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Yes there is???!
This is happening, and the optics do suck. You can tell they suck because people hate and fear ICE officers in a way they didn't a year ago.
This happened, and the optics are so bad
This has been happening.
Why are you in dental
The core issue here is that there's no causal relationship between the optics sucking and the behavior of ICE, though. The optics are defined primarily by 2 things: what people see, and how they respond to what they see. Former is primarily determined by people who hate Trump and hate the core mission of ICE, and the latter is highly determined by those people as well. And the past decade or so has established a pattern that these people will always make the optics bad when it comes to Trump, in a way that's entirely orthogonal to truth and fact. So it makes sense that ICE and the people who lead it, like Trump, have decided to focus little on the optics.
Credibility takes a lifetime to earn and a millisecond to destroy, and unfortunately, the media and political organizations that are against Trump pretty much blew their load within his first presidency (I'd argue within his first campaign) and are still in the refractory period 8 years later, furiously rubbing the poor flesh and wondering why it just hurts instead of shooting another rope.
ICE literally posted a montage of masked dudes blowing up doors to the pokemon theme song.
I'm not saying the media isn't a biased shitshow, it is, but it would be much less effective if ICE were acting in an extremely professional and regimented manner, they aren't.
Hard disagree. At best, it would be infinitesimally less effective, small enough that you'd need a magnifying glass to tell the difference. Of course, it's impossible to properly ascertain what an alternative universe would look like, but, based on the general reception that these official ICE-released videos got, I'd wager that the effect was net-neutral at worst in terms of Americans' perception of ICE.
the economist shows his approval on immigration is down to -10% now versus +10% in January. Nate Silver shows him going from ~+9% to -4% with now (just) over 50% disapproval.
So it's clearly not making Americans like it more!
I could be mistaken, but aren't you yourself a non-american who really doesn't like Trump? It seems like you've been exasperated for months here about the way this administration is handling their immigration crackdown attempt, particularly in regard to bad optics, damaged polling, and hypocritical american values. Taken together though, that sounds more like concern trolling than persuasive analysis.
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That's not how statistics work. It's quite possible that this action by ICE is making Americans like it more, it's just countered by the other stuff around optics that's also happened in that time lowering it. In whole, we can say that Americans like it less now than they did in January - we cannot say that one individual act that happened in that time caused the net negative effect, i.e. which is why I said "I'd wager that," not "it is the case that" or even "it is evident that."
I mean sure. All we know is Americans don't like something about what's happening. Occam's razor suggests Americans opinion of this is probably being shaped by the things ICE is deliberately doing to shape their image.
I'm not sure how Occam's razor would suggest such a thing. There's nothing more parsimonious about that than Americans' opinions being shaped just as much by the organizations that have shaped Americans' opinions in the past and continue to do so through today. It's clearly being shaped by both, and it's very difficult to parse out which has more influence, and parsimony doesn't really offer us any answers.
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Not too many years ago many of the same people hated a couple of catholic kids for standing at a bus stop and smiling.
Truly the proof of the fault was how many people hated them in a way they didn't the week prior.
I don't really understand what your comparison is here. I also don't care about whatever algorithmic rage bait slop event you're talking about. The Republicans shit their pants once about Obama wearing a tan suit. Does that mean all Republican concerns are now invalid?
The optics suck, you can tell they suck because they're terrible. You can tell they suck because people are shooting at ICE officers. You can tell they suck because city mayor's think they'll score political points by making it hard for ICE agents to do their jobs.
You can tell the optics suck because the economist shows his approval on immigration is down to -10% now versus +10% in January. Nate Silver shows him going from ~+9% to -4% with now (just) over 50% disapproval.
This was an incredibly popular electoral issue. He crushed the election on it. Now he's underwater on it. I wonder why???
This is what he is referring to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Lincoln_Memorial_confrontation
I'd not describe it as rage bait slop.
It was genuinely upsetting that much of twitter at the time came to the conclusion of "this kid should be punched in the face". I specifically remember the comedian Patton Oswalt saying something along those lines.
Comments on Twitter you don't like is quite literally the definition of "algorithmic rage bait slop" because the Twitter algorithm specifically shows you things that'll make you unhappy because that makes you engage more.
