Mega-Thread: 2020 United States General Election

[kaelleria]

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

That's a good name for them.

[Benggaul]

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.

I'd say that'll come once the market share for FOX News starts tanking because Trump's lured them over to OANN. Right now FOX is still their big go-to.

[eschatological]

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.

I find more and more that Twitter is only good for one thing: live events of no consequence. Sports come to mind. You get stats and news out quicker than relying on radio/TV/newspaper, where most sports are reported at once most a day.

Even real, live events of consequence like the Arab Spring aren't useful on Twitter any more because of the internet army of armchair detectives dissecting each frame to come to often irrational conclusions. And it doesn't provide context. And it creates a dogpile around misperceptions.

In other words, Twitter is just shit.

And yet I still check it constantly.

[kaelleria]

I'd say that'll come once the market share for FOX News starts tanking because Trump's lured them over to OANN. Right now FOX is still their big go-to.

We've seen from other stars, that their starpower is much diminished off of FauxNews.

[Kallisto]

Just saw news Trump may announce a 2024 Presidential run, and I'm wondering: has anyone considered that when Trump is finally out of the WH he may try to play President-in-exile?

It's likely how he'll try to run. Go into exile somewhere. Run as an R saying how he'll be oppressed in the US until he's president again. Not entering the US unless he's voted in as president.

[Endus]

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.

Seriously, if you get anything out of my commentary on the sloganeering, it should be this;

Republicans and their propaganda machinery are the threat to democracy. Not whatever slogans they target with their disinformation campaigns, to divide their enemies. If you're spending all your time attacking allies because the Republicans' propaganda was too effective, it's because you fell for their propaganda and are why it was so effective.

[Flower Milk]

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.

Again, the people who started this division are the Never Trump Republicans like John Kasich and the Lincoln Project that were welcomed into the party with open arms, and then spent the entire election separating Republicans from Trump so that Democrats won the White House but lost down ballot races. I wonder why they would want to deflect away from that by blaming progressives? What a mystery.

Do not trust Republicans. I know that you've said you don't like the Lincoln Project or trust them, so I hope you can see my point and see through their bullshit "blame the progressives" narrative. If you want Democratic unity, tell Never Trump Republicans to fuck off and stop attacking the progressive Democratic base.

Seriously, if you get anything out of my commentary on the sloganeering, it should be this;

Republicans and their propaganda machinery are the threat to democracy. Not whatever slogans they target with their disinformation campaigns, to divide their enemies. If you're spending all your time attacking allies because the Republicans' propaganda was too effective, it's because you fell for their propaganda and are why it was so effective.

Exactly the point I'm trying to make as well, but that includes Never Trump Republicans, too.

[Ausr]

I truthfully don't think Democrats will allow another Trump to ever be elected again after what we just went through for 4 years.

[eschatological]

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.

There's a certain mendacity though, to "Joe Biden is a socialist," that "Defund the Police" doesn't have. For example, it only seems to have worked in Miami-Dade and certain Texan Hispanic-heavy counties, among immigrant groups who came from genuinely disastrous communist/state-owned socialist countries. It didn't have broad appeal nationally, imo, and it didn't have broad appeal even among all Hispanics. It was a slogan that could be easily seen through by all but the most frightened people.

But "defund the police," DOES have widespread negative appeal. Even among black folks in neighborhoods suffering from lots of police brutality, there were indicators that they reacted negatively towards the slogan. And Republicans pushed that button hard, but they wouldn't have had the button to push IF OUR OWN ACTIVISTS hadn't created, and then doubled down, on an inherently bad slogan that is unclear and sounds like you want an anarchist, police-less state.

And I get it, they don't want to rely on words like "reform" or "accountability" because those words have become meaningless. I agree, personally. But to dumpster dive to literally the most polarizing version of the slogan is an overreach, and we were punished for it.

[Edge-]

Again, the people who started this division are the Never Trump Republicans like John Kasich and the Lincoln Project that were welcomed into the party with open arms, and then spent the entire election separating Republicans from Trump so that Democrats won the White House but lost down ballot races. I wonder why they would want to deflect away from that by blaming progressives? What a mystery.

...what? I thought it was moderates? Like, if it's Never Trumpers like...why does literally anyone give a shit what they say now? Trump is gone, that temporary alliance is over. They might still be useful in combating some of the Trumpian Congressional members, but that's about it.

Seriously, is anyone actually listening to/paying attention to them? Or are progressives reacting to what is a total non-issue? Because all this "division" I've seen comes from the moderate/progressive spat, this is the first I'm seeing of the Never Trumpers.

Do not trust Republicans. I know that you've said you don't like the Lincoln Project or trust them, so I hope you can see my point and see through their bullshit "blame the progressives" narrative. If you want Democratic unity, tell Never Trump Republicans to fuck off and stop attacking the progressive Democratic base.

Cool, I'll get right on that and I'm sure they'll read my #Savage tweets at them.

Again, why are we even giving them the time of day right now?

[cubby]

Slogans aren't about winning new people to your side. They aren't marketing.

They're empowerment and expression for those already in the movement.

This is why phrases like "Fight the Power" or "Black Power" or yes, "Lock Her Up" all get used. They are never intended to convert people to the cause. That's not what slogans do. And yes, those slogans are always criticized by those who disagree with them.

