Category Archives: Propagandists

Addressing The Nation’s Real Problems.

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MAGA (formerly known as the Republican Party) would have you believe that billionaires don’t have enough money, that multinational corporations don’t have enough power, that our debt is the result of giveaways to poor people, and that immigrants are destroying our nation.

Of course, the opposite is true.

In the meantime, our nation’s real problems and their underlying causes are being ignored by MAGA as well as by some politicians on the left side of the aisle. Indeed, most of the decisions made by the current MAGA regime are making the problems worse!

For example, outside of a widespread nuclear conflict, climate change is the greatest existential threat to the planet. The rise in global temperatures as the result of carbon emissions from the burning of fossil fuels is not only a threat to humanity in the form of more extreme weather events. It threatens most of the planet’s species. Scientists warn that failure to aggressively address climate change will result in the extinction of more than a million species within a few decades – species that not only make our planet more fascinating and enjoyable. Many of them are species that humans rely on for food. Yet the MAGA regime is eliminating every initiative intended to address the issue. It has revived the oil and coal industries and rolled back regulations on pollution and the emissions of greenhouse gases. At the same time, it has eliminated incentives for solar, wind generation, and electric vehicles.

Such madness will certainly make our planet less livable and cost many thousands of high-paying American jobs. Moreover, the failure to mitigate our changing climate will cost trillions more in rebuilding following storm disasters.

The MAGA intent to remove up to 12 million immigrants is another ongoing MAGA-fueled disaster. ICE has stated that it will remove 600,000 immigrants by the end of the year. In addition, it claims that 2 million immigrants threatened by ICE have left the US on their own. That’s 2.6 million workers. 2.6 million customers of American businesses, and 2.6 million neighbors and friends. And it begs the questions: Who’s going to harvest our fruits and vegetables? Who’s going to process our meat? Who’s going to cook our food, do our landscaping, clean our businesses and hotel rooms, or care for the elderly? The truth is, we need these workers, and our lives and economy will suffer without them.

Next on the list of our problems, but no less serious, is the ongoing consolidation of industries such as grain, meat, agriculture, groceries, pharmaceuticals, healthcare, media, trucking, banking, oil, real estate and more. In fact, most of our industries are controlled by fewer than a dozen corporations. This has led to the extreme wealth disparity in the US along with the near collapse of small and midsized cities and a press that has increasingly prioritized profits and political propaganda over news. In addition, price fixing is an almost inevitable consequence of corporate consolidation. And the political power wielded by these corporate leaders is overwhelming.

At the same time, our bought-and-paid-for government has looked the other way as billionaires and millionaires use their economic muscle to game the stock markets then hide their ill-gotten gains offshore to avoid taxes.

Other pressing issues are a healthcare industry that forces Americans to pay four times more per capita for care than every other advanced nation in the world. Artificial Intelligence is expected to eliminate up to 100 million jobs in the US. Our out-of-control military-industrial complex is given a trillion-dollar annual budget. Yet it has failed audits seven years in a row, and $21 trillion of its taxpayer money is unaccounted for!

Our public education system that was once the envy of the world is being attacked by MAGA. In addition, MAGA has attacked academic freedom leading to a brain drain as some of our best scientific minds leave the US for Canada and Europe. These attacks will have long-term effects, which will allow other nations to surpass our technology.

Not the least of our problems is our unhealthy relationship with guns. Indeed, guns are now the leading cause of death for children. And there are more than 500 mass shootings in the United States each year. MAGA tells us that’s the price of having the Second Amendment to prevent tyranny. Yet thanks to MAGA, a tyrant has taken over the White House without firing a shot.

Dear Media: Stop Saying That Everything Trump Does Is Unprecedented.

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To the contrary, we’ve seen it all before – in countries like Russia, China, North Korea, Hungary, Turkey, Fascist Italy, and Nazi Germany to name a few. That’s because Trump is quite literally following the dictator’s playbook. That playbook goes something like this:

