What America Needs right now is MORE NEWS.

In the US and UK, many would argue that there is too much news right now – simply too much happening daily for the average person to absorb and process even a reasonable portion of it. But it seems to me there is room for a little more in the US, in the form of a Daily Democrat Press Briefing. Because in a world where Fake News is king, with a President who is the King of Fake News, a window opens to present the facts as seen from the other end of the spectrum.

Berkley professor Helen Halpin (Twitter: @Helenhs) and others have suggested a daily event where the news of the day, and specifically Trump's latest falsehoods and outrages, can be discussed in an open Press forum, with questions, from a Democrat viewpoint. The question is - who would do it? Who represents the Democrat party in this way? Who is their front man/woman?

The GOP obviously don't have what anyone would call a "leader" right now, but they do have a "boss" and a front man in Trump. And they have the delightful Sarah Huckabee Sanders to lie about the President’s achievements and insult reporters. Though to be fair, it’s the job the White House have given her - Donald does the same thing for a hobby.

The Democrat party has a Chairperson, and minority leaders in Congress. But my view from here across the Atlantic is that there is no clear front person speaking for all Democrats. Sure, there are plenty of vocal politicians in Congress, e.g. Elizabeth Warren, Joe Kennedy, and many midterm candidates who speak out about the damage Trump is doing to the country and its norms. But they don’t speak explicitly for the whole party, and not in a forum where national press & TV are always present, can ask pertinent questions and receive honest answers on a regular basis.

The party in government have the advantage of a central, non-Congressional figurehead and communications team who represents no particular state - Trump can and does go to any state he fancies making wildly inaccurate statements to the rapturous applause of his fans, and can summon press to the White House, say what he likes and refuse to take questions if he chooses - which of course he often does.

What’s definitely missing from the Democrats, particularly with the midterms barely a month away, is a centralised communication point based around a small team with a figurehead spokesperson. The problem, I think, is that the US political system doesn’t make this very easy. Candidates for Congress are very state-centric, as they should be, and members in Congress are busy fighting battles that must be fought. So some kind of party Communications Secretary would be ideal.

Democrats should get their heads together, choose a Communications team and a spokesperson, and announce a Daily Press conference. They would have mountains of material to work with – in fact a major task of the team would be wading through the mass of jaw-dropping news and commentary coming from Trump, and selecting the parts to include (clearly Team Trump are still following the Steve Bannon news management strategy of “flood the zone with sh*t”).

A Democrat press conference could serve a dual purpose – focussing attention on key matters of the day (and hopefully drawing attention & headlines away from some of Trump’s meaningless nonsense), and pointing out clearly where Trump is being misleading with the American people, using references to published factual data.

The bonus to having something like this would be that Donald would be absolutely furious, and totally unable to ignore it because Fox would actively help. Every morning Donald would sit on his throne watching Fox News cover the latest Dem Presser in scathing terms, scream “FAKE NEWS!!!” at his twitter account, and repeat every point the Dems make. This would give the Democrat take on the news an audience it likely wouldn’t otherwise - Trump fans. Of course they’d be as furious and dismissive as Trump himself, but recent events have shown that showing two sides to a story helps people see there *are* two sides to it.

The thing that the Democrat Press Team would need to be very careful of is their fact checking, and to make sure they presented facts as facts, and opinions as opinions. They would be perfectly entitled, as Trump does, to include both in Press briefings. And they would have to be scrupulously fair – even praising good news when such a thing occurs.

For example, this week’s USMCA agreement is undeniably a good news story, and the Democrat Press Team should say so. They could then point out the close similarities between USMCA and NAFTA (fact) & hence that the whole thing is something of a waste of time, effort and goodwill (opinion). They could also show clips of the President telling a reporter she “never thinks”, and that the official White House transcript of that event released today is factually incorrect.

Of course, such a press conference would be partisan, presenting the Democrat take on the events of the day – but that would be obvious so would be factored in by anyone seeing it. What it would need though is a respected, experienced and preferably non-partisan Press secretary to deliver the daily message.

I wonder what Sean Spicer is doing these days?