ON MESSAGE

Jeff Jarvis and his correspondents react to a BBC commentary about mainstream media bias and the message of the U.S. Democratic Party in relation to it. Jeff focused on media bias. He's right, but beyond certain aspects it's difficult for me to become too engaged in the subject of left/liberal media bias -- no doubt for the same reason I don't get intellecually excited about the sun rising in the east, or grass being green.

More interesting is the BBCer's claim that, "Democrats do not have a message on the key issues of our time. Or, more precisely, they have several mutually exclusive messages…." You hear this every now and then, just as you hear Democratic politicians, strategists and media apologists agonize over the need to find a message that readily can be conveyed and understood.

All of them are wrong. The Democrats' big problem isn't that they have no message, but that they do. Not that it's obscure, but that it's clear. Not that it's lengthy and complicated and nuanced, but that it's brief and crisp and to the point. Nor that it changes.

The message of the Democratic Party has been remarkably consistent for nearly 40 years:

Socialism at home.
Appeasement abroad.

Hence the consistent dynamic of national and many other elections over the same period: Republicans and conservatives win to the extent they succeed in conveying their core values clearly; Democrats and liberals win to the extent they succeed in concealing theirs.

The Democrats who agonize over "message" and "framing" and the like are looking for something -- anything -- to deflect attention from their core message, or to obscure it, long enough to win an election. The problem for the rest of us is that sometimes they find it.