Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

You are either for trump or for democracy. Pick one.

This is dead girl, live boy, a goat, two wetsuits and a dildo territory.  oh, and pink furry handcuffs.

“I was told there would be no fact checking.”

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

Fucking consultants! (of the political variety)

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

There are times when telling just part of the truth is effectively a lie.

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

Donald Trump found guilty as fuck – May 30, 2024!

Since we are repeating ourselves, let me just say fuck that.

If you don’t believe freedom is for everybody, then the thing you love isn’t freedom, it is privilege.

I swear, each month of 2025 will have its own history degree.

If you cannot answer whether trump lost the 2020 election, you are unfit for office.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

So many bastards, so little time.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

The line between political reporting and fan fiction continues to blur.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. keep building.

We can’t confuse what’s necessary to win elections with the policies that we want to implement when we do.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Watch the Disinformation

Watch the Disinformation

by | 93 Comments

This post is in: 

I was in the city and on the train while reading and responding to comments in the last post, but I’d like to remind people to source what they’re posting, lest we fall into disinformation traps.

First,  the person who posted about some reddit thread saying that AOC had removed her pronouns from her socials clearly didn’t check her Instagram (her main social feed) before posting, because here’s what it looked like two minutes ago:

Watch the Disinformation

Second, I’m tired of people doing both sides with unnamed leftists on your social feeds.  I see this a fair amount, especially from a couple of you.  If someone from “the left” has posted something you don’t like, let us know who it is.  Is it some random reply guy?  Or is it someone who gets platformed by the New York Times, or some other prestige publication.  You can always nutpick trolls, and that proves nothing of value.  For example, the general point that the legacy media has been platforming Democratic consultants and insiders who have a major vested interest in moving the party to the right is not countermanded by “but look at what Rando Leftist McWhiteguy posted on the socials.”   It also ignores the fact that the Dems who sabotaged some of Joe Biden’s agenda were not from the left wing of the party, they were centrists (Manchin, Sinema, Gottheimer (attempted), etc.). “The left” who are actual human beings, not reply guys or trolls, were solidly behind Biden in Congress.

As for what Bernie Sanders himself said after the election, more on that to come, but as far as him being a “traitor,”  he held his tongue until after the election, after being a solid surrogate for Biden and then Harris.

Finally, on election results:  they aren’t all in yet.  As the results filter in, the popular vote margin between Harris and Trump is tightening.  Citing the popular vote difference from election night doesn’t strengthen anyone’s argument, and it’s premature.  We have days, at a minimum, and probably weeks until we get final results, but the trend is looking like Trump will not get a majority of the popular vote (though he will probably get more votes than Harris).

So, to summarize:  check what you cite before you cite it, don’t use some amorphous blob as a stand in for actual human beings who we can check out, and all the election results aren’t in.

Reader Interactions

93Comments

  6. 6.

    Quaker in a Basement

    Is Mr. Mix aware of all internet traditions

    But seriously, yes please to all of that.

  9. 9.

    Baud

    By the same token, no one should ever talk about what the “Democrats” or “liberals” or even “centrists” are doing. Name names. If it’s a universal rule, I can agree to and abide by that. Mutual respect.

  10. 10.

    @mistermix.bsky.social

    @LAC: Yep, it’s fine to disagree with what Bernie said.  I’m just saying he was a loyal surrogate, as were most of the other Congressional Democrats on the left, including AOC.

  12. 12.

    Chris

    Thank you.

    “The left” continues to be the most conveniently vague and amorphous bogeyman in U.S. politics. It’s practically “woke” for sophisticated people.

  14. 14.

    Nukular Biskits

    @Baud:

    Agreed.

    One of the things that infuriates me to no end is for Republicans/conservatives to single out someone out on the fringes of “the left” (however it’s defined) as being representative of the everyone even slightly left of center.

    And, at the risk of “bothsidsing” this, I have no  doubts I’m guilty of doing this on occasion as well.

  16. 16.

    Chris Johnson

    @@mistermix.bsky.social: This is fair. I’ve been saying that he got hijacked by trolls and Russians (which mainstream Dems were most definitely made aware of: divide and conquer, remember? That’s why they did it) and this is why you can’t demand he answer for every troll, nor can you expect that there won’t be trolls.

    It’s the trolls that were demanding things like Force The Vote, or insisting Biden was Genocide Joe. Not Bernie himself. But those people would be quick to claim they’re speaking for him, or leverage anything he might say.

  17. 17.

