When the Truth is Not Enough

SteveM on why Democrats can't get their message out:

But it isn't just Limbaugh and Fox -- it's The Washington Post and CNN and the rest of the mainstream media as well. It's a body of conventional wisdom that's shared in the Beltway by politicians and mainstream journalists alike.

The conventional wisdom says, first, that Democrats were in the wilderness from '68 through the time they figured out that they had to abandon "doctrinaire liberalism" -- 1992. Everyone in the Beltway believes that narrative. Everyone believes that Bill Clinton's DLC-ism got them back in the game in '92 -- and then he had to be brought back into the fold after he went dangerously liberal in his first two years. Democrats always fail when they're liberal, according to this narrative. Obama, Pelosi, and Reed just proved it again in the past two years.

That's the story Democrats hear from the press -- and the press makes the story self-fulfilling by reporting any attempt (or even proposal) to go liberal, by anyone in D.C.on any issue whatsoever, as an act of folly, one that Heartland America is certain to reject.

And because Heartland America is always told that liberalism is folly, Heartland America continues to associate liberalism with folly. And then Fox and Limbaugh pile on.

Democrats are wimps and cowards and pawns of plutocrats. But they're also victims of this narrative. They should have the integrity and the cojones to defy it. But it shouldn't be the ingrained narrative that it is.

Steve Benen:

I'd add a couple of related thoughts.

One is that the political media is wired to accept Republican arguments in a way that's awfully tough to shake. First Read's point is entirely fair, but even if Dems had flooded reporters with press releases, or screamed bloody murder about John Ensign, there's a reasonable assumption that the political establishment wouldn't have cared anyway.

The other is that Democrats have a nasty habit about a commitment to reality and truth, while their Republican counterparts have no such burden. First Read is right that Republicans "play the political message game" better than Democrats do, but this omits a relevant detail: the GOP doesn't mind blatantly, shamelessly lying.

As E.J. Dionne noted several years ago, "A very intelligent political reporter I know said the other night that Republicans simply run better campaigns than Democrats. If I were given a free pass to stretch the truth to the breaking point, I could run a pretty good campaign, too."

Keeping to our theme of working locally and from the bottom up, I don't think Democrats - especially liberals - are doing enough to spread the word individually.

When we hear a wingnut denounce Obama's "tax hike," do we intervene with a firm "No, as a matter of fact Obama cut taxes for all income under $200,000," or do we shake our heads and walk away?

When we hear a freakazoid insist that Obama is a muslim, do we demand a sliver of evidence and point out the contradictions or do we sneer in disgust?

Yes, reality does have a well-known liberal bias and that makes it easy to feel superior. Superior, all the way to the next electoral defeat.

Stand up for facts, reality, truth and the Liberal Way. Back up that superiority with some face-to-face pride. Don't let the conservatards in your life monopolize the discussion.

No, you won't convert them. But you will push back on the rethuglican narrative, and push the liberal narrative forward.

Stop retreating. Go on offense. Stay on offense.