Note: This blog is supposed to be commentary about public issues, not personal reflections about the authors’ lives. I’m making an exception in this case, though maybe the struggle I discuss may feel familiar to others.

Valued friends and mentors sometimes tell me not to post about politics on social media.  Keep it to personal updates and humor, they counsel. The reasons they give for foregoing politics generally fall into three categories – it’s bad for your career, divisive, and futile.

My Defense

When deciding how to engage on social media everyone has their own unique circumstances to navigate. But for what it’s worth, this is my answer to those criticisms.

Criticism #1:  Speaking Out Is Bad for Your Career

I realize that speaking out politically on social media has hurt many a career, and therefore isn’t for everyone.  But in my case, I’m late in my career, so there isn’t much left to wreck.  Also, I’m my own boss, so my boss likes my politics. Moreover, a quick glance at my resume makes my political views pretty clear, so my viewpoints shouldn’t shock anyone.

Even so, if I was more guarded with my political views, it is true that conservative clients would probably be more likely to look past my past work for progressive officials and causes.  They could chalk it up to youthful naivete and ignorance, and assume I had outgrown my liberalism.

But I’m not convinced being unapologetically progressive on social media has led to a net loss of business.  While it probably has lost me business, it also probably has gained me business.  Given the nature of my clientele, I suspect I’ve gained a bit more than I’ve lost.  Just as consumer brands like Nike, Tommy Hilfiger, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Lyft, and Airbnb that have taken progressive stances don’t seem to have experienced a net loss of business, it’s possible something similar can happen to sole proprietors and individual employees like me.

But if I’ve guessed wrong about about that, if speaking out has hurt me more than helped, I’ll accept the financial consequences. At the risk of sounding self-righteous, I’d rather die financially poorer than morally poorer. 

Criticism #2: Speaking Out Is Divisive

This country is really dangerously divided, and I hate to think I might be making it even more so due to my social media blatherings. 

But the things that are most dividing America — bigotry, poor-bashing, greed, political corruption, unnecessary wars, etc. – undoubtedly will get much worse if we all shrug them off and effectively treat them as normal and acceptable. Indifference to divisiveness begets even more divisiveness.

I do try, with mixed results, to avoid using a tone that is needlessly divisive.  For instance, I try to avoid ad hominem attacks, and other types cathartic snottyness. I also mix in personal posts — have you seen enough of my new grandson yet? — and self-effacing humor to partially disarm people who say I’m taking myself too seriously.

But as much as I’d love to stay mute about public affairs issues, I don’t. The most divisive thing anyone can do is remain silent in the face of the toxic conservative policies and rhetoric that are tearing America apart.

Criticism #3: Speaking Out Is Futile

This is the criticism that gives me the most pause.  I’ll admit, speaking out on social media frequently feels totally ineffectual.  With most political exchanges on social media, minds are not changed, which often leaves me feeling exhausted and discouraged.

At the same time, social media has increasingly become a huge source of news for voters. Increasingly, people don’t subscribe to news publications, and don’t seek them out much. Increasingly, they get their news from what is shared on social media. I hate to leave this powerful news platform to conservatives, so I share things the some friends wouldn’t otherwise have seen.

Speaking out on social media has worked for conservatives, so why wouldn’t it work for progressives? For many years I’ve seen conservatives who are vocal on social media channels making significant messaging gains, in these three ways.

• Conversion. First, conservatives’ social media posts do change the occasional minds of swing voters, or voters who swing back and forth between parties in their voting patterns. Though I’m pretty sure changing minds is roughly as rare for conservatives as it is for liberals, it does happen.  I have friends who have become more conservative over the years in part because of the relentless conservative messaging they encounter on social media.  Just because conversation is relatively rare, doesn’t mean it never happens and can’t impact the kinds of close elections that are so commonplace these days.
  
• Retention.  Second, conservative posts help keep other conservatives conservative. That is, “preaching to the choir” ensures that conservatives are not tempted to listen to the liberal devils in their lives.  It gives them ammunition for bar stool discussions.  For any political movement, retention of supporters over time is not a given. Preventing erosion of support requires sustained repetition and reinforcement of messaging, and social media posting does that.
  