  1. You get elected to office any way possible. In 2016, Trump was helped by lies, an extensive propaganda network and foreign interference. In 2024, he was also aided by the opponents’ missteps.
  2. You expand your executive power by threatening members of Congress into compliance, by firing those who question orders, and by threatening to withhold congressionally approved funding to federal institutions in defiance of the Constitution.
  3. You replace nonpartisan government employees with loyalists and threaten others. In just 8 months, Trump pushed nearly 200,000 workers out of government agencies. And his entire cabinet consists of loyalists who constantly praise him.
  4. You challenge institutions and ignore long-standing traditions and norms. Trump has politicized every aspect of government and society. He punished any entity that supported DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion). He withheld funding for USAID, WHO, and NIH, as well as research grants from academic institutions he considers liberal and those who refused to crackdown on Palestinian supporters exercising their right of free speech.
  5. You create fear and declare emergencies in defiance of the constitutional right to free assembly. In the wake of massive arrests in LA by masked and armed ICE agents, Trump illegally federalized the National Guard and deployed Marines onto the streets of the city.
  6. You openly defy the Constitution and the courts. Trump has signed Executive Orders that defy Article 1 of the Constitution, as well as the Emoluments Clause and the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, Tenth, and Fourteenth Amendments. He has also entertained the idea of violating the Nineteenth and Twentieth Amendments. And he has openly defied court orders, calling the courts “out of control.”
  7. You take control of law enforcement and create your own loyal militia. Trump’s loyal Attorney General and FBI director have politicized their agencies and opened investigations into Trump’s rivals as retribution. And the Secretary of Homeland Security and acting director of ICE have created the nation’s largest police force willing to arrest and confine both documented and undocumented immigrants, even U.S. citizens.
  8. You attack the media, the freedom of press and freedom of speech. Since he first announced his intent to run for president, Trump has labeled independent news organizations as “fake news.” He has vilified them as “enemies of the people” and filed enormous frivolous lawsuits against them. Additionally, he and his FCC chair have threatened networks and media owners resulting in the cancelation of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel.
  9. You take control of the courts. Through the actions of Mitch McConnell and his appointments, Trump gained firm control of SCOTUS, which has given him immunity. His openly biased appointees now control at least two appellate courts and a large number of federal courts. And he has more than three years to further debase them.
  10. You vilify and threaten your opponents. Trump has long demeaned his rivals with childish nicknames. He blamed the murder of Charlie Kirk on “the left,” threatening to name liberal groups, including the Democratic Party, as terrorist organizations. And he demands that his DOJ investigate and convict all those who prosecuted him for his crimes and impeachments.
  11. You use your control of government to enrich yourself. In his previous term, Trump used his position to make millions from the very agency protecting him by constantly vacationing at his own resorts and charging the Secret Service inflated prices for its agents’ rooms. He’s continued that this term but expanded his greed by accepting a $400 million airplane from Qatar and a $2 billion UAE investment in his family’s cryptocurrency in exchange for access to our most advanced computer chips.
  12. You take over the education system by telling schools what they may and may not teach in order to control future generations. Trump has forced schools to rewrite history, to ban books with LGBTQ references, and to eliminate DEI programs in order to obtain federal funding. And his administration is now demanding that all schools include Charlie Kirk’s conservative Turning Point USA chapters.
  13. You take over the financial system. Not satisfied with control over Congress, SCOTUS and most government agencies. Trump is actively trying to take control of the independent Federal Reserve by attempting to fire one of its governors. If he succeeds, there will be nothing to prevent his manipulation of federal investments and currency.
  14. You rig or suspend elections. Now that Trump has control of the government, he is attempting to retain his power by rigging the midterm congressional elections through extreme redistricting of multiple red states. At the same time, he is trying to block or limit early voting, mail-in ballots, and the use of electronic voting machines. Failing that, he may try to suspend the elections or use ICE to block polling centers.
  15. Finally, you proclaim yourself “president for life” and suspend all freedoms. If you think that’s unlikely, consider the admiration Trump expressed after Xi was named China’s president for life.

There is absolutely nothing unprecedented by these actions. Every known dictator has resorted to them in one way or another. The only thing unprecedented is that no one has previously tried, let alone succeeded, in executing them here.

The Death Of Journalism.

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Beginning with Benjamin Franklin in the U.S., journalism was once considered a noble profession – the fourth estate – practiced by giants such as Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite, Eric Sevareid, Judy Woodruff, David Brinkley, Chet Huntley, Peter Jennings, Jim Leher, Gwen Ifill, and many, many more. These people not only reported the news, they helped us understand the news. For example, when Cronkite tired of reporting the body counts of the Vietnam War, he almost single-handedly ended the war by vividly showing us the futility of continuing it.

Journalists have routinely risked their lives to inform us. Indeed, over the past 20 years 1,668 have been killed – most the result of murders, ambushes, contract killings and war. Just recently, it appears that the Israeli military specifically targeted seven Al-Jazeera journalists reporting from Gaza. To put the number of journalists killed in perspective, over the same 20-year time period, fewer law enforcement officers have been killed in the U.S. (roughly 1,300).

And journalists in the U.S. are now under attack as never before.

Reliable news outlets are labeled fake news while Fox News, NewsMax, OAN, and many radio and online “news” outlets report a wide-ranging litany of misinformation and disinformation in support of MAGA and the Republican Party. These outlets are little more than Joseph Goebbels-style propaganda megaphones, a fact made obvious by the large number of Fox News commentators who were nominated for key government positions by Trump.

Meanwhile, the MAGA regime defunded public broadcasting because its independent reporting made it appear too “liberal.” ABC bowed to Trump by “donating” $15 million to settle a frivolous lawsuit. Even more troubling, Paramount’s CBS settled another lawsuit for $16 million and agreed to accept a “bias monitor” that reports to the Liar-in-Chief.

Such deals should immediately raise questions about the networks’ objectivity!

