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Notes -
Moving this here (rather late) on suggestion of the mods, with some added expansion:
Does anyone else see the way various people on the American left, particularly left leaning media, have been doubling down on "Trump is Hitler," "Harris ran a flawless campaign," "the voters are just sexist, racist, stupid, and evil," and so on, and that they shouldn't change policies to win over voters, except maybe by moving even further leftward (again, I'm on Tumblr, so I get plenty of this from ordinary D voters coming across my dash; there's also the Youtubers seen in this video for one) as part of an overall "strategy" by the left that strongly parallels the behaviors in recent years of "woke Hollywood" and game studios? That is, use identity politics as a tool to paint critics and opponents as bigots ('you don't hate our all-female reboot because it's a soulless cash grab with lousy writing and acting, you're just a sexist', 'you didn't vote for Kamala only because you hate blacks and/or women,' etc). "Schrödinger's critics": your opposition is just a few unimportant bigots who don't represent the audience/electorate and don't really matter; but when your movie/game/candidate flops, it's because of the immense power those same opponents have over the viewers/players/voters. The problem is that too many people are listening to fringe voices (whether that's YouTube movie critics, video game reviewers on Twitch, or 'purveyors of right wing misinformation' like Fox News and x.com), instead of professional, establishment movie critics/game journalists/political commentators; and we need to figure out how to mute those fringe voices. Taking your established fanbase/demographics for granted, and excoriate them if their support starts to wane ('how can you call yourself a Tolkien fan and not watch Rings of Power?' 'Sure, the Democrat party's policies do nothing for you, but you have to vote blue no matter who anyway' [a position I've seen left-wing YouTubers state in response to the election]).
Sure, the idea that "the customer is always right" — even if you append the qualifier "…in matters of taste" — is one that the "creative industries" have always struggled with. The purity of one's artistic vision versus "selling out" in order to make a living is a perennial tension. And similarly with electoral politics. Parties abandoning all principles in naked pursuit of the median voter turns electoral politics into a modern spectator sport, with the parties reduced to different colored jerseys with different mascots, and all that matters is that "your" team win the next game. ("Who will win the trophy this year, Team Elephant, or Team Donkey?") But, on the other hand, if a party wants to actually accomplish things in line with those principles, they have to win elections. Movie studios need to have people pay to watch their movies, so they can afford to make more, or else they'll go out of business.
In short, that you, the filmmaker/game studio/Democratic party, don't answer to your audience/voters, the audience/voters answer to you. You do not have to earn their dollars/votes, you are entitled to them, and if they aren't buying what you're selling, then they're wrong, and the strategy is to lecture them on what horrible bigots they are until they start watching your movie/playing your game/voting Democrat. And calling anyone who disagrees with you a fascist. (That "Unfortunately, this decision affects the wrong people" bit is wild coming from those making the decision in question — as if they have no agency over this decision, but it is instead somehow just a natural consequence somehow emerging automatically.) As Jim put it: "Doing an audit of federal government expenditures is the death of democracy, and doing a customer survey is openly fascist."
Even shorter: it's treating that Simpsons bit with Principal Skinner that's become a meme — "Am I so out of touch? No, it's the children who are wrong." — as a marketing/campaign strategy.
Well, a core part of the ideology is that they are, axiomatically, on the right side of history. Not just morally, but inevitably. The march of history is in their favor. The future will be progressive, liberal, left-wing, and it's just a matter of waiting for the olds to die to make way for the new utopia. This has been their assumption throughout my whole life. The "modern audience" was prophesied, and they have been preparing for its inexorable arrival. It has only been delayed. The faithful must hold strong and doubledown.
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