Some say that we here at Delaware Liberal need to be reminded that we won the election. For it seems that since the election, we have been nothing but “shrill” and angry, almost as if we lost.
Well, first, we didn’t win the election. Barack Obama and Joe Biden won the election. We played our very small part, but we didn’t win. Our candidates did. And second, having our candidates win is not the end of the fight. We just won the right to control the White House for the next four years and Congress for the next two.
But we did not win the right to control the narrative. That fight never ends. And we liberals and Democrats are at a disadvantage in that fight. Even now. Our friends on the right will simply laugh at this thought, for they will simply say that the media is liberal. First, that is lie. The media is not liberal or conservative generally, with the exception for Fox News, which is uniformly conservative to the point of being a literal propaganda station for the airing of the RNC’s talking points, and two shows on MSNBC, which can be described as liberal. If you want to define our national media with adjectives, then use “adversarial” and “lazy.” Especially our 24 hour cable news channels. All these channels do is discuss what the DC Chattering class is chattering about, without any independent analysis or challenge. That is where “narrative” is generated. In that bubble. And the competition to control that narrative is where we liberals are at a disadvantage.
The right wing machine is called that for a reason. It is very efficient and effective. A false story starts on talk radio or on the righty blogs, it is pushed with screaming sirens on Drudge, and then before you know it, the story is being discussed in the traditional media, or as our righties call it, the MSM. One needs to look no further than Alan Keye’s latest rant that Pandora discussed. That made the Los Angeles Times.
So the fight to control the narrative is the key. And when faced with an adversary that has no problem lying with a straight face and no qualms, then you can see how we may sound “shrill” or angry, even though we won the election. For the controlling the narrative is the key to having the President who won the election actually implement his policies he campaigned on. Look at 1993 and 1994 if you want proof of that. President Clinton campaigned on universal healthcare, but lost control of the narrative in the effort to pass a bill, largely because the GOP, with an assist by insurance lobbyists with their “Harry and Louise” commercials fought for it, while Clinton and the liberals did not. I remember reading Clinton advisor Sidney Blumenthal’s autobiography where he discussed shooting a parody of the Harry and Louise ads, but instead starring Bill and Hillary Clinton, to be shown at the White House Correspondent’s Dinner. The ad was so good he was convinced if it had aired during the fight for universal healthcare, we would won the narrative, or at least neutralized the effectiveness of the right’s efforts. But they didn’t, and they lost that fight.
Here and now, we will continue the fight. There is no resting on our laurels just because we won an election. That would be easy to do. But if we do that, we lose control of the political narrative as Republican lies fill the air unchallenged. So I do apologize if we sound angry and shrill while we combat those lies and falsehoods. But someone’s got to do it, because the battle never ends.