Thank God somebody with a high enough profile in the Democratic party has come out to say this. It’s the world’s worst kept secret that Democrats are terrible at messaging and that’s why we’ve gotten our collective ass kicked in the past and why it’s happening right now. The Republicans are as successful as they are because they know how to control the narrative, not because they’ve got anything to say. Period. Full stop.
Every single day some new Republican fantasy story comes out, whether it’s adrenachrome or baby formula or baby formula with adrenachrome, you name it. Whatever it is, it hits right-wing media, Fox News runs with it and gins up the outrage, and what do you hear from the Democrats? Crickets. We do not have a rapid response team in place and that is positively suicidal. When people don’t hear a rebuttal they think that something is true. Silence is deemed acceptance. And the Democrats lose ground every freaking day for exactly this reason and no other. We cannot ignore this any longer.
Gavin Newsom went out of his way to mention Michelle Obama’s precept, “When they go low, we go high,” and he said, “we’re no longer in that moment.” No, we are not. When the gold-coiffed, orange orangutan came down the escalator and went straight to the top of the GOP ticket, life stopped being normal and all pleasantries and rules from before went out the window.
This is a new day and it calls for new tactics. Here’s what Newsom said at the Texas Tribune Festival in Austin this weekend. Associated Press:
“These guys are ruthless on the other side,” Newsom said. “Where are we? Where are we organizing, bottom up, a compelling alternative narrative? Where are we going on the offense every single day? They’re winning right now.”
Newsom said that’s why — even though he is running for reelection as governor of California — he has been spending some of the millions of dollars in his campaign account on TV ads in Florida urging people to move to California, newspaper ads in Texas decrying the state’s gun laws, and putting up billboards in seven states urging women to come to California if they need an abortion.
“There’s nothing worse than someone pointing fingers. What are you going to do about it?” Newsom said. “The reason we’re doing those ads is because … the Democratic Party needs to be doing more of it.” […]
Newsom said that President Joe Biden’s first two years in office have been “a master class … on substance and policy.” But later, he said good governance, by itself, is not enough to win elections — adding that “otherwise Biden would be at 75% approval.” In reality, about 53% of U.S. adults disapprove of Biden, according to the most recent poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
Newsom is right about that, too, and that is especially sobering. Biden’s done an outstanding job. He should have a massive approval rating. The only reason he does not is because the opposition against him is so powerful and they rule the news cycle, every single day, with their exaggerations of his gaffes and foibles, detracting from the overall value of what the man has achieved.
The problem for Democrats, Newsom said, is that they “fall in love so easily” with “the guy or gal on the white horse to come save the day.”
“We missed a more important paradigm that leadership is not defined by that person in formal authority, it’s defined by people with moral authority every single day,” he said.
We’re in a new game. Donald Trump was the game changer. A pickle never goes back to being a cucumber and American politics is not going to go back to a pre-Trump era. Ever. We may find a sane adjustment, hopefully we will, and the two party system and democracy will survive. That is the goal, certainly.
People have to change with the times and the Democrats need to learn to do politics better because we suck at it. Our policies and ideas are superior. Zero question about that. But we need to message and strategize like the Republicans do.
And we need to do it NOW. We have a key election in 43 days. If you think that the Republicans are not going to pull out all the plugs and play dirty, so that they can survive, then you are dreaming. I hope that somebody in Democratic leadership will listen to Governor Newsom and get on the stick and get a rapid response team in place to combat GOP lies, which are sure to crescendo in the next six weeks.
Scary; but Gov. Newsom is right on the money. We need start putting out big SOS flags immediately. I just hope the rest of the Democratic Party has heard the message. I suggest we all start emailing or phoning our Representatives and Senators, to get them on fire…
All due respect to Newsom…but on this one, he can go to hell. The Dems up and down the board HAVE the message, have had it for months. The problem is, as always, amplification, which is where the rest of us come in. Waiting on someone to save us is folly. If you’re THAT scared of the worst happening (and most of us here are), then do your part to make the right outcome happen!
Also, ask yourself the question of whether you just want to go back to being complacent, as so many were before Trump. Two hard facts must be confronted when answering: a) that attitude is a part on what got us here and b) its opposite number, panic, renders you the same kind of prey from a different direction. This is a fight that never ends, just rises and falls. Don’t we all owe the people coming up better than our excuses, fears and failures?
I think the problem is senile Biden and his handlers are destroying everything in the country not the amplification. Actually some stuff we buy every day has double in price because of the democrat policies. Oh, if they do elect Newsom or another demorcate pause and think how it will be when we have to start lockdowns, mandates, ect, etc. We owe all of us not to have to live under demanding authority that will punish you for noncompliance. Oh, and abortions has not been outlawed, they just sent it back to the states to decide. Abortion is not illegal, they make decisions based under the constitution. It’s not in the constitution.
You’re a moron. Abortions HAVE been outlawed, by the very states it was sent back to, which was the plan in the first place. Try to keep up if you’re going to come to this site. We’re not a bunch of ignorant, brain dead idjits like you’re used to at those sites you normally haunt. You really should go back there. It’s your speed, Skippy.
Read Carol before you come on here and make a fool out of yourself in front of everyone here. Are you an uninformed person or maybe a liar? We both know that abortion is not outlawed in the united states. Many states still have abortions and services. Google it. Yes it looks like this site is a bunch of ignorant, brain dead idjits.
You deserve SOME credit, little troll, for being so consistently wrong. Not much but some.
Yes, the little troll that’s always right. I’ll take that.
Actually, part of the problem IS “Fox News.” The other major part is the “mainstream media.”
Right-wing lies and the liars spewing them find an easy host in the guise of Fox “News” which is notoriously bad in actually providing anything resembling “both sides of the story.” On the rare occasions they do offer “both sides,” what that means is “First up is the regular right-wing idiocy and now we’ll give the insane right-wing version of the same idiocy.”
The “mainstream media,” on the other hand, is so afraid of the right-wing calling them “liberal” that they report a news item and then find some conservative (generally a politician) to provide some sort of “rebuttal.” If–IF–they get a “liberal” to comment, he or she will usually get half as much time to talk as the conservative (if they’re allowed to speak uninterrupted). During the whole Affordable Care Act coverage, there was almost zero talk on the mainstream outlets with any Democrats (typically, the few Democrats who were brought on were those who were ready to complain that it wasn’t enough or that it gave too much to Big Pharma, etc rather than those ready to point out what good the bill would actually do).
Orange Orangutan? I was on your wave length until you insulted orangutans by comparing TRump* to a noble species I have been studying for nearly 50 years. Orangutan are majestic “gardeners of the forest” whose challenging life in the jungles of Borneo and Sumatra keep that important ecosystem healthy. To suggest that TRump* has any redeeming qualities of a higher primate compliments him and defamed the great red apes. Kindly apologize to the critically endangered orangutans for your poor choice of words in your description of this despicable human being.
And you have a PhD? In what?