My brother told me about this McKay Coppins piece in the Atlantic about how the Trump campaign is using, and will use, Facebook to micro-target the base and suppress interest in key Democratic voting demographics by spreading lies. It’s a long article and it’s Sunday so if you’re interested, read the whole thing, because Coppins dissects a number of different themes and approaches, and it’s hard to pick good excerpts.
One of the most disturbing parts of the piece was his reference to Tara McGowan, who is part of Acronym, David Plouffe’s organization that was an investor/founder of Shadow, the company that bobbled the Iowa caucus counting app. Coppins’ piece was probably filed prior to Iowa, and it contains only McGowan’s oft-repeated claim that Acronym is going to fund a $75 million “disruptive” social media campaign. Here’s Vox explainer written post-Iowa that takes a pretty even-handed look at Acronym. It sounds like they’re very good at raising money, and that they used their reputation to lock up a bunch of big donors. Whether they are spending enough of that money, and spending it in a well-organized fashion, is unclear. If the effort is anything like Shadow, there’s definitely some grift and incompetence involved.
Most of us who have been following politics have seen consultants make huge claims about their winning strategies – Brad Parscale, Trump’s campaign manager, would be just some website designer trying to punch above his weight if Trump had lost. Instead, he comes off as a bit of a tech genius in the piece. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle. But we’ve also seen the right grasp and use mass media far more effectively than Democrats. Even back in the days of direct mail, the right arguably did it a lot better than we did, and was there first.
So while I don’t think things are as dire for Democrats as Coppins might think, I also believe that Facebook will be the “but her emails” media story of 2020. And, if his claims about Parscale’s operation are even partially true, we have a serious problem.
Baud
Is this news? They used Facebook in 2016 to spread all kinds of lies about Hillary.
artem1s
This is one of those areas where Dems need to be careful about the means justifying the ends. They may be the last line of defense against the Know Nothing’s, extreme fundamentalist, alt-right, Greed is Good, and totalitarianism. I’m all for winning the WH, but if it means turning into Louie Gohmert, TeaParty wannabes, will it matter if we unseat Trump?
We need another anti-trust case for the media giants and social media, a la MicroSoft in the 90s. Warren could lead that charge whether she’s in the WH or remains in the Senate. But her real world experience in dealing with political and big business corruption is why she is currently my favorite candidate. In addition, I know she will keep fighting that fight whether she wins the nomination or not.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
If the reboot had included some kind of red yarn button, would all the guilt-by-association and vague connections seem scarier to me? ‘part of a group that was associated with the thing that the Iowa Demcoratic Party fucked up BIG DONORS but what if this thing is just like that thing somebody call Matt Stoller to show us where the hidden hand of Obama is really at fault here!’
other than that: Facebook is an arm of the trump campaign, we know that, but how else can I see pictures of my high school lab partner’s new grandchild?
download my app in the app store mistermix
@Baud: Maybe you could read the article and then share your informed opinion about whether it is news. I would be interested in hearing it. I did read it, and I do think there’s a lot of new information in it. Neither article is behind a paywall as far as I can tell.
germy
Brachiator
The right is better at reaching out to people who want to be lied to, and who want their fears and resentments reinforced.
And Facebook is not the only social media site on the Internets.
Democrats flexed muscle during the mid-terms. We know many of the right wing tricks. It’s just a matter of fighting back.
Shalimar
I think most if not all of Parscale’s “genius” was Facebook assigning employees to help Trump’s campaign. Facebook gave them the marketing experts. That doesn’t make Parscale one too.
piratedan
here’s to wishing that they are visited by some grey hats with a healthy heaping dose of Ransomware…. as has been said multiple times in multiple places… follow the money… might as well bleed those fuckers dry, at least they have it to spend.
download my app in the app store mistermix
@artem1s:
The piece goes into this a bit. Acronym’s plan was to create and boost true, positive stories that favor Democrats. There are also some who think we need to fight lies with lies. I’m on the side of just getting the truth into people’s FB streams. As Judd Leglum was quoted to say in the piece, Trump is bad enough already. Just fighting the alternative reality that is being created about him on FB with facts is a good use of Dem’s money as far as I’m concerned. The facts are terrible enough without adding lies to the mix.
Kay
I think there’s some arrogance from liberals and Democrats on this, and I include myself. There’s a belief we’ll be too smart and savvy to get sucked in, but that’s just not true- your average Democrat who is not a politics fanatic is not going to be able to tell the difference between The Kalamazoo Times and local news. They’re not that plugged in and I’m not dissing them for this- they’re allowed to have lives outside politics, or even to be not that interested in politics. They’re just voters. That’s the extent of their participation. They’re not seeking to be ultra savvy political professionals.
I also think there’s some arrogance from Americans generally on this. There’s this idea this kind of manipulation can only happen in other countries. It can and has happened here, and our billion dollar political reporting industry gave us no tools at all to resist it.
