> We had an R state rep candidate come by our house. Highlighted two issues in her message to us. Both were simply not actual things. The existence of the problems were lies.
This has been a constant refrain from Democrats: "The thing that you are upset about is not happening. Well, it is happening, but it is the exception. Ok, it's happening everywhere, but it's a good thing." No, of course Harris isn't for government sex changes for imprisoned illegal immigrants, except for the fact that she said she was. The truth is that we all know that she would say anything to win, and holding her to any position she ever publicly held feels unfair.
The people who have been kept low-information are the Democrats, because they have been surrounded by media largely controlled by their political party. Republicans often have bad information, but they're constantly out there consuming information and hate-reading what Democrats are saying. Independents, in my experience, are the highest-information of all, because they don't think of political parties as something they can offload their morality to. Independents only see politics in terms of actual issues, and track those issues rather than having parasocial relationships with political celebrities.
In that vein, I'm pretty sure that if I had an experience where a political candidate came to my house and talked about issues that weren't real, I'd talk about those issues specifically, and speculate about their origin. I think you don't mention them because they were real, but a lot of liberals have taken this position of officially denying reality if reality could help Trump. Is widespread voter fraud real? No. Should people be unconcerned about making it easier? Also, no.
If upper-middle class liberals could have won the "stop sounding like Scientologists" challenge, they could have won. If The Democratic party could have wanted to win more than they wanted to avoid alienating any donors, they could have won by taking any popular position on anything. Trump spent most of his campaign actively campaigning for Harris by calling her a radical-left socialist; if she were actually a radical-left socialist instead of an empty vessel to be filled with cash, she would have won. If the Democratic party hadn't chosen again not to run a fair, open, lively primary, they would have won.
With Trump campaigning against radical-left socialist Harris, and Harris campaigning against rapist Hitler, homophobic Stalin, and racist Mussolini, the majority of people looked at which candidate was lying the most, and voted for the other one. Everybody knows who Trump is, and he's already been president, and nobody went to camps. It was a rather sleepy standard Republican presidency, whose few deviations from the norm pleased people. The only reason we heard about Harris is because she (and Buttigieg) pretended to be for single-payer healthcare in order to destroy a popular candidate who was running on an honest program.
> The truth is that we all know that she would say anything to win
While Trump wouldn't do any of that, right? He would say things because they're true :D
> It was a rather sleepy standard Republican presidency, whose few deviations from the norm pleased people
Just a small insurrection at the end, no biggie. Oh, and some international agreements were shattered, but who cares about those anyway. I mean, there was also Corona which jolted some people from sleep, but thanks to Trump's recommendation to get some chlorine you could get right back to sleeping :)
To the 35-40% of the country that’s on board with basically everything they’ve done or are likely to do, who constitute a reliable mega-bloc of Republican voters, yeah.
1) “Local crime in your specific hilariously safe rich town is out of control and rapidly rising, which is why the cops are asking for more money and I’m going to give it to them!” I double checked to be sure, and no, of course this was fiction. So you encounter a supporter of hers and want to talk about actual issues, you get stuck pulling up the cops’ own crime stats on your phone I guess. Good luck with that conversation, we’ve tried it with relatives who are convinced it’s true about their own different rich low-crime towns. Now you’re stuck fighting phantoms.
2) “boys in girls sports”. So incredibly niche that who gives a fuck, and does not appear to be an actual problem that sports conferences and associations aren’t handling just fine on their own. Why does anybody care about this? Right wing news, entire reason. Not an actual issue.
I’m not, I’m well aware of the boring shifts in policy and law over three or so decades that have gotten us to fighting phantoms instead of trying to decide whether incentives or mandates are the right way to achieve greater healthcare access and lower costs, or what have you.
So why can't Democrats just come out against this insanity and take the easy W? The whole, "well it isn't a really an issue" argument doesn't fly when you still demand your way on it.
1) I don't know where you live, you may be right about crime where you are. It is not specifically Republican or uncommon to run on law & order while exaggerating disorder.
