By guest columnist Noel Holston

I’ve often heard liberals and progressives of my acquaintance assert that Donald Trump’s diehard supporters have been brainwashed by Fox News, OAN, Breitbart and other right-wing media. I don’t think so.

I believe they seek out such “sources” because they already believe a lot of the fabrications and falsifications those outlets disseminate and just get off on having their perceptions reinforced.

For further evidence, allow me to share some memes and ideas I recently encountered on the Facebook page of a guy whom I will call, since his real name is similarly normal, Rodney Harper.

Rodney hails from the same Mississippi small town as I and went to the same second-class  university. I don’t remember him from school. Our paths only recently crossed. He read and liked my 2023 book, As I Die Laughing, and sent me a Facebook friend request, which I accepted.

Turns out, apart from having fond memories of our free-range youth, Rodney and I couldn’t be much different. When I looked at his Facebook page, I saw that, along with photos of his dogs and his collection of antique tools, he mostly shares memes attacking liberals for the being the pestilence he apparently believes we are. He often gets dozens of “amens” and huzzahs for his shares.

Here are a few of the memes I saw, along with a bit of annotation:

Like many folks on the right, Rodney resents paying income tax. Not sure how he squares that with the fact that taxes pay for some things we can probably assume he likes — for instance, our military, our highways, sewer systems, dams. Also note that the poster image for “productive and useful” is a white male, not that we should read anything into that.

Another complaint about taxes, this time leaving no room for the notion that foreign aid has benefits both tangible and intangible for the good old USA.

My jaw dropped upon seeing this one. Much as I loathe and fear Donald Trump, the man who would be America’s Vladimir Putin if he could, even he doesn’t deserve comparisons to the mass-murdering fuhrer of Nazi Germany.

The inference about Biden is insane. Joe can’t be Mr. Magoo and Hitler, too.

Rodney appears not to have noticed that the GOP, originally the Party of Lincoln, more than 50 years ago exchanged identities with the segregationist Democrats, aka “Dixiecrats.”

The “Test”

Rodney also shared a “test” that was attributed to one Mark Barcus, whose Facebook page identifies him as a saddle maker based in Wyoming.

The test is supposed to show you what side of the fence you sit on politically. I’m putting Barcus’s declarations in italics, my reactions in boldface.

If a conservative doesn’t like guns, he doesn’t buy one. If a liberal doesn’t like guns, he wants all guns outlawed.

Neither I nor any liberal I know wants all guns outlawed. We advocate what most Americans consider sane, reasonable regulation that would include registration, serious background checks and limits on owning military-grade weapons that make mass murder easier.

If a conservative is a vegetarian, he doesn’t eat meat. If a liberal is a vegetarian, he wants all meat products banned for everyone.

The only people I know who want all meat products banned are radical animal rights advocates. They may be liberals, but they’re a tiny minority. I’m an omnivore myself and couldn’t care less who or what conservatives put in their mouths.

If a conservative is down-and-out, he thinks about how to better his situation. A liberal wonders who is going to take care of him.

Oh, please. As if only conservatives ever pull themselves up by the bootstraps and only liberals ever need a helping hand.

If a conservative doesn’t like a talk show host, he switches channels. Liberals demand that those they don’t like be shut down.

I know plenty of liberals who despise Fox News. I am aware of very few who want Fox News shut down.

If a conservative is a non-believer, he doesn’t go to church. A liberal non-believer wants any mention of God and Jesus silenced.

The non-believers I know, both liberal and conservative, may think belief in God is misplaced, but they don’t care who or what you worship as long as you don’t try to impose your beliefs on other people in public settings.

If a conservative decides he needs health care, he goes about shopping for it, or may choose a job that provides it. A liberal demands that the rest of us pay for his.

No one “decides” he needs health care. He (or she) gets sick. Like most conservatives, most liberals have private insurance or a job that provides health care benefits. If liberals “demand” that “the rest of us” pay for fellow citizens who are poor to have basic health care coverage, we also fully expect to be picking up our share of the tab.