Most people can’t or won’t or don’t want to spend 10 hours a week sussing out what’s real and what’s not in a presidential race. That’s a ridiculous demand. They aren’t full time political professionals. They have other jobs.
germy
Mistermix, have you seen this?
http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2020/02/jordan-peterson
The reader comments are interesting:
Baud
@download my app in the app store mistermix:
I’m in the middle of running errands, so I can’t right now. Thanks anyway.
Kay
Voters in New Hampshire who are engaged enough to go to political events (a tiny, very engaged group of voters) are saying they are afraid Hunter Biden will damage Biden, so they are reluctant to back him.
This idea that this stuff is only effective on the great unwashed masses is vanity. These are our most engaged voters. They’re swimming around in this sea of bullshit and they’re fucking drowning.
MomSense
@Brachiator:
Its not just fighting back, though. It’s running candidates who appeal to the voters in the districts we have to win. Look at who won those swing districts in 2018. Hint: there were zero winners from the left wing of the Democratic Party.
caveat: I don’t actually believe in the left right spectrum. I think there are certain issues people feel passionately about like guns, abortion, health care, equality and how those swing voters come down on one or more of those issues combined with how important that issue or those issues are determines how they vote.
Kay
I don’t like Jane Sanders. I find her insufferably Lefty with that weird control freak thing a lot of them have. However, it seems to be clear to me (now) that a lot of the Jane Sanders scandals were trumped up by Right wing groups, which I did not know. I was fooled. They’re directly tied to those awful Fox News lawyers, Victoria whatsername and her husband.
We have to be able to admit we’re vulnerable to this. Everyone is. That’s why they use it.
Kay
In 2011 I had the local Democratic county chair send me an email seriously asking me if the health care law mandated implantation of information collection in people. “Chips”. He’s 75 years old. Right wingers had flooded the shitty “news” he reads and hears with a tiny clip from a huge federal statute relating to medical devices, that made it appear this was true.
It doesn’t get more “politically engaged” than a county chair. Yet he was completely suckered by this. Ok, so in fairness he’s kind of a racist so was primed for secret Obama evils by his racism, but there he was, reaching out to the only lawyer he knows to read this and interpret it for him.
We’re not immune and our voters aren’t immune.
Belafon
Democrats also don’t have someone they can blame for people’s problems. It’s far easier to have a scapegoat in this country rather than to say we need to change our ways.
Baud
@Kay:
We are a party that’s lost faith in ourselves. Maybe with some justification after we failed to stand up for ourselves in 2016. But sometimes I can’t blame Republicans for viewing us as natural serfs.
I hope the more diverse primary states have more confident voters.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Belafon: I think corrupt millionaires and billionaires and corporate boards and Wall St and Republicans make a damn good foil. The shoals we’re hitting in this cycle is that anyone who’s skittish about the upheaval in their personal circumstances caused by eliminating private health insurance, and Barack Obama, are portrayed as corrupt tools of the oligarchy.
Kay
@Baud:
I think that’s true and people will hate this, but what is also true is that not all our voters want or desire or have the time and interest to “lead” politically. They are looking for a leader. They’re exhausted and they just want some clear direction. I think people are allowed to want that. These are not the loudest voices. They see themselves as team players, they really want to win, and they’re not getting any direction.
Adam L Silverman
I’ll just leave these here. My most recent paid weekly column and one from several week’s back:
https://arkvalleyvoice.com/thinking-security-if-nothing-is-true-everything-is-possible-ii/
https://arkvalleyvoice.com/thinking-security-catfishing-who-is-actually-behind-the-news-youre-getting/
download my app in the app store mistermix
@germy: I saw the news on another site. On the one hand I feel bad for the guy, on the other I think that commenter pretty much nailed it.
Felanius Kootea
I wonder which candidates will be the first to take advantage of the Black News Channel, a 24 hour cable network launching tomorrow and focusing on news of interest to African Americans. Co-founded by JC Watts, Jr. and Bob Brillante. I knew JC Watts, Jr. was a Republican congressman back in the day but don’t know where he stands on Trump and the current party. BNC already has broadcast agreements with Spectrum, Xfinity and Roku.
I hope it’s a good addition to the news media landscape and not another right wing propaganda tool in disguise.
WaterGirl
Wait, what? I am working today so don’t have time to read the whole article.
David Plouffe’s company – wouldn’t they be the good guys? So their $75 million “disruptive” social media campaign would be against Trump? So this is dueling disruptive social media campaigns?
Is that a bad thing? If they are fighting dirty, why wouldn’t we
edit: I see that this was sort of answered by mistermix in the comments:
pika
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: “see pictures of my high school lab partner’s new grandchild?”–it’s the “high school lab partner” part that finally made me realize that I both could and should get off Facebook.
Patricia Kayden
Stop believing stuff you read on Facebook. Zuckerberg has explicitly said that he’s okay with promoting political lies so there’s zero reason to give any credence to Facebook postings — including those on the far left who attack the “Democratic establishment” as neoliberals.
download my app in the app store mistermix
@Kay: I don’t think Biden has done very well with the whole Hunter issue. Same with Bernie and Jane. It just is hard for politicians to defend family members effectively. But supporters need an explanation.