Will they, too, become mere megaphones for MAGA? It seems they have already softened their criticism of the regime. How can any of their reports about politics be trusted? How can the Washington Post be trusted after its refusal to publish a cartoon by Ann Telnaes that accurately showed the newspaper’s owner bowing at the feet of Trump? Their willingness to submit to threats from the Felon-in-Chief stands in stark contrast to the legacy of Murrow, Cronkite, Woodward and Bernstein who often spoke truth to power at great personal risk.

Too often, the Trump regime’s lies go unchallenged or unreported.

This situation is partially due to the monetization of news beginning in the 1980s. Prior to that, networks did not seek to profit from news. It was considered a public service in much the same way as PBS and NPR treat news reporting. But traditional news media is now governed by readership studies and ratings. Unlike Cronkite who believed his job was to give you the news you need to know not the news you want to know; today’s reporting seems the reverse.

News reporting has become a popularity contest with Americans seeking news outlets that fit their ideologies. Truth, substance and context seem to matter less than speed and ideological affiliation. Where once the vast majority of the public got their news from three reliable networks, today news reporting and, not coincidentally, the public are divided and fragmented as never before.

Traditional newspapers are struggling for survival. Local TV news is overly sensationalized with crime reports. News from social media is, at best, suspect. And most online news sites are either single-issue focused or hopelessly biased. As a result, many Americans have spurned the news altogether. With dwindling audiences, more and more news gathering organizations are seeking funding and hiding their reporting behind paywalls.

Those Americans who crave truth and accuracy are forced to search for trustworthy journalists on platforms like Substack, Zeteo, DropSiteNews, or the ICIJ (International Consortium of Investigative Journalists). Ironically, some of the best alternatives for accurate reporting of national and international news are foreign news organizations like BBCAmerica, The Guardian, and Al-Jazeera. Even CNN International seems to have higher standards than its American version.

Of all our nation’s problems, I believe this is the most pressing. Without widespread acceptance of shared truths, our nation is doomed to collapse as we fail to address real issues while focusing, instead, on culture wars.

The Don.

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That’s a title that has long been used to refer to the head of a mafia family – someone who is ruthless, obsessed with power and willing to use any means to obtain it, including violence.

And it can, quite rightly, be used to describe the felon in the White House.

Not only has he been found guilty of 34 felony counts, as well as sexual assault and defamation. His family organization was found guilty of running a fraudulent charity and a fraudulent university. Further, he was almost certainly saved from conviction of mishandling the nation’s secrets and of inciting an insurrection only through delay and his reelection.

This is a man whose parents were members of the KKK and who was mentored by Roy Cohn, chief counsel for the disgraced Sen. Joseph McCarthy and mob lawyer for mafia figures like Tony Salerno, Carmine Galante, John Gotti and Mario Gigante. He long palled around with crime figures, not the least of which were Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. He also worked with the mafia to build many of his projects in New York and New Jersey.

So, he clearly knows how mob bosses work, and he has embraced those habits in both his business and political lives. And now that he has again taken up residence in the White House, he is operating the government as his own personal crime syndicate.

Think the tariffs are intended to balance trade deficits? Think again. They are merely part of a mafioso-style shakedown of foreign countries in exchange for personal profits and gifts. Almost before the Capitol staff cleaned the grounds following his inauguration, he and his ethically challenged sons were in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE to close trade deals initiated by the Biden administration. But the real reason for their visit was personal – to cash in on multimillion deals for Trump hotels, Trump golf resorts and Trump bitcoin. As a side deal, he even accepted the gift of a $40 million jet from Qatar.

And that was only the start.

By threatening and imposing draconian tariffs on every other nation in the world, Trump began what amounts to a protection racket. (“That’s a nice little economy you have going there. It would be a shame to see something happen to it.”) The idea is to force other nations into submitting to a contract for Trump hotels or Trump golf resorts. A prime example is the Don’s deal with Vietnam. After imposing a 46 percent tariff on Vietnamese goods, he lowered the tariff to 20 percent in exchange for a $1.5 billion Trump golf resort.

Sure, the deal is in violation of the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause. Sure, it means that you will pay 20 percent more for Vietnamese made goods. But you are only collateral damage. America…er…Trump first.

The Don is eagerly awaiting similar deals with other countries, which will almost certainly result in rising inflation and higher costs for you. But the Don is not working for you. As always, he only cares about himself. The New Yorker estimates that Trump and his family will collect more than $3.4 billion in such ill-gotten gains by the end of his second term. (I believe that to be a highly conservative estimate.)

Meanwhile, it’s you who will pay for the Don’s largess. The Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that the economy is already dramatically slowing – a fact the Don doesn’t want you to know – and recent reports show that the producer price index, which measures the cost for wholesalers, rose nearly one percent last month. And, compared to a year ago, wholesale prices are up 3.3 percent!

Most of those price increases have yet to be passed on to consumers like you and me.