• Activation. Probably most importantly, conservative social media posters keep conservatives informed, entertained, and engaged, which sometimes helps move conservatives from being passive supporters into becoming activists and voters.  That evolution helps conservatives win close elections.

If conversion, retention, and activation are happening at the hands of conservative social media posters, I see no reason why liberal social media posters can’t make the same gains.

In fact, social media outreach arguably is more badly needed on the left, since progressives don’t have the equivalent of Fox News and conservative talk radio hosts persuading and re-persuading millions of conservatives on a daily basis. 

Why Bother?

To be sure, conversion, retention, and activation don’t happen without lots of relentless effort, and the weakening and loss of friendships. There are two quotes that frequently bounce around in my head when I’m pondering whether my incessant blathering is worth it.

One is from an author named Jim Watkins:

“A river cuts through rock not because of its power but because of its persistence.”  

Maybe that sounds trite, but when it comes to persuasion, it’s true. That metaphor helps this exhausted progressive social media gasbag stay patient, motivated, and persistent.

The other quote I can’t stop thinking about is from another Nicole Schulman, an author and daughter of a Nazi Holocaust-era Jew:

“Nice people made the best Nazis. My mom grew up next to them. They got along, refused to make waves, looked the other way when things got ugly and focused on happier things than “politics.” They were lovely people who turned their heads as their neighbors were dragged away. You know who weren’t nice people? Resisters.”

I’m ashamed to say, I’m pretty hard-wired to be “the best Nazi” that Schulman’s mom saw. I’m a conflict averse guy. I’m insecure enough to instinctively want to please everyone. So wading into the much-hated “politics on Facebook” isn’t instinctive or comfortable for me. 

Still, I can’t stand the thought of remaining silent as conservatives dominate social media channels unrebutted, and fascism grows unabated.  With the stakes that high, annoying my friends with political posts on Facebook feels like a democratic duty that’s well worth the trade-off. 

Republican gubernatorial nominee Scott Jensen just revealed why he is seeking the state’s highest office.

To help Minnesotans access more affordable health care by giving them a public option? Nope. To invest in building a world class education system? No way. To deliver guaranteed family and medical leave to struggling families?  He opposes that too.

Instead, Jensen is positively passionate about retaliating against the Minnesota Board of Medical Practice!

What did the Board, which exists to ensure the public is protected from unsafe and ineffective medical practices, do to Jensen?  According to Jensen, the Board is investigating him for encouraging the use of ivermectin.  In February 2022, Web MD explained the latest research on ivermectin.

Ivermectin, the controversial anti-parasitic drug, does not help treat mild to moderate COVID-19, another new study has found.

“The study findings do not support the use of ivermectin for patients with COVID-19,” researchers said in the study published last week in JAMA Internal Medicine.

There have been reports of people becoming hospitalized after taking ivermectin, and the FDA has even warned against its use.

The authors of the new study acknowledge the controversy: “Although some early clinical studies suggested the potential efficacy of ivermectin in the treatment and prevention of COVID-19, these studies had methodologic weaknesses.”

Even worse, Jensen also had been encouraging the public to endanger their neighbors by defying mask mandates during lethal COVID spikes.  The Hill reports on what the world’s top public health experts have learned about such mandates:

The BMJ, a global health care publisher, released a massive review Thursday that analyzed 72 studies from around the world to evaluate how non-pharmaceutical health measures reduced cases of COVID-19. Researchers found measures like hand-washing, wearing masks and physical distancing significantly reduced incidences of COVID-19. 

Researchers found that wearing a mask could reduce COVID-19 incidence by 53 percent. 

One experiment across 200 countries showed 45.7 percent fewer COVID-19 related deaths in countries where mask wearing was mandatory, according to the study. In the U.S., one study reported a 29 percent reduction in COVID-19 transmission in states where mask wearing was required. 

