U.S. Politics, November 2024: GARBAGE DAY!!

I’m a bit hesitant to share Substacks (or whatever) here now - that the writers will instantly be torn to shreds and I’ll feel like a moron! But maybe that’s just what the internet and our politicalthreads are now.

I don’t know if I fully agree on this one, but something about it resonated with me.

https://scottsoriano.substack.com/p/lets-drive?r=4ayb6p&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&fbclid=IwY2xjawGpbndleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHbBzmBGdvWR8esNuf6G3mjQ8nIozTnp4pecJ8_gKdxvHH-LqeYOxRUia3Q_aem_7gIHi32n06SDh6357kFB2Q&triedRedirect=true

that Twitter Cook County Jail nonsense is why I'm spending less and less time on social media anymore and deleted all my Twitter accounts, because literally everybody seems to be operating on vibes. any postmortem fact-checking doesn't matter, whatever the initial thing reported was becomes the narrative, which admittedly was true in the pre-social media age, but is kinda pathetic in the 24/7 news cycle era.

Also: I don't care about the Cook County vote tallies.

social media def drives OUTRAGE in the endless cycles of the hormones coursing through our systems, yesterdays DID YOU SEE JOE AND MIKA WENT TO MAR A LAGO to me is a good example of that. the stuff that sticks w me is the stuff to make fun of them with i.e. the McDonalds plane pic is a Zapruder level pic wherein you can psychoanalize the thing--Don Jr holding up his fries, Mike Johnson's leaning on the back of the chair like "hi guys I'm a doormat", RFK's expression as he wishes his Big Mac was made from a Cocaine Bear, etc etc

if you want to see the most unhinged wing of Twitter, it's amateur/hobbyist meteorology Twitter. a demographic that skews heavily Trump too, which is kinda funny as you'd expect that crowd to be more of the "government made hurricanes" ilk

now see that stuff i can just laugh at too the HAARP peeps

Yeah I don't think it's unique to Twitter specifically, but social media in general plays a role in spreading information like that.

I was particularly interested in the Cook County Jail thing because I live in Chicago. And when it was originally posted in this thread (earlier in the day yesterday), my initial reaction was to say "yeah I heard something about that" -- because I'd read about it in a legitimate news source (Axios) the day after the election. But what Axios reported was simply that the precinct that contains the jail turned red this year. Anyone could see on a Chicago precinct map comparing 2020 and 2024 that there was a new red dot on the South Side. Granted, it's not exactly the same precinct as it was in 2020, but the point is still more or less true.

But the specific percentages are what made me dig further. And now what I'm realizing is that this "fact" likely went viral this week because David Axelrod, who is not an anonymous crank but a respected Democratic strategist, cited it on his podcast, and a political reporter tweeted the quote. Axelrod in turn may have gotten it from Capitol Fax, a decades-old Illinois politics newsletter. All of these sources not only make the major blunder of citing 2020 results for a precinct that the jail wasn't even in, but they also get the 2024 results slightly wrong (it wasn't 49%-47%, it was 48.3%-47.9%). Then the numbersnended up in a tweet formatted in a way to make them look official, but without attribution.

So this misinformation did not originate with grifters or conspiracy theorists, but it spread because social media is designed to quickly spread information, regardless of its truth content.

(Of course, I put up a thread on Bsky to debunk it, but I have 0 followers, so it didn't go anywhere lol.)

That Substack raises some interesting points, but relies too heavily on “caravans,” which imo are dumb and a phenomenon unique to Trump and his cult of personality. (I don’t recall caravans for McCain or Romney.) Anecdotal evidence within my very lefty social circle/neighborhood though showed more people with Kamala shirts and hats than I remember even for Obama. Whether they were voting for her policies or against Trump’s, they were enthused and energized and advertising that, even if they didn’t drive down Main Street in a caravan to prove it.

I was a part of a Harris caravan and saw three the weekend before the election.

(Of course, I put up a thread on Bsky to debunk it, but I have 0 followers, so it didn't go anywhere lol.)

do we hav an ilx starter-pack yet? would follow

huh i didnt know at all about caravans.

wrt to “xhitter is mostly reliable,” i’d think yr safety relies on yr follows and a yr higher level of knowledge and discretion. like the real world.

still if the rest of the environment is a cesspit, working for cesspit’s destruction seems the right path.

it’s like— i am p good with my water filter and aquatabs in the sidecountry near a cattle zone, but motivated dipshits sending their first trip without guidance or real care are gonna get giardia. let’s mark a good water source.

and that’s my terrible analogy.

I think in general people make too much of things like caravans and rallies and lawn signs as measures of enthusiasm. It just always feels like attempts to extrapolate a larger trend from a limited anecdotal observation.

To the extent that I agree with the Substack writer, it's that Trump is better than most Democrats at making people feel like part of a movement.

Will Stancil posited on Bluesky yesterday that a lot of people form their political views not "by conducting some check against core values or policy beliefs," but "by situating themselves in a perceived social universe. People mostly just want to be on the right side and they're using social cues to figure out which side that is."