Kay
@Baud:
The Party – by that I don’t mean the DNC or whichever evil person we’ll blame it on- by The Party I mean this institution, this huge group of people- is not rising to meet this challenge. It risks being another institution that was faced with the Trump challenge and failed.
It’s too much to ask of such competitive people but what our candidates need to do is cooperate. They cannot do this separately. I know this is biased but I think the female candidates get this in a way the men don’t. They’re both attempting to bring cohesion. Unimagineable, but they are going to have to put some personal interests aside and exhibit solidarity. It isn’t a normal campaign. It calls for unconventional approaches. What we have done in the past will fail. We have seen institution after institution fail by clinging to convention, and our Party will too unless they admit the rules are different.
ThresherK
As always, waiting for anyone in the mainstream press to fcking stand up for themselves here they way they did against, oh, Obama v. Fox News.
Ohio Mom
I sometimes follow rightwinger links (say, someone on Twitter) out of morbid curiosity, and also as a sort of test: how many inaccuracies, exaggerations, racist takes, and outright lies can I spot?
I don’t do this very much because it is profoundly dispiriting to be reminded how gullible and hateful people can be.
But sometimes it is s good check: is laughing at Trump’s bad bronzer application really productive? I see the equivalent from the right-wing point of view and always think, How juvenile!
germy
@Adam L Silverman:
Who is behind the news we’re getting.
Chris Matthews yelling about being executed in Central Park (his reaction to Bernie’s candidacy)… sometimes we get opinions from pundits that are based on personal grudges:
Kay
@download my app in the app store mistermix:
Joe Biden has always been a terrible candidate. This is just true. Now people can convince me it’s no longer true, but they aren’t going to convince me by telling me there’s some special unique reason Joe Biden can’t draw white working class voters in Iowa, because white working class voters in Iowa are not some special unique fucking BREED distinct from white working class voters in Pennsylvania. The response to “Joe Biden isn’t doing well with the white voters he says he draws” can’t be “Joe Biden does well with AA voters” because those are two different questions.
This is just bullshit. If he draws white working class there is no reason on God’s green earth he shouldn’t draw them in Iowa and New Hampshire. That is the POINT of primaries.
I can’t even believe he’s announcing he’s ceding NH. This is our “leader”? WTF?
Another Scott
I haven’t read the story.
I get suspicious of politicos saying the way to fight disinformation on FB is to give them money to spend more money on FB.
We know where FB and Twitter stand in our battle against the fascists. I don’t see how giving them more money is going to help us defeat them.
What might be more effective is a “Mom’s Demand Deleting Facebook and Twitter”-type of organization. Make it socially toxic to be involved with those outfits, the way drunk driving or being a gun humper is now.
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
Patricia Kayden
And his supporters?
Ohio Mom
[email protected]: Apparently the whole family is nuts, Peterson’s daughter advocates an all-meat diet. The need for fiber is as well-known as the dangers of detoxxing cold turkey.
Kay
@Ohio Mom:
White Democrats in Ohio were scared by Black Lives Matter and Trump used this. I watched it happen.
IMO we have to admit this. It is just a fact that our rank and file voters are much more subject to this kind of manipulation than we care to admit. It cannot be addressed until we look at it and see it for what it is. So once you admit it you can do one of two things- you can address it honestly and meet them where they are and explain BLM to them, or you can just leave them to Trump. Either is a decision, but a decision has to be made.
germy
@Patricia Kayden: Won’t they do what he tells them to do? Maybe, maybe not.
Jinchi
It’s one thing for Facebook allow get-out-the-vote advertising, but they should be slammed down hard if they’re happily aiding in vote suppression for cash.
mrmoshpotato
@Baud:
My thoughts exactly.
Jinchi
@Patricia Kayden: I know there’s a lot of Sanders hate on this blog, but his voters went overwhelmingly for Clinton in the 2016 general election and they’re just as motivated as the rest of us in kicking Trump out of office.
We need to stop pretending that there’s going to be some sort of mass defection of his voters if Bernie loses.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kay: I think to some extent, he more-or-less gave up on IA and NH cause he has relatively little money, which is its own problem for a candidate with his advantages, to wit name recognition and the Obama association.
But I could do something similar for every candidate, point out where and how they’ve shot themselves, and keep shooting themselves, in the feet
ThresherK
@germy: I did not remember Matthews’ wife running for Congress.
I really don’t know anything about her, but I feel the Dems are better for her not being there.
Jinchi
Yes, but Zuckerberg pretended to be completely blindsided by the results in 2016. He has no excuse this time around, if he’s still acting like this, he needs public pushback.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Jinchi: which actor or comedian called Zuckerberg out recently? I think Zuckerberg was actually in the audience– anybody remember that more clearly than I?
Omnes Omnibus
@Kay: Primaries accomplish two things. First, they assign delegates. Second, they affect perceptions. Biden will not do better than third in NH. If he spends time and money there, that is the best he can hope for. He could do worse. So why is it not sensible to use resources someplace where there is more of an upside? He needs a good showing in SC; third vs fourth in NH isn’t really worth the effort.