If a conservative reads this, he’ll post it. A liberal will delete it because he’s “offended.”

Obviously I didn’t delete the list. I reprinted it. I’m not offended, just struck by its false equivalencies and illogic.

And speaking of illogic:

The notion that Donald Trump is the Sheriff, some sort of modern-day Wyatt Earp, is not just illogical, it’s absurd.

If Trump had been in Tombstone, he’d have been a member of the thieving Clanton gang.

And if he’d owned the OK Corral, he would have overstated its square footage on a loan application.

About the author: Guest columnist Noel Holston is a freelance writer who lives in Athens, Georgia. He serves as Georgia Correspondent for Wry Wing Politics. He’s also a contributing essayist to Medium.com, TVWorthWatching.com, and other websites. He previously wrote about television and radio at Newsday (2000-2005) and, as a crosstown counterpart to the Pioneer Press’s Brian Lambert, at the Star Tribune  (1986-2000).  He’s the author of “Life After Deaf: My Misadventures in Hearing Loss and Recovery,” by Skyhorse.

I’m not sure if you have heard this, but we are now in the midst of the latest in a long series of “most important elections of our lifetime.” It’s a match-up between the most accomplished President of my adult lifetime versus the most authoritarian, racist, and incompetent President in U.S. history, and somehow it’s going to be a very close race.

Accordingly, anxiety among my friends is running high.  Everyone is pondering what they can do to influence the outcome of the election.

There are many ways to influence the election – donating, fundraising, phoning, talking to loved ones, voting, and grassroots volunteering, among many others. Maybe because I work in public relations, used to work in politics, and am outspoken about my views, friends occasionally ask for my thoughts about how to best persuade their networks through social media activism.

I don’t have a good short answer. But I do have a lousy long one. This post explains how I do social media activism, and the method to my madness. I don’t have all the answers, and am surely making plenty of mistakes, but I hope this provides food-for-thought to help you figure out what kind of social media activism feels right for you.

For what it’s worth, here are a few strategies that I use, very imperfectly, when communicating on social media about policy issues, candidates, and elections.

Social Media Activism Strategies

Show Up.  First, I show up. In a world where we now have dozens of channels for self-publishing, we all have agency when it comes to political communications. Political communications is not just someone else’s job –Biden’s, Schumer’s, Walz’s, Jean-Pierre’s, Krugman’s, Sykes’, Carville’s, Maddows, etc. It’s also our job. 

Because of ubiquitous social media platforms, for the first time in human history we all can now communicate quickly and efficiently with dozens, hundreds, or thousands at a time, several times per day. Amidst our family pictures, pet humor, and recycled memes, we can include peer-to-peer activism in our social media feeds.

So, let’s say that you’re upset that your friends don’t know about Biden’s achievements. Show them.

Or maybe you’re frustrated that so many in your network don’t follow the news enough to know about Trump’s attacks on the middle class? Regularly condense and share that news.

Perhaps you can’t stand that conservatives have an outsized presence on your news feed and you worry that is skewing your friends’ viewpoints. Provide balance with the other side of the story.

The bad guys have figured out how to use social media to their advantage, including with AI bots. The good guys should too.

Woody Allen famously said that “80% of success is showing up.” Something like that applies to peer-to-peer social media communications. Showing up in social media discussions is no guarantee that we will persuade anyone. But if progressives all remain silent while conservatives speak out, progressives are guaranteed to lose the arguments.

Don’t Rely on Politicians To Deliver Your Messages. Joe Biden is never going to influence many people in your life. Anything he or his staff say, even if eloquent and well-supported with credible facts, will be disregarded by cynical swing voters as political, tribal, and self-serving. Public opinion polling bears this out.

This is why peer-to-peer messaging is more persuasive than politician-to-peer messaging will ever be. So, quit complaining about politicians being poor communicators and take accountability for doing your part.