For various reasons, many low-information voters perceive Trump to be on the right side and are enthusiastic about being on his team. But I'm not sure that Harris could've done much about that in her shortened campaign.

Trump is better than most Democrats at making people feel like part of a movement.

Bernie is the obvious exception here. I've never been convinced that he would've won in either 2016 or 2020, but that's the kind of grassroots energy you'd want from a candidate.

Will Stancil is on Bluesky huh. Interesting.

I was a vocal skeptic of the feasibility of platform migration (and was briefly the most-blocked person on Bluesky as a result). But it’s worth noting that engagement is ALREADY higher on Bluesky and at the current growth rate it would probably eclipse Twitter in months https://t.co/R1w8tAdFyu

— Will Stancil (@whstancil) November 17, 2024

do we hav an ilx starter-pack yet? would follow

― Judge Judy, executioner (stevie), Tuesday, November 19, 2024 9:04 AM (twenty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

https://bsky.app/starter-pack/critterjams.bsky.social/3law7ygzj6p2h

No Garu G no credibility

The Twitter stuff that annoys me (which I assume is on Bluesky as well) is all the breathless reporting of incomplete or wishful information. Like on election day there were all these reports of how Philadelphia had exceeded 2020 vote totals by the early afternoon--but now it seems as though there were around 10,000 few votes cast in Philly this year than in 2020?

Just followed the whole starter pack, gimme quality content.

I'm at https://bsky.app/profile/foxshark.bsky.social

xpost I will freely admit there were lots of accounts spreading skepticism on the numbers being touted for PA on ED that I read and willfully ignored as nonsense as it was mostly Trumpers sharing it. but even without that, I kinda knew deep down I was building a house on sand trusting some of that data and did it anyway because "hope" lol. wish I hadn't at this point.

today's Garbage Day news: Dr. Oz to head Medicare and Medicaid Services

The Great and Powerful Oz!

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/98/Trouble_Under_Oz.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bgrin7i7JV4

Ooohhh wait til Dr. Phil hears about this slight

getting over appointment assigns simply being shitpost opps

I mean their shitposts, not mine. Mine shitposts never get old, imo.

unless they are about explosive mines, which i condemn and abhor.

If Dr. Oz is about protecting and preserving Medicare and Medicaid, I’m voting for the dude. https://t.co/vededEgSuD

— U.S. Senator John Fetterman (@SenFettermanPA) November 19, 2024

Big dummy

man his campaign had good handlers

has anyone done a purely troll cabinet before? feels like a first, but maybe Coolidge or someone did something similar

Nah, Reagan.

Alexander Haig? James Watt? Our boy's mom Anne M. Gorsuch?

Lots of Dem “strategists” having a normal one

I can’t believe the Ds lost when we have professors at AZ St using racial slurs against White people. https://t.co/2bWsi4pizA

— Rachel Bitecofer 🗽🦆 (@RachelBitecofer) November 19, 2024

I didn’t think she was a “strategist”? Just some academic?

Oh yeah, she’s on one today

I probably won’t be able to stop the Schadenfreude when Shahid gets deported.

FAFO https://t.co/VKLux9GtlI

— Rachel Bitecofer 🗽🦆 (@RachelBitecofer) November 19, 2024

the main dilemma for Dems is that they don't know how to construct a simple, coherent, and understandable vision of government that they can sell to a majority of the US electorate as worth pursuing. I don't underestimate the difficulty of that task compared to selling the idea of a strong leader who will simply vanquish all your foes and fix everything for you, but selling the idea that everything is essentially fine and all it needs is some narrowly targeted tinkering to make it that much better just doesn't fly with the majority of voters.

the Dem coalition needs to concentrate on making both more friends and more enemies.

Bitecofer is insufferable. I followed her for about one week on twitter before I had to mute her.

Bitecofer is pretty intolerable. She reminds me of the 13 Keys guy (who I think is now saying that technically the Keys were right), she made a good prediction once and mostly just talks out her ass.

xp jinx

but selling the idea that everything is essentially fine and all it needs is some narrowly targeted tinkering to make it that much better just doesn't fly with the majority of voters.

I think this approach can work quite well if you're the opposition party. Basically the dems' strategy this time around was to try persuade voters that was the case, which was, understandably, a tall order

that comment on Shahid is so disgusting it should frankly sink her to the bottom of the ocean where no one ever has to read something stupid by her ever again.

she's like Rebekah Jones, someone with an outsized sense of self importance who only got attention due to twitter. nice to see that twitter engagement is so bad now she only got a few hundred likes on those posts.

why is anyone listening to let alone reposting bitecofer

We like drama?

https://theonion.com/comey-what-can-i-say-i-m-just-a-catty-bitch-from-new-1825295514/

Good morning!

Where’s the time machine back to 1993?

Talk about problematic attorney general nominees: Zoe Baird and Lani Guinier, amirite???

Linda McMahon, Trump’s pick for Education secretary, resigned from a state education board shortly after a newspaper asked her about her false claim that she had an education degree. pic.twitter.com/kqKgdZQxYE

— Aaron Blake (@AaronBlake) November 20, 2024