That's the dominant message from more than 1000 Republican radio stations. And Democrats want to tweak their messaging skills.
Until a bunch of citizens stood up to protect Sandra Fluke from six hundred radio stations full of shit flung at her by Rush Limbaugh, there has been very little challenge to those talk radio gods.
Limbaugh did the same thing to Anita Hill, so we got Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court.
When the Clintons tried health reform, they did the same thing to Grandma Single Payer. Every year they add a few more myths about the failures of single payer systems in other select parts of the world. The Canadian health care system was particularly problematic for them, with people waiting months for severe pain relief and terminal cancer treatment, or members of the Canadian government coming down to the US for better care ( I think I remember he went to Florida for cosmetic stomach stapling). Decades of that.
And Sir Global Warming. The guy's a total idiot. It snowed today! And for the next hour we have a motivational speaker-turned-scientist from the nearest Koch foundation to tell us all the reasons why Sir Global Warming IS A HOAX!
What a lot of city-dwelling Democrats and music lovers everywhere may not know is that in most parts of the country, where even the most lonely states have two senators, there are NO free alternatives for politics while driving or working.
That's been going on, basically unchallenged, for 25 years. Republican radio reaches about 50 million a week, last I heard. That doesn't include friends, family, and co-workers who were too busy and tired to pay attention, and have to get it second hand.
It's like watching a football game and the other team sneaks on five extra players, and they score goal after goal. And no one notices they have extra players. The losing team's fans then complain about their team's performance and discuss what could be done better.
Messaging? The talk radio monopoly gave Karl Rove and others like him the opportunity to take the most odious political strategies national, invisible to those they harm, and practically for free. Other than some mocking of Limbaugh and a few other talkers by MSNBC, the closest thing to significant mainstream political challenge (Media Matters is not mainstream, IMO) to the talk radio monopoly is what happens after a Democratic rep goes on a once-a-week TV show and the moderator asks, "Why has Obamacare failed so spectacularly?"
Here's one way Democrats can 'message': when Republicans in media says something stupid or false, why not just say, "Well, Chuck, that's what the leader of the Republican Party, Rush Limbaugh says, but the fact is..."
Our democracy isn't so bought out and dysfunctional yet that most representatives still don' t have to listen to, or pretend to listen to constituents. The Left (my def: liberals, progressives, Democrats) allows Republican radio to create made-to-order constituencies for any occasion, as they are now to oppose Obama's new attorney general nominee, Loretta Lynch. Like they did Van Jones. Like so many decent people before them, and many liberals and progressives in primaries and elections around the country, and many progressive legislative efforts, and more to come. As long as the Left collectively ignores Republican radio it cannot collectively claim it really supported them and 'got their back'.
Good luck with the new Paul Wellstones, Howard Deans, Elizabeth Warrens.
Until the Left breaks the Republican radio monopoly it will continue to generate frightened outraged constituencies to intimidate and enable representatives and media with their well-established alternate reality. Seriously challenging Republican radio will make it unavoidably clear to media and politicians that those constituencies they serve are the disinformed spawn of a few billionaire's think tanks and a few hundred loudmouthed liars and bigots- not the 'popular opinion' they pretend to be.
If you want the Democratic Party to go left, or if you want elected Democrats to do ANYTHING you want, why wouldn't you do something about the political 2x4 pushing them right? Are you going to wait for them to figure it out and do something about it? Are you going to berate them until they figure it out and do something about it?
And do Americans have any excuse to keep allowing their publicly-funded schools to support a messaging machine that has been attacking and lying about teachers, students, public education, and science every day for the last 20 years? Are there any students, faculty, alumni, and community who find this acceptable? More than 170, or 28%, of Rush Limbaugh stations depend on relationships like that. The same stations even work to defeat state legislation to lower student loan interest rates! And they have a lot to say about teachers salaries and who the next university regents and presidents are.
There will be more obstruction than cooperation with Obama his last two years. They want to destroy him. The racist motherfuckers want to kill him. The more insane ones think he is a demon.
If you want to turn the next two years around and win supermajorities in 2016, stop ignoring that thing under the living room rug.
In another diary soon I will have more suggestions on how to destroy the Republican radio monopoly.
3:44 PM PT: Got a call and had to leave immediately, then i get back 4 hrs later and can't comment- i think because of a comment on another diary! Wow, 5 hr's saying basically the same thing....