    Mike S

    The Cook Political Rport is updating the popular vote. As of right now, 3:03 pst, it is 49.96/48.24.

  18. 18.

    @mistermix.bsky.social

    @John S.:

    And for those who didn’t, like Rashida Tlaib, it’s important to call them out by name so they can’t hide from what they did in some nebulous group.

    This is one of the races where I’m waiting for a final count.  The claim is that her district swung far away from the 2020 Biden totals, that she far outperformed the ticket, etc.  When I looked a couple of days ago, I couldn’t find a reliable source of presidential vote tallies by Congressional districts, but when I find it, I want to take a serious look at it.

  19. 19.

    Starfish (she/her)

    @John S.: Rashida had the entire House trying to pass a bill that would give the executive branch of government the power to destroy non-profits because they hated Palestinians that much. They thought better of it when the executive branch of government was going to be turned over to Trump but not really a moment sooner.

  20. 20.

    KatKapCC

    So, people were claiming AOC had removed her pronouns from her socials, and this was supposed to mean…what? She’s trans? She’s transphobic? She got red-pilled?

  24. 24.

    Chris

    @Nukular Biskits:

    The difference is that whatever horrible thing you see being done advocated by some random Republican is more than likely going to be official GOP policy within a decade (hey, remember when anti-vaccerism was a fringe view?) and the random leftist on Twitter is… incredibly not.

    The right follows its lunatics’ leads, so you should definitely take note of what the fringes are saying.

  26. 26.

    hrprogressive

    @KatKapCC: ​
     

    The argument here – specious as it is – was that “Even AOC though the let’s culture war stuff was too much so even she – the woke liberal leftist commie – took her pronouns out of her socials. We’re right!!!!”

    It’s total bullshit. It’s designed to be a red herring.

    It’s also, as mistermix noted, factually false.

  28. 28.

    Chris Johnson

    @Baud: Basically more divide and conquer and ‘let’s you and him fight’.

    I am not in the least bit surprised that the troll divisions, far from resting,  now have to kick into overdrive. What they have to achieve is now quite a bit more difficult. They gotta create smoke, and stall, while Trump in plain sight sets up to straight up ruin America and piss on the wreckage. That… could offend.

  29. 29.

    @mistermix.bsky.social

    @LAC:

    if that is loyal, then jaysus.  Not a “traitor” but was quick to wash his hands of it and revert back to his “man of the people” non problem solving scolding.

    To me, the question with any coalition partner, which I think is a fair way to look at Bernie, at least, is where they are when the campaign is going on, and how they acted in Congress while they’re part of the coalition.  He did fine on both counts:  loyal campaign surrogate, mostly a solid, reliable vote in the Senate.  Now, he’s off yelling about what he usually yells about.  Some of what he said is right, some of it isn’t, but he’s saying it after the election.

    There are a lot of people who comment on this blog who hate Bernie and hated how Joe Biden was treated.  Bernie (and AOC) were not behind the push to oust Biden, as far as I can tell.  Their loyalty to Biden was more complete than (perhaps former) fan favorite Nancy Pelosi, to pick one example, or Adam Schiff, to pick another.

  31. 31.

    oldgold

    I think campaigning  needs to be reimagined. Just how, I am not sure, but careening from city to city in swing states holding events seems less than an effective use of time, energy and money.  In fact, I am not sure campaigning as it is done now translates into much of anything.

    Trump’s campaigning down the stretch seemed to be a shit-show. Harris’s appeared to be at least competent. But in the end, what did it matter?

  34. 34.

    KatKapCC

    @LAC: The sad thing about Bernie stans is that none of them can ever be the biggest Bernie stan because that role is occupied by Bernie himself.

  37. 37.

    Mo MacArbie

    Bernie’s recent comments about the election pissed me off too, but yes, his vote was there when we needed it through these years of slim majorities. I can understand it when now, back in the minority, he will take advantage of his freedom to “write his own dissent.”

    It still pisses me off, but I can understand it.

  38. 38.

    @mistermix.bsky.social

    @oldgold:

    I think campaigning  needs to be reimagined. Just how, I am not sure, but careening from city to city in swing states holding events seems less than effective use of time, energy and money.  In fact, I am not sure campaigning as it is done now translates into much of anything.

    Trump’s campaigning down the stretch seemed to be a shit-show. Harris’s appeared to be at least competent. But in the end, what did it matter?

    The counter-argument to this is that the spread between Harris and Trump was smaller in the states where she campaigned.  (Again, something worth double-checking when all the votes are counted.)