There’s more. Like every other crime boss, the Don is all about gaining and exerting power. He has already made Congress subservient to his whims. He already controls the majority of seats on the Supreme Court and a number of Appeals Courts. He controls a vast propaganda network. His cult also controls governorships and legislatures throughout the South and other portions of the no-longer-United-States. And he’s trying to exert that power to redistrict congressional seats and change voting laws to ensure that MAGA will control future elections.

The Don is also using his consiglieres and their soldiers in a blatant attempt to take over the streets of our cities to intimidate ordinary citizens and suppress dissent. He even has the world’s most powerful military at his disposal. A fact that must make all of the world’s other Dons envious.

Killing Truth.

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It was documented that the Felon-in-Chief told more than 30,000 lies during his first term in office. And during his current term, it seems he lies as often as he breathes. What’s worse is the fact that he has extended his assault on the truth to include the entire government, along with educational institutions, law firms, and media.

Since taking office, he has blocked research funding for universities he considers too liberal under the guise that they have failed to control antisemitism. (For the record, it’s not antisemitic to demonstrate against Israel’s genocide in Gaza.) He and his thuggish White Christian Nationalist followers continue to ban books from public schools and libraries. They have tried to erase any reference to the LBTQ community. And they continue to rewrite African American history and the long-lasting impact of slavery and Jim Crow.

They have criminalized brown and black immigrants, leading to what can only be described as kidnapping by anonymous masked men. The immigrants are then confined to concentration camps with deplorable conditions before being deported – often to countries thousands of miles from their homes.

The regime has denied law firms access to government property and information for representing clients the Dear Leader doesn’t like. It has also denied access to reporters and news organizations for reporting stories he dislikes, no matter how truthful they are. And, increasingly, the Felon-in-Chief has filed multibillion dollar lawsuits against media he feels have wronged him.

For example, he sued the Des Moines Register because he was angry that it published a poll that was unfavorable to Trump before the election. And he sued CNN after it repeatedly used “the big lie” to describe Trump’s repeated false statements that the 2020 election was stolen.

Trump sued ABC after George Stephanopoulos stated that Trump was convicted of rape. (He wasn’t. He was actually convicted of sexual assault and defamation. But the federal judge in the case stated that E. J. Carroll’s claim of rape was “substantially true.”) Although the case against ABC was frivolous, the network eventually capitulated and agreed to a $15 million settlement before trial.

Trump also sued CBS and 60 Minutes over what he believed was an edited response by Kamala Harris during an interview. Never mind that media routinely edit statements for clarity and brevity. But Paramount Global, the owner of CBS, also capitulated to the sum of $16 million over fear that its sale to Skydance Media would be blocked by the Republican-dominated FCC. The network even cancelled Late Night with Stephen Colbert, one of Trump’s most effective and humorous critics.

Trump even blocked the Associated Press from the White House Press Room because it ran a story referring to the Gulf of Mexico, instead of Trump’s preferred moniker: the Gulf of America. His cronies have also taken press credentials away from traditional news gathering organizations and handed them, instead, to more compliant bloggers and new (not news) media.

In the most glaring attack on independent news media, Trump and his MAGA congressional minions defunded PBS and NPR. And most recently, Trump has even sued the conservative-leaning Wall Street Journal over its reporting of Trump’s friendship with a rival sexual predator – Jeffrey Epstein.

All of this seems a calculated attempt to intimidate and blind the media and, in turn, voters.

Not only is Trump completely divorced from the truth. So, too, are most of his appointees and cabinet members. Loyalty is prized above truthfulness and competency. And those who do not follow his lying lead are often quickly dispatched. The latest example is his firing of the Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics because he didn’t like the jobs numbers the agency reported.

The Felon-in-Chief and his underlings have removed Inspectors General, Whistleblowers and truth tellers from throughout the government. Even the Smithsonian Institution has succumbed to darkness after it was apparently forced to remove all references to Trump’s two impeachments. (The exhibit now lists only Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton.)

If, as the Washington Post says, democracy dies in darkness, Lady Liberty’s torch is becoming very, very dim.

And Trump is as divorced from his oath to uphold and defend the Constitution as he is from the truth. Thus far, he has governed in direct violation of the 1st, 4th, 6th, 8th and 14th Amendments. In addition, he has talked about violating the 20th. He and his MAGA party have also violated the clause governing the separation of church and state. And he is clearly and continually operating in violation of the emoluments clause, which prohibits any federal officeholder from receiving gifts from foreign states or individuals and specifically bars the president from receiving gifts from the government or states.

In addition to gifts, Trump and his family have received the benefits of billions in investments from foreign governments. This year, he accepted a $40 million aircraft from Qatar and is spending an estimated $1 billion more of taxpayer money to convert it into Air Force One before he leaves office (if he leaves) and donates it to his presidential library.

He has also received tens of millions in personal donations from his MAGA supporters and billionaires. He spent $151.5 million of taxpayer money on golf trips to his own resorts during his first term. And, in his first six months of this term, he has already spent $50 million more. And that doesn’t include the estimated $10 million for his recent trip to Scotland to promote his new golf resort! If he continues to squander our money at this rate, he’ll approach nearly half a billion dollars by the end of the term. This from the man who complained that Obama golfed too much.

