46
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2024
46 points (87.1% liked)
United States | News & Politics
1749 readers
267 users here now
Welcome to !usa@midwest.social, where you can share and converse about the different things happening all over/about the United States.
If you’re interested in participating, please subscribe.
Rules
Be respectful and civil. No racism/bigotry/hateful speech.
Post anything related to the United States.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Gaslighting worried Democrats is in no way a method of building support for whoever the Democratic nominee is. This isn't a media issue. This isn't a "always happens" issue. This was 50 million people watching the oldest president ever shit the bed on TV, fail to counter his fascist opponent, and throw every possible explanation against the wall to explain it. Whatever you think of the media and their motivations, this isn't business as usual and isn't fake, and pretending it is just makes the rank and file more suspicious of and less engaged with the Democratic party, the absolute worst thing you can be doing in the lead up to an election.
The debate, and the ensuing conversation isn’t the media reaction he’s talking about. If you don’t want to read it I can go pull those relevant sections, but it's just a bunch of tweets or, whatever it is now.
I read it, but the subtext of it (and explicit text at the end) is that this is a Dems shitting on their own problem. There are a lot of words battling a straw man of complainers who think the replacement wouldn't get attacked, but the message of "shut up and support Biden" is very clear.
Well, no. For two reasons: the first is that other quote i pasted in where he says he explicitly doesn’t care if it’s Biden (or Harris, or “warm vomit”) he’s voting for who - or, theoretically what-ever it is. So “shut up and vote Biden” doesn’t fit. I think you’re reading that where it’s not warranted.
The second is the following where he talks about “centrists, journalists, and pundits” (and yes, elected Dems) and what drives their commentary about politics:
(italics added)
So I read it as, the media are not inclined to actually do their jobs and put paid to trumps constant lying and his grotesque unqualifiedness, despite nominally having held the position before. They won’t do it because it’s less profitable, but more importantly, it’s no fun.
People dig into trumps mania because you either love it or hate it - if you ignore it, that defaults to the ‘love’ category. Like people who ignore a raging house fire they’re in.
Any change to the ticket - in fact no change to the ticket - means more of the same. Commentators and journalists will not help save democracy. It doesn’t get clicks, and it’s just “no fun”.
I think he’s got a good point.
This just reads to me as the standard "while I too would love to have progressive policy, here's my 25 passionately argued reasons we should just pursue centrist policies". It's a sentence to say "I'm with you, now let me spend all my effort arguing against you" that mainstream Dems trot out.
Oh, I agree with all of that, but this isn't coming out in a void. He didn't write this thread a month ago. It's not like only now have the media followed this pattern. He wrote it when the thing they're doing is (admittedly happily) covering a real campaign to swap Biden. The implication to me is that this is just evergreen shitting on Dems, not a real issue for true Democrats, and a change would somehow generate just as damaging coverage so why are you letting them cause discord.
And if the argument is really just "the media will be harsh to the new candidate", yes, everyone knows that and no one is arguing otherwise. But there's a difference between picking at trivialities and not ignoring one of the biggest election stories of the cycle, and the former is far better for us. And it can't happen with Biden.
Well, agree to disagree on his motives, I guess.
I took it to mean “Harris (or whoever) will be under the boot of corporate news in a flash, and we’ll be - electorally, percentage-wise, and all the other horserace materials that so stress us the fuck out - right back where we are now.”
To me, that reads like an indictment of corporate news, or perhaps a sort of DC status quo, and specific to the presidential election. But it doesn’t seem like he’s even interested in any part of progressive/centrist politics other than he specifically calls out centrists as being part of the problem. Like there’s no mention of issues.
People watched Trump shit the bed for years and Biden is losing to him.
Nobody is saying Trump is "just fine," we're saying Biden is not a compelling alternative.
If Trump is an existential threat that requires every possible effort be expended against him, sticking with grampy (as bets are placed whether he'll reach the election or the reaper) is gross negligence and really undermines the argument.