If you take the opinions of a clown (liberal cuck? He's actually pathetic) like Patton Oswalt you are being rage baited.
I don't read Twitter. Patton Oswalt's comments got picked up off Twitter space, that's how I know about them.
The kid in the incident successfully sued/settled with two news agencies over how irresponsible they were in reporting on this.
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The gravity of the incident was not about the twitter comments but the media coverage, which was both defamatory and inflamatory.
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"Yeah, ok, you didn't actually do those things, and I'm just describing normal policing like a total asshole, but doesn't the fact that I could believe you would do something so horrible say something terrible about you?"
No. It says something about you. As does your eliding that, per your own link, immigration is still Trump's best polling policy.
Sorry, you were lying?
A solid majority of Americans still want every illegal deported. The relentless propaganda you are cheerfully participating in hasn't actually changed that. I wonder what the polling would look like if people were asked to choose between an ICE agent doing his job versus one of your trantifa insurrectionists trying to kill his family over it?
This is unnecessarily antagonistic.
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I have no connection, affiliation, or agreement with whatever portmanteau of trans(?) and Antifa you made here. I find both of those groups insufferable.
I don't understand your quote/allegory of my words to be honest.
That has nothing to do with my thesis, which is that optics (perception) of ICE is horrible, and it's clearly shown by the fact his approval on immigration, relative to earlier, has been dropping.
Just because he's even more underwater on his other awful ideas doesn't challenge this.
Yes they do, which is fine, I don't blame them, but they're clearly not thrilled with how it's happening WHICH IS LITERALLY THE OPTICS THING LMFAO
Also as an aside but it's just so blatantly clear they don't actually want to "solve" immigration because as stated infinity times, they're not taking any action to make employers use e-verify more and they're EXPLICITLY AND DELIBERATELY not going after hotels or farms, which are two of the biggest low hanging fruit for tons of illegal immigrants in obvious places.
If they wanted to, they would, and they aren't, so they don't.
This entire forum is so allergic to admitting this. If they actually wanted to address immigration, they'd punish the American citizens who give illegal immigrants money to do jobs. THE ILLEGALS ARE HERE BECAUSE YOU PAY THEM. Just go after the people who pay them, it's that simple. Again, this forum is wildly allergic to admitting that.
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Step me through this, please. Evidence of this being true would require a reasonably deep look at the anti-ICE narrative, the pro-ICE narrative, and some analysis of not only why the anti-ICE narrative is closer to the truth than the pro-ICE one, but an ironclad case for why ICE is being unnecessarily cruel.
I say some reasonably unoctroversial things like "gender affirming doctors are prescribing chemical castration drugs to children" and I'm expected to provide evidence with citations, but you make your case with "yes there is???!?" and repeating "thr optics are so horrible"? Why should I accept that?
For one, I don't see why you need any of that evidence. Optics aren't even about truth, it's OPTICS. I'm not taking a stance on if ICE is too cruel, or if the pro/anti ICE narrative is more true I'm saying that ICE's optics as an organization are not good. As in, ICE looks bad to many Americans.
The optics suck, you can tell they suck because they're terrible. You can tell they suck because people are shooting at ICE officers. You can tell they suck because city mayor's think they'll score political points by making it hard for ICE agents to do their jobs.
You can tell the optics suck because the economist shows his approval on immigration is down to -10% now versus +10% in January. Nate Silver shows him going from ~+9% to -4% with now (just) over 50% disapproval.
This was an incredibly popular electoral issue. He crushed the election on it. Now he's underwater on it. I wonder why???
When people tell me it exists, I like taking a look.
If you get shot, does it mean your optics suck, or does it maybe say more about the person doing the shooting?
Polls generally are a lame argument, and I'm even more puzzled about why you think the names of The Economist and Nate Silver specifically should carry any weight with me.
By the way, did you just type out the same 2-3 paragraphs in 3 different comments? Are you ok?
Polls are a lame argument when talking about public opinion and optics???
If you don't accept polls with evidence to the contrary of your views, and you don't accept arguments about shootings increasing being a sign of public opinion, then what evidence do you accept?
