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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: November 6th, 2023

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  • Ahh. “Why don’t these ingrates appreciate what they’re given?” cool, keep blaming voters. Your 1-2-E-Z electoral strategy has no issues with circular reasoning, yesss no reason to develop further

    Their universal suffrage will keep ignoring your demands for loyalty. Voting is transactional. Give them what they asked for. Or don’t I guess…? The Whig party refused to change too, and look how they turned out


  • How much of that was accessible before social media though? Unless you went looking, Israel generally was a pretty sanitized package on the media landscape, or was framed within the “well we were attacked first” narrative that contextually requires ignoring the prior grievances and violence


  • I feel you’re missing the point I’m making; Obama did have legislative victories yes. Did usher in an economic recovery from the precipice and a (relatively) speaking soft landing. But what fundamentally changed in healthcare? Especially for the low propensity and/or information voter? Nothing from their perspective, unfortunately. The reality delivered did not match the marketing, and though childish and petulant the reaction may be because of real issues like thin majorities or constitutional limits on power, that is the perception. And that is all that matters.

    I don’t see Trump’s rise as being caused by his unique policy stances, white nativism, or better electoral strategy than the Democrats. He’s mediocre-to-awful, but has no institutional fealty or cogent ideology which is what makes him uniquely suited to the current populist vibe. Trump is a bomb that voters sent to blow up the established order in Washington, and in 2016 they got what they asked for. The palace coup that is MAGA, ate the Republican Party from the inside out, within a single four year cycle. Now you’re seeing the base souring on him as his second term has has been co-opted by capital and power structures, and is abandoning the ‘maverick outsider’ policies like “no new wars” or “I want to sell off the national parks to foreign nations”.


    1. Let me introduce you to group known as the ‘Obama-Obama-Trump’ voters.

    Confusing on the face of it no? How can someone vote for Barack twice, and then pull the lever for Trump? And the map is not clear either; counties in New England, the Rust Belt, southwest, and northeast. All over the country, red and blue states. So what happened?

    • These 206 counties cast 7.5 million votes in 2016, which accounts for 5.5 percent of all votes cast in the election.
    • Between 2012 and 2016, the Democratic popular vote margin declined by 2.1 million votes. Even though these 206 counties make up only 5 percent of the total votes cast, they accounted for 51 percent of that decline.

    Low propensity voters, now disillusioned with politics. These are the people who got sold a vision of hope and change after the Great Recession in 2007-2008, and while yes things changed, not in a fundamental way. They still drive on crumbling roads to take their kids to the same underfunded schools. Still watch their taxes fund overseas wars, for nebulous ‘foreign policy’ reasons that aren’t clear. Still paying out the ass for their dialysis care. Watching standards of living regress around them, knowing their kids will be worse off regardless of a college degree.

    You see, there’s a part 3 that you’re forgetting that needs to happen, otherwise another opportunist grifter can slide in with false promises and spam-abuse the populism cheat code:

    1. Deliver results for the people who voted for you - or don’t be in power when it goes bad

  • Automatic translation of Knesset member’s and regular Israeli’s tweets has been radically eye opening for me. Kinda hard to hold the view of ‘well, Bibi is a monster but he’s the main one pushing this bloodshed’ when you can factcheck genocidal statements in real time, and see the actions try to meet their rhetoric