In Praise of Bloggers on the Democracy Battlefront

Who knows? We may become the vanguards who change everything.

Photo by Mr Cup / Fabien Barral on Unsplash

I’m a blogger who often writes political opinions of the liberal persuasion. I’m not the bravest of bloggers, but there are those times when I swallow my fear and go for it. I fully expect to hear about it but my heart tells me I need to say those things out loud.

My opinions have been formed by years of study and observation, using data collected from many sources, including the mainstream media. I’ve counted on them to give me clues, to provide me with proof that what I’m about to say is true, to steer me straight if I’ve gotten it wrong.

That’s not to say my BS meter isn’t in full-time activation. I don’t believe everything I see in print, even if it’s from those sources I’ve almost always counted on.

During the Obama years, when I began political blogging in earnest, I learned to pick and choose and read between the lines, and, if need be, to look to other sources for clarification. But through it all I thought I could especially trust both The Washington Post and the New York Times. I really did. And now I can’t.

It’s sad, it’s infuriating, it’s scary. Two formerly reliable sources have been taken over by shady oligarchs and we’ve lost them as mainly dependable journalistic outlets. We’re suspicious of them now, and trust has gone out the window.

Throughout all the fuss over the media’s editorial decisions lately, including their disgraceful attacks on Joe Biden while Donald Trump was running roughshod over any semblance of the truth, I’d kept my subscriptions to both the NYT and WaPo. I justified it by calling myself a necessary witness, a writer who needed to keep an eye on them so I could report their transgressions as well as any good moments.

Even as late as two days ago, even after I knew the facts surrounding WaPo’s strange decision to cancel the already planned endorsement of Kamala Harris, I vowed (in public) to keep my subscription to that newspaper going.

Yesterday morning I changed my mind. I cancelled.

It was bloggers here at Substack and elsewhere who helped me come to that decision. They, much braver and far more articulate than I, spelled out the reasons in such a dynamic way I could no longer make a case for a continued subscription.

Big names here and elsewhere have cancelled. It’s snowballing, and I find the exodus thrilling. The magnitude of outcries are, I have to say, unexpected. The pushback is coming from everywhere, and, while it won’t change the minds of the head honchos at any of the papers refusing to endorse Kamala Harris (Looking at you, too, LA Times), or the minds of the followers of TrumpCo, it’s having an impact. And bloggers can take part of the credit. Bloggers seem to be everywhere on this.

(While more than one commenter has said our single cancellation can’t mean much, I disagree. I liken it to voting. I only have one vote but add that to many others and we can make an impact.)

I only have one voice but add mine to those who warn against a Trump win. I’ve been warning against Trump since the day he rode that escalator down into Trump Tower’s bowels and gave us the crazy news that he was going to run for president.

And I haven’t been alone.

Thousands of articles, columns, and yes, blogs, have been citing Trump’s transgressions, have been warning against him and his sycophants, have been predicting what will happen if we let him get away with it.

And still he gets away with it.

We should have given up long ago, considering what little impact any of our warnings have made. But we haven’t. Most of us aren’t making money at this but we’re still at it, and we will be as long as our democratic way of life is threatened by those Trump-led factions bent on turning the country over to the oligarchs, the white supremacists, the phony Christian zealots.

Have we been disappointed? Disillusioned? Mystified? Driven nuts by Trump’s rise despite all we’ve dug up and presented? Sure. All of that. But have we quit? Hell, no! What the mainstream press misses we bloggers throw out there, in voices so diverse, so clever, so profound we’re quoted and shared and sometimes even made into memes. (I’m deliberately not naming names here. There are too many and I wouldn’t want to leave anyone out. I restack them on Notes or link to their blogs whenever I can and I hope you do, too. Feel free to mention any of them in the comments.)

Substack alone, a haven for bloggers, is a fount of good writing on the democracy front. Our work is getting out there. The best of us are quoted in the mainstream. Some of our bloggers go before the cameras and share their wisdom. Their names are already known or are becoming known.

There’s victory in that.

Does it matter that the threats against democracy appear to be growing, despite all of our efforts? Of course it matters. We don’t do this to fail. But it matters more that we don’t quit.

So what do you think? Do political bloggers have an impact? Can we share space with the mainstream media? Will we be recognized? I think back to Eric Boehlert’s book, ‘Bloggers on the Bus, How the Internet Changed Politics and the Press’, a recounting of the impact bloggers were making in 2008, during Barack Obama’s quest for the presidency. That may have been the heyday for political bloggers, but I can’t be the only one seeing a resurgence, now that the mainstream press has become unreliable and unpredictable.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that I’m proud as hell of the bloggers working at making an impact against all odds. How do you feel about them? Can we talk?

---

There are no paywalls or closed comments or special gifts, but becoming a paying member means I can keep going here. You can join the paying ranks (Thank you, paying ranks!) through Substack below, or you can support my work by donating any amount at any time at Ko-Fi or at Paypal. Much appreciated!