That’s a lot of research that Dr. J is ignoring in order to pander to the extreme anti-science right wing of his party. I don’t throw the term “quack” around lightly. But if someone talks like a quack and acts like a quack, then they might just be a quack. 

Here’s hoping the Board isn’t spooked by this political bullying, and does the job Minnesota patients depend on it to do.

If the Jensen experiment works, the retaliation model could become a rich vein of recruiting new Republican office-seekers. 

Tax cheats can be recruited to run to retaliate against the Minnesota Department of Revenue.

Polluters can be recruited to run retaliate against the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.

Enemies of democracy can be recruited to run to retaliate against the Minnesota Secretary of State’s office.

Abusive cops can be recruited to run to retaliate against the Minnesota Attorney General’s office.

Criminals can be recruited to run to retaliate against the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.

More quacks, tax cheats, democracy enemies, polluters, abusers, and criminals in public office!  What could possibly go wrong?

I suspect that only a relatively small proportion of Minnesotans are aware that DFL legislators want to finish work delivering tax cuts and popular investments to Minnesotans, while GOP legislators have walked off the job and left that important work undone. 

But state legislators spend much of their time with well-informed lobbyists and activists. The State Capitol is an insular island. Therefore, many legislators probably incorrectly assume that most Minnesotans already know all of this.

But many don’t know it, or don’t fully understand the damage it’s causing, so DFLers need to proactively and repeatedly tell the story.  

The policies that Republicans are effectively blocking by refusing to do more work are extremely popular.  Tax cuts. Education and child care investments. Long-term care spending. Police funding.  Infrastucture improvements. Moreover, Minnesotans believe in working hard, and not quitting just because the task is difficult. There is a strong case to be made here.

But if DFLers don’t proactively repeat the point about the GOP’s dereliction of duties, and the consequences of it, many voters will never know about it, or won’t remember come November.

To educate voters about what is happening at the State Capitol, and make it stick in their memories, DFL legislators need a series of provocative tactics that play out between now and the election. A few options to consider:

• Empty Chairs at Mock Legislative Sessions.  DFL legislative leaders should send a letter to all GOP legislators proposing a date and time to return to the Capitol Building for a Special Session.  Republicans won’t agree to attend, but all DFL legislators should show up in the House and Senate chambers at the proposed time anyway. They should wait for the missing Republican legislators for 24 hours or so.  They should use that time  in the half-empty chambers to make it clear that the GOP is refusing to do their jobs, and describe the contents of the legislation effectively being blocked by the Gone Old Party (GOP). 
  
  Then they should record video of the speeches, liberally interspersed with shots of the Republican incumbents’ empty chairs and offices. They should share short videos of the speeches and empty chairs via targeted social media. 
  
  They also should invite DFL challengers to come to the State Capitol to participate in news conferences about the refusal of the incumbents to do the jobs they were elected to do.  Those challengers could record “Looking for Rudy”-style videos to use in their campaigns, humorous videos portraying the DFL challengers searching empty offices for evidence of the GOP incumbent doing their jobs.

• Missing Person Flyers.  DFL candidates could also make tongue-in-cheek Missing Person-like flyers to be used in online ads and postcards. The “Missing Legislator” flyers would include a photo of the GOP incumbent, with a description of the unfinished business they left behind when they walked off the job they were hired to do. 
  
• Poll Documenting Public Frustration.  The DFL Party should also commission a poll asking Minnesotans if legislators should return to work to finish the tax cuts and investments.  They should also use the poll to document the popularity of each of the major components of the unfinished business – tax cuts, education and child care investments, police spending, infrastructure investments, etc . They should publicize the poll results in news conferences and campaign materials. 
  
  Why a poll? The results of a survey would make it clear that this isn’t just an argument between the GOP and DFL. It’s also an argument between the GOP and the overwhelming majority of Minnesotans. That’s an important nuance to stress when framing this issue.

• Pink Slips.  Closer to the election, DFL candidates could develop termination notice forms (e.g. “pink slips”) to use  in advertising and mailing.  The pink slips would be filled in with the legislators name and reason for firing – “failure to show up for work when constituents needed tax cuts, education, and anti-crime help the most.”

