Stuff You Should Consume - March 11, 2023
Welcome to this week’s edition of “Stuff You Should Consume,”— a weekly compilation of interesting political content for Message Box readers.
“Education and the Culture Wars: A Guide for Advocates” by Navigator Research
“Inside the “Private and Confidential” Conservative Group That Promises to ‘Crush Liberal Dominance’” by Andy Kroll and Andrea Bernstein, ProPublica, and Nick Surgey, Documented
But ProPublica and Documented have obtained more than 50 hours of internal Teneo videos and hundreds of pages of documents that reveal the organization’s ambitious agenda, influential membership and burgeoning clout. We have also interviewed Teneo members and people familiar with the group’s activities. The videos, documents and interviews provide an unfiltered look at the lens through which the group views the power of the left — and how it plans to combat it.
“The Democrats’ Coming Asian Voter Problem Has Arrived” by Ruy Texeira, The Liberal Patriot
In 2022, Asian voter defection from the Democrats was more broad-based than in 2020. Nationwide the Democratic advantage among Asian voters declined 12 points relative to 2020. And there were abundant signs that Asian voters in many urban neighborhoods were slipping away from the Democrats. In New York City, the only precinct in Manhattan to vote for Republican gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin was in Chinatown. In Brooklyn and Queens, Zeldin outpaced Democrat Kathy Hochul in the heavily Chinese 47th and 49th Assembly Districts and 17th State Senate District in Brooklyn. Zeldin also won the 40th Assembly District based in Flushing, which is dominated by Chinese and Korean immigrants.
“The Facebook MAGA mills are open for business” by Kyle Tharp and Lucy Ritzmann, FWIW Newsletter
FWIW has identified a large-scale, opaque, and interconnected network of over 70 right-wing Facebook pages – which are run by only a handful of individuals – that crank out hundreds of hyper-partisan, conservative posts daily. With names like “President Trump is My Wingman,” “Freedom From The Press”, and “The American Tribune,” these pages have built a cumulative owned audience of 38 million followers and have generated more than 100 million reactions, shares, and comments on their posts over the past year.
“Political Experts React to Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley and Tim Scott Ads Taking on Donald Trump with Cornell Belcher” Crooked Media
I have this thought I can’t shake: is the Republican Party launching an air ball in messaging for the 2024 election? All this woke/anti-woke, book bans, interference in what businesses say to employees, whitewashing school curricula, guns, anti-trans, anti-drag, anti-abortion laws, and re-imagining the Insurrection?
I can’t see how anyone could tool all that into a coherent message, and most of it appeals to a sliver of the electorate. I read a poll recently that said 40% aren’t sure what ‘woke’ means, and 40% think it sounds good.
The only message I see as working for them is crime hysteria. That always works. Any chance Biden can defuse that with a crime bill?
So, Dan, is it possible that the GOP, full of practiced politicians, could really be this far off the mark as to get on the short side of so many issues? Or am I reading too much into very early days?