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I guess I'm just not sure how to define or quantify a fuzzy object like "optics" which by nature is opinion based, without pointing at measures of people's opinions.
Also on a real human level, they're just obviously bad? Partisanship aside can we not agree that dudes in face coverings abducting people and sending some of them to 3rd world prisons run by dictators is really fucking off-putting?
To be honest, I actually feel like you're being willfully ignorant here. When people in this thread say "Optics" they obviously mean "the public perception or appearance of an action, decision, or policy. How it looks rather than what it is."
Perception is everything here, and polls measure perception/opinion.
Why are polls a lame argument?
The Economist is generally regarded as a reliable source, and Nate Silver is a very talented pollster, so it is highly likely these pills are a real indication of how the American people feel. If you have a different hypothesis as to how the American people feel, you should present it.
I'm pretty sure I'm responding to 3 different people, so I wanted to make sure they all saw the stats that back my hypothesis. Copy and pasted so it was pretty easy, but I appreciate you checking.
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Then by all means, lay it out. When I want to list law enforcement travesties by federal law enforcement, I list people murdered, women and children burned alive en masse, obviously unnecessary use of lethal force, decades-long patterns of abuse of rights and murderous malfeasence, destruction of evidence, perjury and coverups, all without meaningful accountability through any process intended to supply it.
What are the clear misdeeds of the current ICE offensive?
Blue tribe emotions are not a reasonable guide to material reality.
From my comment, quoting the comment above.
Masked and armed bouncers dragging people away at gunpoint.
There are documented cases of people being deported to random nations, a few people have been made deliberately hard to find (from public tracking, limiting a family's visibility into where a loved one is)
Breaking a guy's leg and holding him in a hospital for 37 days without any charges after signing him in with a fake name.
Quite literally half of the country hates something and you live in a democracy so you unfortunately don't get to not care lol.
You can tell the optics suck because the economist shows his approval on immigration is down to -10% now versus +10% in January. Nate Silver shows him going from ~+9% to -4% with now (just) over 50% disapproval.
This was an incredibly popular electoral issue. He crushed the election on it. Now he's underwater on it. I wonder why???
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But fmac is not talking about material reality. fmac is talking about the optics. If people hate and fear ICE officers in an unprecedented way, this is strong evidence that their optics suck. Being feared and hated doesn't prove they're actually behaving badly, but it does, almost tautologically, mean that they are giving off a scary hatable vibe.
Or evidence that their optics are exactly what they want them to be and they're reasonably competent at cultivating the appearance they want to have. So far I see no evidence that ICE wants to cultivate an image of professionals who dot every i and cross every t, and quite a bit of evidence that they want to cultivate an image as badass thugs who are getting shit done in terms of kicking anyone illegal out of America, no matter who they are and no matter why they think they're safe.
Well, sure, the phrase "their optics suck" is ambiguous. I think it can cover either of "ICE are unsuccessful at shaking off an unwanted bad reputation" or "ICE are successfully cultivating a bad reputation", and I agree the latter seems more likely, though some people in this thread vehemently deny it even as other ICE-supporters embrace it. But it still seems fair to call that "their optics suck", it would just mean that their optics suck on purpose for some inane galaxy-brained reason.
The meat of the disagreement is what constitutes a "bad reputation". At best it's scissor statements, my "efficient law enforcement" is your "brutal tyranny" but you started this with adjectives like "chaotic" that are pure outgroup messaging, and far from anything ICE is promoting about themselves. Seriously, go look at the @ICEgov twitter feed. The message they want out is "We are always getting bad guys, and if you act like a baby about it, we'll still get you and make fun of you for it, too."
That's a far cry from "chaos marauder stormtroopers".
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I would surmise that the majority of americans have not seen an ICE officer performing their duty in real life, only through videos that are cherry-picked, contextualized and characterized by a hostile media. In that context, the vibe around them is definitely not something that they are tautologically giving off, but something that could be constructed around them.
ICE themselves posts videos of them raiding places. They posted a video to the pokemon sound track. The pokemon one has clips of masked dudes blowing up doors. It doesn't look good man.
