I’d like to thank all the people that emailed me this week, telling me they enjoyed my articles.
Thanks.
I have a lot of respect for our Montana bloggers. It’s not easy getting up each day and putting your thoughts out there.
Few do it.
In fact, there are only a a few Montana blogs that post regularly, and that I regularly visit:
- RD
- MT Post
- Flathead Memo
- Missoula Current
That’s it.
These are the only sites I visit because these are the only sites I know of that are consistently posting regular content, and they’ve been doing so for years.
I wish more people would blog about Montana society and politics, but that’s unlikely to happen.
The site that’s been in operation the longest is the unofficial Dem mouthpiece blog out of Helena, MT Post.
This site could do so much better, but they choose not to.
On Tuesday we saw has-been Evan Barrett put up a guest post. I enjoy these - I wish more people wrote on that site.
Typically it’s just Don. And what the hell is with the site lampooning what people look like?
I guess this is caricature, like this post we saw on Thursday about Daines.
Don enjoys making fun of people because of how they look.
Here are a few examples of how he thinks he’s winning by doctoring photos of people:
Don has some modicum of restraint. He doesn’t lampoon the appearance of females - he just puts them in black and white.
One of the most interesting things about Montana Post is how much they’re against things, but how little they’re for anything.
We hear so much about ‘Republicans bad’...but we rarely ever hear anything about why we should actually vote for Democrats.
Typically it’s guest posts that get that message out, like Barrett’s post on Tuesday.
Negativity vs. the positive.
Which do you think will win...which sways voters more?
Fear vs. hope.
Don banks on fear. That’s the overriding message of this site, and the Montana Democratic Party in general:
‘If you don’t...then this will happen…”
Compare that to the message the GOP typically has:
‘If you do...then you’ll get this…”
Positive vs. negative.
How do you think people respond? I know fear is a huge motivator, but it’s a short boost that fades quickly.
Of course, MT Post really went downhill earlier this year when they decided to remove the comments.
That was the only reason I clicked on the site’s articles - to see what everyone else was thinking.
Now that’s gone, replaced by Facebook and their comments. I never bother to look at that little bubble.
All in all, Dems are in trouble.
They used to have a powerful propaganda rag in the form of MT Cowgirl, started by Eric Stern. But he’s out of Montana politics for good, and that site has been permanently deleted.
The GOP won that one.
Don’s trying his best to help the Dems with his site, and Dems typically put guest posts on his site, telling us this is in fact the defacto mouthpiece blog for Dems.
And my how they’re failing.
They talk more about the GOP than they do the Dems. And it’s just attack, attack, attack.
Rarely do we get any substantive information about our society, our state, or our communities.
It’s just fear-mongering.
And that’s not a path to victory.
It’s kinda the same with Biden - most people don’t really want to vote for him so much as they want to vote against Trump.
And that is not a winning strategy.
If Democrats are serious about winning again in Montana, they need to come up with some new ideas.
One place to start is giving your voters hope instead of fear.
But I doubt that’ll happen. What I suspect will happen is that Dems and sites like MT Post will continue to do the same thing over and over, expecting different results.
And when those results don’t come, they’ll become more angry and embittered than they already are, doubling down on their recipe of fear, a recipe they think motivates you.
It doesn’t.
The GOP isn’t winning because of MT Post. But then, neither are Dems.