Of course, Trump justifies his golf habit by saying he needs time away from the stress of the office. (Apparently, destroying democracy is particularly stressful business.)

How The U.S. Became An Oligarchy. And Some Thoughts On How To Change It.

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Over the past five decades, the American economy has dramatically changed for the benefit of the wealthy and large corporations in ways many don’t understand. This led to the hollowing-out of the middle class and an ever-increasing number of working poor.

Unfortunately, the few politicians who fight for American workers have necessarily focused on trying to deal with the symptoms of our rigged economy by funding food shelves, food stamps, school lunches, homeless shelters and more. But they have been unwilling or unable to address the underlying causes.

If we are to ever develop real solutions, we first must acknowledge how we got into this mess. This requires an understanding of economics and history beginning with the 1970s and 80s.

Trickle-Down Theory. It was in the 80s when one political party convinced voters that, if they wanted to prosper, they needed to embrace the widely disproved concept of trickle-down economics. A concept based on the belief that if you cut taxes on the wealthy and corporations, enough money will trickle down to the workers. So, the highest personal income tax rate was cut by 20 percent. And the highest capital gains tax (the source of funds for the wealthy) was cut by 8 percent.

At the same time, the IRS did away with tax write-offs for interest on car loans and other personal loans, except for mortgages. Of course, that had little negative effect on the wealthy. But it cost working Americans plenty. In addition, the government permitted credit card companies to dramatically increase interest rates – yet another blow to the working class.

Buying The Competition. Around the same time, large corporations found that it was often less expensive to buy their competition than to compete with them. That resulted in large corporations swallowing up small and mid-size companies, which led to less competition, higher prices, fewer jobs, and the destruction of the middle of our economy.

Compensation Based On Share Prices. At about that very same time, CEOs convinced their boards of directors to base their compensation on stock performance. The higher the company’s share price, the more they get paid. That, in turn, led to CEOs like Chainsaw Al Dunlap, a supposed “turnaround specialist.” In reality, he was a brand killer and a job killer. After taking control of companies, he almost immediately sold off resources and laid off employees. That drove up share prices, profits soared, and he padded his bank account. Unfortunately, it was all a fraud. Most of the companies were sold or closed their doors.

Exporting Jobs. The 1970s and 1980s also marked the beginning of the mass exodus of manufacturing jobs to Mexico, China and elsewhere. After all, in order to pump up stock prices, CEOs needed to cut costs. In developing countries, workers could be hired for a fraction of the cost of American workers. Moreover, there were no labor unions, and most workers were willing to work without healthcare and retirement benefits, which in the US roughly equaled salaries. Again, corporate and CEO profits soared.

End Of Pensions. Yet another development at the time was the 401(k). It was sold to voters as a supplement to traditional employee pension plans. But, almost as soon as it was passed by Congress, corporations began eliminating pensions. That left most workers with less retirement funds and benefits.

Consequences. The consequences of all this are the continuing consolidation of industries, increased prices, worse customer service, the disappearance of the American middle-class and the redistribution of wealth upward.

Also, the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine has led to many news outlets becoming megaphones of propaganda for those politicians supported by the wealthy. And several decisions by the Supreme Court of the United States have permitted corporations and the wealthy to spend whatever it takes to buy the government they want. Putting this all together, it’s easy to see why our nation has become an oligarchy. But, instead of addressing these fundamental problems, politicians keep us distracted by their culture wars.

Possible Solutions. Now that you know how we got here, we can start to formulate solutions.

Personally, I’d begin with reinstating some form of Fairness Doctrine for electronic media, so we can all make decisions based on the same set of facts.

Next, following the lead of Teddy Roosevelt, I’d break up the most dominant corporations in every industry to increase competition and create jobs. I’d limit the number of brands and the percentage of sales for each corporation. And that would be quickly followed by increased taxes for the wealthy along with some sort of controls for executive compensation. (Incidentally, the best way to tax the oligarchs is to increase the capital gains tax on large sums.) Of course, that would also require doing away with tax shelters, both in the US and offshore.

I’d reinstate usury laws limiting the interest rates on all personal loans, including credit cards. I’d also require corporations with more than 50 employees to have employee representatives on their boards of directors.

And that’s just for starters.

One Of The World’s Greatest Propaganda Machines.

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As a former writer, creative director and owner of ad agencies, I could be considered somewhat of an expert on propaganda. So, despite being appalled by the Republican Party’s policies and utter cruelty, I have long been impressed by its mastery of propaganda.

In advertising and marketing, we are taught that the best way to attack competitors who have failed to articulate and promote a clear and positive brand is to simply rebrand them. To portray the brand as too expensive, too weak, too out of step with the times.

