[Debate] Election 2020 Side Discussions

a place to have in-depth discussions of topics related to the 2020 U.S. Elections, so the main thread doesn't derail

Natus wrote:

I look forward to your deep dive into American ethnic minority support for Trump published in Quillette. But you'll have to move fast, because I'm sure that thesis has already been proposed.

Appeal to false authority. Doesn't pass muster.

r013nt0 wrote:
Natus wrote:

I look forward to your deep dive into American ethnic minority support for Trump published in Quillette. But you'll have to move fast, because I'm sure that thesis has already been proposed.

Appeal to false authority. Doesn't pass muster.

Neither does this:

cheeze_pavilion wrote:

I think you're reduction of it to just that is at best simplistic, at worst racist.

That's a weird way to attempt to defend of your own argument.

r013nt0 wrote:

That's a weird way to attempt to defend of your own argument.

This is Cheese's argument lifted from another thread. I responded in good faith, and that was a mistake.

Natus, between that thread and this one (edit i.e., your responses not just to me but to other people), I think the problem is more that you can't disagree with someone without trying to chalk up that difference to you somehow being morally superior to them.

cheeze_pavilion wrote:

Natus, between that thread and this one (edit i.e., your responses not just to me but to other people), I think the problem is more that you can't disagree with someone without trying to chalk up that difference to you somehow being morally superior to them.

So without evidence you accuse me of being morally superior as well as racist. Cool cool. Totally in good faith.

Natus wrote:
cheeze_pavilion wrote:

Natus, between that thread and this one (edit i.e., your responses not just to me but to other people), I think the problem is more that you can't disagree with someone without trying to chalk up that difference to you somehow being morally superior to them.

So without evidence you accuse me of being morally superior as well as racist. Cool cool. Totally in good faith.

(emphasis mine)

Mixolyde wrote:

In other words, yes, the experiment is over. We don't come back from this.

This is depressingly accurate, and it's questionable whether the Democratic politicians are equal to the challenge of the moment.

Natus wrote:
Mixolyde wrote:

In other words, yes, the experiment is over. We don't come back from this.

This is depressingly accurate, and it's questionable whether the Democratic politicians are equal to the challenge of the moment.

If they were equal to the task we wouldn't be here in the first place. They won't offend their rich donors, and they won't fix the underlying problems that allow money to win elections instead of policy and competence.

Mixolyde wrote:

In other words, yes, the experiment is over. We don't come back from this.

Mixolyde wrote:
Natus wrote:
Mixolyde wrote:

In other words, yes, the experiment is over. We don't come back from this.

This is depressingly accurate, and it's questionable whether the Democratic politicians are equal to the challenge of the moment.

If they were equal to the task we wouldn't be here in the first place. They won't offend their rich donors, and they won't fix the underlying problems that allow money to win elections instead of policy and competence.

Mixolyde wrote:

In other words, yes, the experiment is over. We don't come back from this.

+1

At this point, I'm just waiting to see where the borders are drawn when we Balkanize.

Farscry wrote:

At this point, I'm just waiting to see where the borders are drawn when we Balkanize.

right along the Mason Dixon line, and down the CA OR WA eastern borders.

thrawn82 wrote:
Farscry wrote:

At this point, I'm just waiting to see where the borders are drawn when we Balkanize.

right along the Mason Dixon line, and down the CA OR WA eastern borders.

My usual reasons for why we won't, but for the sake of argument if we did, where would the borders be drawn?

Wherever the People's Republic of China wants them.

As soon as the PRC figures out which faction is most likely to keep up the imports and not default on the debt, I think the whole thing is over in, like, five minutes.

The Hottest Campaign Ads on Twitter Didn’t Really Work: Study

Sam Stein wrote:

The PAC, Priorities USA, spent a good chunk of the cycle testing the effectiveness of ads, some 500 in all. And, along the way, they decided to conduct an experiment that could have potentially saved them tons of money. They took five ads produced by a fellow occupant in the Super PAC domain—the Lincoln Project—and attempted to measure their persuasiveness among persuadable swing state voters; i.e. the ability of an ad to move Trump voters towards Joe Biden. A control group saw no ad at all. Five different treatment groups, each made up of 683 respondents, saw one of the five ads. Afterwards they were asked the same post-treatment questions measuring the likelihood that they would vote and who they would vote for.

The idea wasn’t to be petty or adversarial towards the Lincoln Project, which drew both fans and detractors for the scorched-earth spots it ran imploring fellow Republicans to abandon Trump. It was, instead, to see if Twitter virality could be used as a substitute for actual ad testing, which took funds and time. If it turned out that what the Lincoln Project was doing was proving persuasive, the thinking went, then Priorities USA could use Twitter as a quasi-barometer for seeing how strong their own ads were.

But that didn’t turn out to be the case. According to Nick Ahamed, Priorities’ analytics director, the correlation of Twitter metrics—likes and retweets—and persuasion was -0.3, “meaning that the better the ad did on Twitter, the less it persuaded battleground state voters.” The most viral of the Lincoln Project’s ads—a spot called Bounty, which was RTed 116,000 times and liked more than 210,000 times—turned out to be the least persuasive of those Priorities tested.

They were basically made to appeal to liberals. It worked, too.

It sure did.

Did it?
The sound of all of those Lincoln Project creators in Biden's cabinet is deafening...

fangblackbone wrote:

Did it?
The sound of all of those Lincoln Project creators in Biden's cabinet is deafening...

In the election post-mortum a lot of people were pissed at LP when it became clear that the percentage of Republicans that voted for Trump had actually increased, alongside the revelation that LP had moved most of the money they raised into their personal accounts. Once again, we’re saved by Republicans choosing greed and incompetence over ideology.

fangblackbone wrote:

Did it?
The sound of all of those Lincoln Project creators in Biden's cabinet is deafening...

