Tell Your Story
I just finished Dan Pfeiffer’s book Battling the Big Lie: How Fox, Facebook and the MAGA Media are Destroying America (very good, highly recommend). And the book does a really good job exploring how that subtitle is true. Those things ARE destroying America. But what is just as interesting in the book, but perhaps might be more challenging to include in a subtitle is the exploration of the challenges mainstream media presents for progressive politics.
One point I found really interesting is that the mainstream media misunderstands the difference between the Republican and Democratic Parties (and perpetuates that misunderstanding among the public). For a long time our traditional understanding of the differences between the parties was over the size of government. But as Dan points out: “The battle over government is not about the size of government, but the role of government. Republicans want the government to serve as a bulwark against the growing political and economic power of a diversifying American they view as an existential threat to their primarily white, Christian base. The Republican narrative depends on reinforcing lies and fear of the government.” (Pfeiffer, 74)
The prevailing architecture of mainstream media seems geared toward a sense of balance - Democrats wanting a stronger welfare state involved in more aspects of your life and Republicans wanting a more hands off government, leaving most of American life in the hands of the free market.
If you have the time to pay attention to politics, this seems quite obviously incorrect. It is true that Republicans want to tear down the regulatory state, that they’d prefer much smaller taxes so that they can hold onto their unearned wealth. But they want what taxes they do pay to go to huge law enforcement and military budgets that can enforce their will around the country and the world. And the idea that the party currently banning books from schools and libraries, banning abortion, promoting the inspection of children’s genitals before they play sports, terrorizing queer kids and teachers and creating restrictive and overbearing immigration and voting laws is a party seeking small government is unconscionable.
But often if you listen to mainstream media, this false dichotomy is the central thesis of politics. And it can be pretty disheartening to find our political communication apparatus engaged in what often feels like willful misunderstanding while half our government perpetuates bigoted vitriol and outright lies. It’s not that one side wants a big government and one side wants a small government, it’s that one side wants to limit power in the hands of a few and the other, however flawed, wants to keep opening doors.
As a recipient, this can make you feel crazy. During the pandemic I often felt like the world was gaslighting me, like nothing outside was safe and yet no one was even a little bit concerned. Being even remotely aware of politics and in tune to mainstream media and mainstream communication strategies can feel the same. Republicans are attempting coups, turning social progress back anywhere from 50 to 150 years, while everything costs too much, working life is a snowglobe in an earthquake, and the planet is melting. But when everything from the speeches to the panels to the personalities and whip counts are reported as business as usual when a 50 year statute protecting my bodily autonomy going up in smoke, it can feel like this myriad of existential crises don’t matter to the people in power or the people whose job it is to hold people in power to account.
We know how hard everything is right now. We can see the health care system failing our friends and family when they need it the most. We see things falling apart that were reported fixed. We see the storms flooding our homes, ripping up our trees, tearing through our communities. We see members of our families fall prey to conspiracy theories, experience bigotry from people who claim to love us. And yet the structures in place to communicate, to empathize, to warn and to share remain the same. The existential crises we face, the bigotry and widening chasm of inequality, deserve more than the media equivalent of high school debate club.
Even when good things happen, they can often be so buried in stories about personalities and conflict that it is hard to remember that they’ve happened let alone their impact. We just passed the largest bill in history to address climate change and it would be great to see mainstream coverage of what is in the bill and how it can help our communities. We passed a huge infrastructure bill, but because coverage was more interested in whether progressives or conservative democrats played their hand better than accurately explaining how these types of bills work, people don’t know where to look and miss the impact.
There is power, though, in freeing ourselves from the expectation that someone else will tell our stories though, or that someone else will fight these battles. At its heart, organizing is built on conversations, and we can have conversations with each other. We can support people and organizations that respond appropriately to our experiences. We can put people in power who fight, and we can push them to fight for us. We can hold our elected officials accountable, and we can fight for ourselves, our friends, our family, and our communities. And we can help each other do the same.
If you’re not already following Courier News, I highly recommend them. They are a civic oriented news organization with newsrooms around the country and they are committed to community centered journalism that protects democracy. Their newsrooms are in Iowa, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Florida and Puerto Rico, Virginia, and North Carolina. This is the type of journalism that explains where you’ll see the results of big spending bills in your community.
Personally, I also love Crooked Media, because I like their frank, funny conversations that are driven by the idea that participating in democracy and taking action for things you care about should be accessible.
If you live in NYC I think The City’s coverage is unparalleled in terms of covering issues that really impact New Yorkers, supporting civic engagement, and giving you the information you need.
When it comes to writers who write powerfully and authentically about modern life, I look to Anne Helen Petersen, Lyz Lenz, and Jamelle Bouie.
But more importantly than any of these recommendations is the impetus to tell our own stories, to find and share information that helps us make sense of our world and our politics, and to use the power we have to fight for the things we believe in. Whether that’s volunteering for candidates or going to school board meetings or volunteering at abortion clinics or calling Congress or sending articles to friends or sharing the things you experience. There is power in our stories, in our relationships and conversations. And there is power lifting up our voices and sharing the stories that move us, that shift our perspective and change our minds. And there is power in talking to each other.
This week, share something that matters to you, or an action you took to fight for your community, or a story that impacted the way you think. And then maybe next week, do it again.