Forget About “The Base.” Close elections aren’t decided by “base” voters — dyed-in-the-wool Republicans and die-hard Democrats. They’re decided by the roughly 30 percent of Americans who are “swing voters.” Swing voters are soft-Republicans, soft-Democrats, and voters who identify as “independents.” These folks tend to swing back and forth between political parties.

To be more specific, the people who really matter are swing voters in states that are the most closely contested, such as Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona, North Carolina, and Nevada. However, social media posting can’t be targeted by geography, so don’t worry about this kind of battleground state targeting.

Because swing voters decide the outcomes of close elections, when drafting messages I try to think about addressing people in my life who are undecided. I craft my message in a way I hope that good old Neighbor Fencesitter or Uncle Stradler might find most persuasive.

At the same time, when committed Republicans are screaming at me, I don’t let them scare me away, bum me out, or influence my approach. I also don’t use the partisan “red meat” language that I know my partisan Democratic friends crave. I do occasionally post on Democratic issues to get Democratic friends more motivated and activated. 

However, again, the most important goal of my social media activism is to persuade the all-important swing voters, not Democrats and Republicans.

Inform Your Messaging With Polling. If you’re ambitious, it can also help to occasionally search the internet for polling to inform your posts. I’m not talking here about “horse race” findings about who would win if the race were held today. I’m talking about polling focused on issues and messages.

In your posts, stick to the issues where survey research tells us that, 1) swing voters support the progressive position and 2) the issue is important to swing voters. Among other issues, stress health care, Social Security, insurrection, drug price controls, and reproductive health rights. Stay away from other issues, such as relatively obscure foreign policy issues. Your messages need to be chosen with swing voters’ biases and priorities in mind, not yours.

Also, seek out polling that helps you understand what type of arguments are most persuasive with voters. For instance, surveys tell us which ways you can talk about Biden’s age that are most persuasive to young adult voters.

Deliver the News. More than two-thirds of Americans get at least some of their news via social media feeds, with Facebook being the top source. Therefore, consider becoming a self-appointed news curator and summarizer for your followers.

I regularly post excerpted news and commentary, often derived from behind paywalls. I understand that most won’t read more than the headline of the items I share, if that. But the hope is that they will occasionally stop and read, and that exposing them to information that they wouldn’t otherwise see can have an impact on a close election.

Include Humor. Using humor to make your points disarms critics and makes messaging more fun for both the messenger and the audience. So sprinkle political satire, cartoons, and self-deprecation into your posts.

While humor has its place, pay attention to the line between welcomed humor and off-putting snark. Personal attacks and over-the-top derision are cathartic for partisans. But remember, the point of all this is not to make your like-minded pals snicker. It’s to persuade fence-sitters, they tend to tune-out harsh political mud-slinging. 

If you don’t want to drive away persuadable folks on the center-right and center-left, stick to politely, reasonably, and calmly making matter-of-fact points about Trump’s policies, words, and actions, rather than delivering critiques focused on his make-up, body parts, hair style, weight, supporters, and family members.

Simplify and Condense. I regularly ignore my own advice on this, but it’s important to simplify and condense messages as much as possible. Many lightly engaged social media scrollers will skip right by your message if it’s not bite-sized.

There’s a place for longer posts, but most swing voters are usually not interested enough to consider your viewpoints for more than a few seconds.

So, give them more than they want — short and simple.

Grow Thick Skin. Speaking up about candidates and issues can be discouraging and exhausting. One of my favorite observations from the writer Namoi Shulman helps remind me why I still have to enter the fray, even when it’s uncomfortable:

“Nice people made the best Nazis.

My mom grew up next to them. They got along, refused to make waves, looked the other way when things got ugly and focused on happier things than “politics.” They were lovely people who turned their heads as their neighbors were dragged away.

You know who weren’t nice people? Resisters.”

Throughout history, the resisters who have improved the world had to have very thick skins. If we want to make a difference, we have to summon the courage to be more like them.

Be Persistent. I once heard a rule of thumb from an advertising executive that consumers don’t even begin to recall a message until they hear it at least seven times. That’s why advertising works, because it can deliver message repetition until the message eventually begins to stick.  