Lapassionara
Trump’s proposed 2020 budget makes substantial cuts to both Social Security and Medicare. This fact should be the headline of every democratic candidate’s pitch, as should the maladministration’s lies about protecting coverage for pre-existing conditions.
Another Scott
@ThresherK: She was a local news anchor for years before she overtly got into politics. IIRC, she didn’t run a very good campaign and wasn’t really a threat to win. I don’t know why Tweety would be blowing up now over her losing years ago. (I haven’t watched the clip.)
Cheers,
Scott.
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I don’t accept his argument for why he can’t win or at least have a respectable showing in those states. I’ve heard every possible version of it and on the night of the Iowa caucus I listened to every cable host make it and I don’t think it makes any sense. I decided I myself am in a bubble because it never made any sense. You don’t see Klobuchar ceding whole states, nor will you.
It’s all circular too- now he can’t win because he has no money. If he had competed aggressively he would have done better and now he’d have money. What’s the plan? Bernie Sanders has an absolute small donor fund raising machine. We’re just going to whine about that? It’s a fact.
Democrats, the rank and file, want to win. They aren’t going to rally around someone who makes excuses, nor should they.
Another Scott
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: You’re probably thinking of Sacha Baron Cohen.
Cheers,
Scott.
germy
@Another Scott: The candidate who beat her was a Bernie supporter.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Another Scott: that’s it, thanks
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@germy: my god that man is insane– are his ratings good? who the hell is his audience? He just started a podcast. I can’t even imagine what that sounds like.
Kay
@Omnes Omnibus:
Because his argument is he is the best candidate to compete for white working class and middle class voters and AA voters. That’s a killer combo in D politics! It’s the winning hand. But you have to actually have it.
I listened to these cable hosts on Iowa telling me Joe Biden is somehow organically incapable of attracting those voters but just in in Iowa and NH and it’s nonsense.
I’ll support whoever the nominee is – I’ll go down with ship, whatever, but Joe Biden’s excuses don’t make any sense.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
Running errands so can’t say a lot about this, but here’s a related article from last year.
Look out for Junk Sources in Google News
download my app in the app store mistermix
The “is this something new” brigade really needs to read that piece. 14,000 variations of the same ad, used to micro-target, is new. Democrats trying to do something about it, in an organized fashion, is new. Running TV ads and getting earned media from the local and national press to combat this is bringing a rubber knife to a gun fight.
Also, on Acronym. Plouffe was definitely one of the “good guys” when he was part of Obama’s campaign. But it’s possible that Acronym isn’t effective, for multiple reasons, and we need to be appropriately skeptical about consultants who say “don’t worry, I’ve got this, give me a boatload of cash and we’ll get it done” – especially with the Shadow connection.
Anya
@germy: I find everything about this story incredible. Jorden Peterson wrote a book about prescribing “rules for life” then seem to have followed his daughter’s insane all-beef diet and now he’s in a critical condition in some Russian detox gulag supposedly because of Benzo withdrawals. Seems like his daughter has some sort of power of attorney over him. The guy is a complete asshole who became famous for delegitimizing and disrespecting people on some quest to be “politically incorrect” but I still wish him well. No one deserves to lose their control over their health.
Baud
@germy:
Matthews was awful to Hillary in 2016, so I don’t think what he does is influenced by his wife, much less some six-degrees-from-Kevin-Bacon link to the 2016 primary.
ETA: Kind of ironic that we have to address this in a post about the war on propaganda.
Another Scott
@germy: Thanks.
She came in 3rd in a 9 person race.
Interestingly, Mayhew was 7th.
;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
BR
@Kay:
And Biden really didn’t look like he was all there in the debate either — he looked like he was put up to the task of running (and maybe really feels like he has to do it) but his heart isn’t in it. He was just trying to remember the lines he must have hastily memorized for the debate. He should be kicking back at a BBQ somewhere with his family.
I’m not a Bernie supporter but he at least was all in, and is basically always all in. I think he has some real vulnerabilities that the media hasn’t bothered to surface (given that Jane Sanders’s nemesis now works at Barr’s DOJ) but will smother him with, and he’s not good at pushing back against that sort of stuff.
I’m almost rooting for Klobuchar at this point, even though I don’t like her policy views and prefer Warren/Sanders — she’s been in the Washington public eye long enough that she’s been vetted.
Anya
@Omnes Omnibus: He should get out of dodge and just go straight to South Carolina or which ever state is next. Why spend time and resources when you know you’ll lose? Biden’s campaign is really terrible. I don’t know how he didn’t attract any of Obama’s field workers and campaign staff? I find that baffling.
Kay
@Omnes Omnibus:
Exactly. Which is why none of the other candidates are insisting they can’t win.
It seems like saving face to me. He isn’t allowed to save face. He has to take one for the team if he wants to be leader. Taking one for the team means putting on your happy face and losing. He can say whatever he wants- live to fight another day, whatever, but what he can’t do is cede whole races due to mysterious anti-Biden force fields. It’s bullshit.