Whether or not these are the right tactics, the larger point remains: DFLers need to develop an on-going campaign to make the 2022 elections a referendum on whether Republican incumbents should show up for work when struggling Minnesota families need help.  DFLers stand a much better chance of winning that referendum than the one’s Republicans are stressing, about whether Democrats are sufficiently committed to fighting crime and cutting taxes.  If DFLers allow Republicans to frame the election that way, they’re in trouble.

Mid-term elections are historically awful for the party in power. Beyond that, the post-pandemic economy is unpredictable and unsettling. To be sure, the DFL is facing stiff political headwinds.

For those reasons, this is no time to run a dull, conventional campaign using blah, blah, blah cookie cutter messaging. Desperate times call for desperate measures. DFLers need a provocative campaign that cuts through the message clutter by telling the unvarnished truth about the Gone Old Party and the damage its refusal to work is causing for Minnesota families.

P.S. Minnesota’s unemployment rate under DFL Governor Tim Walz is also the lowest in recorded history, just 2.2 percent.

“This is Democrats’ fault too, because they’re so bad at messaging.”  This is the go-to blame-shifting critique I get from self-identified “moderate” friends, well-intentioned folks who dodge conflict, critical thinking, and/or accountability by continually declaring equal disgust for “both sides.”

In the wake of the leak of the forthcoming U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing states to ban abortions, I’m hearing this a lot. It’s hardly the first time.  I hear it every time there is another preventable mass shooting, and every time some jaw droppingly stupid piece of legislation passes, such as “don’t say gay” teacher censorship or something that further aggravates climate change.

The moderates’ flippant “this is Democrats’ fault too, because they suck at messaging argument” is patently ridiculous responsibility avoidance.

Let’s start with the “this Democrats’ fault too” part of their claim. To state the obvious, Democrats didn’t appoint the justices overturning Roe. Republicans did. Democrats didn’t vote for the politicians who appointed those abortion-banning justices. Republicans and moderates did.  So, where is moderates’ unambiguous criticism of Republicans?

Because these facts are so undeniable and damning, moderates, ever-wary of decisively taking a side on an issue, quickly shift to the “yeah, but Democrats are to blame too because they can’t message” condemnation.  This invariably gets the moderate bobbleheads nodding in self-righteous agreement.

I don’t buy that either. As for messaging effort, while conflict averse moderates too often have been silent on the sidelines of the unpleasant abortion debate, Democrats have been leading the fight for reproductive health rights for decades, including in the largest protest in American history.

Democrats have even been fighting for abortion rights in jurisdictions where they know it will hurt them politically.  For example, my former boss Tom Daschle lost his reelection bid in no small part because he courageously stood up for reproductive freedom in a state where he knew doing so would hurt him.

Beyond an alleged lack of messaging effort, moderates also criticize Democrats’ messaging skills. 

My question back to moderates: “Tell me, have you discovered the magic words that convince your anti-abortion friends to preserve Roe? If so, could you please share them? Has any human being on the planet come up with those magically persuasive words? 

Market researchers tell us there are words and arguments that seem to work better than others. But they still don’t change many minds.

If the magic words don’t seem to exist, maybe messaging skills isn’t the problem here.

Maybe the audience, not the messaging, is the problem.  Maybe the audience is unpersuadable on this issue.

This “it’s Democrats’ fault because they suck at messaging” line of blame-shifting is not just irksome, it’s one of the root causes of the coming abortion ban.  The moderates’ mindless, self-indulgent “both sides are equally bad” and “why should I support them if they can’t message” viewpoints frees moderates to continue using their election-swinging votes to empower Republicans. 

Too many moderates give Republicans their votes, often out of greed, because there is a tax cut promised, or out of shallowness, because of some kind of an irrelevant personality preference. They subsequently express shock and dismay when the Republicans they helped elect do the things they promised they would do on the campaign trail, such as making abortion illegal, censoring teachers, opposing gun background checks, blocking efforts to make health care and child care more affordable, and effectively empowering white supremacists and insurrectionists.

