Mega-Thread: 2020 United States General Election

[Benggaul]

Part of me can't help but wonder just how far would Trump have to push it before Rupert Murdock finally says "Enough is enough" and pulls the cord on him and just how far does Trump have to push for OAN and NewsMax level conspiracy theories before Murdock starts to regret the monster he built.

Have you seen some of the stories running in Murdoch papers? I'd say that love affair already ended.

[Edge-]

Oh wow, now Beto O'Rourke is also saying the same thing that AOC and Doug Jones have been saying in regards to criticism of the Democratic Party. You gonna listen yet moderates? Or are you going to keep pretending that Democrats don't need to make any changes?

https://twitter.com/PatrickSvitek/st...65359744864257

Man, let me tell you how exciting watching this pointless fighting between moderates and progressives both looking to blame each other for House losses rather than figure out how to unify and figure out how to get as much of their shared agenda through as possible, is.

It's really, really, really not exciting and it hurts me.

I'll "BOTH SIDES" this, because they're both being dumb. This is for them to work out behind the scenes with each other, not have a fuckin episode of Murray where they're both screaming at each other on stage while the audience "Oooooooohhhhhhhhhhh"s.

[Flower Milk]

Man, let me tell you how exciting watching this pointless fighting between moderates and progressives both looking to blame each other for House losses rather than figure out how to unify and figure out how to get as much of their shared agenda through as possible, is.

It's really, really, really not exciting and it hurts me.

I'll "BOTH SIDES" this, because they're both being dumb. This is for them to work out behind the scenes with each other, not have a fuckin episode of Murray where they're both screaming at each other on stage while the audience "Oooooooohhhhhhhhhhh"s.

It is no longer moderates vs progressives, because "moderates" are now saying the exactly same thing. It is old guard leadership vs younger, newer people within the Democratic Party. And they're likely going public with these criticisms because the old guard leadership refuses to listen to their suggestions in private.

[Benggaul]

Man, let me tell you how exciting watching this pointless fighting between moderates and progressives both looking to blame each other for House losses rather than figure out how to unify and figure out how to get as much of their shared agenda through as possible, is.

It's really, really, really not exciting and it hurts me.

I'll "BOTH SIDES" this, because they're both being dumb. This is for them to work out behind the scenes with each other, not have a fuckin episode of Murray where they're both screaming at each other on stage while the audience "Oooooooohhhhhhhhhhh"s.

It's almost as exciting as seeing someone screeching "WAAAH STUPID MODERATES!" and posting copied/pasted walls of text every page for over a week. Nothing says "Hey, join my cause and help us all succeed!" more than pointless, bitter blame deflections. I give them the same amount and type of attention I give the burner trolls at this point.

Also, did you mean Murray or Maury? Or am I just too old and don't know who Murray is?

[Flower Milk]

It's almost as exciting as seeing someone screeching "WAAAH STUPID MODERATES!" and posting copied/pasted walls of text every page for over a week. Nothing says "Hey, join my cause and help us all succeed!" more than pointless, bitter blame deflections. I give them the same amount and type of attention I give the burner trolls at this point.

Also, did you mean Murray or Mauri? Or am I just too old and don't know who Murray is?

You're right, people should just stay silent about Democrats losing down ballot races and offer 0 suggestions or criticisms and just let them continue to fail. After all Joe Biden won the presidency so politics is over now, no need to worry about Georgia or the mid terms in 2022, time to check out and go back to brunch, what could go wrong?

[eschatological]

The hashtag/slogan is 7 years old, so it's even older than that.

But it speaks to the difficulties of sloganeering outside of your core audience.

IDK. "Make America Great Again," "Keep America Great," and "Stop the Steal" seem to be simple, effective slogans that get their point across clearly and in a way that can't be attacked readily. You can argue about them being said in bad faith (because of MAGA's appeal to some xenophobic, racist, pre-Civil Rights time when America was great, or how the election isn't really being stolen), but it's hard to say "No, we shouldn't keep/make America great," or "No, we should allow the steal."

[Zaydin]

Already talked about earlier, not possible, that ship has set sail, they can't turn their backs on their popular vote this far into it. Unless they want to directly break their state laws as well and risk all that fallout from directly telling the majority of their own voter base to "Get Fucked" on something so divisive.

It's still a terrifying thought that the GOP is that desperate to hold onto power that they would explicitly say "Fuck the election, we say we won anyways".

[Ashina]

Donald Trump won't run in 2024. Father Time will catch up to him. The stress of campaigning and the burdens of the presidency, even for one who made a mockery of them, weigh on an obese turtle like Donny and those burdens will catch up to him when he's out of office. Hard.

Add to that his impending financial doom and potential legal troubles and there's not a single chance this guy is back in 2024 with the energy and vibe to run for office.