Ohio Mom
Kay @36: I’m just spying when I’m nosing around right-wing twitter (don’t have a Twitter account), but in real life, I do try to dissuade friends and family of whatever tidbit they’ve picked up and are spouting.
Its hard. Sometimes they say something so outrageous that I’m knocked off balance. When I do have an empathetic, corrective response, I can’t tell if it’s having an effect. I worry that they think I’m a nut because I care too much and discount what I say on that account.
Still, I trudge on, being careful to validate their concerns which usually do have a kernel of something.
For example, “Yes, your taxes are high” (maybe they aren’t, I just like watching their faces relax), “that’s because the ultra-wealthy aren’t paying their share. Haven’t you heard Warren Buffet comment that he pays a lower rate than his office staff?” (Then, typically, their faces constrict again).
And how many times have I explained marginal rates!
Educators will tell you that research shows how many times different students have to hear something before it is assimilated (this correlates roughly with IQ). I console myself that if someone needs to hear something ten times and l’m presentation number six, I’ve moved the process along.
Is it enough to counter the barrage on social media? It gets harder to believe it does.
germy
@Baud: You think Matthews rant was in good faith? His wife’s political aspirations were thwarted by a Bernie supporter. I don’t think it’s propaganda to suspect he holds a grudge against Bernie.
Mai naem mobile
@Kay: over the last few years I’ll see stories about Obama/HRC/prominent Dem and they sound unlikely but plausible so I’ll google it(I am not talking about the truly crazy stuff like the birther/Clinton kill list). Now I think I have a pretty good bullshit meter and I have an idea on what websites are legit and what sources are partisan sites but the google search literally produces the first 10 -20 results which are RW sites. Who is going to go that far down to look for a legit source? There’s a whole ecosystem of a RW online presence which just does not have an equivalent on the left
WaterGirl
@Patricia Kayden: Only the male candidates?
Kay
@BR:
If Bernies ahead by my primary I will switch from Warren to Bernie because I want a chance of winning.
I don’t care if the Berniecrats are rude. Do not care. I prefer “rude” to this…drift or whatever it is. Show me where to go and I’ll go. I don’t run any of this. I want someone who will crawl over broken glass to win and the Berniecrats will. I’m Team Anti-Trump, but I will need, you know, A TEAM.
BR
@Mai naem mobile:
I can’t remember the term for that, but it’s insidious — basically they invent some nonsense scandal and give it a name that is unique when searched, so all the hits are the bogus scandal if someone searches for it, because no real news uses that bogus framing.
download my app in the app store mistermix
@Kay:
Yeah, the notion that every deficit of the Biden campaign (no money, didn’t catch on in Iowa at all, etc.) is somehow a hidden strength shows that his campaign is only good at spinning the media. He’s running the same bad campaign he always has run, but this time he’s the VP. My simple obvious prediction is that SC will be a leaky firewall and Super Tuesday will be a wipeout for his campaign. I would say that for any candidate running 4th in Iowa with no money going into NH. The fact that it’s Biden is pretty much irrelevant.
germy
@Anya: A good doctor’s advice would be an extremely gradual taper. Apparently that advice wasn’t good enough, so he went for the alternative advice.
The sleep cure is right out of the 1950s/60s. Brian Epstein was prescribed the sleep cure to solve his problems. (It didn’t work) I didn’t know the sleep cure was still a thing in 2020.
BR
@Kay:
I just need to see Bernie recognize he’s a decent candidate but terrible at picking a staff — he has some downright toxic and dumb people working at high levels in his campaign, and presumably he’d be bringing these folks with him to the White House if he wins. I’ll be damned if Sirota ends up in the White House.
Baud
@germy:
It’s unadorned speculation, and it’s propaganda because it’s not a one-off theme, but reinforces the idea of a cabal of Democratic Establishment figures who are out to get the true left. It’s the kind of story I would expect to see on Glen Beck’s whiteboard.
germy
@Baud: Why would Matthews go so hard against HRC if he was part of the Democratic Establishment Cabal (your words)?
It seems more likely he’s an arrogant old man who doesn’t want Bernie getting above himself.
Kay
@Mai naem mobile:
That’s why the “they need CIVICS education” bothers me. The whole “education” argument bothers me.
We live in a country where just picking and maintaining your fucking health insurance takes 10 hours of work a year. My daughter and her husband have to navigate a private insurer, a state law, and a federal law to get 8 weeks of parental leave. She has spent 3 days of eight weeks leave getting paid for the 8 stingy weeks she’s entitled to, and that’s with the help of TWO lawyers- her parents.
They’re all supposed to devote 40 hours of unpaid work towards parsing what’s news and what’s not?
Baud
@germy:
We agree. So leave his wife and the 2016 candidates out of it.
Kay
@BR:
I agree and it’s a real problem for me. Bernie is a weak manager.
My youngest is a Berniecrat and I got him to admit this this morning. Bernie had a good argument for media bias against him re: Iowa. But BERNIE won’t make it. He outsources it to the fucking idiots he hires. BERNIE should make it. He’s better at it and it’s cowardly NOT to. It’s a huge weakness as far as being President. He has to RUN it, and it’s like he’s too precious a Lefty to just take hold of it.
download my app in the app store mistermix
@germy: I’m sure he has daily hydrotheraphy, too, after his high colonic.
