Democrats are going to lose the Senate. If progressives get a wake-up call, it'll be the best thing for the party
This article is simply wishful thinking. It largely advocates pushing the same old nonsense which is being rejected by voters at the national level - this is not "reform" The wake-up call needs to be that you need to totally reform the stances of your party to win at the Congressional level - that is "speaking truth to power".
As described in the article - the Democrats are "clueless, rudderless, unable to win an argument even with a Republican Party" - I will also mention that the Democrats come across as a mob of angry, petulant juveniles.
Corporate Hitman's Top 10 Tips For Trashing Progressives And Their Causes By Lisa Graves Rick Berman, the king of corporate front groups and propaganda, has been caught on tape detailing his attacks on public-interest groups in the labor and environmental movements, including on efforts to increase the minimum wage for workers. As noted in a story by Eric Lipton at The New York Times, Berman and a colleague met with energy company executives at Colorado Springs’ posh Broadmoor Hotel in June to raise money from them to attack groups representing citizens concerned about clean water, clean air, and the future of the planet. But Berman's "win ugly" tactics apparently did not persuade all of his prospective clients for his lucrative business of creating tax-exempt non-profit front groups that then contract with his for-profit PR firm to give corporations cover for his attacks on their opponents. The way Berman profits from this arrangement has spawned a legal complaint to the IRS. An audio tape of Berman and his associate, Jack Hubbard, has been provided by a person at the Broadmoor event to the Center for Media and Democracy, which publishes PRWatch and has long tracked Berman's deceptive PR operations. Readers can listen to the full tape here and read the transcript here. Preaching to his audience, Berman’s remarks reveal a kind of Ten Commandments from the Dr. Evil playbook: 1. "Screw" your enemy. Berman boasted about his obsession with unions and his attack on their efforts to raise the minimum wage for American workers: "I get up every morning and I try and figure out how to screw with the labor unions." 2. "Marginalize" your opponents. Berman described his tactics against public interest groups: "Wherever possible I like to use humor to minimize or marginalize the people on the other side." 3. "Demolish the moral authority" of powerful public interest voices. "I got George McGovern to come out and say that unions were wrong. I represent some alcohol companies, I got Candy Lightner, who started Mothers Against Drunk Driving, to come out and say that MADD was overreaching and that she endorsed our position, our client position, rather than the MADD position. That is a demolishing of moral authority." 4. "Make it personal." Berman's associate Hubbard described how they go after concerned citizens who dare to challenge their clients: "We do have a section on every single activist. Their rap sheets, their criminal records they have. We’re really making this personal. We’re trying to make it so they don't have any credibility with the public, with the media, or with the legislators." 5. "Brand" whole movements as "not credible." Berman & Co. detailed their game plan to try to marginalize people concerned about fracking, as noted by Bloomberg media: "What we wanted to do is that we wanted to brand the entire movement behind this as not being credible, and anti-science." 6. Being "nasty" wins. Berman shakes off concerns that his activities are too nasty or aggressive, saying "you can either win ugly or lose pretty." 7. Push "fear and anger." Berman talked about pushing people's emotional buttons on fear, love, anger, greed, and sympathy, stating: "You could not get into people's heads and convince them to do something as easily as you could get into their hearts or into their gut to convince to do something. Because, emotions drive people much better than intellectual epiphanies." 8. Treat public policy as "endless war." Berman recognized that the public interest groups are appealing to the American people: "If you think about it these groups, the Sierra Club, who is the natural enemy of the Sierra Club? Who is the enemy of Greenpeace? You know at the surface, you would love to be a group like that because everyone should be in favor of you, who could be against you? That’s very difficult to over come and they play on that, and they trade on that, and that's our opportunity and also our challenge. So it is an endless war." 9. Give corporate cash "total anonymity." Berman reassured his audience that he can keep their role in these tactics secret: "We run all of this stuff through nonprofit organizations that are insulated from having to disclose donors. There is total anonymity. People don't know who supports us. We've been doing this for 20 something years in this regard. And to the degree to anybody is concerned about that I will tell you there are all sorts of ways, all sorts of firewalls that have been established to get this done on an anonymous" basis. He added: "I am religious about not allowing company names to ever get used. At least I'm not going to allow them to get used. And I don't want companies to ever admit that because it does give the other side a way to diminish our message." 10. Tear down celebrities who speak out. Berman's associate Hubbard noted that taking down celebrities who speak up is a key part of their strategy because: "The problem is that the public really does have a celebrity worship culture. But the good news is that there is nothing the public likes more than tearing down celebrities and playing up the hypocrisy angle." Meanwhile, Berman and Co. attack public interest groups for their donors and try to label opponents as hypocrites whenever possible even as he goes to great lengths to hide the money trail between him and some of the dirtiest industries on the planet.
Wow! Those 10 points resemble the Progressive Manifesto to Dealing with Public Opinion! Are you sure he's not a liberal in disguise???
hahaha this woman must really think her readers are stupid, this is exactly what the left does, and she is trying to attribute it to right wingers, thinking that no one will notice that this is the lefts own playbook.