    So, it appears from the information that we have that something about her campaign moved the needle.  But the confounding variables include way more TV and other ad spend in those states, perhaps voters who were aware of their outsized role and therefore paid more attention than the average voter, and the other GOTV efforts (canvassing, etc.) that were focused on those states.

  39. 39.

    oldgold

    @Baud: Ok, forget Trump, what was accomplished by Harris dashing from Pittsburgh to Lansing to Tempe to Charlotte holding random events for the last two months?

  41. 41.

    oldgold

    @@mistermix.bsky.social: “The counter-argument to this is that the spread between Harris and Trump was smaller in the states where she campaigned.”

    Yes, I would argue that was not the result of her campaigning in these states, it is the reason she did – they were close.

  42. 42.

    Baud

    @oldgold:

    I’m not a campaign strategist. I assume these events were to help turn out low propensity voters.

    Or maybe they wanted to avoid the misogynistic attacks Hillary got.

  43. 43.

    LAC

    @@mistermix.bsky.social: yep, true…they kicked Biden in the face but Bernie kicked him in the rear.  A kick is a kick.  I didn’t see AOC doing that. I feel that the wrong lessons are being learned. That’s all.

  44. 44.

    @mistermix.bsky.social

    @Mo MacArbie:

    Bernie’s recent comments about the election pissed me off too, but yes, his vote was there when we needed it through these years of slim majorities. I can understand it when now, back in the minority, he will take advantage of his freedom to “write his own dissent.”

    It still pisses me off, but I can understand it.

    Here’s how I see it (similar to you but maybe slightly different emphasis): Bernie is one of the few (and probably the main) spokespersons for the party pushing a left-leaning agenda.

    There are dozens (hundreds?) of people with big media platforms taking about “woke” and limiting trans rights, and wanting Rahm Emmanuel to be the next DNC chair, etc.  These people have much bigger platforms that Bernie.  And they have an agenda, just like Bernie’s.  But they are packaged and presented to us is a far less challenging manner than Bernie just going off on the teevee.

  45. 45.

    sab

    @oldgold: Whatever.

    ETA Or she campaigned there because they were swing states. They could have gone worse because she went there if her message didn’t resonate, but they didn’t. They went better.

  46. 46.

    Hodge

    ‘“The left” who are actual human beings, not reply guys or trolls, were solidly behind Biden in Congress’

    Do these people need to be named or is that acceptably understood?

  47. 47.

    H.E.Wolf

    @MobiusKlein: ​The fun is where you find it.

     A very good motto.

    I’m writing with PostcardsToVoters.org between now and Tuesday, to help re-elect a Supreme Court Judge in Mississippi (and defeat his MAGA opponent).

    Nukular Biskits, I think this one’s for you!

  49. 49.

    KatKapCC

    @oldgold: It was to emphasize the cultural issues you wish she would have deemphasized but still won’t tell us in clear words what is included under that heading.

  50. 50.

    @mistermix.bsky.social

    @oldgold:

    Yes, I would argue that was not the result of her campaigning in these states, it is the reason she did – they were close.

    I didn’t explain it well in my initial comment.  The argument on the numbers is that generally the electorate moved 5 points in Trump’s direction.  But in these states, something arrested that move and it was only a couple of points.  She chose to campaign in them because they were close, of course.

    Again, I want to see final numbers, but this observation has been made by a lot of people trying to understand the race and the role of campaigning.  (Josh Marshall, Jon Lovett, Jon Favreau among others.)

  51. 51.

    RevRick

    @Baud: I roll my eyes at all the instant analysis of Democrats and pundits, whether left, right or center that doesn’t factor in the reality of inflation. You look at our history and you see that voters punished the party in charge for bouts of inflation or times of depressions. Carter after the oil shock of 1979? The GOP after the oil shock of 1973? The Democrats after the post WW2 inflation in 1946? Herbert Hoover, who went from a landslide victory in 1928 to utter defeat in 1932? The Democrats following the twin shocks of the Spanish flu and post war inflation in 1920?

  53. 53.

    Nukular Biskits

    Somewhat relevant to the topic:

    I know you’ll read this and push back, but given the opportunity to change, you know that you would always choose your whiteness.

    I don’t know exactly why, when I’ve grown from the same soil, that I have become so horrified that we re-elected Trump, yet you voted for him. Your reasoning may be eloquent, or dogwater bad. Today, I do not care. Today we put away boyish questions so that I can address you man to man.