By the way, the number seven in that claim is wholly non-scientific. The precise number obviously will vary depending on variables specific to each topic and circumstance. However, the overall point of the ad man’s adage remains valid: We can’t say something once or twice, and assume our job is done.

If you prefer inspirational metaphors to advertising rules of thumb, here is one that has stuck in my head over the years:

“A river cuts through a rock not because of its power, but because of its persistence.”

While that quote from an unknown source might sound trite, it makes an important point. Few of us have much political power in the traditional sense. But we are capable of being persistent communicators, and over time persistence can make a difference.

Skeptical? Trump was like that persistent river delivering demonstrably false messages about the 2020 election being “stolen. His unremitting repetition of his Big Lie worked with a depressingly large swath of Americans.

Truthtellers need to emulate Trump’s persistence if we are going to beat him.

Stay on Offense. The tired cliché “the best defense is a good offense” is as true in politics as it is in sports. So, stay on offense. Stress the strengths of your policies and candidates, not their weaknesses. Deliver those messages proactively, as opposed to always reacting to your opponents’ inaccurate posts. And make your points confidently and unapologetically. Again, mirror Trump.

Will Any of This Work?

If you do all these things, I can’t guarantee that your candidates and ideas will prevail. So why bother? In our closely divided country, elections are routinely decided by razor-slim margins. Therefore, in many elections having even a minuscule impact on the awareness and attitudes of swing voters can be decisive.

If doing peer-to-peer activism on social media feels futile to you, ask yourself this question: When ultra-conservatives do the things discussed in this post, do you think they are wasting their time? If you think their social media activism is making a difference, why do you conclude that your social media activism can’t make a difference?

I understand why many people don’t want to speak out about political views on social media. I really do. It can be exhausting, discouraging, and controversial with our friends and family. But if reasonable Americans allow ultra-conservative extremists to have the social media stage disproportionately to themselves, we shouldn’t be surprised when MAGA viewpoints carry the day, and we suffer the consequences.

By guest columnist Noel Holston

So, the same God that sent us Jesus also sent us Donald Trump?

I guess that’s possible seeing as how the same God gifted us with sex and STDs, but I doubt it.

Saying Donald Trump isn’t a “perfect” man is a huge understatement, like saying DDT isn’t the best of condiments.

I, Noel Holston, am not a perfect man. I sometimes talk when I should be listening. I’m bad about leaving the toilet seat up.  I’ve been known to tithe less than 10%.  I once stole a pair of sunglasses from a surf shop in Daytona Beach. 

I regret it all.

But unlike Donald Trump, who regrets nothing, I’ve never sexually assaulted a woman in a department store dressing room, mocked a disabled man’s tremors, lied on loan applications, stiffed a contractor, or paid hush money to a porn actress. I’ve also never been sued or charged with any crime, let alone 90. 

No, Trump is not a perfect man. He’s more like a perfect storm, a monsoon of malfeasance.

But that’s not the truly disturbing thing about the meme reproduced above. We know who Trump is.

The meme was shared on Facebook by a woman from my Mississippi hometown, someone who also posts pictures of angels and kittens, and it quickly amassed a long trail of supportive comments, from anti-Liberal slurs to “Some time we need a Joab.”

(For those of you who aren’t ready to compete on Bible Baffle, Joab was a Jewish military commander under King David known for his ruthlessness.) 

The scary thing is that there are people living among us who actually believe Donald Trump was chosen by the Almighty Himself to clean up the sinful mess that liberals, progressives and free-thinkers supposedly have wrought in the U.S. of A. 

Here again, the logic is strange.

God loved and blessed America when European conquerors, also known as settlers, drove indigenous peoples off their lands and killed them by the thousands.

God continued to love and bless America when some of its enterprising newcomers used abducted Africans to build great fortunes and, later, after a bloody war incidentally freed those slaves, disenfranchised, harassed and lynched their descendants for another century.

