaging, which is a fundamental problem if you plan to rely on organic distribution of a political message through social media. Especially social media controlled by billionaires that might be hostile to messages like ‘billionaires bad, unions good.’
We certainly agree on the broad strokes. I think part of the allure of the MAGA messaging was that it was often shared by a highly approachable racist that people were already comfortable with, so the political bits could just sorta be sprinkled in as needed alongside other ideas that people already agreed with.
The thing is, a message that’s simple, resonates, and allows people to blame others will always win out over a message calling people to pull their own weight and do the complicated but correct things.
The reality of American political process is that it takes at least a billion dollars to run a Presidential campaign. (Thanks, SCOTUS) That kind of money doesn’t come from unions, social activists, or proletariat donors. It comes from corporations and billionaires, and those people don’t like revolution.
Until someone can demonstrate that you can get more votes with progressive, worker-friendly policy proposals than with a well funded propaganda machine, the DNC is going to keep chasing the less conservative billionaires. And no third party will even be relevant.
Idk, Harris vastly outraised Trump (over $1B in 3 months) and it… didn’t move the needle.
Progressives need to distill their ideas down into smart, easily repeated ideas (Billionaire bad, union good) that can spread via social media, aren’t inflammatory (defund the police, etc), and aren’t based on fear and loathing but rather a message of hope.
Money doesn’t win the election, it’s more of an entrance fee, and campaign financing is more complicated than just ‘the campaign.’ You have to account for PACs, party, and all the free messaging from sympathetic media outlets. Bernie pinned his hopes on going viral on social media, and mostly demonstrated that it’s not a viable strategy, at least at the Presidential level. Might work OK for smaller races, like AOC, in a geographically small, relatively young district, but not nationally. Most people actively avoid political messaging, which is a fundamental problem if you plan to rely on organic distribution of a political message through social media. Especially social media controlled by billionaires that might be hostile to messages like ‘billionaires bad, unions good.’
We certainly agree on the broad strokes. I think part of the allure of the MAGA messaging was that it was often shared by a highly approachable racist that people were already comfortable with, so the political bits could just sorta be sprinkled in as needed alongside other ideas that people already agreed with.
No, it takes a billion dollars to lose an election. Trump could of ran on a shoestring budget and he still would of won.
The thing is, a message that’s simple, resonates, and allows people to blame others will always win out over a message calling people to pull their own weight and do the complicated but correct things.