Between Nov. 5, 2024, and Jan. 20 of this year, Democrats licked their wounds, trying to figure out how and why they lost so badly. Once Donald Trump walked back into the White House, though, his opponents turned their attention to resisting his MAGA agenda. They are flailing, and that may be largely because they never solved their post-election, pre-inauguration puzzle. The “Resistance” is struggling for purchase because the people behind it still don’t understand precisely why they find themselves resisting rather than governing.
Politico recently published a trio of articles that could perhaps collectively be described as a Democratic Party postmortem. The articles featured Democrat strategists and three officeholders, Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), and New York City councilman Chi Ossé (D) opining on what they think went wrong for them in 2024. They also shared their thoughts on why they are struggling to win the messaging war against President Trump and, indeed, the wider MAGA movement.
“Trump and Republicans have been able to grasp different types of media in how to get their message across that impacts society as a whole,” said Ossé, “and I do believe that Dem leadership is missing the mark, not only in the election but in our resistance 2.0. We need to be active in every medium.”
Perhaps three significant factors are at play, here. The fact that Trump’s new government efficiency pit-bull, Elon Musk, also happens to be the world’s richest man and the owner of perhaps the world’s most influential social media platform gives MAGA a big advantage. There is also Trump’s own understanding of the power of social media – and his not insignificant use of it.
Legacy Media Bubble
There is another pivotal factor, however, and one of the Politico articles touches on it. “Democrats’ weakness in reaching voters outside traditional channels — TikTok, not MSNBC; YouTube, not national newspapers — isn’t new,” the article observes. The political left’s decades-long dominance of the establishment legacy media has backfired in this information age. Democrats got too comfortable with the idea that The New York Times and the alphabet TV news networks such as ABC, MSNBC, and CNN, along with DC’s most prominent print newspaper, would always give them positive exposure and champion their agenda. […]
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