While it’s a good write-up, it’s not the first time that kind of info has been published. There is even solid polling data that the so-called “moderate” is virtually nonexistent. The key for Democrats, especially progressives, is to get people excited enough to go to the effort of voting. The key for Republicans is to make sure people don’t give a shit, and raise the level of effort needed for people to vote.
That’s why it pisses me off when so-called progressives say shit like there’s no difference between Democrats and Republicans. There is, and bothsiderism is how we get fascism.
I think it is easy to agree with her that nearly any of the top Democratic candidates should win, and that picking a VP who will draw in another slice of voters is a good idea. However, it is a fact that there is a large group of voters who have voted for one party in one election and another party in other elections. To simply dismiss this, as she seems to do, by saying that they’re all really Democrats who happen to occasionally stray, doesn’t seem to add anything to our understanding of anything.
I admire her ability to tweet her way to an academic career.
Dude… given the reality of the academic job market across the board in most fields, I suspect she got that job through hard work and talent (plus some good contacts and good luck, much like yourself). Most of us are fucked, so maybe don’t be condescending to your colleagues who’ve contributed to their fields and to the public discussion, eh?
I was being serious, not snarky. The story makes it pretty clear that her status as someone worth listening too was achieved through serious effort/hard work on social media. It isn’t something that works for many people.
You know better. She got her academic job the same way others did - doing the work, busting her ass, and lucking out with the right contacts, not just via social media. You are well aware that is only a small part of being an academic, though, even now, and much of the work is still in the research and writing, along with networking… because you don’t get jobs via your tweets. Whether you meant it to be or not, your comment was condescending and dismissive of her work. Please do better.
I think her theory is correct just from my own anecdotal experience with my parents. Both have voted for Clinton and then W for some reason. Ultimately, they are low information voters despite thinking themselves informed. I quiz them sometimes on what’s been passed by Congress, often they don’t know. I’m not much better to be honest. I’m only marginally more informed because I don’t watch network news. I wind up reading long form articles and just searching the Congressional docket when it amuses me. Ultimately, for the Democrats to win big they need to go left since there’s a sizable number of leftists in this country more than folks know. Polling data IMO is masking them more than what folks believe. Capitalism has paralyzed many of us from acting, although I suspect if Trump wins a second term or Sanders or Warren don’t get the nomination then I expect things to get really scary (think Reds! revolutionary alt-history scary) in the coming years (around 20 years at the latest imo).
I don’t think that she needs defending here; the story makes it very clear that this was intentional strategy on her part. However, you’re right: I don’t know whether she got her current job before or after this effort. I also don’t know if her job is tenure track, or whether that’s her long-term objective.
I was just reacting to this aspect of the story. The question of how much social media should factor into academic trajectory has been a major topic of discussion pretty much since social media came into existence.
Isn’t she saying the people who party switch are a small group, and matched by people who might switch the other way? And that both groups are dwarfed by the effects of the base of either side being energized or not? Progressives were unenthusiastic about Clinton, and the Tea Party was all in for Trump, but this time around Trump himself is a energizing figure for the left more than the right.
I was thinking about what she wrote about the 3rd parties:
what she saw as getting lost in the postelection commentary, was exactly how many people voted third party—for the Greens, the Libertarians or Evan McMullin, a former CIA operative who was running on behalf of the “Never Trump” wing of the Republican Party.[…] The voters who voted third party should have been Democratic voters—they were disproportionately young, diverse and college educated—but they were turned off by the divisive Democratic primary, and the Clinton camp made no effort to activate them in the general election.
(I should add that I have no idea how well the article is portraying her ideas.)
I’m sorry that you don’t see it that way, but I do. Despite the growing role of social media, the fact is that she would not have gotten the job she has on that alone. Not in this market, and you very well know that. The point is not her use of a new medium, it’s her work and what’s she’s contributed to our understanding of election cycles that got her the position that she’s in. Full stop.
I really don’t need you to lecture me on what the job market is like right now. I’m actually out there and you are not, so yeah, I’m really hyper aware of this aspect of the job market.
And, you don’t know anything about my career trajectory, though you apparently think I was born into my current job. I don’t know why you jumped to the conclusion that I was criticizing her, when I wasn’t, or decided to use this thread to pick a fight with me, but I don’t see any value in our interacting about it anymore.
The modern GOP has basically made it near impossible for any non-millionaire with socially liberal views or who isn’t white or straight to vote for them, and a lot of them don’t vote (and not just because of Republican cheating and disnfranchisement efforts). The Dem establishment just sucks at getting out the vote with them. Turn that total 55% turnout number into 60% and the Dem will make their margins in a typically narrow race every time. And they won’t have to depend on a candidate with movie star charisma to do it.
But…
If the Dem nominee is one who keeps offering business-as-usual neoliberal-lite policies, of course young voters are going to say “why bother?” If the DNC keeps rigging things toward those candidates in the primaries, creating an especially divisive one, of course skeptical voters who don’t care about the party’s internal dramas but do want at least one duopoly party to be free of corruption are going to say “why bother?” If the Dems keep taking PoC and LGBTQ people and blue collar union workers for granted, of course a lot of them are going to say “why bother?”
In Canada one election year the Conservative party eliminated a tax credit for people with children and replaced it with a taxable subsidy of $60 a month. Because the previous tax credit was eliminated and the new money was taxed, most of this $60 was going back at tax time. Most families were probably getting $10 a month.
Anyway, they apparently forgot how to write checks, so instead of sending out checks for the first part of the year they just didn’t. Then when the election was underway they figured out how to write checks again and sent out six months worth of checks to every parent in Canada. This meant a check for $360 for every child a family had. Have five kids, you get $1800 in the mail. Of course the check does not come with a letter reminding you you should sock away $1500 of that for your higher tax bill this year. The Conservatives were thoroughly crass about it, announcing “Christmas in July”.
Their support rocketed up. I think it went up 6 points that week (I might be remembering that wrong). And remember it’s a more-than-two party system so we’re talking about going from 30 to 36. But it was a very temporary bump. Two weeks later it was back down. Still, if they’d timed those checks to come out just before the vote they might have won instead of losing.
The moral of the story is that, yes, there are swing voters. It’s just that they are not thoughtful people deliberating carefully about which party has better policies. They are short-sighted selfish idiots who don’t even know how to be selfish right. They vote for the shiny.
I’m not saying this is an iron law of human nature, but in today’s political climate, it’s not possible to be thoughtful and to be choosing between Democrats and Republicans.
It might have had something to do with your dismissive tone toward her research, followed by a remark about her getting her job in academia because of her tweets; a remark that reads for all the world like a condemnation because of the general disdain with which social media is held by those who occupy the intellectual stratosphere. You may as well have asked who she slept with.
If that wasn’t your intent, I suggest reconsidering the way your remarks come across to others.