@germy:
And lazy, not very smart, and brain-addled from way too many cocktails.
ThresherK
@Another Scott: Maybe Tweety never let it go.
He thinks Dick Cheney’s daughter had a birthright to a Wyoming congressional seat, right? I can envision him not recognizing why his wife and Bill Clinton’s wife have had different fortunes in electoral politics.
BR
@Kay:
I’d like to see Sanders/Warren if it has to be Bernie. Because you know she wouldn’t put up with a bunch of fools steering the ship, and he’d probably leave it to her to staff the White House as well, because his focus would be on the “revolution”.
germy
@Baud: Lots of people watch him on TV and hear his opinions. It’s useful to know the background and where his opinions come from. Especially after his latest rant, the one where he compared Sanders to Fidel Castro.
It’s sort of like reading Jon Chait’s columns criticizing public schools. Some readers might think it’s an honest opinion. But it helps to know his wife is a professional charter school advocate.
Kay
@BR:
I’m easy though- here’s what will persuade me to support Bernie- winning primaries.
Will I have huge concerns about him as President, given that I think he’s a weak manager? Yes. But I want to win and whatever else you say about his people, they will crawl over broken glass for him.
I’ll get judges and good regulations and that’s enough for me.
BR
@Kay:
I know it’s a gamble, but I think any of the Dems could win because I think the media isn’t going to be able to avoid covering dear leader’s obvious health issues. And when that dam breaks, I think we’ll see the GOP running for cover in all but the reddest districts.
germy
@Kay: I’m not a big Bernie fan, but if he delegated to a VP Warren, it would be good news. He could be the one to give the speeches, and she could be an actual competent person getting stuff done.
All speculation, though. I’d rather have President Warren.
Kay
@BR:
This is an unpopular opinion but I don’t think the VP matters that much. A VP could use it effectively (Cheney) but most don’t.
I do think Warren would take it though- I think she’s all practicality, not much ego.
Baud
@germy:
That way leads to propaganda if you can’t distinguish relevant information from speculation.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kay: And yet everyone has been arguing that IA and NH are unrepresentative states and shouldn’t be bellwethers. One can’t have it both ways.
Kay
@BR:
The health issues do seem to a kind of low boil thing that could explode.
The candidates themselves think Biden is weak. That’s why they’re staying in. I agree. We need back ups. Redundancies.
I had a Clinton person tell me in ’08 that Clinton stayed in because Democrats thought Obama would collapse. It enraged me at the time because I was an Obama partisan, but now I see the sense in it. They wanted a back up. It’s a mess but it’s also admirably responsible :)
Major Major Major Major
Parscale is a goddamned idiot. All these people are doing is using basic built-in advertising tools, with a side of ratfucking. He’s a good self-promoter, though.
germy
@Baud: It’s propaganda to try and identify propaganda?
I’m skeptical of any criticism Jon Chait has of public education, and I’m skeptical of anything Tweety (as he’s called here) has to say about Sanders.
Both are professionals in the opinion business, so they reach more people than germy or baud.
Mandalay
@download my app in the app store mistermix:
How can he? He would be defending the indefensible. Hunter Biden is one of many reasons Joe Biden would be an awful opponent for Trump, because Biden wouldn’t be able to go after Trump for failing to drain the swamp, and looking after the financial interests of his own family while president.
Folks here have seriously argued that Hunter Biden’s appointment was “not illegal”, and that Hunter Biden is an adult who is entitled to live his own life, as though that makes things OK. Yet Joe Biden was Vice President and did nothing to stop his son taking that job.
Biden would be a disastrous candidate. Trump would toss him in the wood chipper as corrupt if he gets the nomination. Ironic, because as far as I know Biden is squeaky clean financially, but Hunter Biden would be very heavy baggage.
BR
@Major Major Major Major:
I think there’s a major opportunity to come at the GOP from the right, or at least pretend to. Bloomberg should set up some PAC and tell them to create a potemkin army of pseudo far-right websites that come at the GOP from that angle and seed doubt from that perspective.
Baud
@germy:
Yes, of course one can use propaganda when purporting to call out propaganda.
Bill Arnold
@download my app in the app store mistermix:
Yes, there’s plenty that’s new since 2016 in it.
This caught my eye:
Dossiers of reporters, with pre-selected out-of-context material to damage them with.
Kay
@Omnes Omnibus:
They’re unrepresentative STATES but the Democratic voters within the states are just Democrats. They’re white Democrats. Has Joe Biden made an argument he doesn’t plan on attracting white Democrats? Because that seems newsworthy. I feel like we have just swallowed this nonsense whole, that we made a kind of category error, where we designated the Democrats in these states as, I don’t know, outliers as voters.
Bernie carried the (few) AA precincts in Iowa. Are we now arguing that Iowa AA are unique because they happen to be located in Iowa? That’s the Biden argument for white voters. They’re just voters, Omnes. They’re Democrats. He has to try to get them to vote for him.
