The One Thing Democrats Have To Do To Avoid Future Losses
The One Thing Democrats Have To Do To Avoid Future Losses
Where's Our Joe Rogan, Ben Shapiro & Megyn Kelly?
For the last week, I’ve sat back and watched as Democrats have tried to make sense of 2024 election.
Some blame Joe Biden – he should have dropped out sooner.
Some blame Kamala Harris – how do you spend $1 billion and lose.
Some blame the media – they normalized Donald Trump’s authoritarian impulses and refused to rigorously fact-check his lies.
Some blame the progressive left – their amplification of policies that were out of the mainstream of America.
Some blame white people and white women – they stood by their man in spite of blatant examples of sexism and patriarchy.
Some blame Latinos – nearly 1 in 3 voted for Trump.
Some blame the image of the Democratic Party – it doesn’t appeal to working class Americans enough.
And yet, for all the blame going around, there is one culprit that has evaded accountability – the Democratic Party itself.
Think about the figures that have played an outsized role in this election: Elon Musk, Ben Shapiro, Megyn Kelly, Joe Rogan, Tucker Carlson, etc. For almost a decade, the MAGA right has built up a content juggernaut designed to feed their voters a steady diet of infotainment.
What has the left done? Called it misinformation. Called it lies. Called it propaganda. And while all of that may very well be true, they’ve done nothing to offset it.
Instead, they whined about the legacy media and wrongfully expected them to carry their water for them. All the while the Washington Post was purchased by a billionaire. As was the Los Angeles Times. CNN came under the Warner-Media umbrella. MSNBC-NBC is controlled by Comcast.
The Democratic Party raised and spent more than a billion dollars this cycle, not one dollar of that was spent building up its own content ecosystem that could compete with its adversaries on the right.
Democrats insist their policies aren’t the problem. That they’re vision for America is one of prosperity, equality, freedom, and choice. But what Democrats seem to forget is if a tree falls and no one is around to hear it, it doesn’t make a sound. It doesn’t matter if you’re ideas are better if no one gets that message. People can’t get that message if the proverbial mailbox is contaminated with an avalanche of spam. Where’s the Democratic Party’s Joe Rogan, Megyn Kelly, Charlie Kirk, Ben Shapiro, Tucker Carlson, etc.? Where’s the Democratic Party’s go-to podcast or YouTube show that presents its perspective with the right blend of facts and entertainment?
There are no shortage of talents and voices to elevate and invest in: Elie Mystal, Wajahat Ali, Mary Trump, Danielle Moodie Mills, Joyce Vance, Dean Obeidallah, Zerlina Maxwell, Mehdi Hassan, just to name a few. The Democratic Party has a massive data trove of donors and emails that they could tap into to build up these kind of voices and ensure they have larger followings, larger audiences, and a larger footprint.
The next campaign for the Democratic Party is who will succeed Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairman Jaime Harrison. Whoever takes the job needs to commit to investing significant resources in new media. Deploy the democratic party apparatus to identify voices who can become our answer to the right-wing, MAGA-verse personalities and entertainers who dominate the podcast/social media/streaming space. Democrats can no longer afford to surrender this vast playing field to the right.
To the next generation of Democratic Party leaders, go to carpool pickup, go to Target, look around and see how many people are walking around with ear-buds and ask yourself what are we doing to compete for their attention, to reach them where they are as they go about their day-to-day lives. Clearly, when you look at the results of the 2024 election, we aren’t doing nearly enough.