The big difference is if you're actually criticizing the movement itself, as it is easy to do in the case of "Lock Her Up" bullshit, or if you're using empty rhetoric or outright lies to mislead people about the movement, by misrepresenting the slogan (among other tactics). Which, in the case of "Defund the Police", means you support the current state of police brutality, since that's what the movement is aimed to redress.

If you can't be arsed to take a couple minutes to figure out what the movement's about, you never had any intent of giving the idea any real consideration in the first place and had pre-emptively made up your mind to shit on it no matter what it actually represented.

Frankly, all this "'Defund the police' is a bad slogan" just seems like "why not 'All Lives Matter'?" in response to BLM, or indeed, "what's wrong with 'White Power'?" in response to "Black Power" movements in the '60s. It's the exact same tactic, and it was bullshit then, and it remains bullshit now.

I could not disagree more. Slogans are ALL about marketing. "Lock Her Up" is a perfect example. Great slogan AND a great marketing piece. Goes right to the heart of the matter (assuming you know who "her" is) and is easy to understand and requires no explanation.

[Paranoid Android]

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell won’t answer if President-elect Joe Biden should receive classified briefings https://t.co/zru79wE64I

https://twitter.com/CNNPolitics/stat...470558210?s=19

McConnel is such a piece of shit. Above anything Biden served almost 50 years in Congress and VP having access to the most secure intelligence.

Better than Trump where you can easily make the case when out of office Trump sells intelligence for money or debt relief.

[Endus]

And I get it, they don't want to rely on words like "reform" or "accountability" because those words have become meaningless. I agree, personally. But to dumpster dive to literally the most polarizing version of the slogan is an overreach, and we were punished for it.

"Literally the post polarizing version" is more than a little extreme, when "Abolish the Police" is out there, "Fuck The Police" has been running strong since 1988, "All Cops Are Bastards" is still active, etc.

The idea that "defund" is some extreme phrasing that drives people away is frankly pretty baffling.

[Kathranis]

The circular talk about slogans is getting kind of annoying, guys.

Democrats need to come up with better slogans.

Democrats need to stop letting Republicans frame the conversation.

Democrats need to appeal to both moderates and progressives.

Democrats need to tailor campaign strategy and messaging at the state and district level, often with grassroots campaigning.

Democrats need to be taking this opportunity to get together and strategize instead of fight amongst each other.

I think we can agree that all of these things are true.

[Edge-]

"Literally the post polarizing version" is more than a little extreme, when "Abolish the Police" is out there, "Fuck The Police" has been running strong since 1988, "All Cops Are Bastards" is still active, etc.

The idea that "defund" is some extreme phrasing that drives people away is frankly pretty baffling.

"Defund the police" = "Abolish the police" in the eyes of many people. Even without needing to be primed by Republican propaganda.

[Adam Jensen]

We're almost at the point now where we can accurately guess a politician's political party by whether or not he's COVID19 positive . . .

https://twitter.com/repdonyoung/stat...96302765445120

[Flower Milk]

...what? I thought it was moderates? Like, if it's Never Trumpers like...why does literally anyone give a shit what they say now? Trump is gone, that temporary alliance is over. They might still be useful in combating some of the Trumpian Congressional members, but that's about it.

Seriously, is anyone actually listening to/paying attention to them? Or are progressives reacting to what is a total non-issue? Because all this "division" I've seen comes from the moderate/progressive spat, this is the first I'm seeing of the Never Trumpers.



Cool, I'll get right on that and I'm sure they'll read my #Savage tweets at them.

Again, why are we even giving them the time of day right now?

Some moderates are unfortunately getting on board with the Never Trump messaging and blaming progressives. They unfortunately seem to give a shit about what Never Trump Republicans have to say.

Here is how it went down:

https://twitter.com/HCTrudo/status/1325132211717369858

Just a stunning statement from, again, Biden surrogate John Kasich: "The Democrats have to make it clear to the far-left that they almost cost him this election."

https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1325137375924690947

Anyone saying this after immigrant organizers delivered AZ, Black grassroots flipped Georgia, MI going blue w reality-bending 94% Detroit margin + @RashidaTlaib running up the margins in her district & Trump publicly challenging @IlhanMN in MN and losing isn’t a serious person.

There were some attacks by the Lincoln Project on progressives as well and AOC responded but it was a long thread about it.

I'm glad that there are finally some moderates like Doug Jones and Beto O'Rourke joining in fighting back against these attacks on Democrat's progressive base from Never Trump Republicans.

[Benggaul]

The idea that "defund" is some extreme phrasing that drives people away is frankly pretty baffling.

And nevertheless, it's true.

[Edge-]

We're almost at the point now where we can accurately guess a politician's political party by whether or not he's COVID19 positive . . .

https://twitter.com/repdonyoung/stat...96302765445120

It'd be something if they like...learned from the fact that their refusal to listen to medical professionals is causing their ranks to get slammed by the virus while Democrats who are following medical guidance haven't seen the same kind of infection numbers.

[Milchshake]

"Literally the post polarizing version" is more than a little extreme, when "Abolish the Police" is out there, "Fuck The Police" has been running strong since 1988, "All Cops Are Bastards" is still active, etc.

The idea that "defund" is some extreme phrasing that drives people away is frankly pretty baffling.

Yet, then the GOP and Trump were hyping "Defund Planned Parenthood." Everyone understood they meant to abolish Planned Parenthood. All the way back in 2019-2020.

Another reason it was stupid to used "defund" in 2020.