Bernie vs. the 1% propaganda machine: Can he convince Americans to stop voting against their self

[think]

Very good read. This short passage doesn't do it justice:

Bernie Sanders vs. the 1 percent’s propaganda machine: Can he convince Americans to stop voting against their self-interest?

For a generation, working class Republicans have been undermining themselves. This is Bernie's biggest challenge

By CONOR LYNCH - MONDAY, NOV 16, 2015 05:57 AM EST

In “America’s Bitter Pill,” Steven Brill’s masterful work on the passage and implementation of Obamacare, there is an interesting anecdote about an elderly couple from Kentucky, the Browns, who had gone through the ringer of America’s broken healthcare system before the Affordable Care Act was introduced. Unable to get insurance because of a pre-existing condition, they could not afford medication for their many afflictions, from heart disease to diabetes to pain sprouting from a crushed vertebrae. When Obamacare finally came around in Kentucky, with its state healthcare exchange (Kentucky was one of the few red states that complied), the Browns couldn’t believe their luck:

“The Browns had heard about Kynect from television ads [Carrie] Banahan (the Executive Director of the Kentucky Health Benefit Exchange) had purchased. “We thought it was too good to be true,” Viola Brown told me. “It seemed like the answer to our prayers.”… Shelbyville is in Shelby County, which had voted 67-33 percent for Mitt Romney over Barack Obama. The Browns are white as is 90 percent of Shelby County. Of the four people among those who were enrolling that afternoon who said they had voted and were willing to share their choice with me, all four had voted for Romney. Yet [Kentucky Governor Steve] Beshear’s message — or perhaps simply the lure of “answered prayers” that Viola Brown had expressed — seemed to have gotten through. What they were doing at those card tables with the kynectors was not about Barack Obama. In fact, none mentioned Obamacare, except for the one enrollee who said that Kynect was “a lot better than Obamacare.”

This short anecdote says a lot about American politics. It is an example of how political ignorance can be harmful, and how working class people, particularly the white working class, seemingly vote against their interests without even realizing it. The right wing propaganda machine — largely funded by the beloved Koch brothers (recall that creepy commercial with the Uncle Sam Gynecologist) and other special interests — created a panic that the government was “taking over” the healthcare system (if only) and that “death panels” (a Sarah Palin myth that remains in the minds of many to this day), made up of Orwellian bureaucrats deciding who is worthy of healthcare, would be introduced. (Because the private industry was so good at deciding who deserved coverage, after all.)...

~Snip~

A paradigm shift would require a mass movement, or as Sanders likes to call it, a “political revolution.” Many Americans are waking up to the fact that the Republican party is a wholly owned by corporate America (as the revolt within the party reveals). The problem is that the Democratic party is also very much owned by special interests, as Sanders made clear during this past weekend’s debate when criticizing frontrunner Hillary Clinton for her longtime ties to Wall Street (which she, incredibly, tried to explain away by bringing up 9/11’s attack on lower Manhattan).

~Snip~

Full article:
http://www.salon.com/2015/11/16/bernie_sanders_vs_the_1_percents_propaganda_machine_can_he_convince_americans_to_stop_voting_against_their_self_interest/

[LWolf]

1. Yes.

But as the Bernie Sanders campaign continues to shift the debate, and push the Democratic Party back to its Social Democratic roots, there may be a chance of recapturing many of the working class voters who drifted to the Republican party over the past few decades. Ultimately, it comes down to capturing minds, which is tough when there is a well-oiled noise machine on the right, operated by people like Frank Lunz, the Orwellian master of doublespeak who coined or popularized terms like “death tax,” “energy exploration,” “government takeover,” and “job creators.”

The American right mastered the art of propaganda a long time ago. It managed to create a backlash and ultimately dismantle much of the welfare state through racist dog-whistle politics. It captured the minds of working class whites through a phony paragon of “family values.” It made it so the wealthiest of the wealthiest were the good guys; the job-creators who deserved endless praise and tax breaks, not criticism for how they treated or paid their workers. Meanwhile, one of the most ingenious myths that the right managed to implant in countless minds is that the corporate media is left wing or liberal, which altered the entire conversation. Now the mainstream media, which has long defended American imperialism and promoted capitalist interests, was left wing.

I would add that the neo-liberal wing of the Democratic Party has adopted the right's art of propaganda within the party, re-framing what "liberal" and "progressive" mean.

[hootinholler]

2. Yes they are working on that

From Hillary's Guilty of being a moderate to I'm a progressive in 2 weeks.

[brooklynite]

3. This is NOT Bernie's biggest challenge...

For a generation, working class Republicans have been undermining themselves. This is Bernie's biggest challenge

Except that, before he can try to stop working class Republicans from undermining themselves, he needs to convince some DEMOCRATS to vote for him. It's not going so well.

[think]

4. Yes. He must convince Democrats not to vote against their own self interests as well.

Bernie is:

Pro Single Payer

Pro living Wage

Anti war on drugs

Pro legalization of marijuana

Anti death penalty

Pro Glass Steagall

Pro war tax on corporations & pro corporations paying their fair share in taxes since they benefit from our military and law enforcement disproportionately to the rest of the people.

Anti TPP and unfair "Free trade agreements" that are written by multinational corporations for multinational corporations.

The American people need to realize who is fighting for them instead of the Wall Street corporations.