“Can sit down and have a beer with him” “Tells it like it is” “I like him ‘cause he’s not a politician”
I wouldn’t be too hard on the electorate, although I 100% agree with the problem description and that counter-educating them out of being duped by these framings is important. But they didn’t come up with the framings. There’s a whole ass science of how to resonate with people emotionally and produce behaviors you want, and professionals have been studying it for over a century now to sell toothpaste and beer and deodorant, and it works. It’s actually one of the primary focuses of hard scientific study in our society, much much more so than addressing climate change. And so, when they turned that whole machine in favor of particular candidates and against other candidates, it’s not surprising that it worked on a whole fuck of a lot of people.
Now let’s start to talk about how “I could NEVER vote for a genocide” and “Here comes the biggest election of our lifetime, just like every other one before that 🙄” fits into that framework…
I mean, my ass is out here trying to get .world to vote psl, but for the democrats a good candidate looks like someone who doesn’t wander off when meeting with the g7, can give a coherent interview without literally asking for their handler, doesn’t have a storied history of creating all the problems the American people experience on a daily basis, is capable of holding their own in a debate with trump (not easy!) and just basically isn’t a fucking McKenzie pod person.
They don’t a bench that covers those positions, but that would be good for them.
Trump has decades of experience working a crowd and flipping the script on people. No matter what you think of him as a candidate or as a person you gotta admit he’s a formidable stage presence.
Notable-er and notable-er. Have you seen his interviews from any point in the last 5 years or so? For example he has a noticeable habit of getting up and walking out because they’re not going how he wants them to go.
This thing you’re saying is a very unusual thing to say or believe for pretty much any observer of American politics outside a very specific segment. I am fascinated by this. Tell me more. Can you give me an example e.g. of him flipping the script on someone?
He pretty famously made all the other republican candidates look terrible in the republican debates in the lead up to the 2016 election. I’ll get a specific example of flipping the script but I’m surprised to have to pull up receipts for what he’s universally acknowledged for.
Liberals are always willing to call trump a catty blowhard bully but when someone says as much using clearer, more neutral language it’s suddenly something to be dug into.
The man knows how to work a crowd and has genuine comedic timing even in his advanced age. You don’t have to hand it to him to recognize his strengths.
I’m surprised to have to pull up receipts for what he’s universally acknowledged for
genuine comedic timing even in his advanced age
Again: This is not a totally unusual view of Trump among American people. But for someone who’s planning to vote for the PSL, who is familiar with ins and outs of flaws in Biden’s policies and wants to talk about insulin price caps and universal health care, clearly cares about and follows news… and yet, somehow, to have this wrong a view of Trump like they just never happened to run across a Trump interview that happened since 2016, is weird. It’s incongruous. It’s a view that’s exclusive to people who live in one particular type of media bubble only, generally speaking.
How about this, though. From your history:
If you don’t feel disgusted by this enough: the Biden regime shut down the insulin price cap faster than it shut down this program.
There is only one specific type of media where you might have picked up the impression that something like that was plausible (seen the concept of “insulin price cap” without the corresponding information that Biden was the one that enacted it.) Actually even more specific than the type of media diet that might have given you the idea that Trump is a good debater.
Where’d you learn that the Biden regime shut down the insulin price cap? Want to link me to a story about it? I’d love to learn more. You can educate me on the truth about the Biden regime so I’ll realize I should vote third party, and save the country.
You’re seriously referencing a cropped video from Fox that removed the skydiver Biden walked over and gave a thumbs up to as wandering off. Stop acting like you give a fuck about the country you are so intentionally trying to undermine with your ignorant bullshit.
Tell me you’ve never had a lengthy conversation with someone who gets all their political news from Tiktok without telling me etc
You could literally nominate a chocolate milkshake or a dead squirrel and they wouldn’t know the difference if they saw some meme videos that said chocolate milkshake is gonna lower gas prices
Like a lot of the founding fathers, I think a strong and honest press is one of the key features of a democracy, and without that, it won’t function, and people being able to vote won’t do a damn thing to prevent the whole thing from turning into tyranny
And hey! Look at our media!
And hey! Look what kind of government we have, oh no oh fuck
That was kind of my point about the whole thing: That skillful manipulation of the voters happens, and has ruined the country pretty thoroughly. I don’t think the answer is to turn away from democracy, but I do that think that fixing the media so that people have some semblance of an accurate picture of what’s happening is an absolutely urgent issue right now.
It seems a tad ahistorical to suggest that biased media is in any way new.
If anything we are now living in an era of choice where we can choose which approved narrative we’ll take in as opposed to being subject to the local hearst papers outlook.