In essence, that is what the Republican Party and its propaganda outlets have done to Democrats. And the Democratic Party made it easy. For much too long, Democrats have embraced the Will Rogers quote: “I’m not a member of an organized political party. I’m a Democrat.” That may have been humorous and harmless when the party was at its peak in the days following FDR’s New Deal. But it’s toxic today.

Sure, the Democratic Party offers a big tent with room for lots of disparate groups and minorities. That’s good. But for decades, the Party has failed to articulate its core beliefs of equality and fairness; of establishing a government that serves all Americans, especially workers.

That made things easy for Republicans, their billionaire benefactors, and their propaganda machine.

For example, by embracing the Moral Majority and rebranding anti-abortionists as pro-life, Republicans were able to successfully portray Ronald Reagan, a Hollywood actor, as morally superior and more religious than President Jimmy Carter, a Baptist preacher. Republicans also took advantage of Reagan’s repeal of the Fairness Doctrine, which freed electronic media to conflate opinion with news, by embracing Rush Limbaugh and his golden microphone. Recognizing that emotions – particularly anger, hatred and fear – are good for ratings, Limbaugh and his Republican sponsors began hammering Democrats with a continuous stream of propaganda that would have made Nazi Germany’s Goebbels envious.

A seemingly endless stream of Rush imitators followed suit. And they were soon joined by Fox News Channel, which hired Republican media consultant, Roger Ailes, as CEO. While operating under the ironic slogan “Fair and Balanced”, Fox became the nation’s most powerful megaphone praising Republican ideologies and spreading disinformation.

More recently, websites, social media, and podcasts have caused the viewers, readers, and listeners to be further separated into ideological silos where unbiased reporters and factcheckers are unwelcome.

For decades, the ratings and readership of these propaganda outlets have soared as they have blamed gays, immigrants, transexuals and Democrats for all of our nation’s ills. The attacks on minorities, taxes, an over-reaching federal government, the courts, and education are particularly effective in rural areas where the population is mostly comprised of straight, white Christians…all of it is aided by our nation’s abysmal literacy record. (21 percent of U.S. adults are illiterate and 54 percent of U.S. adults are literate at a 6th grade level or below.)

The propaganda’s impact on rural areas has led to Republican control of the South and much of the Midwest as well as the U.S. Senate. It also greatly impacts presidential races as a result of the Electoral College.

Republican propaganda in the form of disinformation and misinformation has given us Q-anon, Pizzagate, and the January 6 insurrection. It has convinced a majority to believe that vaccines are more dangerous than guns, that politicians know more about healthcare than doctors, that the climate crisis is a hoax, and that white people are the victims of racism. More worrisome, it has given us a second Trump administration headed by a thrice-married, twice-impeached charlatan who should be serving time for 34 felonies, for trying to rig an election, for inspiring an insurrection and for mishandling highly classified national intelligence.

Now all of that hatred and cruelty has been unleashed to detain, arrest, deport and brutalize ordinary people whose only crime is to seek safety, a job, and a better life for their children. And they’re not the only victims. We all are.

If our ever-so-fragile democracy survives this moment, the Republican propaganda machine will be a case study in mass media, marketing, and political science classes for decades to come. Hopefully, those studying it will also find a way to better implement the antidote for propaganda – truth.

America’s Two Political Parties: A Comparison.

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Some Americans have become convinced that there is no need to vote because they believe the two major political parties are essentially the same. Indeed, at one time, the parties shared many progressive beliefs. But, over the last six decades, the parties diverged until, today, they have almost nothing in common. To wit:

The Democratic Party gave us Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act. And, if it could get a large enough majority in Congress, it would give you Canadian-style universal healthcare.

The Republican Party voted against Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and continues to try to privatize the programs. It also repeatedly voted against the Affordable Care Act. And it opposes any type of universal healthcare, even though it could save around 68,000 American lives annually and reduce American healthcare spending by roughly $480 billion per year.

The Democratic Party embraced public education as a springboard to give all Americans the opportunity to achieve the American dream. And it created the Department of Education to establish education standards across all communities. The Republican Party intends to dismantle it and privatize education with the greatest benefits going to those with the greatest wealth.

Almost every American financial crisis (the Great Depression, the Great Recession, and the Covid economic collapse) has occurred while a Republican president was in office and, in each case, a Democratic president led the economic recovery.

Despite Republican cries to cut deficits and the national debt, Republican administrations have contributed more to the debt than Democrats. Under the last four Democratic administrations, the debt grew $699 billion less than during the last four Republican administrations even though two of the Democratic presidents were left with an economy in crisis and crippling wars that began during Republican administrations. Moreover, Bill Clinton is the last president to reduce the annual deficit and create a surplus!

Under the trickle-down economic plans of Republicans Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush and Donald Trump, we experienced the greatest consolidation of corporations and the largest upward transfer of wealth in American history. On the other hand, under Democratic president Joe Biden, we saw the highest average wage growth in modern history combined with the lowest unemployment and the strongest stock markets.