    MS Free Press: Opinion | Man to Man, You Need to Care About Your Neighbors

  54. 54.

    geg6

    @@mistermix.bsky.social:

    Several people at the Bulwark have also talked about this quite a bit, including Tim Miller and Sara Longwell.  Say what you will about them but they are campaign pros and they are trying to wrap their minds around the same thing.

  55. 55.

    oldgold

    @@mistermix.bsky.social: Thank you for your fuller explanation. And, to some degree, I agree with you, but my question still stands, is it the best use of time, energy and money?

    I think for the most part these events are populated by the fully converted. In reimagining campaigning, the question should be how do we better reach and motivate those not in the choir to vote for us.

  59. 59.

    Miki

    @Baud: Fuck Bernie, still. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day. The guy is mostly incapable of self-awareness, not that dissimilar from other old white guys.

  60. 60.

    eemom

    @LAC:

    yep, true…they kicked Biden in the face but Bernie kicked him in the rear.  A kick is a kick.  I didn’t see AOC doing that.

    Bernie and Pelosi both did that after the election (as well as Pelosi kicking him in the face before). And I’m afraid I’m missing the point of “yeah, but at least BERNIE waited UNTIL after the election.”

    My question is, what was the point of Pelosi and Bernie shitting on Biden, AND Harris, after the election, as both of them did?? There was nothing to be gained politically. It was pure gratuitous  back stabbing by both of them, and I personally hate them for it.

    Because I think Biden and Harris have both got to be personally heartbroken and crushed right now after both doing their damnedest to save this country, and deserve a little decency. Especially from, you know, their own fucking side.

  61. 61.

    KatKapCC

    @eemom:

    Because I think Biden and Harris have both got to be personally heartenbroken and crushed right now after both doing their damnedest to save this country

    I keep imagining how Harris must have felt that night, and it shatters my heart every time.

  62. 62.

    Baud

    @eemom:

    Because I think Biden and Harris have both got to be personally heartenbroken and crushed right now after both doing their damnedest to save this country, and deserve a little decency. Especially from, you know, their own fucking side

    QFT.

  63. 63.

    Aussie Sheila

    @Chris:

    The ‘left’ in US discourse appears to mean anyone who disagrees with David Brooks. It’s honestly ineffable to me how utterly narrow the appeture through which political discourse takes place in the US.

    It’s is often very socially liberal but it’s unfailingly libertarian inflected when it comes to anything else, including an unbelievable tolerance for social violence which to my mind is intolerable in a civilised society and reduces room for any debate and fundamental change.

  64. 64.

    LAC

    @eemom: i miss the point as well. Bernie waiting barely 24 hours to spittle his way to a microphone is neither a profile in courage nor supportive.  But like I said, all the wrong lessons are being learned and I feel that I gave it the ole  college try here to express my opinion in the nicest way I could.   I agree with you completely  on the heartbreak.

  67. 67.

    Starfish (she/her)

    @John S.: I haven’t really paid much attention to her. That first year, there was a lot of yelling in committee meetings. But her bills seem like reasonable things to want.

  69. 69.

    Mo MacArbie

    @eemom: 
      Decency and personal heartbreak don’t really enter into it. Biden and Harris are the past now, and there is future to win, which means getting out in front of good taste or all the facts coming in in order to catapult his narrative. Or our narrative. Or every narrative. Sharp elbows are being thrown to determine the way forward.

  71. 71.

    PJ

    @Baud: Now, more than ever.

     

    BTW, does anyone know why California takes so long to count votes?  I know it’s a big state, but it seems like something a Democratic Governor and legislature could do something about.

  72. 72.

    Bill Arnold

    @oldgold:

    In reimagining campaigning, the question should be how do we better reach and motivate those not in the choir to vote for us.

    I believe that there needs to be considerably more effort put into countering false GOP narratives, e.g. in the 2024 election, some false GOP narratives were under-countered, about crime, the health of the economy, and some smaller targeted ones like “banning fracking” in PA.

  74. 74.

    tam1MI

    As for what Bernie Sanders himself said after the election, more on that to come, but as far as him being a “traitor,”  he held his tongue until after the election, after being a solid surrogate for Biden and then Harris.

    I just put his comments down to him trying to get ahead of the inevitable calls for Democrats to move to the right.

  75. 75.

    different-church-lady

    Call me cynical, but I feel like we’re no longer allowed to participate in the establishment of what is factual.

  77. 77.