While all of us, including congressional Democrats, could and should get better at messaging on these issues, let’s not kid ourselves. The primary reason abortion is about to be banned in about half of the states isn’t messaging. The primary problem is that there are too many Republican extremists in office. That happens in part because there are too many moderates giving them their votes. That happens because there are too many moderates rationalizing their votes for extremist Republicans with self-delusional “both sides are equally bad” arguments. 

So the next time you hear moderates say something bad is happening because Democrats suck at messaging, please stop nodding your heads, and hold them accountable.

Guest post by Noel Holston

News item from The Washington Post:

“According to the American Library Association, conservative activists in several states, including Texas, Montana and Louisiana, have joined forces with like-minded officials to dissolve libraries’ governing bodies, rewrite or delete censorship protections, and remove books outside of official challenge procedures.

“Leaders have taken works as seemingly innocuous as the popular children’s picture book In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak off the shelves (and) closed library board meetings to the public. . . .”

All I can say is, IT’S ABOUT TIME!

Public libraries are a public menace, especially for young, impressionable minds. I am living proof — living, permanently scarred proof.

I grew up in Laurel, Mississippi, now best known as the star of HGTV’s popular house-makeover show Home Town. In the late 1950s and 1960s, when I was in my formative youth, it was better known for its shady mayor, Klan activity and a stinky Masonite plant.

Laurel, however, did have a great public library. I was a regular from an early age, especially in summer, when you got a star on a big poster board for every book you consumed.

As I moved into my tweens, I was still happily reading Hardy Boys mysteries, inspirational, youth-oriented biographies of great men like Admiral Richard Byrd, Thomas Edison and Yogi Berra, and occasionally a mystery by Agatha Christie or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I saved my money and even bought books occasionally at Laurel’s Baptist Bible and Book Shop.

At some point, I decided I should read something from the best seller list. I asked at the front desk of the library for recommendations, little knowing there was a subversive librarian just waiting for any easy mark to pounce on.

Miss Eva Mae, a soft-spoken gray-haired lady with a sweet smile, said, in essence, “You know, Noel, there are many better books here than what’s on those best-seller lists.”

“Really?” I said.

“Come with me,” she said with a nod of her head, leading me deep into an adult-section aisle.

She showed me several books. They tended to be slightly worn looking and lacking the fancy, pictorial dust jackets of the newest arrivals.

I passed on David Copperfield and Wuthering Heights. I’d seen the movie versions on TV. I settled on John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, the fattest, heaviest book I had ever checked out.

And that’s how I was lost. The story of the Joad family, hardscrabble farmers like my ancestors, told of poverty and bad luck, desperation, mean bosses, heartless bankers, courage, anger.

Just like that, I outgrew Joe and Frank Hardy. Tom Swift, too. I was soon checking out books by James Baldwin, J.D. Salinger, Carson McCullers, William Faulkner.

And so it was that I gradually morphed into a free-thinking, questing liberal. I couldn’t stop myself. I read books like I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, The Women’s Room, Slaughterhouse 5 and The Other America.

When I had kids, two sons, I read In the Night Kitchen to them — many, many times — despite the fact that it included a couple of illustrations of the hero, a boy named Mickey, in his birthday suit. I let them read To Kill a Mockingbird before they reached puberty.

They became even more progressive and free thinking than I.

So, you see, those Texas folks are right. Public libraries are dangerous places, especially for the young.

They might get ideas.

Note: Noel Holston is a freelance writer who lives in Athens, Georgia. He regularly shares his insights and wit at Wry Wing Politics. He’s also a contributing essayist to Medium.com, TVWorthWatching.com, and other websites. He previously wrote about television and radio at Newsday (200-2005) and, as a crosstown counterpart to the Pioneer Press’s Brian Lambert, at the Star Tribune  (1986-2000).  He’s the author of “Life After Deaf: My Misadventures in Hearing Loss and Recovery,” by Skyhorse.

Guest post by Noel Holston

You know what Joe Biden’s biggest problem is? He’s boring.