You don't even need the media lol, they're structuring their own optics. It doesn't look great.
Would it not look good if it were not in the context of the media breathlessly describing them as stormtroopers for months? We're talking about counter-factual world we can't really observe here, but purely on its own, for me, masked guys blowing up doors to the Pokemon soundtrack doesn't really raise an eyebrow. It's not like they're committing atrocities, or even just filming themselves doing a bit of the ol' unnecessary police brutality and laughing about it, that'd be different.
So if ATF started releasing videos like that you'd think it's fine and not a worrying sign about how they see themselves?
I'd worry they can't meme well since "Gotta catch 'em all" doesn't really work for them.
It sounds fine to me for the message they're trying to push. Am I turning into a boomer?
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I'm not saying the media isn't biased, I'm just saying they're making the media's job very very easy, which makes me think they're bad at this
Which is what I keep saying
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TheMotte is weirdly averse to admitting the Trump’s administration is often deliberately maximally inflammatory and absolutely does engage in “liberal tears” style antagonism. Yes, I understand that the media will always portray conservatives as the villain no matter what you do (Nicholas Sandman, Binders full of women, etc) but that doesn’t mean you have no agency in being more or less provocative. In many cases it may make no difference in your public perception due to media manipulation, but we shouldn’t ignore that Trump is openly, deliberately inflammatory
In group do no wrong, out group baaaaad
You’re being downvoted for it, but you’re correct.
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It does, to the target audience, which is why they do it.
There is no way ICE can have good optics for Democrats and those who watch mainstream-left media. So they don't bother, which leaves them free to pander instead to those who are receptive.
... that sure sounds like "ICE is intentionally cultivating a particular narrative about who they are" to me. I don't get why people here are so averse to the idea that ICE has PR people and those PR people are decent at their jobs.
They are cultivating a narrative, but
They are quite constrained in this. In particular, they cannot cultivate a narrative that will make those who consume mainstream-left media not hate them.
They are trying to be scary at least some of the time. But not hateable. Consider all this handwringing about the Pokemon soundtrack... does the Pokemon soundtrack make them seem scary and hateable? Hardly. It's whimsical; that part is aimed not at generating fear or hate, but at convincing the convincible that they are doing their job.
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Sure but when the target audience is <50% of the people (and shrinking) in a democracy, your messaging strategy is kind of stupid
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They also haven't seen and/or haven't thought about how law enforcement is done. It's often brutal, because you're trying to catch people who don't want to be caught and make them do things they don't want to do. It's also often far more brutal than it has to be, but most of the time you can't tell if it is that just by looking at a few short videos. Dragging people away at gunpoint is part of what law enforcement does, and indeed there are many circumstances where they are masked when doing so. I object to most of ICEs masking, but I don't believe for a second that the objection here would go away or become significantly less strident if they didn't do so.
It's also the El Salvadorian prison stuff. The whole vibe sucks.
I agree, the objection wouldn't have changed a lot, but the sway it has over the median American would.
If ICE acted in a less shitshow aggro way, the opposition to them would look more like crying blue-hair SJWs and not a broader coalition of SJWs, Americans who don't like para-military themed law enforcement, etc
Then, it would be a really intelligent wedge issue to bait democratic leadership into opposing something broadly popular, instead of now something that half of Americans don't like.
Why does it matter whether illegal immigrants awaiting deportation are held in an American detention facility or a Salvadoran one? The particular illegal immigrants in question were sent to El Salvador because their proper country -- Venezuela -- refused to take them. That has now been resolved, and they were sent back to Venezuela.
ICE has to act in an "aggro" way, because they're law enforcement, and the people they are arresting don't want to be arrested. There's not really any way around that, aside from either doing nothing or by doing a form of anarcho-tyranny where minor violators (e.g. otherwise law-abiding people who overstay a visa by a few days) are punished but major violators (those intentionally staying indefinitely) are not.
Anyway, the Trump administration basically tried it your way in the first term. It turns out that no, it doesn't help; the news would post pictures of Obama-era detainees and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez crying at an empty parking lot, and the optics would be just as bad without actually getting things done.
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