The Life of the (Republican) Party, Mostly Left Out in the Cold

by Dr. Ellen Brandt

 
Throw out some generous lifelines of access and support to GOP Media pros shunned by the current Dem-controlled MSM. We're so beaten down, we'll follow you anywhere.


The fifth Loyalist GOP Base constituency our Presumptive Nominee can and should woo - in fact, woo hard - is our left-out, harassed, annoyed, and looking-for-some-political-love Republican Media - especially that very large portion of it that's been shut out of the Dem-controlled official MSM for years.


The first thing to realize: We're legion.


We're not talking about Media wannabes marginalized or denied a strong voice because we lacked experience or couldn't cut the mustard.


In fact, the exact opposite is true. Starting as far back as the first Clinton administration - or about when Al Gore, King of the Greens, used to brag that he was reinventing the Internet, and - foolish us - we didn't believe him, there's been an inexorable, well-financed, and often downright malicious campaign to transform All Media into a Propaganda arm for the Limousine Liberals and their agenda.


In our previous stories on Economics Voters (In It to Win It - Economics Voters) and GOP Grays over age 50 (My Fellow Gray Voters . . . . ), we talked about how our current economy is really one great big Ponzi scheme, with the wealth of Mature Americans - who are already more than 2 in 5 of us and fully 1/2 of U.S. voters -  first stolen by Hot Money marauders, then redistributed in the forms of jobs and government-backed investments and programs to those constituencies which tend to vote for Democrats: the very young, certain select ethnic groups, and even illegal immigrants.


This movement of Wealth from the Experienced to the Inexperienced, the Well-Educated to the Poorly-Educated, the Highly-Skilled to the Far-Less-Skilled, and the Mature to the Immature has now occurred throughout our economy, affecting every sector, every industry, every job category, and every profession.


But one of its earliest and most thorough manifestations occurred within Media. Since at least the early 1990s, the U.S. Mainstream Media has become more and more concentrated in fewer and fewer hands - to the point where we now have a Media configuration very much like that in Third-World countries run by megalomaniac dictators.


You think we jest? Well, the latest studies by Media-oriented university researchers and think tanks have posited a core Mainstream Media in the United States that is now in the hands of just 6 major Media conglomerates.


Moreover, those 6 conglomerates - or at least 5 of them, the sixth being iffy - are themselves now closely aligned with the interests of Limousine Liberal hedge funds and investment banks on Wall Street, which essentially own them and are no longer afraid to - or constrained from - exerting their influence on both Content and Access.


Said conglomerates - as anyone sentient, let alone aware, must know - have been ruthless in culling pretty much every employee whose hair turned Gray, replacing them with less-educated and less-experienced - and therefore, much more malleable - workers, who now constitute much of the reporter and editor and broadcast commentator cadres.   


Of course, there are still some remnants of an independent Media around - newspapers and magazines and book publishers and websites run by free-thinkers and intellectuals, unbeholden to Wall Street owners and their demands.


Good for every one of them! no matter their particular political or cultural or philosophical orientation. It's the independence per se that really counts.


That being said, within this independent part of American Media, Republicans now surely predominate.


Many of these Internet sites, publications, stand-alone broadcasters, or film companies are owned and managed by experienced and skilled Gray creatives over age 50, who formerly worked for or at Media entities no longer extant or fallen into the hands of conglomerates.


They  - or rather We, because we're among them - are a very talented bunch, many extremely eager to do their part for the GOP in this and future election cycles.


Team Trump can make tremendous inroads with this left-out part of the GOP Media simply by acknowledging it's there and by reaching out to us in a friendly and cooperative manner whenever possible.


We already appreciate the Presumptive Nominee's comments about the bias towards Democrats, their candidates, their ideology, and their agendas within the current official Mainsteam Media.


Trump seems to be on the same page we are re the MSM. (See our previous story Shaping the Stream.)


We think Trump should, in fact, make these MSM biases a major theme of his campaign going forward, because it resonates strongly throughout the GOP Loyalist Base.


Many Republicans feel we have lost much of our influence, our ability to sway new voters, and our very voices as concerned Americans. Excessive concentration of the U.S. Media in too few hands - and those hands mostly on the Left - is now a key political concern across GOP ranks.


Of course, Trump's own Media savvy throughout the primary season has been remarkable. It puts him in the enviable position of being truly able to help the bulk of GOP journalists, filmmakers, and other Republican Media people who feel we've been left out in the cold.


We produce excellent and engaging work that almost no one sees or talks about, just because we aren't employed by one of those concentrated Media groups that control visibility and access - especially on the Internet, where so many people get their news today.


