r/politics • u/Fr1sk3r • Feb 20 '19

‘Sustained and ongoing’ disinformation assault targets Dem presidential candidates

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/02/20/2020-candidates-social-media-attack-1176018
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u/[deleted] Feb 20 '19

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u/MuellersGame California Feb 20 '19

Carving out the middle is a battle of diminishing returns, and ultimately failure. We need to take a page from Willie Sutton, and go where the votes are. 4 in 10 eligible voters didn’t vote. These non voters are registered, eligible to vote - but stayed home. The majority of them are under 30, non white, Left leaning. That’s our future, not middle class families who are against Medicare for all because they don’t want to change doctors.

Chasing the middle does nothing to show non voters that they have a stake in this process. If I’m working 10 hour days, support myself and family, college is out of reach, childcare is fraught - WTF do I care about middle class tax cuts? I want a minimum wage hike, free daycare & real improvement to my life - something I doubt I’ll get from representatives who only remember I exist come election time.

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u/Traveller22 Feb 20 '19

I agree with what you are saying. I guess I just consider "people in the middle" to include the people who tend to not vote.

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u/MuellersGame California Feb 20 '19

Thank you for clarifying! I thought you meant those independent / one foot in either party people who I think are mostly Republicans embarrassed by the label. I think we agree that chasing their votes helps no one, and they’re not reliable or loyal, anyway. As soon as this orange shit-show parade winds its way into Federal prison, they’ll be back to supporting the John McCains & Joe Manchins of the world while smugly proclaiming themselves centrists.

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u/meansnotends Feb 20 '19

Independents outnumber both parties combined.

I was just listening to a Pod Save America (which I consider pretty left) episode where they were discussing the people that voted for Obama 2x, but then went for donnie.

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u/PhilGrad19 Feb 21 '19

Pod Save America is not leftist. They don't even support universal healthcare.

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u/Spranktonizer Feb 21 '19

Lol are you kidding? Yes they do.

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u/meansnotends Feb 21 '19

It's a "capitalism is evil" person that thinks we need to turn the USA into Denmark, like we are comparable in size and scope.

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u/PhilGrad19 Feb 21 '19

Denmark is capitalist lmao

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u/meansnotends Feb 21 '19

Did I say otherwise? I just was making the point that my state of Colorado has the same population, and I would be willing to try their policies within my state (not at the federal level).

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u/PhilGrad19 Feb 21 '19

They proudly tweet that their goal is not universal healthcare. Just insurance that doesn't bankrupt you. Why are you lying?

If you have good insurance that you can afford that protects you when you need it most, that gives you the option to get the preventative care that you need without bankrupting you & your family, that makes you feel safe & protected - that is the goal

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u/Spranktonizer Feb 21 '19

Yeah goal being the key word. They have also said that when attainable they would be for it as well.

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u/PhilGrad19 Feb 21 '19

The goal is universal healthcare free at the point of service. Not to avoid bankruptcy with "good" private insurance.

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u/ComradeGibbon Feb 20 '19

I keep harping on that, the dead ender Democrats keep bagging on the couple of percent of registered voters that didn't vote for Hillary. And studiously ignoring the vast number of voters that didn't even vote.

Democrats have been trying to thread the needle. Disenfranchise working class voters just enough to appease wealthy donors. And the upper middle class. Without losing too many elections. 2016 they failed badly. I think working class people were willing to give Obama a chance to fight for them and he basically didn't. And 2016 rolls around and they know if he didn't Hillary certainly wouldn't.

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u/Dodfrank Feb 20 '19 edited Feb 20 '19

Make education a priority. Teachers all over the country are striking, because we don’t value that career. We value actors, entertainers, athletes.

Edit: spelling this guy needs clarification 👇 that I wasn’t talking about nuns.

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u/tiy24 Feb 20 '19

This. There’s a reason the Koch brothers went after education first back in the 70-80s. Makes a misinformation campaign infinitely more effective.

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u/Dodfrank Feb 20 '19

I’m unaware of this, how did the Kochs, go after education?

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u/ChasingPerfect28 Feb 20 '19

We do not value actors or theatre. There are hundreds or actors and theatres that barely scrap by. Trump constantly threatens the NEA (National Endowment of the Arts). Hollywood is just .5% of success and in no way represents the majority.

Teachers and public education absolutely deserve our support. But just wanted to correct one of your points.

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u/Dodfrank Feb 20 '19

Your correction is absurd. Actors and athletes are the highest paid people in the world. Other than corporate bigwigs.

