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US Democrats are being completely late to the party when trying to copy a popular and successful conservative tactic? Shocking. Who could have seen this coming apart from literally every leftist?
DNC, are lazy they hope they can coast by on the aftermath of a gop election cycle, rinse and repeat, when GOP messes up the economy, dems hope they get elected the next cycle to "fix" it.
Republicans have been doing this for a long time and not a peep.
Democrats start doing it because they're sick of getting their teeth kick in at election time: OH MY GOD, HOW DASTEREDLY!!!
Y'all hypocrites.
Republicans have been doing this for a long time
yes...
and not a peep.
[citation needed]
the most obvious counter-example that comes to my mind was the news, about a year ago, that Beanie Baby was getting paid $100k per episode by Russian-linked sources
that was reported by the AP, NPR, CNN, etc.
if you think people on the left weren't saying anything about that, pick your favorite "left-wing" news outlet and search their archive to see if they covered it. for example, this from the Daily Beast was on the first page of search results for "Tim Pool Russia". here is Mother Jones. here is them.us.
also, can you be more clear about what specifically you're saying? in other words, is it:
a) Republicans have been doing this for a long time, and that's OK, and Democrats are doing it, and that's also OK
b) Republicans have been doing this for a long time, and that's bad, and Democrats are doing it, and that's also bad
c) Republicans have been doing this for a long time, and that's bad, and Democrats are doing it, but that's OK
because when you say:
Democrats start doing it because they’re sick of getting their teeth kick in at election time
it makes me think you're saying it's OK when Democrats do it.
so are you also OK with Republicans doing it?
or are you, in the same post where you accuse other people of being hypocrites, saying it's bad when Republicans do it but OK when Democrats do it?
This is reductionist. Check your time server ... you don't seem to realize we're already in a fascist oligarchy (but I repeat myself). Your arguments work in the political context of 15 years ago; at this point you're trying to both-sides Nazis. At which time, the calculus changes.
Beautiful reply. I reloaded to type a comment and you've said it much better than I.
thank you.
Now, Democrats hope that the secretive Chorus Creator Incubator Program, funded by a powerful liberal dark money group called The Sixteen Thirty Fund, might tip the scales. The program kicked off last month, and creators involved were told by Chorus that over 90 influencers were set to take part. Creators told WIRED that the contract stipulated they’d be kicked out and essentially cut off financially if they even so much as acknowledged that they were part of the program. Some creators also raised concerns about a slew of restrictive clauses in the contract.
Democrats: dark money is bad, we need to repeal Citizens United, and require disclosure of campaign spending
also Democrats: what if we had a dark money group and used it to pay influencers, with the condition that they couldn't disclose we were paying them
According to copies of the contract viewed by WIRED, creators in the program must funnel all bookings with lawmakers and political leaders through Chorus. Creators also have to loop Chorus in on any independently organized engagements with government officials or political leaders.
“If I want to work with another politician, I have to fully collaborate with them,” said one creator who was offered the contract but ultimately declined to take it and asked not to be named. “If I get Zohran and he wants to [do an] interview with me, I don’t want to give that to them.”
Creators in the program are not allowed to use any funds or resources that they receive as part of the program to make content that supports or opposes any political candidate or campaign without express authorization from Chorus in advance and in writing, per the contract.
absolute boomer-brained shit. people thrive on platforms like TikTok because of their authenticity. this group wanted to completely co-opt the content creators, remove all their independence and authenticity, and hope the audience didn't notice.
Progressive YouTuber and former Media Matters staffer Kat Abughazaleh, who’s running for Congress in Illinois, was pictured on Chorus’ website and included in fundraising decks without her consent. She asked that her image and name be removed and no longer used for fundraising purposes.
absolutely infuriating. fuck these people.
--
edit - this breaks down how fucking stupid Chorus is in even more detail: Why Dems Keep Screwing Up Media Efforts
each of these bullet points is expanded on in more detail, but if you had a really good tattoo artist, I think you could tattoo just the bullet points onto the foreheads of the people involved in setting up this Chorus bullshit.
Most political consultants are not media experts, and overwhelmingly, they do not understand how to build trust with audiences.
Because these things are run by political people and not, say people with newsroom experience, they wildly underestimate the importance of transparency in building trust, and wildly overestimate the downside of disclosure.
As a function of this, they think media and advertising are the same thing, and that traffic and audience are the same thing.
The content is all too often bad commodity content.
Along those lines, Dems need to stop being condescending to influencers and other media people they work with. As a corollary: Dems need to stop being control freaks.
We need to try things knowing that most of them will fail, and be much more risk tolerant with content. This is how we innovate.
Literally just set up a grant program that gives funding to creators doing work you want more people to see. Kat is doing great work building the team spirit of progressive Democrats. Instead of trying to straightjacket her because she said the party is fucking up, recognize that being able to acknowledge when the party is fucking up is part of the process of building trust. But her message wasn't "now we should all vote Green", it was let's get more of us in office so we can fix it. You're not going to turn progressives with eyes and ears into pro-Israel moderates, but that's not the point. You want them on board with the idea that the Democratic Party is worth fighting for.
