Information, Infrastructure, Investment...and not being idiots.

What we need to do to create a COMMUNITY that can regain power at all levels.

Hi friends,

I’ve been pretty quiet, because I wanted to make sure I thought about what I want to say before I started spouting off, like many of the verified (verifiable?) pundits, pollsters, pontificators, and pretenders. (I like alliteration, ok?)

I just went to the NewDEAL Leaders conference last week. NewDEAL is a group that gathers and supports young “forward thinking” state and local leaders, with a focus on policy…and they’ve included some really big names who’ve graduated from their ranks, or are still there: Mayor Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Stacey Abrams, Josh Shapiro, Josh Stein, Mallory McMorrow, Adrian Fontes, Fentrice Driskell (and so many more).

On the pod, I’ve interviewed NewDEAL’s CEO Debbie Cox Bultan, as well as a few rising stars: Florida Minority Leader Fentrice Driskell, and Canton NC Mayor Zeb Smathers. The group is absolutely correct that the front lines of this country’s battle moving forward will be fought at the local and state level, and on point to talk about the centrality of community building offline. Yet I came away from the conference wondering why deep structural issues, like information ecosystem, media, and adequate funding for year-round organizing and candidate support didn’t take a more central role, as opposed to a focus on the Dem brand.

Secretary Mayor Pete Buttigieg at the conference. Photo credit: ME. Pete thinks the most important things are information, connecting to each other offline, and not being so mesmerized by the shock at the bad things happening under Trump that we don’t move very quickly to what needs to be done.

So…here’s my thinking about what some ideal changes would include:

The first thing I want to talk about is information. I’m not telling you anything you don’t know here, but draying over whether our message is too inclusive or not inclusive enough is a waste of time. Why? Because as

Anat Shenker

Osorio says, politics isn’t solitaire. What we say about ourselves isn’t the only thing that democrats hear. We have a good message, and Anat and her teams have been telling us for years what it is: it’s about the freedom to thrive for all of us in all the ways (race/class/gender narrative). Kamala stated it beautifully. What we don’t have is what the right wing has been building for half a century.

We need OUR OWN media ecosystem that penetrates the echo chamber of the right, and creates our own surround-sound environment where we’re all talking about variations on the same themes. We need the big podcasters, investment in the smaller creators (like me), a focus on influencers in the digital space, and owning local and national media. We simply cannot compete with the hermetically sealed, lie-fueled right wing information system that includes news, entertainment, gaming, non-politics as well as an analog community that continues to reinforce the views of White Christian Nationalism and Trumpism. The right wing built that ecosystem with heavy billionaire investment over decades to include all the components that come together to create a wholly distinct, factually-vacant, self-reinforcing impenetrable bubble. In this bubble they make up and distribute lies and then repeat them over and over until their followers believe them as gospel truth. In this bubble they create the cult-like adherence to their own reality…everything they say is truth and what others say is NOT TO BE TRUSTED. And in this bubble they denude words of meaning, invert reality, and make their people feel HEARD and SEEN. That ridiculous ad “She’s for they/them, he’s for YOU,” is one example. The right wing is very good at fear and division, and in that fear and division they convince their audience that they themselves are at risk from the demons on the other side. (See my conversation with Matthew Taylor on actual demons).

So, what must we do on our side? We must invest—and by investment, I mean really rich people giving a shit-ton of money— not just all of us subscribing to individual creators (though that is important too). We also need to create a media ecosystem that reaches unaffiliated and non-voters like

COURIER

Newsroom in every state and region.

Tara

McGowan does amazing amazing work and we need to expand her effort or additional efforts to own media that focus on disengaged voters on social media. Tara tracks how many votes Courier and all its newsletters can earn. She’s built a model that needs to go national and spawn additional networks just like hers (but different).

We need to continue with the really big podcasting and newsletter fish like Meidas, Mueller She Wrote, Scott Dworkin, Brian Tyler Cohen, Resolute Square, Simon Rosenberg and others creating content…but also lifting up the littler fish (like me) to widen the overall audience and create more surround sound. For that we need money, a whole lot of spending money. We also need patience and time to get it right. We little fish who make 20 bucks a year (maybe a few dollars more, but not much) will burn out, come and go, and we’ll waste the community building that we provide that the big fishies simply can’t. That takes more funding.

We also need to learn to TALK ABOUT POLITICS WITHOUT TALKING ABOUT POLITICS. We need a thousand more “Call Her Daddy”s. That means merging entertainment and values, becoming creative with content. Finding a way to talk about politics via discussions about parenting, relationships, gaming, soap operas, movies, makeup, or even elevating existing influencers in an intentional and very well funded way.

So media is one huge piece of infrastructure we need to build—with a combination of big money donors and some level of party apparatus. The other piece we need to build is political infrastructure—a unified front between the party and advocacy organizations to recruit, fund, support, train, and connect candidates at every level in every state. We do a little here and there, we have dysfunctional state parties in every direction, and we fail to fund organizations like

Amanda Litman

’s Run for Something that have been at this for a long time and now need to lay off much of their staff b/c of funding shortfalls. There are a number of other orgs that do this like Contest Every Race or Every State Blue or Arena or Emerge, but it’s not coordinated and it’s not heavily funded. Until we’re running in every race at every level across the country, we’re at a structural disadvantage.

We also need to invest, in time and money, in offline community. Make real connections across the country and within geographic areas. Actually KNOW each other so we can keep supporting each other and work together, learn from each other, and not work at cross purposes unintentionally. And with real community comes the ability to see and hear our neighbors and compatriots directly, not just via a skewed media prism that isn’t doing anyone (except their corporate overlords) any favors.

In addition to everything I’ve said, I think all of you need to read Akilah Hughes’ piece “Finally the correct take on why Kamala lost.” I agree with everything she says in that article.

Hughes discusses the fact that only Blacks, Jews, and LGBTQ+ folks really understood the assignment and voted unequivocally for Kamala. She also discusses lots of really important things like celebrity, accountability (or lack thereof), leftists “owning the libs” over Gaza and not understanding geopolitical reality or mitigation, and importantly, failure of legacy media, the right wing media ecosystem, and good old fashioned racism and sexism. Read it. It’s worth it.

This piece didn’t even begin to discuss the corporate media and its shortcomings, profit motive, and advance compliance. We’ll get to that later. We also didn’t discuss the millions of Biden voters who stayed home, the people who think all politicians are lying, who don’t think Trump will actually do all the hateful things he promised, or the fact that America didn’t feel the danger that Trump, Musk, Vance, Thiel, and the rest of the crew poses. Lots and lots of causes. Fewer, but harder, things to build.

So…here’s a preview what’s coming up on the newsletter and podcast Freedom Over Fascism. I’ll be talking to folks about creating a media ecosystem, officials on the state and local front lines, advocacy leaders at the forefront of powering change, and people creating tools that make building our political infrastructure stronger. I’ll also be piloting small group cohorts made up of activists to build personal connections across the country. That’s a lot, but that’s my plan. I hope you’ll support me, share with your contacts, and join me in this community as we work on change with a longer event horizon than we would like.

Here’s the talk that Pete Buttigieg gave at the New DEAL leaders conference. I took my own video, but it’s crappy and filled with the back of peoples’ heads. This isn’t that.

Here are some articles that I think are well worth reading to understand our moment:

Anat Shenker Osorio in Rolling Stone: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/trump-harris-democrats-electoral-problem-neoliberalism-1235176879/

Akilah Hughes The Spite Stack:

Finally, the correct take on why Kamala lost

Freedom Over Fascism is reader-supported. Please consider supporting my work monetarily with a paid subscription, even though currently all the content is free.