Over the past 60 years, Democrats have championed civil rights and voting rights for minorities, as well as women’s rights. On the other hand, Republicans have suppressed voting rights, women’s rights and DEI while championing corruption as evidenced by Watergate, Iran-Contra, the lead up to the Iraq War, Russiagate, the attempted coup of January 6, and the excesses of Trump and DOGE.

Yet in the last election many ordinary workers, believing somehow that Trump would benefit their economic standing, voted for a convicted felon, adjudicated fraudster and sexual assaulter who promised to be a dictator on day one.

Why? In a word: Propaganda.

Since Reagan abolished the Fairness Doctrine, wealthy libertarians and large corporations looking for more advantages in the form of lower taxes and fewer regulations have spent billions on rightwing media to convince working Americans to hate government, to hate immigrants and minorities, and to vote against their own best interests. In addition, billionaires have funded rightwing candidates with the money needed to buy elections.

So here we are, with our government being dismantled, our economy threatened, our longtime allies abandoned, our constitution assaulted, and our democracy in crisis, it should be abundantly clear to everyone that the two parties are nothing alike. And that the Republican Party has no interest in working Americans beyond their votes.

Complex Problems: Part 5 – Urban/Rural Divide

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Let me begin by stating that I was raised on a farm. For the first 18 years of my life, farming was the only life I knew. Indeed, I fully expected to, one day, take over the family farm. It was only 160 acres in size, but it provided a reasonable living. Then I went to the state university where I was exposed to people from around the world and a vast array of other possible professions, which eventually led me to a degree in journalism and life in the city. After retiring, I returned to rural communities for several years.

All of this is to say that I believe I understand the unique issues facing people in both environments. And though the lifestyles are vastly different, the political views are worlds apart.

Reduced to stereotypes and generalities, people in the cities tend to think of their rural counterparts as uneducated country bumpkins. And people in rural communities tend to think of city dwellers as soft, overeducated, and overpaid elitists.

Of course, neither stereotype is true.

Today, many farms are large corporations with the family farmer operating as a combination farmhand, heavy equipment operator, veterinarian, mechanic, accountant, investment manager and CEO. And those living in small, rural communities are heavily entrepreneurial. Many have college degrees. They may own and operate a store, restaurant, hair salon, bank, car dealership or some other independent business. Many, like some of their big city counterparts, work in a big box store or manufacturing plant. And some drive many miles to the city to work in an office.

As for the city dwellers, many are office workers or work in warehouses and manufacturing plants. Others operate small businesses. Some drive delivery trucks. Indeed, there are a myriad of jobs. Percentage wise, very few are corporate executives. And because the costs are higher, most are hard-working people trying to eke out a comfortable living for their families.

So, as you can see, rural and urban people have more in common than they have differences. But when it comes to politics…

For one thing, in rural farming and ranching areas, guns and hunting are part of life. Many of the residents resent attempts to limit sales of guns and ammunition to solve what they consider big city crime. They falsely believe that they are overtaxed to subsidize big cities. (Actually, the reverse is true.) And, in rural areas, residents are more likely to belong to traditional churches which are central to many of life’s events: Weddings, funerals, fundraisers for neighbors down on their luck, holiday celebrations, etc.

In addition, the socioeconomic problems in rural areas are more extreme than in the city. It begins with consolidation. Today, Midwestern farms are upwards of 10 times larger than when I lived on the farm. That means there are roughly one-tenth of the number of jobs in rural towns. Their Main Streets are being hollowed out by Walmart, which based its growth model on competing with locally owned stores in small towns. Adding to the problem is our increased mobility. Rural consumers are often willing to drive long distances to shop in big cities for lower prices and greater selection.

Far too often, jobs in the few remaining rural manufacturing plants are exported to the cities, or worse…to foreign countries. There’s also the brain drain caused by many high school and college graduates leaving home for what they perceive as greater opportunities in cities.

All of this has led to the ongoing shrinkage of small towns. That is, unless they happen to be located within 30 or 40 miles of a large city. In those cases, they often become exurbs overwhelmed by development. As a result, the lifestyle they chose – the only lifestyle they know – is changing or dying. Their houses are declining in value. They feel trapped.

These problems are amplified by rightwing radio hosts and Fox News Channel. Almost all plumbers, carpenters, tradesmen and laborers take radios to their worksite. And, almost inevitably, those radios are tuned to the Mark Levins and the Alex Jones of the broadcast world who tell listeners their problems are caused by government, undocumented immigrants, DEI, city elites, and “libtards.” You’ll also hear radios in trucks and tractors tuned to the same hate-based “news” and “entertainment.” Likewise, local bars and cafes often have TVs permanently set to Fox News.

In other words, these people have become victims of propaganda. And extremists in the Republican Party (Are there any others?) are right there to take advantage.

So, where are the Democrats? They’re seldom anywhere to be seen…until election season. You see, nearly 20 years ago, the Democratic Party made the decision to invest its money where the most people are…in the cities. They pulled funding from rural counties. And they all but disappeared. The result was all too predictable.

