Dealing with Republican Propaganda [View all]

[Rizen]

Democrats and other progressives need to address how conservative propaganda works and inform people. This should be the core focus of left wing media. The main issues are false equivalency, people don't understand nuance and conservatives control the dialog.
Take any piece of propaganda against Hillary Clinton. She has no indictments or convictions and Republicans do the exact same thing even more but people are furious with her. Republicans can take a less than ideal situation that's true, exaggerate it to the point of falsehood and Democrats are put on the defensive. The problem is humans have a negativity bias and are generally uninformed. This leads to apathy ie "it doesn't matter who you vote for" and even progressives turning on Democrats.
People don't vote based on economics and issues but rather treat elections like they're voting someone off a soap opera. Progressives don't see voting as a responsibility but want candidates to win them over. This will rarely happen as you can't win moderates and progressives simultaneously. There's an old saying "liberals want a candidate they can fall in love with and conservatives want a candidate they can fall in line with". This paired with all the ways Republicans cheat elections like gerrymandering, voter suppression, Russian aid and of course propaganda gives them the edge. The issues get drowned out by whatever soap opera scandal Republicans think up be it Benghazi, pizzagate or something as trivial as the type of mustard Obama eats.
The other issue is people see things as black and white. It's much easier to say about the morning after pill "it's an abortion pill" than "actually it inhibits ovulation and has no effect if the egg is fertilized". People don't resonate to logic and facts but rather emotions. We need to say things with strong language and conviction like "calling it an abortion pill is a lie".

The bottom line is propaganda works. We should inform people so they can fight it and get progressives to stop demonizing Democrats for being more moderate than they'd like. We need talking points like "you won't get a candidate who 100% represents you so choose the best option", "Hillary never did anything illegal but Trump has" and to push the significant differences between Democrats and Republicans.