U.S. Politics, November 2022: “I don’t know, you hear the same things I do”

extremely naive question: what determines party direction in a way that matters to most eligible voters? (if not the national committees then ... ???)

xp actual numbers don’t matter, it’s about the inflation/employment/crime vibes

Do the actual numbers matter for people who encounter them as not averaged in relevant indices?

One thing I wonder is how easy it is to influence people in an age where politics spread by meme.

Pre-social media, pre-"excessive ad content" search engines, confirmation bias and fake news were still a major problem, but there seemed to be more of a willingness to work out positions for oneself and there wasn't an overwhelming amount of competing noise, at least not the level of today.

I knew a lot of people, friend and family, who professed to be Democrats/liberals but would say things to me like "Rob, we can't force gay marriage on people, I support civil unions", or "I hate racism, but I don't support the Affirmative Action quota system", "violent protests make you as bad as the thing you protest", or would whine about PC culture.

Some of these people were this way through, like, 2016, and now have done a 180, and some of it may have been a byproduct of getting older and experience, but others seemed to shift as post-Trump liberal social media meme-storming took off.

I'm not here to do stupid purity testing or insinuate people are "real" or "fake" leftists, or suggest I myself haven't changed at all over the years, but it is interesting to see the divide between the politically-minded friends who share their own thought-out ideas and the people whose feeds are literally wall to wall political memes with no additional comment, half the memes partially or completely false.

Independent voters get influenced by that shit too, and those meme addicts rarely even dive into the topics beyond the meme.

Picking up a book on hold at the library where I volunteered last Saturday, I got interviewed by Telemundo. As I waited my turn the reporter interviewed a young Venezuelan woman with two boys who said in Spanish she had voted for every Republican on the ticket. Why? "Gas is too high, I spend $100 more at the store every week, this Biden has done nothing in two years." She didn't mention socialism or crime.

When my turn came I spoke in car crash Spanish about why I had voted Dem down the line, in part b/c of the infrastructure bill and how our party still believes in democracy, not election deniers.

I post this only because -- more anecdata -- here are the reasons among others for why people vote GOP.

Tax cuts should fix everything right up.

When most in this country are living paycheck to paycheck, that does tend to kind of be the only thing that matters to them

It's really their only "solution." It's like the dad in My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Windex.

xp actual numbers don’t matter, it’s about the inflation/employment/crime vibes

― papal hotwife (milo z), Tuesday, November 8, 2022 2:16 PM (seventeen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Everything is about vibes, and probably always has been to some extent. Right now, nearly everyone is feeling bad vibes about politics and the state of the country in general, no matter where they sit on the political spectrum, so a lot of people are simply looking for something to believe in. Someone who will give them a good feeling, whether that's high-minded hope, irresistible enthusiasm, or righteous indignation. It's not enough to promise voters that you'll achieve certain policy goals, or to recite a list of accomplishments, if the overall message and presentation doesn't inspire people to feel like they're part of something bigger than themselves.

Yeah but how does anyone get any inspiration from venal toads like, say, Ron Johnson? He'd never get elected for anything if there wasn't a -R after his name on the ballot.

Right? Or a loathsome specimen like Ted Cruz. Who gets fired up to vote for him?

I mean, their voters may not be overcome with emotion for the candidates themselves, but for a lot of them, casting a vote for the Republican on the ballot means voting for their values and sticking it to the other side. I guess what I'm talking about, though, is how to break through the noise and appeal to voters who either aren't paying much attention or are ambivalent/indifferent.

xps based on the (very few) R voters I have experienced first-hand in WI: they believe the claptrap about Johnson's business skills and expertise with money, as well as love the fact that Ds hate his guts, because they hate liberals in return

Right? Or a loathsome specimen like Ted Cruz. Who gets fired up to vote for him?

― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Tuesday, November 8, 2022 4:10 PM (seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Anti-abortion people.

also they are scared of the sOcIaLiSt BlAcK mAn FrOm MiLwAuKeE xp

I couldn't begin to tell you how many mailers, door hangers, etc I have received with ominously-photoshopped, high-contrast greyscale images of Barnes alongside dire warnings of how he would bring crime from the cities to the peaceful small towns of WI

Was he one of the candidates whose skin got artificially darkened in opposition ads?

same with "Evers did nothing while Kenosha burned" messages—and I live in Kenosha, have heard directly from city officials and the (retiring R) sheriff that the governor gave them everything they asked for… that doesn't matter, the lie has been set

xp dunno but it would not surprise me one bit

this seems like good news?

BREAKING: talking w/ the Chair of the Wisconsin Dem Party @benwikler, who confirms youth turnout in Wisconsin is *360%* HIGHER than in 2018. If you're in Wisconsin, remember that there is same-day voter registration. Get out there & cast your ballot. 7 hours left. Let's win this.

— Victor Shi (@Victorshi2020) November 8, 2022

xp yeah, one of many

https://www.thebulwark.com/attack-ads-are-darkening-the-skin-tone-of-black-candidates/

every single Packer game so far there's been this attack ad against Barnes that says he wants to "cut the prison population in half" and every time I see it I say "that's a little extreme, the regular death penalty is enough"

love the fact that Ds hate his guts, because they hate liberals in return

Politics has been cynically called the systematic organization of hatreds.

I don't think that's so for everyone everywhere. But it certainly seems like "he has the same enemies as me" is a pretty good predictor of voting patterns.

Further, "would like to have a beer with" is often just a nicer way of saying "he has the same enemies as me."

In my hate-reading of various aoshq and donald.win and q stuff, there is loads of "I don't really have a politics except hating libs" greeted by "that's enough, fren."

Cruz skates in Texas because he has the strength of the Texas GOP behind him, which is what his voters are really voting for--he could be anyone.

He's a fitting avatar to a lot of exurban nebbish cowboys who take F-250s to their office building.

It really doesn't matter which lump of misshapen, swearing clay that someone hastily slaps a fake beard on, as long as there's an (R) after the name, it'll win.

meant sweating, but probably swearing too

Yeah but how does anyone get any inspiration from venal toads like, say, Ron Johnson? He'd never get elected for anything if there wasn't a -R after his name on the ballot.

Owning the libs, sticking it to those cultural elites who made a RAPPER one of the heroic agents on your favorite CBS military crime drama.

Yeah I think one of the organizational and vision-coherence problems for the left is that it's much less driven by anger, fear and resentment than the right. I know, Tucker Carlson's head would probably explode at that — I hope — but it's hilarious to me how so much right-wing rhetoric is dependent on painting Dems/liberals as these wild-eyed hateful maniacs. If only! Not that there isn't real anger on the left, at injustices and inequities, but it's more structural than personal. Where the anger on the right is all personal, all ad hominem, hating individual people. That's what Libs of Tiktok is all about, naming and shaming specific people. I listened to a local podcast today (for work purposes) where two right-wing lunatics were frothing about young adult books in school libraries with trans characters. The male co-host kept repeating that any person "exposing children to this pornography" should be "thrown out of a helicopter." He said that about 12 times, savoring the phrase more each time.

Where especially among middle-class and affluent liberals I think there's a real hesitance to personalize the fights, to see the other side as evil, there's an assumption that there's some reasonable way to work things out. And to distance themselves from anyone on the left they perceive as too angry. There's an anger gap, basically. And that's probably inevitable given the basic difference in right and left worldviews, the left worldview is inherently more inclusive as a primary value. But, like the man says, anger is an energy. If you don't have that to fire people up, you need something else.

the old Alex Cockburn story

Which brings me briefly to Ed Miliband, now chosen to be the leader of the British Labor Party. The last time I saw Eddie he was an intern at the Nation in the late 1980s or early 1990s. Round the corner from the Nation when it was on Fifth and 13th st in Manhattan was Zinno’s restaurant and amid a pleasant lunch with JoAnWypijewski, my own intern Richie McKerrow and Eddie, I asked the future leader what I asked all interns as a matter of form, “Eddie, is your hate pure?”