2) Boys are in girls sports, and Biden destroyed Title IX with an executive order. And you've gone from "fictional" to "Why does anybody care about this?" You don't see this as a dishonest progression?
edit: and now edited to "who gives a fuck." Women who dedicate their lives to sports. Men who think that half the population deserves half the medals and half the opportunity. Me.
> Biden destroyed Title IX with an executive order
Oh she mentioned defending title IX and I had zero clue wtf she meant (I mean, I know what title IX is, but figured it was some kind of allusion to something I’d only know if I listened to Mark Levin even more than I already do). A glance at The Googles and this appears to be exactly the kind of thing I mean.
If you believe false things, you are a low-information voter. And if someone doesn't believe the lies you believe, they will disagree with you. Vundercind's point from the beginning was that problem isn't a difference in values or priorities but facts.
Fundamentally, that’s a better way to put it, really. I have two young daughters and the examples that have come up every time I’ve tried to engage on the sports issue as if it might have merit have done the exact opposite of convincing me I should be worried on their behalf—it very much appears to be nothing and quibbling over how much of that one story from Florida that they decided to champion as a key example is demonstrably a fabrication again isn’t really “discussing real issues”. We literally disagree on what facts are. If I believed their facts I might even at least partially agree with them! But I look at what they present and I disagree about the basic reality of the problem they’re trying to convince me exists.
[edit] shit, we can’t even get to substance on issues where we agree the broad category of thing needs to be addressed. Immigration! Yes! Let’s do some stuff on that! “Biden’s open border” ok well congrats we already solved that because that’s not a thing, rhetorically or in fact, zero democrats with any power want an open border and the border is not open, so… “illegals smuggling fentanyl!” wait how much money do you want to devote to that specifically, because that’s a negligible source of fentanyl in the US (citizens smuggling fentanyl, however…) and yeah we’re just bogged down disagreeing on facts again.
Being unaware of an issue that only exists in hard-right media and hadn’t happened to come up in the times I’ve dipped into such—which I do pretty frequently—isn’t, like, a problem. I correctly guessed exactly what it was, anyway.
This has been a constant refrain from Democrats: "The thing that you are upset about is not happening. Well, it is happening, but it is the exception. Ok, it's happening everywhere, but it's a good thing." No, of course Harris isn't for government sex changes for imprisoned illegal immigrants, except for the fact that she said she was. The truth is that we all know that she would say anything to win, and holding her to any position she ever publicly held feels unfair.
The people who have been kept low-information are the Democrats, because they have been surrounded by media largely controlled by their political party. Republicans often have bad information, but they're constantly out there consuming information and hate-reading what Democrats are saying. Independents, in my experience, are the highest-information of all, because they don't think of political parties as something they can offload their morality to. Independents only see politics in terms of actual issues, and track those issues rather than having parasocial relationships with political celebrities.
In that vein, I'm pretty sure that if I had an experience where a political candidate came to my house and talked about issues that weren't real, I'd talk about those issues specifically, and speculate about their origin. I think you don't mention them because they were real, but a lot of liberals have taken this position of officially denying reality if reality could help Trump. Is widespread voter fraud real? No. Should people be unconcerned about making it easier? Also, no.
If upper-middle class liberals could have won the "stop sounding like Scientologists" challenge, they could have won. If The Democratic party could have wanted to win more than they wanted to avoid alienating any donors, they could have won by taking any popular position on anything. Trump spent most of his campaign actively campaigning for Harris by calling her a radical-left socialist; if she were actually a radical-left socialist instead of an empty vessel to be filled with cash, she would have won. If the Democratic party hadn't chosen again not to run a fair, open, lively primary, they would have won.
With Trump campaigning against radical-left socialist Harris, and Harris campaigning against rapist Hitler, homophobic Stalin, and racist Mussolini, the majority of people looked at which candidate was lying the most, and voted for the other one. Everybody knows who Trump is, and he's already been president, and nobody went to camps. It was a rather sleepy standard Republican presidency, whose few deviations from the norm pleased people. The only reason we heard about Harris is because she (and Buttigieg) pretended to be for single-payer healthcare in order to destroy a popular candidate who was running on an honest program.