That was evidenced when a couple of years ago, I volunteered to help with a Democratic booth at a couple of county fairs in reliably blue Minnesota. We were scoffed at, yelled at, labeled baby killers, and threatened by what I am sure are otherwise good people.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

We actually agree on most policies when they are not attached to party labels. We can have reasonable, albeit intense conversations with each other without threats and name-calling. All that’s required is respect for one another as fellow human beings. And for Democrats to be visible and available all year and every year. Not just preceding an election.

I believe the Democratic Party – in fact, both parties – would get far greater returns on their investments by operating and maintaining local offices, by holding meetings with constituents, by creating an ongoing dialogue with voters, than by spending billions on TV commercials.

Complex Problems: Part 4 – News Versus Propaganda

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I regret to inform you that you are being misinformed on a daily basis.

For many years, Americans depended on TV networks, newspapers and radio to bring them the news in an unbiased manner. The news gatherers were mostly graduates of journalism schools that instilled in their students the need to be thorough, objective, and professional. It was during this time that we came to rely upon such journalistic giants as Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite, David Brinkley, Chet Huntley and many more. These people were among the most trusted in the nation.

Even local radio and TV stations were to be trusted as they were bound by the Fairness Doctrine which demanded that, since the stations were operating on public airwaves, they had to operate in the public interest. That meant they needed to tell the truth and clearly separate news from opinion. A failure to do so would result in the suspension of their broadcast license.

Then along came cable TV. Since cable didn’t rely on public airwaves, it was argued that the Fairness Doctrine could not be applied to them. And, at the urging of conservatives and President Reagan, the Federal Communications Commission rescinded the doctrine altogether. That paved the way for Fox News Channel and rightwing radio hosts such as Rush Limbaugh. They began with news stories with a biased conservative slant. But, over time, they filled their schedules with anti-government lies and rightwing propaganda that evolved into conspiracy theories and fantasies completely untethered to the truth. By contrast, liberal shows never gained traction because they tended to be less hateful, less emotional and focused on presenting the unexciting, often boring, truth.

A couple of decades after the repeal, social media added to the cacophony of lies and deceit to which anyone with a political agenda could add their voice. Indeed, more people now get their news from social media than legacy media. You know, the networks, newspapers and magazines that are, for the most part, staffed by real journalists – the journalists who often risk their lives in war zones to inform you about current events.

Unfortunately, MAGA loyalists spearheaded by Donald J. Trump deemed the journalists’ reports to be fake news. They would have you believe that only partisan pundits, anti-regulation billionaires, couch potatoes and conspiracy theorists can give you the “truth.”

As if that’s not bad enough, most of the legacy media are now owned by 6 corporations managed by multimillionaires and billionaires whose personal greed outweighs the public interest. They continue to slash budgets for their news departments and intercede in editorial decisions, sometimes causing staff to resign in disgust. (The departures of Ann Telnaes and Jennifer Rubin from The Washington Post and Jim Acosta from CNN are the most recent examples of the trend.)

Given the rise of propaganda combined with the ongoing destruction of legacy media, is it any wonder that our population is so misinformed and divided? Indeed, many Americans have tuned out news altogether. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that many voters make their choices based almost entirely on emotions and gut feelings rather than facts and evidence.

It certainly does not bode well for our nation’s future that the most frequent questions for search engines following the 2024 presidential election were: Why wasn’t Biden on the ballot? And what is a tariff?

Our nation’s founders believed that an informed citizenry is necessary for our democracy. But given the complexity of today’s society, it’s unlikely to expect most Americans to seek out the truth, to search for trustworthy and reliable news sources. Far too many Americans are more interested in who their favorite celebrity is dating than who is running for office…more interested in a major leaguer’s batting average than in the nation’s latest unemployment statistics.

Finding a potential solution for this problem is daunting.

Our populace is so divided and entrenched in their beliefs, almost certainly there can be no agreement as to which sources to believe and what constitutes the truth. Further, the Republican Party, in particular, has long depended on telling lies, distorting the truth and creating scapegoats to gain power.

One possible solution is for the news industry to police itself. After all, the mass of misinformation and disinformation has not only destroyed media credibility. It is dragging down readership and ratings.

Perhaps all of the major news outlets could agree to clearly identify which stories are factual news and which are opinion. Maybe they could even agree to hold themselves to the long-held journalistic standard of reporting, requiring a news story to be based on multiple credible sources. (It happened before, in the early 1900s, after attention-grabbing headlines and sensational stories were blamed for the beginning of the Spanish-American War.) Or the maybe the major news media could create an elected board of news editors given the power to hold all news outlets accountable.

Failing that, the only other possible way out of this conundrum is some form of government regulation – to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine and enforce it against all news platforms. Of course, that or any other attempt by the government to hold media accountable for telling the truth will immediately be labeled censorship. But there must be a way for the leaders of both political parties to come to terms. If not, I fear that our nearly 250-year-old experiment with democracy will almost certainly fail.