Effective influencers aren't people who repeat the establishment's spin, they're creators who hook people in with shared values and then sweep them up into the larger struggle. These people think that they just need a few more clones of Brooklyn Dad Defiant, but on TikTok, and that'll fix their problem with young progressive voters.
Y'all need an editor?
The first sentence is unfortunately a suggestion, not a statement of an event that happened. Though just funding a central cheap/free shop that provides technical and editing support would also be a good way to boost progressive and/or Democratic messaging.
Darn. I happen to be both versed in editing and editorial writing and want to get involved. Seems to be a dearth of such positions without already knowing someone.
This was the inevitable outcome of all the “we need a liberal Joe Rogan” talk.
Like, they have a huge ecosystem of left wing content creators out there, but they won’t pedal the party line. They won’t stick to the issues that the Democratic Party wants to campaign on, because the issues that actually engage the voter base, the policy that would convince people to get excited and mobilize them to enthusiastically support them, are politically inconvenient for the democrats ability to appeal to the donors and their imaginary “moderate voter” who they still think exists.
They have this ideal campaign they’d like to run, but they’re unwilling to adjust their platform to fit that strategy. They want to have their cake and eat it to. There is so much excited and skilled talent in the Democratic milieu, and the party leadership keeps sending them to the timeout corner for actually trying to apeal to the voters who could win them elections.
One thing stood out:
Seeing an opportunity after Kamala Harris’ loss last November, Perelmuter cofounded Chorus with Democratic influencer Brian Tyler Cohen, who has over 4.6 million subscribers on YouTube and leads messaging check-ins for the creator cohort on “rapid response days.”
Not really sure what to make of BTC's involvement in this. I'm one of those 4.6 million subscribers, and this seems really shady. I get the idea is to fight fire with fire after seeing the failure of "when they go low ..." as a strategy, but this just screams for "investigations" by the likes of Project Veritas to spin up yet another liberal conspiracy.
We're seeing norms being shattered on a daily basis by the junta, and calling the Dems' response "flaccid" is being kind. How about getting better candidates aligned with the base that "influencers" can full-throatedly endorse? There are a few, but the fact that they're the exception to the neoliberal gerontocracy tells you pretty much everything you need to know.
Messaging is important, but so is the candidate. And actually stifling what these online folks with followers say, well, that actively defeats the whole authenticity aspect that drives the "influencer" market.
Not really sure what to make of BTC’s involvement in this.
not a hard decision. he's dead to me. voted off the island. persona non grata. exiled from the realm and condemned to spend the rest of his years wandering the desolate wasteland.
if I had to guess, 70% chance that he doesn't respond to this at all and hopes it blows over, 30% chance he tries to downplay his involvement as "oh my role was totally minor, they just pulled me in for one meeting to ask my advice" or some other "well yeah I rode on Epstein's plane but I never went to his island" type of bullshit excuse.
YouTube short from him, from November 2024: Progressive creators debut MAJOR announcement
"I'm part of a team of creators that's created Chorus Media. Chorus is a creator-led group of voices..."
"I'll be focused on message coordination"
"creator-led" and "message coordination" hits a little bit different with the additional context in this reporting...
if you want to stay subscribed to his channel, go ahead, I can't stop you. but every time you watch a video of his, and he interviews some "up-and-coming activist" or "exciting progressive candidate" there needs to be a nagging question in the back of your head about whether that person is there for authentic reasons, or because of an undisclosed sponsorship from Chorus (or whatever new group they create after this).
there's also an opportunity cost aspect. 10 minutes spent watching a Brian Tyler Cohen video is 10 minutes not spent watching a video from a progressive creator who doesn't take illicit dark money like this. the shitty reality is that YouTube and similar platforms care only about views and clicks, etc. if you want to reward authenticity, it's necessary to vote with your eyeballs.
Trying to control a narrative seems like a bad idea. Have they tried just doing what would help the general public?
Have they tried just doing what would help the general public?
They've made it pretty clear that they'd rather keep losing, as long as it keeps their rich donors happy.
their donors are the same donors as the gop, why would they want to bite the hand that feeds them, which is why they often make backdoor deals with the old guard gop.
It definitely feels like this is the trend across the globe. The rich vs everyone else.
Maybe I'm biased, but it certainly seems like it's the case to varying extents
Always_has_been_astronaut.png
It's almost like class war is a fundamental feature of Western civilization, with minor excursions over history.
Politics inherently tries to control the narrative.
and paying off influencers to not mention sensitive topic seems like a pretty pathetic way to do that.
Like, maybe they should try committing to real policy changes, or promote popular candidates who manage to mobilize voters, rather than have a complete melt down when their preferred candidate loses a primary.
Or not fire one of their most effective organizers when he starts trying to spend money on popular candidates.
Maybe they should stop trying to manufacture sudo progressive candidates that look pretty and do as little as possible.
That would all be a really fucking good way to influence the narrative.
But they want to have their cake and eat it to. They want donor cash to maintain the political consultant/lobbyist revolving door system.
There's a reason you always see $ before sudo.
They should stop lol
this post was submitted on 27 Aug 2025
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Politics
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