Media Meltdown and also Media Bias 101

[Motown Bombers]

 

[gehringer_2]

IDK if NYT podcasts are paywalled, but Ezra Klein had a long talk with Chris Hayes this week that covered a lot of ground regarding new vs old campaign paradigms and how they intersect traditional campaign fundraising vs candidate talent, a lot of it revolving around Mamdani vs Coumo and whether the Dems are learning anything. 

Edited Sunday at 04:25 PM by gehringer_2

[Motown Bombers]

This Chris Hayes?

[gehringer_2]

that Chris Hayes plus 9 more years around the block.

[Motown Bombers]

Why is it a leftist wins a primary in a blue city against a heavily flawed candidate and the rest of the party needs to take lessons? Leftists claim to want to win the white working class, and yet none of them tell us to take lessons from Andy Beshear. 

[gehringer_2]

2 hours ago, Motown Bombers said:

Why is it a leftist wins a primary in a blue city against a heavily flawed candidate and the rest of the party needs to take lessons? Leftists claim to want to win the white working class, and yet none of them tell us to take lessons from Andy Beshear. 

if you are talking about NYC that paradox is part of what they were talking about. Coumo won the working class. But Mamdani ran the 'modern' media campaign that ended up reaching enough people to overcome Coumo's money and media advantage. One interesting thing in the discussion was not he details of political positions but evolution in how to use media to win an election in today's environment where saturation TV advertising is showing itself ineffective more and more often. The other aspect is whether the party knows how to find the candidates that will function well with newer media systems. The complaint is that the standard party approach is see who can raise the most money early and assume that is your most viable candidate. But that is exactly what gets you a Coumo. I really see that now in the emailing I get constantly since I'm on a bunch of Dem mailing lists. They all go to trash but it's still interesting to see the only thing they are after is money - there is almost no appeal to why anyone should care if they are elected, But every candidate is hustling to prove they can raise more money a year and a half out because they know that's what gets them labeled as 'viable', whether they actually have high level campaign skills or appeal or not.

[Motown Bombers]

2 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

if you are talking about NYC that paradox is part of what they were talking about. Coumo won the working class. But Mamdani ran the 'modern' media campaign that ended up reaching enough people to overcome Coumo's money and media advantage. One interesting thing in the discussion was not he details of political positions but evolution in how to use media to win an election in today's environment where saturation TV advertising is showing itself ineffective more and more often. The other aspect is whether the party knows how to find the candidates that will function well with newer media systems. The complaint is that the standard party approach is see who can raise the most money early and assume that is your most viable candidate. But that is exactly what gets you a Coumo. I really see that now in the emailing I get constantly since I'm on a bunch of Dem mailing lists. They all go to trash but it's still interesting to see the only thing they are after is money - there is almost no appeal to why anyone should care if they are elected, But every candidate is hustling to prove they can raise more money a year and a half out because they know that's what gets them labeled as 'viable', whether they actually have high level campaign skills or appeal or not.

I hate to break it to you, but Republicans send fundraising emails all the time. They started sending them as soon as Mamdani won the primary. I'm so tired of everyone talking like the Dems can't win elections when they have been over performing the past 8 years. 

[gehringer_2]

59 minutes ago, Motown Bombers said:

I hate to break it to you, but Republicans send fundraising emails all the time. They started sending them as soon as Mamdani won the primary. I'm so tired of everyone talking like the Dems can't win elections when they have been over performing the past 8 years. 

To me the problem is they’re soliciting money without giving any reason to support them. I don’t see that as good politics. It comes across more like entitlement. The question is whether the dems are doing politics effectively. A party with zero branches of national government is not, no matter how much special election over performance handwaving gets done. 

[Motown Bombers]

6 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

To me the problem is they’re soliciting money without giving any reason to support them. I don’t see that as good politics. It comes across more like entitlement. The question is whether the dems are doing politics effectively. A party with zero branches of national government is not, no matter how much special election over performance handwaving gets done. 

It's not just special elections, it has been the Midterms in 2018 and 2022. When Republicans were the out party, they didn't give their base any reason to support them other than they weren't the Democrats. 

[gehringer_2]

3 hours ago, Motown Bombers said:

It's not just special elections, it has been the Midterms in 2018 and 2022. When Republicans were the out party, they didn't give their base any reason to support them other than they weren't the Democrats. 

it is what it is, they are out of power. Maybe the thing is good Dem candidates can win easily in a lot of places, but the party as a nationwide recruiting org (one of its most important functions) is failing to bring enough quality people to the races. Whatever it is, you are just kidding yourself if you think midterm gains mean much when you still can't get actually get into power. But if they pull a Congressional sweep in '26 then I'll be glad to agree with you that things have gotten peachy.