That ought to be a good thing, because he’s boring in the positive sense of the term, boring like President Dwight D. Eisenhower was boring. Like Ike, Joe gets things done, maintains his composure, doesn’t dance.

Remember how they called Biden’s Democratic predecessor “no drama Obama”? Comparatively speaking, Obama is Jim Carrey to Joe’s Gary Cooper.

Some of us believed that this was what we wanted — and what the nation needed — after four years of Donald J. Trump’s tweeting, bleating, bragging, lying, bitching and preening. But whether you worshiped The Donald or recoiled at the sight of him, he got us all accustomed to having a President who was a noisy, ongoing public spectacle, a Fast and Furious binge-watch.

Trump only accelerated a trend, however. Climb aboard the Wayback Machine with me for a moment.

Barrack Obama didn’t call himself a rock star or sell himself as such, but once the label was suggested, he took to the role with ease and enthusiasm. Silver spooner George W. Bush had has good ol’ boy act and his flight suit. Bill Clinton had his Arkansas drawl, his sax and his sex appeal. Ronald Reagan was our first “acting” President.

The trend is usually traced back to JFK. He was our first made-by-TV President, quick with the quip, athletic, married to glamour. He probably wouldn’t have beaten Richard Nixon — a one-man psychodrama to come — if he hadn’t been better looking.

Biden, then, is at a distinct disadvantage. He’s just plain Joe, and he’s gotten plainer and paler and slower moving with age.

Which is not to say he’s incompetent. Far from it. It’s just that he doesn’t make the applause meters go haywire. As result, his administration’s real, impressive accomplishments don’t get the respect they’re due.

He’s been President 14 months. He got his historic, decades overdue infrastructure bill passed in 10. The Affordable Health Care Act — Obamacare — took 14.

Dealing with the pandemic, Biden has acted methodically and scientifically to limit the spread and slow the Covid death toll despite the efforts of the anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers that his predecessor had encouraged.

On his greatest foreign policy challenge, Biden has been caught between Americans who want us to boot the Russians out of Ukraine militarily and the who’d like a Putin type, if not Putin himself, to be our President. And that’s just the Republicans.

Still, Biden has handled the crisis with resolve and caution, encouraging our NATO allies without hogging the spotlight. His worst “gaffe,” supposedly, was to intimate that Vladimir Putin murderous assault cannot be forgiven. I’ll take a President who feels moral outrage over one who’s morally outrageous any day.

Biden’s great bungle, supposedly, was our military withdrawal from Afghanistan last year. It probably could have been handled better, though whatever “better” might have looked like would have been panned in some quarters anyway.

Just don’t forget that he bit that bullet, shouldered that responsibility, and foreclosed a boondoggle that three previous Presidents did not. And in doing so, he incalculably improved the standing from which we could condemn Russia’s aggression in Ukraine.

Yes, inflation is cancelling some of the gains of an otherwise booming economy, and while economists point out that pent-up pandemic demand and complicated supply chain snarls would be inflationary factors no matter who was President, Biden is the one who (really, truly) won the election. Inflation is his problem to deal with, and he is.

He hasn’t fixed immigration, reversed income inequality, halted climate change, stopped crime or cured cancer yet, either, but he has committed to those fights. And he hasn’t even served half his term yet.

His approval rating is stuck at a worrisome 41 percent, but I’d wager that if he just weren’t so unexciting, he’d be 10 or 15 points higher.

Maybe if he dyed his hair an unnatural color and learned to play the saxophone.

We do love a show.

Note: Noel Holston is a freelance writer who lives in Athens, Georgia. He regularly shares his brilliance and wit at Wry Wing Politics. He’s also a contributing essayist to Medium.com, TVWorthWatching.com, and other websites. He previously wrote about television and radio at Newsday (200-2005) and, as a crosstown counterpart to the Pioneer Press’s Brian Lambert, at the Star Tribune  (1986-2000).  He’s the author of “Life After Deaf: My Misadventures in Hearing Loss and Recovery,” by Skyhorse.