If control over media gives so much power though, why not change who has that control?
Because to do that we need a supermajority in the Senate and no Liebermans, Manchins, or Sinemas. The tools we have to fix things are as broken as the things we need to fix.
Those things didn’t change any of the last times some party had a supermajority. What makes you think some new supermajority would be any different, or that republicans or democrats are any different now?
I mean you’re not wrong. The US spent most of the previous two centuries wandering around the world killing and enslaving anyone who made them nervous or unprofitable while the whole “honest” media wrote a never ending stream of stories enthusing about how nice it was that the price of bananas was going down
Then when the internet came along we replaced that with an absolute explosion of viewpoints some of which are honest, some of which are just lazy and pointless, and some of which are manufactured propaganda which shows a remarkable level of effectiveness
But… if you wanna tell me that that’s not the pure step backwards I described it as, I won’t say you’re totally wrong about that tbh
Regardless of all that, yes, I still think making it work effectively and honestly is as important now as it ever was
If media is used by a tiny group to control what people think and new technology allows the same tiny group to reach people with more granularity, is it really a move “forwards” or “backwards”?
If you believe that media is a part of functioning democracy, who should be in control of it?
By “Media” I mean everything. Newspapers, TV, social media, anything that lets people know what’s going on in the world
It used to be like a few thousand independent editors all across the country, then with TV and corporate consolidation it dwindled to basically just 1 corporate viewpoint, now with social media and the internet I think public opinion is more or less up for grabs for whoever wants to spend the most money to influence it (not that different from the later stages of the TV era tbh)
For quite a while now media has been out of “control” of any single grouping; basically that was one of the big advantages of the internet era. But the disadvantage is that real journalism costs money, and modern newspapers don’t have a good business model to stay alive and do it, and modern social media isn’t really configured to be able to keep out propaganda viewpoints, and so the public narrative winding up de facto “in control” of whoever puts more money and effort into distorting it.
I don’t think we should go back to where anyone can have “control” necessarily but it would be nice if real journalism could make money again to be able to do the investigative aspect, and if normal person social media (for the opinion aspect and sharing-news-stories aspect) was community operated and resistant to deliberate propaganda
Best answer I can come up with to your question as I see it
“Boring” “Unlikeable” “Stiff”
“Can sit down and have a beer with him” “Tells it like it is” “I like him ‘cause he’s not a politician”
I wouldn’t be too hard on the electorate, although I 100% agree with the problem description and that counter-educating them out of being duped by these framings is important. But they didn’t come up with the framings. There’s a whole ass science of how to resonate with people emotionally and produce behaviors you want, and professionals have been studying it for over a century now to sell toothpaste and beer and deodorant, and it works. It’s actually one of the primary focuses of hard scientific study in our society, much much more so than addressing climate change. And so, when they turned that whole machine in favor of particular candidates and against other candidates, it’s not surprising that it worked on a whole fuck of a lot of people.
Now let’s start to talk about how “I could NEVER vote for a genocide” and “Here comes the biggest election of our lifetime, just like every other one before that 🙄” fits into that framework…
I mean, idk if it’s really necessary to educate the voters out of being able to recognize demons wearing human skin.
Why not just run good candidates?
What constitutes a “good” candidate? As someone pragmatically anarchist/communist, pretty sure were gonna have very different concepts.
I mean, my ass is out here trying to get .world to vote psl, but for the democrats a good candidate looks like someone who doesn’t wander off when meeting with the g7, can give a coherent interview without literally asking for their handler, doesn’t have a storied history of creating all the problems the American people experience on a daily basis, is capable of holding their own in a debate with trump (not easy!) and just basically isn’t a fucking McKenzie pod person.
They don’t a bench that covers those positions, but that would be good for them.
Well that’s certainly notable
Trump has decades of experience working a crowd and flipping the script on people. No matter what you think of him as a candidate or as a person you gotta admit he’s a formidable stage presence.
Notable-er and notable-er. Have you seen his interviews from any point in the last 5 years or so? For example he has a noticeable habit of getting up and walking out because they’re not going how he wants them to go.
This thing you’re saying is a very unusual thing to say or believe for pretty much any observer of American politics outside a very specific segment. I am fascinated by this. Tell me more. Can you give me an example e.g. of him flipping the script on someone?
He pretty famously made all the other republican candidates look terrible in the republican debates in the lead up to the 2016 election. I’ll get a specific example of flipping the script but I’m surprised to have to pull up receipts for what he’s universally acknowledged for.
Liberals are always willing to call trump a catty blowhard bully but when someone says as much using clearer, more neutral language it’s suddenly something to be dug into.