The man who first asked me that question was the late Jim Goode, editor of Penthouse. Like Playboy, Penthouse would pay good money for long articles about the corruption of America, thus giving the pointyheads an excuse to thumb through the pinups. Goode, tall and cadaverous, was gay, clad in black leather as he crouched on the floor of his office, gazing morosely at hundreds of photos of bare-breasted women. As I entered with some screed about corporate and political evil, he snarl, “Alex, is your hate pure?” “Yes, Jim, my hate is pure.”

It was a good way of assaying interns. The feisty ones would respond excitedly, “Yes, my hate is pure.” I put the question to Eddie Miliband. He gaped at me in shock like Gussie Fink-Nottle watching one of his newts vanish down the plug hole in his bath. “I…I… don’t hate anyone, Alex,” he stammered. It’s all you need to know.

Owning the libs, sticking it to those cultural elites who made a RAPPER one of the heroic agents on your favorite CBS military crime drama.

It will probably never happen but I am still holding out hope for a crossover episode in which NCIS:LA's LL Cool J meets L&O:SVU's Ice-T.

Bonus points if their suspect somehow ends up being played by Ice Cube

Where especially among middle-class and affluent liberals I think there's a real hesitance to personalize the fights, to see the other side as evil, there's an assumption that there's some reasonable way to work things out. And to distance themselves from anyone on the left they perceive as too angry. There's an anger gap, basically. And that's probably inevitable given the basic difference in right and left worldviews, the left worldview is inherently more inclusive as a primary value. But, like the man says, anger is an energy. If you don't have that to fire people up, you need something else.

OTM! The anger gap reminds me of how some liberals found Michael Moore's work distasteful for being too much like "propaganda" in its presentation, i.e., appealing to people's emotions/anger rather than calmly, bloodlessly presenting the facts. It's less present now, but candidates like Gore seemed to believe that firing people up was taking the low road.

(this is worse than a cigar in a waiting room)

where's the tax returns?

good afternoon!

hope you're doing well, alfred :)

Thanks, qualmsey, likewise. I've tried. Please come back regularly.

Rank & file voters are deeply concerned about crime, chiefly Hunter's laptop crimes

Well we'll have an investigative committee for that very soon, don't you worry.

A non-USian asks: is there any chance that the Democrats will do better than expected?

Yes. Definitely.

But it's a wait and see thing. FiveThirtyEight kind of laid out the various scenarios iirc

Seeing a lot of reports about turnout being high, especially among young people, so ya Dems could definitely beat expectations. GOP enthusiasm is high too though

I doubt there will be a blowout, either way

there's been a lot of Dem doom-mongering lately, but that's also a way to drive voters to the polls - so it's hard to read what's really going on

covid has probably killed significantly more repulican voters than democrats, so there's that.

Nearly 500,000 people have voted in Philadelphia. 91% of 2018 with 70 mins to go

— umichvoter 🏳️‍🌈 (@umichvoter) November 8, 2022

This for example seems good

Tbh I never had high hopes for 2022 but Oz winning would be legitimately depressing. A guy like that should lose In Pennsylvania by 40.

covid has probably killed significantly more repulican voters than democrats

true dat, but mask mandates super-energized the republican base to vote for FREEDOM

The media keeps alive this myth of intra-party mobility - i.e. 'well, I think the GOP is better on crime and the economy, so I'll give them a shot this time around.' And I just think it's utter bullshit - everyone is voting for the party they always vote for, it's super calcified. So.. it's all about turnout

It’s probably mentioned above, but Fetterman defeated the establishment Dem candidate in the primaries, thus plenty of people in the state machine(and their media friends) have incentive for him to lose.

The media keeps alive this myth of intra-party mobility - i.e. 'well, I think the GOP is better on crime and the economy, so I'll give them a shot this time around.' And I just think it's utter bullshit - everyone is voting for the party they always vote for, it's super calcified. So.. it's all about turnout

the media does like to find weird examples of people who are voting for Shapiro and Oz; because Mastriano is 'crazy' but they think Oz is not? I dunno how many idiots there are like this but I fear there are many.

Swing voters definitely exist they’re just mostly complete weirdos like Ken Bone