Socialist makers of ads for progressive candidates


Watch this ad made for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who is challenging long time New York Democratic incumbent congressman Joe Crowley in the June 26th primary.

Zaid Jilani says that the tightly made ad has gone viral, giving her candidacy, which badly lags Crowley in terms of money, a huge boost. But he says that the surprise is that the makers of the ad are

The video is tightly produced, crafting a narrative about an organizer-candidate who has the same sort of working-class background that is representative of the majority of New York’s 14th Congressional District — the median income in the district is $53,512 — taking on a powerful incumbent backed by Wall Street dollars.

What you may be surprised to find out is that the video was produced not by Hollywood video production veterans or high-dollar political consultants, but by a ragtag pair of socialists based in Detroit.

Last year, Detroit-based Democratic Socialists of America activists Naomi Burton and Nick Hayes formed Means of Production, a media production company that works exclusively for the working class. (DSA has since endorsed Ocasio-Cortez.)

Both were veterans of other communications firms and were troubled by the fact that many of these firms worked both for progressive candidates and corporations working against the very same causes.

“It just didn’t compute to us that the same people creating working-class propaganda are creating essentially propaganda for corporations,” Hayes said.

“We did this, really, with the goal of building kind of an effective, functional left media structure,” Burton explained.

We know that the Democratic party establishment is supportive of Wall Street and other big financial interests which is why their favored candidates are so flush with money. It is great that they are being increasingly challenged from the left. This is the way you create change over the long term.

Comments

  1. says

    That’s great. The dems are gonna have a left backlash (I hope) and they need to shift left or they’re just going to lose again.

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