It's the narrative, stupid

There is no doubt that owning the narrative has never been more important than it is today, and this presents a problem to Democrats unless they learn how to capture it.

I’m a communications guy, and one thing I have learned about the US political space is that who owns the narrative drives the bus. What I’d like to do is challenge the central premise of embedded hard right propaganda. If you don’t subscribe to or follow Corbin Trent, I highly recommend doing so, because it’s striking to me how much alike he and I think. It will come as no surprise that he has worked with AOC and Bernie, so you can be sure he, like me, is committed to challenging traditional thinking when it comes to solutions to the biggest challenge of our generation.

There's no way I’ll be able to deliver this in a single sitting, so I propose splitting it into two or possibly three parts, depending on how it goes.

Currently, people are seeking hope; they are looking for a reason to fight what they perceive as an existential threat to their very existence. Threats like the one we are enduring rightly challenge our thinking and prompt us to consider solutions, such as third-party alternatives. This video is six years old from RepresentUs. I challenge you to watch it and tell me it does not make absolute sense. If you believe in real change, you will watch it through to the end, because I feel it’s essential to understand the problem before it can be addressed.

RepresentUs has been around for a decade, and NOTHING appears to have changed despite their best efforts. This tells you everything you need to know about how politics in America has been taken hostage by dark money. In the November election, Democrats spent a billion dollars and lost the election. Many have said, including me, that the narrative did for democracy. However, having had time to reflect, it was a deeper and more structural problem. The American people had such a low opinion of politicians that enough of them disengaged to allow a convicted criminal to be elected the most powerful man on earth.

Indeed, he did not get an overwhelming mandate from the American people, as he often claims. He got a mandate from 32% of eligible voters who believed his lies. Having said that, it's how the American voting system works, and 'to the victor belong the spoils,' as they say.

I absolutely believe in what RepresentUs is selling, but evidence illustrates that change is all but impossible to deliver without a much bigger movement and significant financial investment to support it. In addition, America is not a natural home for third party propositions however well intended. They simply serve to split the vote. That’s not to say we can’t learn from well considered arguments. Theirs, to me, is a story of being the political BETAMAX when VHS won(for those scratching their heads, Google it). I believe that their ideas should be rolled into a reimagined Democratic Party offering.

They are unquestionably correct when they say in not-so-many-words, 'all politics is local'. Republicans have always known this, and it has played a significant role in why we find ourselves in this moment of societal crisis and distress. Democrats were asleep at the wheel while Republicans invested in state and local-level politics. The red state trifectas and the appointment of right-leaning judges have enabled Republicans to govern when in power and use state level power to obstruct when in opposition.

Unfortunately, we live in a society where we're not interested unless there's a quick fix. Dems appear to be in search of the political Ozempic. There seems to be a bizarre belief that a few political marches and progressive TikToks will fix everything. I hate to tell you IT WILL NOT. If they were alive today, the late great John Lewis and figures from the civil rights movement, would tell you change is a SLOW march. The cardinal sin is not how we got here, but why? We are in this moment of constitutional crisis because Democrats failed the American people. I have said it before and got much hate for having the audacity to even suggest it, but sometimes the truth hurts, and my position remains unchanged.

There is still a fundamental lack of comprehension of 'How American voters could be so stupid as to vote for a fascist'. If that's your position, you'll never win an election again. I hear talk of 'Dems need to be more masculine and aggressive'; in short, it's a branding issue. Let me tell you if you roll a turd in glitter it's still a turd. The other view is, it's all about getting dark money out of politics. No question, dark money is eating democracy alive, but to remove it will take a revolution. I'm all for that, but revolutions require real sacrifice, and there is no evidence in a 'me, me, me, society' that there’s an appetite for real pain, and that's what the top 1% hold onto.

I understand that at this point, you're saying, "OK, Martin, you've dismantled the engine. It's all over the garage floor." It's easy to dismantle things; it's putting them back together that's the real challenge. No truer words have been said, and it's going to take more than a few words to even begin to address the real challenge.

As people actively engaging with politics in this moment of deep crisis, we represent a minuscule fraction of the voting public. To most people, politics is broken, and all they see is two parties fighting, with them caught in the middle, always paying the price for the poor decisions politicians make. Do you have any idea how difficult it is going to be to even begin to address that problem?

The reality is, no matter how much we need a revolution, if we go down that route right now, in my view democracy will die never to return. The problem Democrats have helped create by aligning themselves with 'more worthy' dark money, as they would like to portray it, is not going to go away until somebody grasps the nettle. Sadly, I don't see that happening any time soon. To many voters who detest what Trump is doing, they see Democrats as simply the lesser of two evils, and that is a HUGE problem.

Aside from the transformative agenda Biden ran with, and Obamacare, there have been few little big ticket legislation passed for the good of the American people for decades. Instead we have seen legislation to suppress access to voting, while allowing corporate interests to buy elections. There has been no shortage of promises, but delivery has been frankly lamentable. The use of executive orders has become the new way presidents now govern. Then the next guy comes along(and it always is a guy) and wipes out the last guy's executive orders. Legislation is becoming a relic consigned to the history books, and that tells you the system of government is not fit for purpose.

America is not a shining beacon of democracy. I doubt it ever was. But in this moment, representative democracy has left the building. It's pretty depressing to hear people say, 'Are we in a constitutional crisis?' And the answer that comes back is, 'not quite yet'. WAKE THE F*CK UP, the answer is YES. Not only that, but you are also in a corruption crisis, a civil rights crisis, a human rights crisis, and an ability to accept the truth crisis. People whose only crime was to seek a better life for themselves and their families are being deported to gulags, and threats are being made to suspend habeas corpus. Rest assured, are up to your neck in a crisis.

OK, with that out of the way, do I still love you? Absolutely I do, because I believe that the soul of America is NOT rotten to the core. Having worked there and through friendships developed over the years, I know America has a good and generous heart and believes at its core, the American dream remains the true beacon of the values of the American people. I believe good people can fix this and that heroes will emerge from these darkest of times, to lead the nation back to the promised land of hope, prosperity, compassion and moral decency. I look forward, as I know many world leaders who are feeling bruised at the moment do, to welcoming America back to the global leadership table. The problem America now faces is, depending on the level of damage Trump does, it might take a generation to recover.

You can’t fix a structural problem overnight and you certainly can’t fight against tyranny with just the small handful of Democrats that are stepping up to the plate right now. DNC Vice Chair, David Hogg, is meeting some real resistance from the Democrat elders for his outspoken views on change needed within the Democratic Party. For me, his position on weeding out ineffectual representatives in Congress is valid and he has made it clear this should not be at the expense of losing seats. That’s a very subjective position, but I see where he’s going on this to build and not lose seats. The main pushback on David is spending money to primary Dems, which is money that could be spent on beating Republicans. Speculate to accumulate is what I say on the matter and he has access to a deep bench of young political talent.

This may be controversial, but there has never been a better time to clean house than now. I’m pretty sure that unless Trump is allowed to pick his voters(which he will try to do by the way), he is going to get a beating in 2026, assuming he remains on his current trajectory. But 18 days in politics is a lifetime, let alone 18 months. Current public sentiment, while not always against what Trump is doing, is certainly against how he’s doing it. This is unquestionably hurting Republicans in their home states, where they dare not even attend Town Halls at the moment

It’s clear that some Democrats are giving strong indications of a 2028 run, and there’s nothing wrong with that in my view, but it MUST NOT detract from the mission-critical challenge of the 2026 midterms. Democrats have to take on this challenge with a fresh outlook, having learned from past errors. That is going to take some serious introspection, and that’s what I want to discuss in PART TWO.