It's vitally important that the American public focus on the actions and legacy of anti-Trump Republicans rather than pro-Trump Republicans. Punch right, but not too far right. Dilutes the messaging.

fangblackbone wrote:

Did it?
The sound of all of those Lincoln Project creators in Biden's cabinet is deafening...

I was assured by political wisemen that Biden's cabinet would be filled by members of the Lincoln Project because Biden--a known compromiser--made unholy pacts with the devil.

But I guess I have no choice but to accept the summary of a 'study' from a PAC that's "focused mainly on high-dollar donors" such as Michael Bloomberg, hedge fund owners, and dark money PACs that's hidden behind a Daily Beast paywall because the PAC itself hasn't seen fit to post it on their own website.

fangblackbone wrote:

Did it?
The sound of all of those Lincoln Project creators in Biden's cabinet is deafening...

That’s not the only thing they won that matters and is undeserved. Money, as Ruhk pointed out. Influence , which I’m sure they’ll have to some degree. And they get to whitewash the fact that most of them are largely responsible for the modern Republican Party.

I'm very glad to be wrong so far, but I still have long-term concerns that they'll start showing up on centrist Dem campaign teams in 2022 or 2024, then advance to running as centrist Dems themselves in 2026 or 2028.
Basically, that this go around was more about convincing centrist Dems to think favorably about them than convincing Republicans to think unfavorably about Trump.

Stengah wrote:

I'm very glad to be wrong so far, but I still have long-term concerns that they'll start showing up on centrist Dem campaign teams in 2022 or 2024, then advance to running as centrist Dems themselves in 2026 or 2028.

Let's just get to 2021 with a functioning democracy, shall we? You're putting the cart way before the horse.

Natus wrote:
Stengah wrote:

I'm very glad to be wrong so far, but I still have long-term concerns that they'll start showing up on centrist Dem campaign teams in 2022 or 2024, then advance to running as centrist Dems themselves in 2026 or 2028.

Let's just get to 2021 with a functioning democracy, shall we? You're putting the cart way before the horse.

If we let the people who got us here in the first place back in the driver's seat, it won't matter.

Stengah wrote:
Natus wrote:
Stengah wrote:

I'm very glad to be wrong so far, but I still have long-term concerns that they'll start showing up on centrist Dem campaign teams in 2022 or 2024, then advance to running as centrist Dems themselves in 2026 or 2028.

Let's just get to 2021 with a functioning democracy, shall we? You're putting the cart way before the horse.

If we let the people who got us here in the first place back in the driver's seat, it won't matter.

You're assuming there will be a car by next year. The GOP loses nothing by destroying the country.

Which is why we need to hold the Republican politicians and operators responsible for the Trump Administration, not just those that supported Trump but also the ones that were happy to just fence-sit and let Trump have his way. If there isn’t a political cost to things like this shitty coup attempt it increases the likelihood of the Republicans trying again down the road with people less incompetent.

I mean, yeah, I do assume that the country will still exist next year. I also assume that whatever state it may be in, the people of The Lincoln Project aren't going to just abandon their plans to regain political power. We shouldn't ignore the threat they pose to our functioning democracy just because they're a less immediate threat than Trump's fan club. We can do two things.

ruhk wrote:

Which is why we need to hold the Republican politicians and operators responsible for the Trump Administration, not just those that supported Trump but also the ones that were happy to just fence-sit and let Trump have his way.

Which is NOT the Lincoln Project guys. Say what you will about their previous stances, they took a vociferous stance against Trump.

ruhk wrote:

If there isn’t a political cost to things like this shitty coup attempt it increases the likelihood of the Republicans trying again down the road with people less incompetent.

That's a different discussion, and I can tell you straight out: there will be no consequences for Trump and the GOP's behavior. None. That's why we in uncharted territory. They can do whatever they like, no matter how heinous, and their rabid base will follow them.

Stengah wrote:

I mean, yeah, I do assume that the country will still exist next year. I also assume that whatever state it may be in, the people of The Lincoln Project aren't going to just abandon their plans to regain political power. We shouldn't ignore the threat they pose to our functioning democracy just because they're a less immediate threat than Trump's fan club. We can do two things.

But you're very clearly prioritizing one over another and I've got news for you: The LP guys and gals *aren't* a threat to our democracy. They fought against that threat while a lot of arch-progressives dithered. So pardon me, but your targeting system is way off.

I mean, I wasn’t talking about LP in that post but you do you.

Natus wrote:
Stengah wrote:

I mean, yeah, I do assume that the country will still exist next year. I also assume that whatever state it may be in, the people of The Lincoln Project aren't going to just abandon their plans to regain political power. We shouldn't ignore the threat they pose to our functioning democracy just because they're a less immediate threat than Trump's fan club. We can do two things.

But you're very clearly prioritizing one over another and I've got news for you: The LP guys and gals *aren't* a threat to our democracy. They fought against that threat while a lot of arch-progressives dithered. So pardon me, but your targeting system is way off.

Stengah wrote:

I still have long-term concerns

I don't know about you, but when I have long term concerns about something it typically means it's something I want to keep an eye on, but don't think requires any immediate action. I even said they're less of an immediate threat in the post you quoted. How you get that I'm prioritizing them from that I'll never know.

They absolutely are a threat though. They were perfectly happy setting up the conditions Trump took advantage of. Their opposition to Trump is primarily because he wrested control of the party from them and used it for his own ends instead of theirs. If he weren't such a raging narcissist and egomaniac and was willing to play ball with them they'd never have broken away. The only thing I'll grant them is that I think they genuinely didn't like his ties to Russia, but even then, only because that meant they couldn't influence him themselves.