Left-wing billionaires generally seem to prefer running for president or cutting giant checks to super PACs than getting in the weeds. But they would have much greater impact if they created a parallel set of institutions to compete with the right. Maybe one of them should buy MSNBC (along with a slew of local TV broadcasters) and turn it into the left’s Fox News, and another should bankroll progressive magazines and think tanks and dramatically increase the number of people working for them as well as the reach of their ideas. They could also create watchdog groups whose members join megachurches and attend right-wing institutions like Bob Jones University, where “Young Earth creationism” is the campuswide doctrine for people who will later become board-certified nurses, doctors, and researchers. They could take the American Constitution Society—the underappreciated and underfunded counterpart to the right-wing Federalist Society—and transform it into the vehicle for a forward-looking, progressive constitutional project. The point of all of this drunken spending would be to create a sustainable culture war and political offense that can drive the national conversation and put the far right back on the defensive, where it belongs.
Slate hasn't seemed to notice that the left controls MSNBC, the New York Times, the rest of the print media, all the major TV networks, all of higher education, lower education, the major book publishers, and Hollywood. Imagine thinking you can't get your message with that kind of control.
