General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: The "extreme left" didn't give us Trump. The path to hell was paved by [View all]JCanete
(5,272 posts)For instance, in my case, I said focusing on the few percentage points that you or others argue swung the election, versus the 30 odd percentage points that we lose to the GOP courtesy of the corporate media-- an incessant propaganda and noise machine that we do not lift a finger to call out as such--is fighting the wrong battle, and seems pointed at getting people to reject leftism as radical, selfish, and just all around illegitimate.
I also said the far left DID impact the Democratic party platform, which matters. Many of us on the far left voted for Clinton because post convention, she and the party adopted less ambiguous language when it came to taking a stand that was going to be unpopular with certain powerful special interests...the sorts of things the left has been ignored on for a long time.
Like any group of voters, if they can be counted on no matter what, then why fight for what they care about, especially if it is hard? Why put a target on your head as a politician if there is nothing to gain, and for that matter no cover of public support that gives you permission and backup to take on that challenge? Our democratic politicians are the best of the best. They know how to stay in the game, and even sometimes get into office in an incredibly hostile environment, but they know that without populist support they have to use established channels of funding and candidacy propagation. Their strength ultimately becomes their greatest weakness, because it mutes their rhetoric and ties their hands. They get bloodied to a pulp and they have to keep smiling at the media and kissing its ass, because they know what shit-storm challenging it will be.
Republicans...they can challenge the media, and the media won't even fight back. That's all part of the game. If republicans call the media liberal and fake, then it only makes the media's pro-corporate slant more insidious. It makes any truth they have to cover that has a well known liberal bias, suspect, and gives any lie or half-truth or truthiness with a conservative spin the legitimacy of being voiced even by the liberal media. We have got to quit letting them get away with this. They are demonstrably owned by corporations with pro-corporate interests, who have their own far bigger business interests than the likes of CNN or MSNBC, and the funding model of those stations is one that relies on the quid pro quo nature of getting those companies to place ad buys. Access is a thing as well, but I'd venture is used more as a bullshit excuse for poor coverage than the bigger picture.
but sorry about that digression...it just goes to trying to identify some of the ways in which our party establishment is playing a rigged game by those rigged rules, and losing by its design. We need to call out the design, not the lefties who are disgusted by it. Yes, you could argue that they swung the Presidential race because of the percentage they amounted to, or the unknown percentage of them that stayed home, but you'd still be focusing in the wrong place, because that's all small potatoes compared to where we are really getting our clock cleaned.