The permanent campaign surely goes back to the founding of Fox News.
Dan Cooper was a founding producer at Fox News, now never mentioned because he offended Roger Aisles. Dan's book "Naked Launch" makes it very specific in the description of the different structure of Fox News: It was never a "news network", it doesn't work that way. It's a 7x24 political campaign. Fox handles news the way political campaigns handle news: not as something to report, but something to *react* to. Every bit of news is processed as good for the campaign (and put on constant rotation) or bad (and the headline claps back at it, as in "Bush fires back at criticisms", which are never the headline). It is then dropped.
Canada's Fox is in print, and it's PostMedia - that's basically the way the National Post in particular processes all incoming data.
Then there is the "Dark Money" problem - in the USA, read the book of that title by Jane Mayer, the avalanche of money poured into political messaging there is quite staggering, and most of it is outside the sight of election-money monitoring. But of course, Canada is a land of oligopolies and dynasties, and you can bet we have our own.
Between the media they own, and the money they donate to P.R. Firms they like to call 'think tanks', the very wealthy that have risen since Reagan and Thatcher (and Mulroney) are very much driving this change. The lefty politicians sure as hell didn't choose it, nor are any poor people organizing for it.
So the upbeat ending David wanted is a call to push back against Big Money, itself -get it out of politics get it taxed away from the perpetrators- surely that's a rally cry that will resonate. A new direction for the NDP.
I used to joke with US colleagues that a Canadian 1st minister with a majority could spend 2 years doing hard stuff and then the 2nd half of a 4+ year mandate doing stuff to make the electorate forget so they could be re-elected. The every 2 year house elections in the US meant there was never enough time for folks to forget. Alas those days are gone.
Constant campaigning is exhausting noise for citizens particularly when it's a load of disinformation - which it frequently is. This usually results in the 'great turn-off' - as folks are busy living, or trying to.
One positive response to this phenomenon is what's called Citizen Assemblies (originating in the UK, see Citizens a book written by Jon Alexander & Ariane Conrad). These are facilitated gatherings of people across the political spectrum challenged to discuss an issue thoroughly and make recommendations. These are already taking place in Canada too. Hopefully this catches some more energy.
Voters have only a handful of options to choose from, all of whom suffer from the issues described. Even those who've gotten involved in internal party politics run up against well-oiled machines that are designed to turn that volunteer capacity into fundraisers and little more.
Citizens can and sometimes do take action at the local and state level in the US. In 2018, for example, after a well-organized citizen led campaign, Michigan voters overwhelmingly voted to create an independent citizens’ commission to draw state legislative maps, wresting control of the process from politicians. Other examples, too many to name, get ignored by the press, making a bad situation look worse which actually makes it worse because no one thinks citizens can do anything. Sigh.
To my mind, the "permanent campaign" is a function of two things: vastly increased communication through the internet and the absolute inability of citizens to do anything meaningful in the 4-year election interval. The permanent campaign is a symptom of citizen frustration placated by short term, targeted promise.
Absent is the missing opportunity for citizen response. "Recall"--well beyond elected officials is the answer.
The satrapy follows the imperial center — indeed. At least the permanent campaign is less crazy-making in Canada and can be tuned out for personal health. What else is to be done? It makes no sense to expect politics without sovereignty to be able to to achieve anything different.
The permanent campaign surely goes back to the founding of Fox News.
Dan Cooper was a founding producer at Fox News, now never mentioned because he offended Roger Aisles. Dan's book "Naked Launch" makes it very specific in the description of the different structure of Fox News: It was never a "news network", it doesn't work that way. It's a 7x24 political campaign. Fox handles news the way political campaigns handle news: not as something to report, but something to *react* to. Every bit of news is processed as good for the campaign (and put on constant rotation) or bad (and the headline claps back at it, as in "Bush fires back at criticisms", which are never the headline). It is then dropped.
Canada's Fox is in print, and it's PostMedia - that's basically the way the National Post in particular processes all incoming data.
Then there is the "Dark Money" problem - in the USA, read the book of that title by Jane Mayer, the avalanche of money poured into political messaging there is quite staggering, and most of it is outside the sight of election-money monitoring. But of course, Canada is a land of oligopolies and dynasties, and you can bet we have our own.
Between the media they own, and the money they donate to P.R. Firms they like to call 'think tanks', the very wealthy that have risen since Reagan and Thatcher (and Mulroney) are very much driving this change. The lefty politicians sure as hell didn't choose it, nor are any poor people organizing for it.
So the upbeat ending David wanted is a call to push back against Big Money, itself -get it out of politics get it taxed away from the perpetrators- surely that's a rally cry that will resonate. A new direction for the NDP.
Dark Money, a great read.
I used to joke with US colleagues that a Canadian 1st minister with a majority could spend 2 years doing hard stuff and then the 2nd half of a 4+ year mandate doing stuff to make the electorate forget so they could be re-elected. The every 2 year house elections in the US meant there was never enough time for folks to forget. Alas those days are gone.
Constant campaigning is exhausting noise for citizens particularly when it's a load of disinformation - which it frequently is. This usually results in the 'great turn-off' - as folks are busy living, or trying to.
One positive response to this phenomenon is what's called Citizen Assemblies (originating in the UK, see Citizens a book written by Jon Alexander & Ariane Conrad). These are facilitated gatherings of people across the political spectrum challenged to discuss an issue thoroughly and make recommendations. These are already taking place in Canada too. Hopefully this catches some more energy.
Well you could call on voters to be educated and engaged and you know, vote, but none of this is any of their responsibility.
Voters have only a handful of options to choose from, all of whom suffer from the issues described. Even those who've gotten involved in internal party politics run up against well-oiled machines that are designed to turn that volunteer capacity into fundraisers and little more.
Like I said, voters clearly have no responsibility, or I guess agency, they are only hapless victims of the cruel world imposed on them
“The less you know, the better you sleep.”
Citizens can and sometimes do take action at the local and state level in the US. In 2018, for example, after a well-organized citizen led campaign, Michigan voters overwhelmingly voted to create an independent citizens’ commission to draw state legislative maps, wresting control of the process from politicians. Other examples, too many to name, get ignored by the press, making a bad situation look worse which actually makes it worse because no one thinks citizens can do anything. Sigh.
To my mind, the "permanent campaign" is a function of two things: vastly increased communication through the internet and the absolute inability of citizens to do anything meaningful in the 4-year election interval. The permanent campaign is a symptom of citizen frustration placated by short term, targeted promise.
Absent is the missing opportunity for citizen response. "Recall"--well beyond elected officials is the answer.
The satrapy follows the imperial center — indeed. At least the permanent campaign is less crazy-making in Canada and can be tuned out for personal health. What else is to be done? It makes no sense to expect politics without sovereignty to be able to to achieve anything different.