J R in WV
@Ohio Mom:
Not to mention vitamin C which is necessary for our systems — unless you want scurvy to cause all your teeth to fall out, which would make the all meat diet difficult. I guess you could go with ground turkey? Sounds terrible to me.
We had halibut and roasted asparagus with prosciutto and cheese and crunchy fried potatoes last night. Wife seemed to enjoy it also.
download my app in the app store mistermix
@Mandalay:
I watched Romney’s speech on the Senate floor. He said
With regards to Hunter Biden, taking excessive advantage of his father’s name is unsavory but also not a crime.
I just had to nod my head. It was unsavory. It’s easy for voters to understand. It’s a problem, and potentially blocks a discussion of Trump’s grifting kids (they’re a lot worse, but still).
Nelle
Today’s Des Moines Register reports that Not only were Republicans trying up phone lines, but some were used precinct and pin numbers, posted on Twitter, to call in fake results. Additionally, journalists started calling, demanding results, again tying up lines against those trying to report results.
Guarding against intrusion and intentional rat-fing means thinking more like an enemy who will be pushing on all points to find a way in. Reminds me if working in a residential health facility. I had to be alert fir every possibility; a suicidal patient I took out if lockup only needed one opening.
WarMunchkin
@download my app in the app store mistermix:
Sort of. I worked in this field, and I have some expertise in it. In 2016, HRC’s campaign did something broadly called “content marketing”. It’s both new and not new (it’s basically just a blog), and it can loosely be described as trying to build more propaganda to drown out your opponent’s propaganda.
It’s been taken down, but here’s a screenshot from google of what their content outfit looked like.
This coincided with a baseless controversy in the 2016 campaign over an initiative called Correct The Record
People on Reddit went apeshit over this, believing that HRC’s campaign was trying to build fake accounts and astroturf, but it was meant to make content available with the hopes that normal humans would signal boost it into their respective feeds.
I don’t have positive opinions on Acronym or the individuals running it, but I understand where you’re coming from. I just think it’s worth having the bits of information above to contextualize what is innovative and/or not innovative on our side.
It’s been a good couple years since I’ve posted here. Nice to see some familiar names, and hope you’re all doing well.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kay: It appears that his campaign has limited resources. Given that, is it an unreasonable decision to choose to spend those resources in a state that he must win rather than in a state where he is unlikely to do better than third? If he doesn’t win in SC, he is in real trouble. If he does, a third vs fourth place finish in IA and/or NH doesn’t really matter that much.
download my app in the app store mistermix
@Bill Arnold: Yes, that was certainly news to me. But it makes sense in the context of the way Trump operates.
@WarMunchkin: Thanks, that’s interesting background. That “Correct the Record” site seems about as anodyne as possible as a response, but classic that some subreddit lost its shit about it.
Mandalay
@Kay:
The conventional wisdom is that a good choice won’t help much, but a poor choice would be harmful. McCain picking Palin springs to mind, though I don’t know how much she hurt (or even helped?!) his campaign.
Perhaps there are examples of a purple state being won because it was the home state of the VP candidate, but I don’t know of any clear examples.
But I can believe that a popular choice for VP (e.g. perhaps Harris or Abrams?) might make some people more likely to show up and vote.
J R in WV
@germy:
I wonder — do the same people who want to call Sanders Wilmer also call Matthews Tweety? Or do the people who object to calling Sanders Wilmer at the same time call Matthews Tweety? Research needed to show which may be true would be so incredibly boring I’m not gonna do it.
I don’t like Matthews at all, he doesn’t allow his guests to answer his questions, which are pretty crummy questions designed to be gotcha situations in many cases. And if his wife is in politics, should he be allowed to be doing a pundit political analyst act on TV? No. I am dismayed to find that many people doing political analysis on TV have close family in politics… almost as bad as a Supreme Court justice with a wife in right wing politics.
And the former Dallas Cowboys QB should never be allowed to call a football game where one team is the Cowboys — it seems obvious to me that he can’t be objective, he only played for that one team. I’m speaking of Troy Aikman, not Tony Romo, who really calls a good game.
But no one in charge seems to care about obviously beholden people getting to pretend to be objective. Sad.
Mai naem mobile
@germy: IMHO Matthews was turned down for a position he wanted in the Bill Clinton admin. and carries a grudge about that. There is something personal about the way he treats the Clintons.
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: I’m glad you’re commenting today because I’m popping in and out as I work, so I don’t really have time to comment, and you are making all the points I would be making if a) I had more time today, and b) these threads weren’t so depressing.
I had no idea how important the Sunday Garden Chat and other nice threads were to me until we started seeing more substantive and depressing threads on Sunday mornings these last couple of weeks.
Somehow, without my knowing it, Balloon Juice trained me to expect and appreciate the Sunday morning tone, and then did a 180 with no warning. Not fair! :-)
Bill Arnold
@Adam L Silverman:
Those are good pieces.