Candidate Trump should work hard to woo us into supporting him strongly. And he'll probably enjoy doing so, since deep down, he is as much a Media creative as any of us.


Here are a few things he might do:


***** Trump should stress that in terms of the Media, he is the polar opposite of Hillary Clinton - or Barack Obama.


Much of the GOP Media is angry-as-heck at Clinton, the Obama administration, and the Limousine Liberal worldview they've tried to force on this Nation via sheer bullying and limited access to ideas and ideology coming from anyone who is Not Them.

Trump needs to embrace the stance we outlined in our Shaping the Stream story, referenced above:


That the existing Mainstream Media needs to be transformed completely to include many more GOP practitioners and our ideas, ideology, and agendas for change.


Meanwhile, we need to expand and promote an Alternative Mainstream Media consisting of Republican creatives and our publications, sites, broadcasts, and other types of Media.


***** Trump should make a point of giving interviews to and establishing ties with as many left-out GOP Media people as possible, especially those without formal ties to mammoth Media conglomerates.


Not only will these deserving - albeit not currently famous! - Media practitioners appreciate the attention and the political access, they will almost certainly return the favor by reporting Team Trump's ideas and initiatives in a fair and balanced manner.


The Presumptive Candidate should consider appointing a key campaign staffer whose job is establishing and nurturing ties with reporters and other Media people aligned with the GOP, but not currently part of large Media conglomerates.


And make sure to include a substantial proportion of these Republican-Non-MSM creatives in news conferences and Media events of all kinds. It should pay off in positive coverage immediately.


***** The "left-out among the left-out" - GOP Media practitioners over the age of 50 - should go to the top of the list as potential allies for Team Trump and its efforts.


As we related above, pushing out Gray creatives age 50 and above has been perhaps the key tactic in perverting today's Mainstream Media, purging it of educated, sophisticated free-thinkers, unswayed by politically-correct Propaganda.


A large number of such purged Gray Media people are Republicans or GOP-leaning, since they were more apt to be tossed aside by the MSM, as it inexorably became more concentrated in Limousine Liberal hands.


The Trump team should create an active outreach effort to the portion of non-MSM Media people who are also age-50 plus. They are the Candidate's own Age Peers, who are quite likely to share many of his views and to treat his candidacy fairly and sympathetically.


***** Similarly, Trump should devote a significant portion of his Media efforts to Republican Women in the Media.


If the Presumptive Nominee chooses a female VP running mate - as we strongly believe he needs to do - she might serve as the point woman for extensive new outreach, with the overriding goal of getting as many female print, broadcast, and Internet Media practitioners as possible into the Candidate's camp.


Part of this outreach might be holding a regular series of Media briefing events geared to GOP Women in the Media and focused on issues and programs especially important to Republican women.


***** A key - however recalcitrant - portion of the GOP Media which Team Trump must try to bring into the fold are those established Republican publications and Internet sites which supported other, generally more traditionally Conservative, candidates during the hard-fought primary season and are still not particularly comfortable with the Presumptive Nominee.


These Media outlets wield significant influence with parts of the GOP Loyalist Base. And although they may not be ready to accept Trump unconditionally - or in some cases, even conditionally - the Candidate would score major Brownie points among the full spectrum of Republican voters by showing a real willingness to bury the hatchet with this segment of the Media. He should be brave enough to offer them interviews and access and to discuss even tough ideological points of conflict in a respectful and honest manner.


***** In even braver fashion, Trump should boldly enter various Media lion's dens on the Other Side of the political fence, meting out selective interviews to the likes of Salon or Slate or Mother Jones - or maybe even the Washington Post.


Some of these official MSM outlets are now so unfair and unbalanced towards the Presumptive Nominee, such Media interactions are almost bound to reveal their prejudices and biases for all the world to see, making the GOP Nominee look sage and unprejudiced in contrast.


This is especially true, since the Other Side's Presumptive Nominee, Hillary Clinton, persists in avoiding all Media which are not already in her corner, contributing to her unhelpful image as a robotic and pre-scripted politician, devoid of personality and hemmed in by a straitjacket of political correctness.


Nominee Trump's abilities and savvy in today's Media environment are now near legendary, even if many - perhaps most - traditionalists within and without the GOP Loyalist Base find some of his favorite tactics distressing or hard to countenance.


So be it.


We believe the Presumptive Nominee can emerge as a bona fide Hero among GOP-leaning Media practitioners, if he chooses to cooperate with us in a broad and generous sense.


He needs to take us along with him on his Technicolor journey towards the White House, making our jobs easier and allowing us to gain exposure, influence, and ultimate power alongside him, as this historical election cycle of 2016 proceeds.