For myself and my compatriots who are activists in the field, we’re surprised on just how much the Internet (as a vehicle) has succeeded in this election well beyond our initial, meager expectations.
Then again, we weren’t setting ourselves up for disappointment. Due to our exhaustive research we found compelling evidence that told us beforehand what to expect from the corporate media versus online vehicles.
We knew this was an uphill battle from the very beginning. I’ve stated these facts for many years now within this forum as well. Here’s where I’ve repeated it more recently:
That’s why I made that factor an important bullet point within my argument in that particular post/thread.
However, has the Internet been a failure for us? Hardly. It’s had enormous organizing power and there’s plenty of evidence to back that assertion up. It still has a long way to go, but it’s already exceeding a lot of our expectations.
The Internet won’t overtake corporate TV media influence on many (not all) demographics for some years to come. What evidence made you think it would happen in 2015? There was no such evidence that I found where the Internet was going to compete with the corporate media head-to-head alone when the campaign started.
That’s why we Bernie activists focused on so much offline activism and outreach on top of utilizing online vehicles where it’s been practical (especially for organizing). Where do you think these crowds manifested themselves despite a hostile corporate TV media that very actively attempted to hide the promotion of his events beforehand?
It was and continues to be from the power of grassroots organizing both offline and online despite a hostile corporate media.
We’ve worked around their blockades and in some cases busted right on through them.
This reminds me of how Howard Stern managed to date himself. He was out-of-touch and claimed that YouTube darling PewDiePie wasn’t making big money because he didn’t personally hear about PewDiePie through his traditional media sources. In reality, PewDiePie was making 7 million a year and had a large audience when Stern aired his rant.
There has been very “real happenings” on the Internet and grassroots has been benefitting in very tangible ways from this phenomenon. For example, The Young Turks (who I’ve supported for years now) stood at a total of 2 billion views as of July 2014. Last year around this time they were at over 1.4 million views a day.
Now, today, they are at over 90 million views a month and TYT actively supports Bernie Sanders on their shows:
Case in point. Bernie Sanders, Turk Of The Year Award Winner for 2015.
[quote=“awjt, post:729, topic:59394”]
There is nothing new to see here. Names have changed. Some grassroots stuff has started to sprout. But the overall form and shape of the election is no different than what has gone before. …Same old election as ever. Nothing new yet.[/quote]
We’ve been here for quite a while now. Well before the Sanders campaign started and well before you showed your support for Bernie here on Boing Boing a little while ago.
The grassroots movements that surround Sanders are very widespread and powerful. We’ve been changing this country for many years now beforehand.
Don’t look to the corporate media to show this reality directly – look at results.
For example, look at the minimum wage increases across this nation. That’s incredibly powerful grassroots at work. It happened completely under the radar of the corporate media.
This is the same grassroots organizations and activists (like me) that are ready to kick some serious ass after Sanders is elected to the White House. Unlike Obama, Sanders will work with us after he’s elected. That’s why a major Black Lives Matter activist is already a part of his team, for example.
Corporatists will find this terrifying — but Sanders is bringing progressive activists who are normally forced to the outside of government right into the fold. This is absolutely NOTHING like Obama’s administration which pushed most of us aside after he was elected.
The corporate folks that own the corporate media are absolutely terrified of this situation. You will not hear much about this from them at all.
Show up to some of our meetings across this nation if you doubt this. We are going to battle against the establishment with the largest, most powerful, nationwide alliance of grassroots Americans never before seen in the history of this nation.
There’s multitudes of evidence of our enormous presence if you look beyond corporate media narratives and antiquated, wildly inaccurate mainstream polls that still rely too much on landlines and on little or no social media indicators.
Here’s yet another massive indicator of our huge, nationwide presence…
Despite a hostile corporate media and establishment that literally told the DFA to reject Bernie, we won a nationwide, landslide win when actual votes were put to the test instead of bullshit polls.
The polls and punditry said this was impossible. They were both dead wrong on a laughable level.
We’re here, just don’t count on the corporate media to tell you about us directly and /or honestly. The corporate media attempted to bury the significance of the DFA win.
It was significant due to nationwide votes that absolutely defied the currently skewed polls that so many trumpet as infallible and portend an inevitable coronation for Hillary.
The jig is up. The polls are wrong. Those of us with fortitude aren’t going to let the corporate media wear us down. We’re energized and fighting to win.
Bernie Sanders and the grassroots movements that surround him already did that preemptively because we knew we were facing a hostile corporate media from the very beginning. And, we’ve been reaping the benefits ever since.
This was at the end of July:
Bernie Sanders Hosts Biggest Organizing Event of 2016 So Far
I don’t know, man. You sound like you’re in a defeatist funk. Whatever your problem is, I hope you work it out for yourself. In the meantime, we’re going to continue to strengthen the largest, untelevised grassroots movements in this nation’s history to fight for Bernie Sanders and the ideas he represents for us.
As I said, you won’t hear about us in the corporate media directly. Why the hell would you? However, we’ll be in the history books down the road after all the dust has settled.
I’ve got work to do for this campaign, my time is limited and it’s even more limited for naysayers at this point. Don’t let them wear you down like this and try to have a happy new year.
Meanwhile… coming to a yard near you in America:
