The post-election rise of more right-wing outlets that aim to “out-fox Fox” means the GOP social media machine is poised to accelerate. Fortunately, there is a playbook for closing the gap. But it requires progressives to understand and master how to make content spread virally online and how best to debunk disinformation.
Conservatives have turned the term “Green New Deal” into an emotional weapon—part of their overall narrative casting Democrats as extremist, elitist socialists. The attack isn’t fact-based, but as Dan Kahneman, who won a Nobel prize for his work in behavioral economics, explains, “No one ever made a decision because of a number. They need a story.”
The irony is that there is a compelling, positive story to tell about the Green New Deal. At a time when the pandemic has thrown millions of people out of work and spawned miles-long lines at food banks, a Green New Deal would create millions of well-paying jobs that cannot be outsourced overseas.
These jobs would also address the overriding challenge of our time, the accelerating rise in global temperatures that threatens to make the planet unlivable for today’s young people. A Green New Deal would put Americans to work installing solar panels, building wind turbines, restoring farms and forests to store carbon, and performing a thousand other climate-friendly actions. With government investment priming the pump, a Green New Deal would boost revenues for business as well and thereby pay for itself through the resulting increased tax revenue and sustainable growth.
No surprise, then, that when pollsters describe the Green New Deal’s policies—a fast transition to a 100 percent clean-energy grid and an economy free from carbon pollution—the idea is quite popular with ordinary Americans. Support plummets, however, if pollsters ask people how they feel about “the Green New Deal.”
Why Democrats Lose on Social Media While Republicans Lie and Win Big | The Nation
https://www.thenation.com/article/society/social-media-right-wing/