    Baud

    @different-church-lady:

    We’re just in the same boat as the people who led Europe out of the dark ages. We’re at a point where it’s more important that we be right than that we convince others that we’re right.

  82. 82.

    eemom

    @Mo MacArbie:

    Decency and personal heartbreak don’t really enter into it. Biden and Harris are the past now, and there is future to win, which means getting out in front of good taste or all the facts coming in in order to catapult his narrative. Or our narrative. Or every narrative. Sharp elbows are being thrown to determine the way forward.

    Exactly how did Pelosi and Bernie shitting on Biden and Harris days after the election do anything to accomplish any of those goals, please?

    I’ll take “baby steps”. I’ll take any answer at all to that question.

  85. 85.

    Lyrebird

    @@mistermix.bsky.social: I really appreciate what you are saying above, and not just because I have been all “watch out for disinformation, let’s not spread it” for the past couple years I think.

    I have a difference of view here:

    Bernie is one of the few (and probably the main) spokespersons for the party pushing a left-leaning agenda.

    Background: The main reason I switched from Bernie to HRC back in that primary was because he couldn’t listen to Black leaders.  Talk at them, yes, but not listen.  And the very things coming out of his mouth when he decided to lay out blame were things that erased MVP’s legislative record as well as some of Joey O’Biden’s major wins.

    I know that I only know about a small piece of the whole scenario, but I think some of this “you’re being forgotten, the Dems don’t care about you” message has been really effective and not in a helpful way.

    I also felt that VT-Sen’s remarks continue to leave out major forces in our country and in the Dem party, not in a helpful way.

  86. 86.

    Jackie

    Who is currently the GQP Senate minority leader? McConnell or Thune? I thought Thune was? But, if not until Jan 3, Senate conformation hearings for TCFG nominees won’t start before Jan 21, correct?

    Donald Trump on Sunday got a potentially devastating message from the Senate GOP leader, according to a report.

    Trump prior to announcing his nomination of Matt Gaetz said Republican leaders need to be ready to consent to recess appointments to skip the process of confirmation, despite the fact that the GOP just won the majority in the body.

    Senate Republicans then elected John Thune to replace Mitch McConnell when he retires, and Thune left the door open to do just that.

    But over the weekend, McConnell himself spoke out on the issue and declared that there would be no recess appointments, meaning all of Trump’s controversial nominees would be vetted and receive a confirmation hearing from the Republican Senators, according to a reporter.

    Jane Mayer, staff writer at the New Yorker, reported the development on social media on Sunday.

    “Message to Trump Team: ‘There will be no recess appointments’ Sen. Mitch McConnell said tonight at a Washington gathering,” Mayer reported on social media.

    rawstory.com/trump-mcconnell-unwanted-recess-message/

  88. 88.

    Jackie

    “President-elect Donald Trump on Sunday chose Brendan Carr to be chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, naming a veteran Republican regulator who has publicly agreed with the incoming administration’s promises to slash regulation, go after Big Tech and punish TV networks for political bias,” the New York Times reports.

    Washington Post: “Carr, the senior Republican commissioner on the FCC, has laid out an aggressive agenda in Project 2025, a conservative proposal for Trump’s second term developed by the Heritage Foundation, and has vowed in recent days to take on what he called a ‘censorship cartel’ including Facebook, Google, Apple and Microsoft.”

    Here starts TCFG’s equivalent to RT.

  90. 90.

    MobiusKlein

    @PJ: ​
     

    BTW, does anyone know why California takes so long to count votes? I know it’s a big state, but it seems like something a Democratic Governor and legislature could do something about.

    After 2000, when the scotus ruled that there was a right to vote, but maybe not a right to have your vote counted, we passed a proposition saying we had to count the votes.

    I think that accounts for some of it. We also have big Chonkers of stuff to vote on. Not everything gets counted on the timeline we want.

    Also mail in votes that are postmarked election day, and received within a week are counted.

  91. 91.

    Kathleen

    @sab: Do you think that had anything to do with his loss? I have some “deep thoughts” but I could be totally off base. My congressman Greg Landsman also said Biden should step down but he won his reelection handily.

  93. 93.

    Mo MacArbie

    @eemom: Well, I don’t really have the wherewithal to measure what it accomplished. The aim is just to get out there that the party needs to move Bernieward. Those who believe will believe. I heard about his remarks first through an old friend who served it up on facebook with a piquant bottle of 2016-vintage coulda-woulda-shoulda. So that worked, I guess.

    I haven’t heard what you mention about Pelosi though.

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