Only now, when some men and women want to love someone of their same gender, when some men and women want to change their gender, and when poor brown people from Central and South America are trying to cross our border Southern to pursue life, liberty and happiness is God so infuriated with us that He has dispatched a snide, vulgar, narcissistic real-estate hustler to lead us back to the straight and narrow.

There’s a word for this: insanity.

There’s a second word as well: blasphemy. 

Forgive them for they know not what they do? Sure. It’s the Christian thing. 

But not until after you’ve voted them and their orange idol out.

Author’s note: I had hoped to work Matthew 9: 26 (“There are none so blind. . .”) into this, but it broke the flow. Another time.

—

Noel Holston is a freelance writer who lives in Athens, Georgia. He serves as Georgia Correspondent for Wry Wing Politics. He’s also a contributing essayist to Medium.com, TVWorthWatching.com, and other websites. He previously wrote about television and radio at Newsday (2000-2005) and, as a crosstown counterpart to the Pioneer Press’s Brian Lambert, at the Star Tribune  (1986-2000).  He’s the author of “Life After Deaf: My Misadventures in Hearing Loss and Recovery,” by Skyhorse.

An independent analysis released this week by the Minnesota Department of Commerce found that up to 151,000 Minnesotans could be helped if the Minnesota Legislature gives health insurance consumers of any income level the option of buying into the public MinnesotaCare health insurance plan. MinnesotaCare has been operated by the Minnesota Department of Human Services since 1992 but has only been available to about 83,000 people who make too much to qualify for Medical Assistance (Minnesota’s Medicaid program) but earn less than 200% of the federal poverty level.

The Commonwealth Fund explains what little is known about the MinnesotaCare buy-in option proposal that will be considered by the Minnesota Legislature in the coming months:

Minnesota is also considering a buy-in option but is focusing on expanding MinnesotaCare, the state’s Basic Health Program. The Basic Health Program was created by the Affordable Care Act and allows states to leverage federal financial assistance typically used to subsidize private insurance purchased through health insurance marketplaces to instead fund a state coverage program for individuals with incomes up to 200 percent of the federal poverty level. MinnesotaCare and the state’s Medicaid program are run by the same agency; MinnesotaCare provides more generous benefits than marketplace coverage at lower premiums. The state’s recently enacted law allows the state to study and pursue different public option models in addition to the MinnesotaCare buy-in.

As the Legislature prepares to debate this issue in coming months, lobbyists for insurance companies, doctors, and hospitals are howling, which confirms to me that the Legislature is on the right track. 

Hospital and doctor lobbyists are predictably complaining that they will get reimbursed less by MinnesotaCare for medical services.  Health insurance lobbyists are predictably complaining that they will earn less by being forced to compete with MinnesotaCare.

I don’t doubt that what the lobbyists are saying is true. But their complaints should lead Minnesota legislators to ask themselves this key question: How can we possibly make insurance more affordable for struggling consumers if doctors, hospitals and insurance companies don’t get paid less?

We can’t.

If medical industry lobbyists lose on this, ordinary Minnesota insurance customers will win. It’s pretty clear that hospital executives, specialty doctors, and health insurance company executives are in a better position to make do with a little bit less money than 300,000 uninsured Minnesotans who are just one injury or illness away from medical bankruptcy or going without life-saving care.

According to the Commonwealth Fund, health insurance consumers are winning in Washington and Colorado, states that have already gone down this public option road:

“Washington and Colorado, which have operational programs, are seeing incremental progress. In Washington, public option plan rates will increase in 2024, but at a slower pace than non-public option plans (+5% compared to +8%). Similar to this past year, in 2024 they are expected to be the lowest-cost silver plan in most counties (to which premium tax credits are pegged). Public option plans will be offered in 37 of 39 counties, up from 34 in 2023.