Now what is different is that Trumpism won't be rooted out. Tucker Carlson, Donny Jr, Ivanka, Kushner. At least one of them will run as the Trumpism candidate. We might even so some Trumpism shills like Lindsey Graham make a bid.

As much as it pains me to say it but it'll probably take a Nikki Haley, an opportunist Trumpist, to bury that movement.

Meanwhile the progressive left is trying to leverage this election to wage war on their own party, clueless to the simple observable fact that Democrats need their entire party platform to win elections in the Trump era. Progressive clarion calls like "Defund The Police!" did not electrify their base. It mobilized a militant minority. You need both moderates and progressives to unify against toxic Trumpism.
At this moment the AOC Dems are just making Republicans their 2024 bed in which they'll get their cake and eat it. Watching those Democrats eagerly pouncing on the moderate/centrist arm of the party is mind-bogglingly foolish and counter-productive.

Fight behind the scenes but you're a united front towards the public. That's the number one rule in party politics. Internal division played out in the media is a losing strategy, always.

[kaelleria]

It's almost as exciting as seeing someone screeching "WAAAH STUPID MODERATES!" and posting copied/pasted walls of text every page for over a week. Nothing says "Hey, join my cause and help us all succeed!" more than pointless, bitter blame deflections. I give them the same amount and type of attention I give the burner trolls at this point.

Also, did you mean Murray or Maury? Or am I just too old and don't know who Murray is?

Just ignore them and move on. That's what I did yesterday and it's been much more pleasant.

[Calfredd]

You're right, people should just stay silent about Democrats losing down ballot races and offer 0 suggestions or criticisms and just let them continue to fail. After all Joe Biden won the presidency so politics is over now, no need to worry about Georgia or the mid terms in 2022, time to check out and go back to brunch, what could go wrong?

You're right, people should make up arguments and then blame their opponents for that argument.

[Fugus]

Have you seen some of the stories running in Murdoch papers? I'd say that love affair already ended.

But at the same time, his entertainers are still walking the line to support him somewhat. I mean where he finally says screw it and tells them do not give him any good press and sacks the commentators who has been sucking up to him this entire time.

Right now it is like a divorce where Trump and Murdock don't like each other but Murdock is trying to be civil for their kids (AKA the cult members) I mean a divorce where Murdock says fuck Trump and his supporters and actually cuts ties and starts outing him.

[passingthrew]

It's still a terrifying thought that the GOP is that desperate to hold onto power that they would explicitly say "Fuck the election, we say we won anyways".

I know social media is basically lunacy at this point but I have seen way too many post about how when this happens and the people react with violence that will prove how bad the dems are. His supporters are 100% on board with it.

[Edge-]

It is no longer moderates vs progressives, because "moderates" are now saying the exactly same thing. It is old guard leadership vs younger, newer people within the Democratic Party. And they're likely going public with these criticisms because the old guard leadership refuses to listen to their suggestions in private.

Sure whatever it fuckin is. That's for them to hash out behind the scenes, and just makes them look like a bunch of fuckin idiots publicly right now.

They just won the White House. They kept (though lost seats) in the House. They may close the gap a bit in the Senate, and if we're lucky make it 50/50.

Do your fuckin post-mortems. Have your internal meetings with various groups to figure out what went wrong, where, and how. Work on a plan to address it, and if there's disagreement keep that outta the public square.

I'm a progressive, despite being open to practical approaches that are slower but more likely to achieve progressive goals, but very-online progressives are being absolutely insufferable. Moderates are insufferable as well, but they seem less vocal about spreading this division as far and wide and often as they can.

[Hinastorm]

Already talked about earlier, not possible, that ship has set sail, they can't turn their backs on their popular vote this far into it. Unless they want to directly break their state laws as well and risk all that fallout from directly telling the majority of their own voter base to "Get Fucked" on something so divisive.

You know what? I hope they try it. Maybe that will finally get the point across that trying to work with or sway these people is pointless.

[Flower Milk]

Sure whatever it fuckin is. That's for them to hash out behind the scenes, and just makes them look like a bunch of fuckin idiots publicly right now.

They just won the White House. They kept (though lost seats) in the House. They may close the gap a bit in the Senate, and if we're lucky make it 50/50.

Do your fuckin post-mortems. Have your internal meetings with various groups to figure out what went wrong, where, and how. Work on a plan to address it, and if there's disagreement keep that outta the public square.

I'm a progressive, despite being open to practical approaches that are slower but more likely to achieve progressive goals, but very-online progressives are being absolutely insufferable. Moderates are insufferable as well, but they seem less vocal about spreading this division as far and wide and often as they can.

Go to Twitter and just search for the term "bad slogan" and see the manufactured consent narrative by media of "defund the police is a bad slogan that lost Democrats the election" in real time. And I really hope if you're a progressive you know what manufacturing consent means.