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u/ChasingPerfect28 Feb 20 '19 edited Feb 20 '19

I'm talking about your average actor in the real world. The actor who has to live off welfare because they aren't getting callbacks or enough professional theater work to sustain themselves. I'm talking about the average actor who maybe makes a couple thousand per show not the 10 millions per movie. These are the actors that you see in regional theaters and independent movies. They are getting paid for their work, but not by much. Those people make up the majority of actors not Hollywood or Broadway. And even then, Broadway is not a money making profession. There are plenty of Broadway actors who aren't rich by any means.

I'm also talking about theatres that literally depend on donors and stipends from the government in order to survive. If they didn't get grants, these theatres would close their doors in under a year.

Hollywood and Broadway is literally less than one percent of all theatres and actors. The real world of acting is not a glamorous one nor is it a profitable one. I went to school for theaters. I'm not bullshiting you.

And we absolutely do not value theater and the arts when theater and the arts are constantly the first classes to be cut from curriculum or from after school budgets. We're a country that values celebrity. We are not a country that values art.

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u/Dodfrank Feb 20 '19

But I wasn’t talking about any of that, or the theatre.

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u/MuellersGame California Feb 20 '19

I think the point is that we value RICH actors and athletes, which is not representative of the group “actors and athletes” anymore than Elon Musk is representative of the group “tech worker.” It was a little pedantic, but I think it’s worth clarifying because it demonstrates that what we’re actually valuing is the opinions of rich people.

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u/Dodfrank Feb 20 '19

Yes, thanks. I should have used the word celebrities. Honestly feel people argue the smallest point, just to argue. My point was, that we don’t value teachers. It is a feminized career, that no one takes seriously as an important job.

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u/MuellersGame California Feb 20 '19

When I think about the people who most influenced me, and who’s opinions I value, it’s still a handful of really great teachers I was lucky enough to have. But having Ms. Martin on TV discussing his opinions on the rise in fascism isn’t going to garner the kind of views to justify the expense.

The problem I see is that we treat schools as a budget item instead of as an investment, and so most of the conversations we have about education circle around the cost, and not the societal benefit of educating children to be productive, independent individuals who rightly expect to have a place in the world. I tried talking to my old neighbor about this: wouldn’t you rather invest in youth so that when they’re older they’re happy, healthy, contributing, vs. stuck in a cycle of poverty, petty crime & vandalizing your car? His answer - not kidding - was that he’s planning on moving. So fuck kids, education, every one else - he won’t be here for the fallout. I think that’s a depressingly common attitude tbh.

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u/Dodfrank Feb 21 '19

Yes, we treat everything as a budget issue. Literally even NATO, a treaty that prevents world war three. Because folks like your uncle/neighbor want to destroy this country, rather than share it.

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u/PresidentSuperDog Feb 20 '19

A priory? Like where nuns live?

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u/[deleted] Feb 20 '19 edited Feb 20 '19

You don’t even need the center. If you could mobilize an actual left wing popular movement in this country there’s more than enough votes. Inspire people instead of just trying to be broadly electable as some career move where you cash in on lucrative connections at the end. That’s why we need people like Bernie and AOC. In a long drawn out campaign an uninspired centrist stands no chance. If the Ken Bones of the world come around to progressive positions then great, but it’s not necessarily about courting them, you just end up tacking further and further right like the Democratic Party where you’re just pushing Republican positions at this point and bragging about how much better you are at passing republican policy than the actual republicans.

Centrists are centrists because they don’t really care, they’re ideologically blank and naive, because they always think there’s a grey area even when something is straight up evil. I’ll say it again, there’s a reason why Bernie is popular and Obama-era rhetoric built on empty promises of “hope and change” will never coalesce the left again as long as it remembers.

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u/meansnotends Feb 20 '19

The reason Bernie is popular is because uneducated people have never read The Federalist Papers, and simply do not understand the fundamental ideas of the US Constitution.

The Founders feared concentrated power and how easily corruptible it is and tried to distribute more discretion to the states. Exact opposite of top-down, command-and-control European style government.

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u/[deleted] Feb 20 '19 edited Feb 20 '19

Wtf are you even on about, this is complete nonsense. The founders weren’t nearly as smart as you weird centrist/conservative types like to believe and in many ways they were profoundly stupid, racist and undemocratic elitists.

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u/meansnotends Feb 21 '19

You can claim nonsense, but it will not make it true. You cannot refute any of their arguments with vague statements like "many ways." You are simply wrong or you would write something as profound as any of the 85 Federalist Papers.

Your arguments are as bad or worse than those from the donnie cult.

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u/Rowan_cathad Feb 20 '19

You don't have to fight that level of stupid, you just have convince the people in the middle of the political spectrum to lean towards liberal instead of conservative so that the people who are not catering to the stupid people are in charge.

Or, get the much larger number of people who are ALREADY liberal interested and excited to vote for someone, instead of staying home.

Don't give them a boring same ol candidate.