The Real Grassroots. Not just Voting. Love, Hate and Community

I think a lot of us on the left like to assume that most people have our beliefs in racial equality, reproductive freedom, healthcare, taxes, and science, including climate change. However, many folks either do not, or do not really care. Many people hate Muslims, strong women, and resent scientists and folks with college educations. Many people want to keep the Government out of their Medicare. Yes, many of these folks are plugged into Fox News and Brietbart, so they will either be rabid Republicans or at a minimum apathetic about voting.

On DU, we live in our largely fact based echo chamber. However, what about the average person sitting in a lunchroom with Fox News playing in the background spouting off lies while they passively internalize such lies as fact? Also, they are conditioned to disbelieve the left or at least embrace a false equivalency that both sides lie.

President Obama provided a temporary reprieve with his ability to organize and use the internet to reach out to people directly. However, Republicans and the Russians have since successfully disrupted the use of the internet as an organizing tool. Even on DU, we often get disruptive trolls or more bluntly the site itself getting brought down due to a hacking attack.

So, this is not about blame. But what do we do spread our message and cut through the BS? I see a lot of posts about tweaking the message, perhaps being more populist or leftist, but this ignores that the basic problem of how do you reach folks in a compartmentalized media environment? If someone is plugged into Brietbart, Fox, etc., does it really matter who is the messsenger or what your progressive message is?

I recall with President Obama's first campaign, I felt connected and part of a larger community. President Trump is the antithesis thriving on hate, anger and division. Our media environment lends itself to such a disconnected state of affairs. This is the nut that we need to crack. Tweaking the message itself is just rearranging the chairs on the Titanic.