[Motown Bombers]

1 minute ago, gehringer_2 said:

it is what it is, they are out of power. Maybe the thing is good Dem candidates can win easily in a lot of places, but the party as a nationwide recruiting org (one of its most important functions) is failing to bring enough quality people to the races. Whatever it is, you are just kidding yourself if you think midterm gains mean much when you still can't get actually get into power. But if they pull a Congressional sweep in '26 then I'll be glad to agree with you that things have gotten peachy.

They were in power from 2018 to 2022. 

[CMRivdogs]

 

[Motown Bombers]

I have no sympathy for CNN. This is what they wanted. 

[gehringer_2]

On 6/29/2025 at 4:21 PM, Motown Bombers said:

When Republicans were the out party, they didn't give their base any reason to support them other than they weren't the Democrats. 

that's the irony though. For the right being against the Dems is a positive position - it reflects an actual set of policy actions - immigration enforcement, DEI roll back, environmental regulation rollback and upper income tax cuts (though the lower income continue to believe they are included -that delusion is another story) that people on the right think are going to  change their lives for the better. For left, just being anti-Trump is not a prescription for how to make progress on any of the cost of living issues that the supposed target audience cares about. Health care is about it and even there the Dems conversation is only about defending Medicaid, which is important but still doesn't resonate with enough of the electorate that may not like healthcare in the US but are not medicaid recipients - i.e. most voters.

Edited Tuesday at 03:46 PM by gehringer_2

[chasfh]

Trump has made the various policies he’s for at any given time synonymous with being pro-Trump. He’s shifted the entire political conversation to focus on him. Being anti-Trump is a valid response, because his is the face of all the terrible things he’s doing. For better or worse, the Democrats’ best shot is to highlight how terrible his policies are, how they are hurting ordinary people, and how they would be different, and point to successes by Biden and Obama. They can’t just pretend Trump isn’t happening and talk only about positive Democratic policies. That ostrich **** won’t work. They have to tackle him head-on. There’s no other way.

As things stand, people don’t yet know how bad they’re about to get ****ed because they’re not paying that kind of attention, so at the moment, anything the Democrats say is going to be sour apples. The policies have to take effect and they have to prove to be bad for rank-and-file red hats. There’s no other way I can see it working for Democrats. And the way the Trump people can overcome that is to make sure they give special privileges that rank-and-file red hats want while punishing blue cities and states and their uppity snooty voters. If that happens, then it’s practically game over for D, and that’s even before the institutional election fraud kicks in.

It’s a pickle, all right.

[gehringer_2]

1 hour ago, chasfh said:

 They can’t just pretend Trump isn’t happening and talk only about positive Democratic policies. That ostrich **** won’t work. They have to tackle him head-on. There’s no other way

That's not what I'm getting at though. The problem with just being against Trump is that it still allows too many segments of the party to remain against each other. Sure Hogg will tell you everything Trump does is terrible -- and then go campaign against another Dem.  Sure we've heard all the stuff about how messy the Dem coalition is etc., etc., but there until there is a set of places that Dems can agree they are all going to, or stated the other way - that if you are going that way you are a Dem, the party will remain a mess, the mess that was unable to articulate a coherent enough narrative to have defeated Trump in '24 when the Dems did run as "we're not Trump" and everyone already knew all the reasons to be against him and he won anyway. Of course if Trump messes up even more it should get easier, but in a sane world the Dems shouldn't have needed any more help than he'd already given them by 2020 to bury MAGA.

[pfife]

If the Democrats havent been able to do what youre saying they should be able to do with regards to Maga since 2020, why are you against replacing the ones that are failing per your metric?

[gehringer_2]

41 minutes ago, pfife said:

If the Democrats havent been able to do what youre saying they should be able to do with regards to Maga since 2020, why are you against replacing the ones that are failing per your metric?

because the ones that get elected aren't the fail, it's the ones who aren't getting elected! Other than Manchin, the Dems problem has not been lack of unity among the elected, it's lack of unity to get more people elected.

[RatkoVarda]

Corporate Media LOVES Donald Trump, part 743.

CBS just paid Trump a $16M bribe to get approval for the SkyDance/Paramount merger.

There will be multiple shareholder lawsuits, really some shareholder just go to court today to get an injunction.

Also, need a state attorney general to file bribery charges against anyone at CBS involved in this.

But I am well aware, nothing will happen.

[pfife]

12 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

because the ones that get elected aren't the fail, it's the ones who aren't getting elected! Other than Manchin, the Dems problem has not been lack of unity among the elected, it's lack of unity to get more people elected.

If the elected ones arent the fail, what is their success?

[Motown Bombers]

 

[mtutiger]

Regardless of feelings on Zohran Mamdani, like, wtf

Sorry Cody, but I gave up my subscription to The Athletic because of this ****

Edited 12 hours ago by mtutiger