Despite opposition from the insurer and provider communities, the Colorado Option program has generated savings for consumers while offering more comprehensive benefits and increasing transparency around health insurance premiums and provider reimbursement rates. Requested increases for Colorado Option plans were more than 30 percent lower than non-Option plans and, following the state’s subsequent rate review and hearing processes, the state announced that 25 individual market and 24 small-group market Colorado Option plans will meet the state’s target of a 10 percent reduction in premiums compared to 2021 levels. The federal government also recently affirmed that the program is expected to generate savings from reductions in plan premiums.”

That’s very encouraging progress. It’s not a cure-all, but it is progress.

Do Minnesota legislators care more about the financial bottom line of insurance companies, hospital companies, and specialty doctors than they do about the pocketbooks of Minnesotans struggling to afford health protections? In the coming weeks, we will find out.

In 2023, DFLers in the Minnesota Legislature passed a staggering amount of significant policies to help parents, children, students, women, people of color, seniors, taxpayers, voters, and workers. In 2024, it’s time for Republicans to show what they’ve got.  Up until now, they haven’t had much of a policy agenda, other than opposing all of the aforementioned DFL improvements and trying to cut taxes for the wealthiest seniors.

But buckle up, because Minnesota Republicans have a hot new culture war issue to promote. State flag preservation, baby!

Minnesota Republicans are promising to fight like hell to preserve the current Minnesota state flag. You know, the one with the jumbled seal that looks like several other state flags. The one that is impossible to discern at a distance. The one that has long been seen by indigenous people as celebrating their subjugation and genocide. Republicans love that sucker!

The University of Minnesota’s Bill Lendeke explains the troubling origin story of the current flag, which features a picture of a white pioneer plowing a field with a rifle next to him while a Native American rides away with the sun setting:

The (state flag) designer’s wife, Mary Eastman, even penned a short poem to explain what was on the seal:

Give way, give way, young warrior,
Thou and thy steed give way;
Rest not, though lingers on the hills
The red sun’s parting ray.
The rock bluff and prairie land
The white man claims them now

Eastman’s rhyme has the benefit of honestly reflecting the dominant feelings of white Minnesotans at the time, most of whom wanted to eradicate Native Americans from their homeland. As such, the seal and flag represent sentiments that led directly to the genocide of Dakota people, and is one that Minnesotans should not celebrate in any way.

Despite this dark history, Republicans seem to see themselves as fighting to preserve a righteous flag, not unlike the brave soldiers at Iwa Jima in Joe Rosenthal’s iconic photo.

The state Republican Party even created a Save The Flag website to hock sweet t-shirts suitable for MAGA rallies.

Needless to say, Republicans look nearly as ugly in this fight as when they fight to preserve statues celebrating white supremacists such as Nathan Bedford Forest, Robert E. Lee, and John C. Calhoun.

To be clear, no flag redesign was ever going to be universally loved. When it comes to matters of design, everyone has different tastes and biases. And plenty of folks who preferred one of the other more than 2,600 designs considered by the State Emblems Redesign Commission are understandably still feeling tender.

But most of us who didn’t get our top choices respect the process and don’t throw a hissy fit over it

Given that we’re never going to have a unanimous opinion on flags, we have to look at the big picture: The current flag celebrates race-based dominance, and that’s just not ok. Beyond that, flag design experts have long said that Minnesota has one of the very worst state flag designs.

The Commission’s recommended design fixes both of those problems.

Ted Kaye, who wrote the 2006 guidebook “‘Good’ Flag, ‘Bad’ Flag,” gave Minnesota’s new design an “A” and called it excellent.

“You can’t make everybody happy, but Minnesota will come to be extremely proud of this flag,” said Kaye, secretary of the North American Vexillological Association (NAVA). “The state has seized a wonderful opportunity to improve its symbolism.”

He said he believes it would rank in the top 10 among the states and provinces of the United States and Canada were NAVA members and the public to be surveyed.

I hope the Minnesota Legislature doesn’t waste much time on the state flag debate. It’s clear what it should do.

The Commission went through a painstakingly thorough and thoughtful process, so the Legislature should quickly, decisively, and proudly approve the recommended new state flag. It is a huge improvement over the ugly — in so many ways — flag that has been poorly representing Minnesota for far too long.