But is it really propaganda when you are telling the truth?
Years ago, Glenn Reynolds started pushing the idea of a “Welcome Wagon” for blue state migrants to red states:
Someone needs to set up a “welcome wagon” to explain to new immigrants why the states they’re moving to shouldn’t become more like the states they left . . . .
In 2015, he expanded the concept in a USA Today op-ed:
If I were one of those conservative billionaires (hello, Koch brothers! hi, Sheldon Adelson!) who are always donating tens of millions to support Republican candidates, I think I might try spending some of the money on something more useful: A sort of welcome wagon for blue state migrants to red states. Something that would explain to them why the place they’re moving to is doing better than the place they left, and suggesting that they might not want to vote for the same policies that are driving their old home states into bankruptcy.
He and his co-bloggers continue to push the idea today.
The question is, when are the conservative billionaires going to WAKE THE FUCK UP AND PAY ATTENTION?
- Virginia just got rolled by the Democrats. Although that was significantly due to the GOP not fielding candidates in a lot of races, like the one where the convicted sex offender was running unopposed.*
- North Carolina looks like it’s next.
- Colorado has been rolled blue for at least the last couple of cycles (thank you, Boulder).
- I see an awful lot of Chicago-area license plates as I drive around Indianapolis, which (again at least partly through the inaction of a lackadaisical GOP) is blue and has been blue for several election cycles. Luckily there are really only a couple of congressional seats in Indiana that are reliably blue (Indianapolis and the Region)…SO FAR.
- Florida is filling up with old New York liberals who will likely spoil my wife’s and my retirement.
So here’s an interesting concept: The Salt Lake Tribune recently converted to a not-for-profit.
The Salt Lake Tribune didn’t sell out to Gannett, like so many other local papers have. It’s been run by family concerns for over a hundred years. It was purchased a few years ago by Paul Huntsman’s private equity firm Huntsman Family Investments. Huntsman is a registered Republican; whether or not that means he supports Donald Trump is questionable, since he appears to disagree with Trump about the evils of the press. But we can hope that the Tribune under his leadership will tend more conservative in a state that is already pretty conservative.
On the other hand, his paper is, with his approval and funding authority, suing the Mormon Church over some issues at the Church-owned Brigham Young University. On the gripping hand, from what little I’ve read about it, it sounds like that’s a story that needs to see the light of day, regardless of the politics involved.
But the real story is that a major newspaper has been converted to a non-profit, owned by a right-leaning private equity firm. This suggests that it may now chase the stories that need to be chased, without worrying too much about how they affect the paper’s bottom line.
If one Republican can produce this sort of sea-change in local media, what is stopping other Republicans from looking at doing something similar in their own cities and states?
For too long, and with few exceptions, major media has been controlled by faceless corporations like Gannett, which if they lean any direction politically, it’s to the left. Certainly Gannett employs opinion writers from a wide spectrum (if they were 100% blue they’d never let Glenn Reynolds write for them). However, it seems like this is more of a bone tossed to the fading opposition than a genuine attempt to let all voices be heard. The editorial bent of Gannett’s flagship paper, USA Today, is and always has been left of center. So Gannett is never going to be a friend to low taxes, smaller government, and libertarian principles in general.
I would love to see a local conservative Indianapolis millionaire/billionaire start up a not-for-profit daily newspaper to oppose the Gannett Star. Because the city-county government is no longer accountable to anyone like it was back in the Pulliam days. And nearly every local daily in every city surrounding Indianapolis is run by Gannett. How does that even approach the concept of a free press that informs the people and protects their rights and freedoms? The answer is that it doesn’t. Where there is no competition, or at least a sense of even-handedness, a daily newspaper has in effect a license to run rough-shod over its subscribers, who have no other sources of information.
Which is, of course, the goal of the Democrats — only that which they deem suitable for publication or broadcast will fall upon the ears and eyes of the Great Unwashed, who will then reliably vote for their own shackles Democrats.
Who will rid us of these turbulent Democrats and their acolytes in the press?
There’s lots of money out there in conservative hands. If you don’t spend it now, the Democrats will just take if from you later. It’s time for conservatives to step up, and take up the sword against the Bloombergs, Steyers, and Soroses of the world.
Reynolds’ “conservative Welcome Wagons” is one place to start. Creating new news outlets to print and air the truth is another.
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* Should be child molester, the girl he raped (his own secretary at the time) was 17, but he’s now married to her, so I guess that’s OK </sarcasm>.