Also just gonna keep linking moderates saying why that this narrative is wrong.

https://twitter.com/DrJasonJohnson/s...51318027149319

If I stop eating McDonalds because Subway's "Eat Fresh" slogan turns me off to fast food, guess what? I was already on the way to cutting out French fries. If #DefundThePolice turned you off from voting for Democrats you were already on your way to voting GOP no matter what

What really cost Democrats down ballot was giving money to the Lincoln Project so they could continuously separate Republicans from Trump instead of Democrats effectively linking Republicans to Trump and winning down ballot races on it. That was the plan for the Lincoln Project all along.

[Edge-]

https://www.thedailybeast.com/fox-ne...e-conspiracies

Fox News seems to be doing some house keeping, John Solomon, former op-ed writer at the Hill and creator of the Ukraine conspiracies, is no longer going to be on the network.

Grifters becoming unemployed is a beautiful thing.

[Hinastorm]

Donald Trump won't run in 2024. Father Time will catch up to him. The stress of campaigning and the burdens of the presidency, even for one who made a mockery of them, weigh on an obese turtle like Donny and those burdens will catch up to him when he's out of office. Hard.

Add to that his impending financial doom and potential legal troubles and there's not a single chance this guy is back in 2024 with the energy and vibe to run for office.

Now what is different is that Trumpism won't be rooted out. Tucker Carlson, Donny Jr, Ivanka, Kushner. At least one of them will run as the Trumpism candidate. We might even so some Trumpism shills like Lindsey Graham make a bid.

As much as it pains me to say it but it'll probably take a Nikki Haley, an opportunist Trumpist, to bury that movement.

Meanwhile the progressive left is trying to leverage this election to wage war on their own party, clueless to the simple observable fact that Democrats need their entire party platform to win elections in the Trump era. Progressive clarion calls like "Defund The Police!" did not electrify their base. It mobilized a militant minority. You need both moderates and progressives to unify against toxic Trumpism.
At this moment the AOC Dems are just making Republicans their 2024 bed in which they'll get their cake and eat it. Watching those Democrats eagerly pouncing on the moderate/centrist arm of the party is mind-bogglingly foolish and counter-productive.

Fight behind the scenes but you're a united front towards the public. That's the number one rule in party politics. Internal division played out in the media is a losing strategy, always.

Fuuuuck I think I hate Don Jr more than Don.

I WILL leave the country if Don Jr is president.

[Edge-]

Go to Twitter and just search for the term "bad slogan" and see the manufactured consent narrative by media of "defund the police is a bad slogan that lost Democrats the election" in real time. And I really hope if you're a progressive you know what manufacturing consent means.

Also just gonna keep linking moderates saying why that this narrative is wrong.

https://twitter.com/DrJasonJohnson/s...51318027149319

I don't treat Twitter as reality, and nobody else should. It's a fraction of the 36M US users here, and political Twitter is far smaller chunk of that.

Again, I don't give a shit who's saying it. This is for internal discussions and post-mortems, not airing out their grievances publicly which helps absolutely nobody and only serves to drive up division within the Democratic party and moderates/progressives.

Fuckin hell, dealing with very-online political things is infuriating in how detached from actual political reality it usually is.

[Endus]

Jaime Harrison didn't run a poor campaign.

He was genuinely fighting this message, the whole time. And apparently the message won in a seat Dems could have had.

I'm saying that spending your campaign fighting a disinformation campaign and, apparently, getting basically nowhere in doing so, that's a problem.

You may be right that it's an impossible fight to win, which means we're legitimately in a post-truth setting where the only effective play is to make up a more-frightening lie about your opponents than they can make up about you. I don't really agree with that.

I don't think the specific slogan is the issue. He'd have been attacked over something like this, this was just the particular vector it came at him this time. I don't believe that any other police-reduction slogan would have prevented the Republicans from lying out their asses about Biden being a socialist and that the police are going to be abolished. The problem is that the Republicans lie, and the voters are so gullible that they can't tell the difference between lies and truth.

That's a problem, and I'll admit that to be the case. That he'd have won if "defund the police" never entered the mainstream, though? I don't agree with that. They'd still have been pushing the "Biden is a socialist" lie, and they'd have found other stuff to lie about instead.

I hear all these accusations against the slogan, and it all feels no different to me than the "black lives matter? I think ALL lives matter!" bullshit. It isn't about the slogan, and it really never is. People come into things like this with prejudices, and they make presumptions that confirm those prejudices. In this case, prejudices that support police brutality rather than reform.

[Benggaul]

Just ignore them and move on. That's what I did yesterday and it's been much more pleasant.

Oh I have. People keep quoting them. Much like the obvious sealion in the Trump thread.