Tanista
1d ago
I would add the centralization of internet forums into places like reddit under bullet point 2.
One of the downsides of unification, super-spreader mods and ideas can travel much farther than in a more fractured landscape.
Tanista
1d ago
Kids have grown up with astroturf, and thus have become the astroturf theory. It's fun to wear political suits and bash the fash. Now it's all the kids have known. Even many of the kids have kids now.
I'm more familiar with the online left spaces but many people really have imbibed a certain mindset. They sound like CNN anchors or press secretaries that are deeply anxious about the discourse and how giving voice to certain narratives or allowing the opposition to set the frame will lead to defeat. Kind of understandable if you have an audience of millions and a bit silly and sad if you're on reddit.
But these are the sorts of people that'd self-astroturf.
It's really no different to what happened to many IRL institutions post-Trump. In fact, we should expect it to happen more because it takes vastly less effort to take over online spaces.
All it takes is someone with too much time who's imbibed the Left's idea of fighting where you are and that controlling the discourse will determine reality and, instead of running around trying to decolonize birdwatching or joining and shifting the ACLU, they just become a mod or a reply guy that harangues mods into submission.
Tanista
2d ago
You can put someone more presentable with a similar platform, and Democrats will blow the "literally Hilter" gasket just the same (see: DeSantis).
Exhibit B: Van Jones ‘shaking’ over Ramaswamy remarks: ‘That guy is dangerous’
“And the smug, condescending way that he just spews this poison out, is very, very dangerous. Because he won’t stop Trump, but he’s going to outlive Trump by about 50 years,” he said.
“You’re watching the rise of an American demagogue that is a very, very despicable person. And I literally, I was— I was shaking listening to him talk because a lot of people don’t know. That is one step away from Nazi propaganda coming out of his mouth.”
Tanista
3d ago
It was more a shot at the pretense that large numbers of people are going to peel away for a global issue that's ostensibly of ultimate importance but is really just a way to play out people's more short-range anti-apartheid larps or fight their domestic opponents (Gaza)
As I said, voting on your economy or political system is quite rational.
Shithousery is about satisficing more than anything. A draw is a win for the inferior team. The goal is to eke out enough turnout. If people have to hold their noses or take a shower later so be it.
I firmly believe that Americans are narcissists and it's to their credit here; they'll mostly vote on domestic matters that truly impact them. I doubt Ukraine will in any way be a major stumbling block, no matter what the really Left says. Israel might, if only because of some very motivated voters in Michigan. The progressive Left has been somewhat contained on this.
Without Biden's age the media will default to hating on Trump again, reminding the base What's At Stake.
Not much she can do about inflation at this point. The border is also going to be bad, especially since she was briefly appointed to help manage it. It remains to be seen how bad (how many people even recall that?).
I imagine she'll continue Biden's desperate pandering: capping rent increases, deporting some migrants while allowing others to stay, talking about SCOTUS reform and more giveaways to their base that took college loans.
Just throw enough at the base that people project enough hope unto your candidacy that you hopefully squeak out a win. And, if you don't, stop sinking the rest of the ticket. That's really what's essential here. The Democrats may have to just take a Harris loss so long as she runs ahead of Biden and lets people who want to vote for a Democrat elsewhere do so. Newsom and co. can pick up the pieces later, so long as they haven't been ground into a fine powder by the mobility scooter of a candidate 2/3rds of their party thinks literally cannot run.
What moxie does Kamala have?
She has the media, Dobbs, the most partisan American voting base in my lifetime and an 80-something opponent who may as well be Satan to her base. And the election is going to be before the honeymoon phase is over. And she can talk in complete sentences
If the goal is to shithouse a win, or just shithouse a lower impact on downballot races, it's a foundation.
Tanista
5d ago
If they had already calculated Biden wouldn't be the nominee, surely that factored into their VP pick?
Yeah, that's the point. Losing after having advanced warning would be particularly inexcusable.
Tanista
5d ago
Hillary was their Hannibal. They're still chasing the dragon from that magical night in 2016.
Having trouble deciphering what your second point has to do with the first, mind saying more?
I'm saying Vivek has been saying for months it won't be Biden. I thought Vance sent out a catty letter denying Kamala a VP debate because she was going to be the Presidential candidate, but it was apparently actually from the Trump campaign
Their own public posture has been that Biden wouldn't be the nominee. They can't claim surprise.
Tanista
5d ago
Joe Biden did not actually write that letter or make that post. Has anyone told him yet that he's not running for re-election anymore?
