Iowa Democratic Election Post-Mortem [View all]

[rurallib]

https://blogforiowa.com/2020/11/21/iowa-democratic-election-post-mortem/



So what happened? I have been seeing a few post-mortem analyses posted. Most seem to focus on some party structure problems and do fault the door-knocking decision as costly. Most seem to ask the question “Why do democrats have such problems in rural areas?” Our policies have always been better for small communities and rural areas. Yet for some reason we don’t seem to connect. While no one has said this, the gap seems to get wider every year.

While I am just an average worker bee in the party like most of you, I would like to offer a reason that I never hear discussed anywhere. That reason is rural media. To be more specific, local radio.

As has been written multiple times here on blogforiowa.com, Iowa’s media is very right wing. Even in the day of access to world media through cell phones and car radios. In the small towns and rural areas of Iowa local media, especially the local radio station is still king. Working in the field or driving to town it is nice to have that companionship of the local station to listen to. As people shop in the local grocery or hardware store, the local radio is the background music to the activities in town.

Nowadays on a lot of the local radio stations the voice of the local announcer has been replaced by Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and many lesser lights, but the message they deliver is a consistent extreme right wing message. For many folks the radio sort of becomes a subliminal message deliverer. While people may not be actively listening they are getting the message. And they stay tuned because the local station has local news, weather, sports, commercials and of course commodity prices which keeps them tuned in.

This acts as an underlayment for the Republican message of whatever election or issue of the day is being pushed. Democrats or the left have no such infrastructure in the rural areas. Actually in Iowa they simply have no infrastructure like this anywhere. When a Republican shows up at a rural door, they are preceded by months and years of their talking points having been disseminated before they got there. When they are at the door, the terms they talk in have been woven into the fabric of conversations long before they showed up.

much more at the link