The man knows how to work a crowd and has genuine comedic timing even in his advanced age. You don’t have to hand it to him to recognize his strengths.
Again: This is not a totally unusual view of Trump among American people. But for someone who’s planning to vote for the PSL, who is familiar with ins and outs of flaws in Biden’s policies and wants to talk about insulin price caps and universal health care, clearly cares about and follows news… and yet, somehow, to have this wrong a view of Trump like they just never happened to run across a Trump interview that happened since 2016, is weird. It’s incongruous. It’s a view that’s exclusive to people who live in one particular type of media bubble only, generally speaking.
How about this, though. From your history:
There is only one specific type of media where you might have picked up the impression that something like that was plausible (seen the concept of “insulin price cap” without the corresponding information that Biden was the one that enacted it.) Actually even more specific than the type of media diet that might have given you the idea that Trump is a good debater.
Where’d you learn that the Biden regime shut down the insulin price cap? Want to link me to a story about it? I’d love to learn more. You can educate me on the truth about the Biden regime so I’ll realize I should vote third party, and save the country.
You’re seriously referencing a cropped video from Fox that removed the skydiver Biden walked over and gave a thumbs up to as wandering off. Stop acting like you give a fuck about the country you are so intentionally trying to undermine with your ignorant bullshit.
okay, pretend i made reference to one of the other times joe biden was obviously not present at some event.
pick your favorite.
Removed by mod
Tell me you’ve never had a lengthy conversation with someone who gets all their political news from Tiktok without telling me etc
You could literally nominate a chocolate milkshake or a dead squirrel and they wouldn’t know the difference if they saw some meme videos that said chocolate milkshake is gonna lower gas prices
So if you believe people aren’t capable of choosing leaders why do you support democracy?
Like a lot of the founding fathers, I think a strong and honest press is one of the key features of a democracy, and without that, it won’t function, and people being able to vote won’t do a damn thing to prevent the whole thing from turning into tyranny
And hey! Look at our media!
And hey! Look what kind of government we have, oh no oh fuck
That was kind of my point about the whole thing: That skillful manipulation of the voters happens, and has ruined the country pretty thoroughly. I don’t think the answer is to turn away from democracy, but I do that think that fixing the media so that people have some semblance of an accurate picture of what’s happening is an absolutely urgent issue right now.
It seems a tad ahistorical to suggest that biased media is in any way new.
If anything we are now living in an era of choice where we can choose which approved narrative we’ll take in as opposed to being subject to the local hearst papers outlook.
If control over media gives so much power though, why not change who has that control?
Because to do that we need a supermajority in the Senate and no Liebermans, Manchins, or Sinemas. The tools we have to fix things are as broken as the things we need to fix.
Those things didn’t change any of the last times some party had a supermajority. What makes you think some new supermajority would be any different, or that republicans or democrats are any different now?
Hm
I mean you’re not wrong. The US spent most of the previous two centuries wandering around the world killing and enslaving anyone who made them nervous or unprofitable while the whole “honest” media wrote a never ending stream of stories enthusing about how nice it was that the price of bananas was going down
Then when the internet came along we replaced that with an absolute explosion of viewpoints some of which are honest, some of which are just lazy and pointless, and some of which are manufactured propaganda which shows a remarkable level of effectiveness
But… if you wanna tell me that that’s not the pure step backwards I described it as, I won’t say you’re totally wrong about that tbh
Regardless of all that, yes, I still think making it work effectively and honestly is as important now as it ever was
If media is used by a tiny group to control what people think and new technology allows the same tiny group to reach people with more granularity, is it really a move “forwards” or “backwards”?
If you believe that media is a part of functioning democracy, who should be in control of it?
By “Media” I mean everything. Newspapers, TV, social media, anything that lets people know what’s going on in the world
It used to be like a few thousand independent editors all across the country, then with TV and corporate consolidation it dwindled to basically just 1 corporate viewpoint, now with social media and the internet I think public opinion is more or less up for grabs for whoever wants to spend the most money to influence it (not that different from the later stages of the TV era tbh)
For quite a while now media has been out of “control” of any single grouping; basically that was one of the big advantages of the internet era. But the disadvantage is that real journalism costs money, and modern newspapers don’t have a good business model to stay alive and do it, and modern social media isn’t really configured to be able to keep out propaganda viewpoints, and so the public narrative winding up de facto “in control” of whoever puts more money and effort into distorting it.
I don’t think we should go back to where anyone can have “control” necessarily but it would be nice if real journalism could make money again to be able to do the investigative aspect, and if normal person social media (for the opinion aspect and sharing-news-stories aspect) was community operated and resistant to deliberate propaganda
Best answer I can come up with to your question as I see it