"When the dust settles, I expect the people who assess elections will tell us disinformation was key in 2024.
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Philip Cardellareplied to William Lindsey :toad: last edited by
@wdlindsy my quibble with this (and I haven't read the whole thing yet so maybe it addresses it) is I think it deflects too much blame from white supremacy.
I absolutely agree that misinformation was key to the Trump win. No question. But misinformation is a tool. Who used the tool? White supremacists to advance white supremacy including Musk and Putin.
But--very likely also at the minimum NK and possibly China--which certainly are a differently motivated.
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to EllenMarch2 last edited by
@Lisabet8931 It's not an either-or, is it? Meanwhile, I'm determined to keep focusing on how dismal lack of education among many of my fellow citizens opens the door to very bad choices and the welcome of authoritarianism.
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to Philip Cardella last edited by
@philip_cardella I suspect that, as a Jewish woman living in Alabama, Joyce Vance is keenly aware of the challenge to overcome white supremacy — and that when she speaks of our willingness to embrace disinformation due to our lack of sound education, she'd factor in white supremacy as a key factor egging that willingness on.
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to William Lindsey :toad: last edited by
"The defining feature of Trump's campaign was its appeal to racism, misogyny, and white supremacy. He pushed those themes despite pleas from his advisers to focus on the economy. Having campaigned on themes of hate and division, he won decisively. The most compelling inference from those facts is that Trump's campaign themes appealed to a broad swath of the voters who supported him."
~ Robert B. Hubbell
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to William Lindsey :toad: last edited by
"But the media is (again) sane-washing Trump's depravity. Rather than acknowledge—or even mention—his dominant campaign themes in analyzing his victory, the media insists that Trump won because Democrats are ;elitists; who somehow ;alienated' major portions of the electorate or that Democrats lost because Kamala Harris and her advisors refused to run her campaign in the manner demanded by the legacy media."
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to William Lindsey :toad: last edited by
The media have done this persistently for some years now. By trotting out their tired (and mendacious) refrain that the Democrats are out of touch with "real Americans," the media absolve themselves for pre-emptively obeying fascist dictators in the making and abdicate their responsibility to educate us. And they have lots of willing tools among the many pretend-liberals eager to pounce on the Democratic party while pretending fascism is not the real threat.
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to William Lindsey :toad: last edited by
"Choosing to write stories that 'blame elitist Democrats' ignores the real story of what happened on Tuesday. That distraction normalizes the grotesque, existential threat of Trump's electoral victory. Trump could not buy more favorable and helpful coverage if he paid for those stories with Elon Musk’s billions."
~ Hubbell, ibid.
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Philip Cardellareplied to William Lindsey :toad: last edited by
@wdlindsy I have very liberal friends this is like crack to. They love this theory.
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to William Lindsey :toad: last edited by [email protected]
As Don Moynihan notes, while the media and their fellow travelers pile on in a big gloat fest accusing Democrats of losing support because they're too "woke" and promote identity politics,
"You will never guess who did run on trans issues: Donald Trump."
As the Harris campaign bent over backwards to de-emphasize identity politics….
#Trump #Republicans #fascism #cruelty #future
/8
Who is allowed to practice identity politics?
When the right does it, its just politics
(donmoynihan.substack.com)
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Not at all. The latter is a consequence of the former.
The existential threat is possible and has happened because of the elitist Democrats, not despite of them.
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to Philip Cardella last edited by
@philip_cardella Of course. Many of us are so privileged that we think we can afford to pretend that when things begin getting very bad very quickly for targeted minority groups, they won't also get very bad for us. So we love playing the elitist game of pretending that the Democrats are the problem even as outright fascism looms in front of us very soon.
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to William Lindsey :toad: last edited by
"This is a lazy pre-existing [corporate media] narrative to be sold, not because of any actual analysis of the electorate. These are writers who for various reasons have committed to an anti-woke narrative. And once you have committed to that narrative, you are determined to force it into every story, no matter how misleading."
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to William Lindsey :toad: last edited by
"What is true: Trump, and the right, are very good at taking basic respect and empathy for other humans, and portraying that as dangerous: social justice, wokeness, diversity, equity and inclusion have all been converted into terms of mockery. Trump did not win because someone you were on a zoom call with used pronouns, or Latinx, or some college grad corrected you for using the word homeless."
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@vruz Sorry, as one of those targeted by Trump and the Republicans, I don't have the luxury of pretending that the Democrats or the problem, or of wasting time and energy playing games. I intend to stay focused on the real threat to all of us. Others who have more privilege may choose to do otherwise. Not I.
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to William Lindsey :toad: last edited by
"As Hitler, so Trump; as Nazi, so MAGA. …
Dorothy Thompson made the same mistake many of us, myself very much included, made in her assessment of the resident strongman: she believed the German people would be sophisticated enough to see through Hitler’s grotesque lies, just like we all believed the American people would be sophisticated enough to see through Trump’s."
~ Greg Olear
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to William Lindsey :toad: last edited by
Josh Marshall agrees with a TPM reader who says that "digesting the mechanics of campaigns were sort of beside the point now." As he notes, "The problems and the roots of Democrats’ defeat ran far deeper." And "the recriminations conversation" is a colossal waste of time.
He writes,
#Trump #Republicans #fascism #cruelty #future
/12
A Follow Up About Harris
In response to today’s Backchannel, longtime TPM Reader LS wrote in to say that while she generally agreed with my evaluation of Kamala Harris’ campaign…
TPM – Talking Points Memo (talkingpointsmemo.com)
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to William Lindsey :toad: last edited by
"Joe Biden owned the hardships of the post-pandemic — principally but not only economic — and the public simply rejected his presidency because of that. That’s very similar to what has happened when almost every other incumbent party in the West came up for reelection in the post-pandemic era. ...
Harris and Harris’ campaign are a distraction from this necessary conversation, a form of denial."
Of course, always easier to blame women, no?
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to William Lindsey :toad: last edited by
"What is going on?
I am starting to see editorials and analyses that are blaming the second coming of the convicted felon on Joseph Robinette Biden. It seems like there is a determined campaign to trash his legacy. ...
We haven’t reached the point yet, like that seen under Stalin, where history would be rewritten and photos edited to remove unpersons who had fallen out of favor and been purged.
Not yet."
~ xaxnar
#Trump #Republicans #fascism #cruelty #future
/14
What is with all the Biden hate?
What is going on? I am starting to see editorials and analyses that are blaming the second coming of the convicted felon on Joseph Robinette Biden. It seems like there is a determined campaign to trash his legacy. I could believe the idea is to not...
Daily Kos (www.dailykos.com)
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to William Lindsey :toad: last edited by
"Never mind that his administration has been largely scandal free. Never mind that he surrounded himself with some really competent people. Never mind that he took an economy in shambles and turned it around. Never mind that he restored international relations that had been crippled and turned them around, including NATO expansion. Never mind that the infrastructure bill was an incredible accomplishment given the Congress he had to work with."
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to William Lindsey :toad: last edited by
"Never mind that he was the most pro-union president we’ve ever had. Never mind he is a fundamentally decent man; his character is not in question.
It wasn’t enough apparently. …
Biden didn’t fail America — America failed him."