If Joe Biden cannot control his Twitter then he might as well bow out.
Tanista
5d ago
I wonder if Trump and co. are going to regret some of their choices now (e.g. picking Vance instead of the most whitebread, "don't scare the hoes" candidate they could find).
Especially given that Trump-adjacent people like Vivek and Vance himself have been mocking the idea that Joe Biden was going to stay in the race.
Tanista
5d ago
Now that he's quit, I'm sure people can find some tragedy in a guy who was certain he'd win in 2016 and felt discouraged going on to win in 2020 but too late to truly govern at his best before the very same people pushed him out again.
Self-aware would have been to drop out before the debate. Honorable would have been doing what he suggested and being a one-term President.
Nothing about dragging this out, making every Democrat an accomplice and then haranguing them (some of the leaks imply he's not just a stubborn man but a deeply rude one) for complaining that you'll drag the ticket down is sensible or honorable.
The Democratic party may agree to pretend that him stepping down now is some honorable act of service. But that's just a face-saving measure.
Tanista
9d ago
The GOP was ready to fold after 2012. It's unclear that anyone without the independent profile of Trump (and the catnip it represented for the mainstream media) would have gotten the same attention for swimming against the tide like that.
A less agreeable person, or someone more beholden to the donors and party might have ended up like Bernie or Cruz, even with the same policies.
That said, now that you have people like Tucker and Vivek and Vance maybe the movement no longer has need of Mohammed.
Tanista
11d ago
From the review, Vance sounds like a smug liberal; rural Americans just seem to suck on a deeply personal level
No, the smug liberal would at least insist that they sucked but it's an understandable or unavoidable result of various material forces and structures.
Vance just thinks they suck because of who they are.
(In light of that, it's actually interesting that this book picked up steam post-2016 election)
Tanista
13d ago
Even if it did push people towards Trump, it's too early.
It might slow all of the Project 2025/"end of democracy" talk. Which was what Biden was selling.
Chani, inexplicably, is drawn to Paul as he internally embraces a sniveling beta-male persona.
Um...the movie started with Paul having just easily killed a Fremen warrior and going on to kill some Harkonnens
You get to speak softly after you've just publicly butchered someone. It's not being a beta, it's counter-signaling.
Biden benefited the party from suppressing any real primary because they thought it'd weaken the incumbent (and consolidating the anti Bernie vote last time)
I don't care about RFK, personally. But it's a bit rich for the guy who benefited from party grandees, media figures and candidates pragmatically lining up behind him trying to sound like Bernie whining about elites Mika Brzezinski when they do the math again and decide he's a bad bet.
It goes both ways. Or should, anyway.
Tanista
15d ago
And even the Squad are having their wings clipped. Bowman was disposed of, AOC (always the most pragmatic one of the bunch with the highest potential ceiling) had to make some moderate comments condemning antisemitism.
The Left is arguably anti-Israel but I suppose it hasn't saturated the Democratic Party yet.
Tanista
15d ago
But clearly, Biden thinks differently. I find myself thinking that there really are people who are just fundamentally different from most of us in terms of their ambition, that they would see working, again, one of the hardest jobs in the world, until their dying breath to be worth it for the... what, prestige? Status? Power? even if it means sacrificing a relaxing, luxurious, and potentially love-filled retirement.
Actually a bit of a whitepill tbh.
Tanista
15d ago
What surprises me is that Biden doesn't step down "for the good of the country".
Biden is old, ornery and wants to prove the people who thought he couldn't win wrong. His Stephanopoulos interview involved him claiming he was always down in the polls and that he was attacked by the elites (when he was the beneficiary of an elite attack on Sanders and RFK and Dean Phillips and...)
I think he's become much more cantankerous and resentful in his old age. If he steps down, maybe Obama and everyone else were right...It's better to seize victory than be bequeathed a legacy by people you loathe I suppose.
Tanista
15d ago
Biden controls the war chest
What he has. Anything else comes from donors who don't like him very much right now.
The unaddressed elephant in the room still is that right-wingers mostly believe that the representative homeless is in it voluntarily because homelessness has become a comfy and appealing lifestyle of antisocial sloth
Or the sloths cause outsized damage. In that case it wouldn't matter much if the representative homeless person was reasonable. The left-wing position wouldn't even be wrong, just a non-sequitur.
I didn't think you could make that White House McDonald's photo any funnier but here we are.
I'm just imagining him pulling out that worn yellow baby and reminding people MJ has one before ordering.
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