I’ve not knowingly met a Tony Willnow character, who admits to not caring about truth. The wingnuts of my acquaintance always insist that their news sources/news feeds(/propaganda feeds) are reliable and that the MSM is an undifferentiated cesspool of lies. I’ve disassembled a few right wing false narratives for them and it shuts them up for a bit but next time, it’s new lies.
Bill Arnold
@Nelle:
The phone lines were part of the backup plan. The numbers should not have leaked; that was a failure. And Republicans should not have ratfucked. I hope some of them are hunted down and face consequences, even if just social.
ThresherK
@Bill Arnold: I learned about that incident from my Bernie Bro acquaintances, who have determined that that GOP ratfucking is just another reason to hate the oligarchs in both parties.
Can someone please give me a link to any non-Juicer Bernie rooter who has their eye on the ball and has heard that Dems, in general, are very satisfied with the choice of candidates assembled before them?
Sab
@WaterGirl: Isn’t Plouffe on the Board of Uber? Not necessarily a good guy.
Mai naem mobile
@Nelle: Clinton’s. I heard somebody(Amanda Marcotte?) say that it was 4Chan who screwed with the phone lines not the Republicans
ThresherK
@germy: I like your policy about how Chait and Matthews shouldn’t be trusted on certain subjects. Feel free to add other opinion-makers at will.
(PS But not Bill Maher. His worldview has so many black holes-a self-proclaimed athiest who manages to be an Islamaphobe!-I’m writing him off entirely.)
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?
@download my app in the app store mistermix: I wouldn’t encourage Democrats to engage in misinformation, or disinformation. But…they do need to counter what Trump is doing by not just pushing out pro Dem propaganda to likely Democratic voters, but go after the lukewarm supporters of Trump that they might get to stay home.
Last week I heard an NPR interview with an Iowa farmer who hasn’t decided who he’s going to vote for. At the end of the segment he says “I can’t honestly say I’m better off than I was 4 years ago” – the guy has had to take on a second job to save his farm. So target farmers with ads that tell them Trump drove farm bankruptcies to an all time high and can you really risk 4 more years of that?
Target the guys in NE Ohio with ads about Trump promising Lordstown wouldn’t close, then it did. Go after suburban voters that might still be leaning Trump with ads that paint him with the worst brush possible given the issues they care about. If they’re going to try to drive down Democratic turnout, we need to drive down their turnout. So, send all the olds that support him that stuff he said about cutting Medicare and Social Security. We don’t need it to work with many of their voters to win. It just has to peel off like 50,000 in a few States and he’s toast.
Kay
@Omnes Omnibus:
Joe Biden, the guy with 100% name recognition has limited resources? Hmm. No connection at all between “resources” and strength as a candidate?
Again- I don’t care. I’ll vote for the nominee but the excuse making around Biden has, IMO, become it’s own kind of bad information.
Take the Left lane out if it- pretend Bernie doesn’t exist. Why can’t the VP of a very popular President bring the rest of the voters?
Bill Arnold
From the RWNJ Fringe, via the NYT:
Blood libel against Democrats:
What Happens When QAnon Seeps From the Web to the Offline World (Mike McIntire and Kevin Roose, Feb. 9, 2020)
From the same piece, including some truths, bold mine: :-)
[1] Blood Libel: A False, Incendiary Claim Against Jews (via)
[2] Nov 6, 2018. Not gonna drop a link here.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
That sounds like consultant BS claims and the kind of stuff Trump would fall for. I use Facebook a lot and most of the political stuff comes from George Takei. Facebook like most social media is self selecting; some wingnut a-hole is going to join the “Were NOT racist, NOT gay, NOT stupid like those mean Libetards say” Facebook group.
Now
The Trump Campaign bribing the software companies that do the voting machines to fix the vote, that sounds like Trump too.
James E Powell
@Kay:
Totally agree except for this last thing. He’s going up against two locals. His best possible outcome would be third. Better to let it go and get to work on Nevada & SC.
Biden is going to need a win soon or he will be done. I wonder if he has planned a graceful exit.
ETA – I see that @Omnes Omnibus: got there before me.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kay: You are asking me to prove something I am not claiming. I don’t care to play.
I see his decision as rational in his circumstances. And, yes, the circumstances are that at this moment he is weak. I think it is something he can potentially get past, if he does well in SC. Hence, in my opinion, his decision makes sense.
Butter Emails
@James E Powell:
If you ask people from New Hampshire which state’s people they hate the most, it’s Massachusetts, despite or perhaps because half of the state is just Massholes who don’t want to pay taxes.
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman: Oh, thanks for reminding me that I have a big cache of your articles to catch up on
@Patricia Kayden: Yeah, but will he support Warren or Klobuchar? Or did those names just not come up somehow in the hypothetical “beat Bernie” scenario?
Miss Bianca
@BR: I’d feel a lot better about voting for Sanders if he had Warren on the ticket, too. Tho’ there’s definitely a case to be made for finding a younger VP who doesn’t take a Democrat out of the Senate.
I just shudder to imagine who some of the other picks on a Sanders short-list for VP might be.