Planting a flag in red America If you don’t show up to play, you forfeit. Step into many fast food joints in rural America and the TV is likely tuned to Fox News. Drive across rural America east and west and radio is dominated by RW talk. Democrats have let this situation stand for years without responding. Will they this time? Ryan Cooper argues that so-called “liberal media” was in the tank for Donald Trump. A lot of factors contributed to Donald Trump’s win, he writes: But the information environment—the combination of traditional journalism, social media, party propaganda, and so on—is preposterously biased and inadequate. Trump brushed aside any of about a thousand scandals that would have sunk any previous politician. Democrats need to take a long, hard look at what their information strategy should be, and more importantly, how their messaging can be reliably and consistently put in front of voters. Cooper recommends that “Democrats need a party publication—something to bypass the traditional media and deliver progressive messaging directly.” Fine idea. Not going to happen. The underlying assumption is that RW outlets like Fox News, OAN, and all those other RW propaganda vehicles are arms of the Republican Party. They are not. The GOP doesn’t have the money to support them any more than Democrats do. They may be owned and operated by deep-pocketed Republicans, but are not party operations. Cooper wants to see the left abandon mainstream outlets to build their own information ecosystem: Websites, radio stations, podcasts, and…