2024 US Presidential Elections Megathread

[DGuller]

He can reach more people on the left than Rupert, and when he reaches them, he's very good at engendering cynicism towards politics in general.  That's not his intention, I'm sure, but when your job is mocking politicians, mocking politicians is all you can do. 

The problem with cynicism is that it's toxic to democracy, because at high enough dose it makes people give up on trying to gauge levels of crookedness.  Instead of punishing the worst actors and slowly inching up the standard of what's acceptable, people give up and leave everyone unaccountable, and/or go "both parties are pretty much the same, and just serve corporations".

He is a comedian, and popular comedians say comical things.  If that makes you cynical and want to give up on politics, that's on you.

As I said to garbon earlier, I'm less interested in blaming voters for having skewed priorities, and more interested in them not having those skewed priorities that helped get us the first Trump term and might get us to the second.  I do believe that the historical effect of Jon Stewart being a popular comedian in a way that he was led to some people not taking politics as seriously as they should've, and contributed to the "both-sidism" that has had toxic consequences.

As an aside, I never bought Jon Stewart's line that "he's just comedian making jokes".  That always sounded very insincere, or at last self-deluded.  He clearly seemed interested in making a difference and doing it through comedy.  You don't organize a rally to implore people to be nice to each other if you just want to crack jokes.  Nothing wrong with that, humor is always more effective when there is a message communicated with it, but what's wrong is hiding behind the "I'm just a comedian, why you take me so seriously people?" when you're clearly trying to say something serious through comedy.

[crazy canuck]

He can reach more people on the left than Rupert, and when he reaches them, he's very good at engendering cynicism towards politics in general.  That's not his intention, I'm sure, but when your job is mocking politicians, mocking politicians is all you can do. 

The problem with cynicism is that it's toxic to democracy, because at high enough dose it makes people give up on trying to gauge levels of crookedness.  Instead of punishing the worst actors and slowly inching up the standard of what's acceptable, people give up and leave everyone unaccountable, and/or go "both parties are pretty much the same, and just serve corporations".

He is a comedian, and popular comedians say comical things.  If that makes you cynical and want to give up on politics, that's on you.

As I said to garbon earlier, I'm less interested in blaming voters for having skewed priorities, and more interested in them not having those skewed priorities that helped get us the first Trump term and might get us to the second.  I do believe that the historical effect of Jon Stewart being a popular comedian in a way that he was led to some people not taking politics as seriously as they should've, and contributed to the "both-sidism" that has had toxic consequences.

As an aside, I never bought Jon Stewart's line that "he's just comedian making jokes".  That always sounded very insincere, or at last self-deluded.  He clearly seemed interested in making a difference and doing it through comedy.  You don't organize a rally to implore people to be nice to each other if you just want to crack jokes.  Nothing wrong with that, humor is always more effective when there is a message communicated with it, but what's wrong is hiding behind the "I'm just a comedian, why you take me so seriously people?" when you're clearly trying to say something serious through comedy.

When has Stewart ever said that people should not take him seriously when he is engaging in things he takes seriously?

[The Minsky Moment]

Of course there's something a little ironic about John Stewart, a comedian whose glory days were 20 years ago and who has returned to that show now, complaining about American gerontocracy.

They played that up as a bit on the show, of course.

[The Minsky Moment]

The one thing I do blame John Stewart for was turning Tucker Carlson from a dorky, preppy, minor political commentator into a neo-fascist Kremlin agent of influence, by blowing up Crossfire and ending Part One of Tucker's career.  In retrospect, Stewart's criticism of Crossfire was badly misplaced; if only we could back to a time when that was the worst kind of partisan hackery.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I think Jon Stewart's importance is massively exaggerated by the type of people that watch the Daily Show or care what he says / does.

He is basically a figure that was only ever consumed by people well ensconced in Democratic politics (often specifically anti-Republican sentiment), those people aren't important because they don't need influenced. I don't think Stewart ever has, or ever will, affect much of substance because his content is just consumed by people already in alignment with Jon's politics.

I think right wing figures have a lot more influence because of the nature of the right wing. Left of center people aren't looking at a pundit figure like Stewart to "guide them", they are mostly looking for entertainment or to see Republican hypocrisy pointed out. Right wingers on the other hand often decide what issues to care about quite literally by watching right wing pundits, this is how issues that don't actually affect most people's lives (like the border) have become so important to this group of people.

I think there is a big divergence in how lefties and righties consume media, and it makes partisan agents more effective on the right intrinsically. There are certainly left wing propagandists in the mold of Tucker and Hannity, but they tend to have very small audiences, that sort of personality just doesn't capture large viewership or listenership on the left.

[crazy canuck]

The one thing I do blame John Stewart for was turning Tucker Carlson from a dorky, preppy, minor political commentator into a neo-fascist Kremlin agent of influence, by blowing up Crossfire and ending Part One of Tucker's career.  In retrospect, Stewart's criticism of Crossfire was badly misplaced; if only we could back to a time when that was the worst kind of partisan hackery.

Agreed. Stewart is likely the most culpable for Tucker discontinuing his use of the bowtie.

[Josquius]

Although on the "young moving leftward", I'm not sure that's necessarily the case. As I mentioned in the Brexit thread it is vastly more of a feature in British politics than elsewhere - in the US it's about 40/60:
[img]https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GF42Y4eWoAAUVSX?format=

I'd also add that how that goes I think depends to a large extent on this social trend which I think is important to try and get to the bottom  - and will have big social and political implications if it continues. Which is that in the US (and a fair few other democracies) young women are moving left, while young men are moving right:
[img]https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GEw1o3PXEAA4FDZ?format=jpg&name

And from the US - young men holding more socially conservative views on gender than old men (I think a lot of this is something to do with lived experience, but that's also reality):
[img]https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GEw64XLWAAA5t-p?format=pn

I'm not sure we can say the young in the US are moving left. I think there's a big gender split (and I think Trump is part of that or plays into it). Similarly I think the reporting/polling (it's very early and polling at this stage is meaningless) of Latino and Black (generally male) voters should cause a bit of worry for the Democrats.

I think waiting for/hoping your opponents dies is not a great (or attractive) political strategy but I also don't see any reason to think it'll work for the Democrats (remember the emerging Democrat/Republican maority depending on the year of publication). I think if the polling does hold up and there is a significant Latino and Black (male) vote for Trump that's probably enough to undo any "old people dying" political gain and probably presents a longer term risk for the Democrats.

Sitting and waiting for  demographics to change is of course daft.  Its not a strategy.
But being aware of these shifts does help to explain things and to plan for the future.

I really don't think we should underestimate the impact the internet has had on the discourse the world over and how this can be especially dangerous to those generations who were hit by this later in life.
Yeah lots of research about the young's engagement with fake news too, but it is very different in nature.

[OttoVonBismarck]

The idea the left, at least in America, is "sitting and waiting on demographic change" is not supported by any evidence. It all stems from articles that came out in the early 2010s with titles like "Demographics is Destiny" and then people mapped that onto their assumptions / feelz about politics.

The Democratic party is hilariously different on a huge number of important policy issues in 2024 than it was in 2010 when this narrative started. They have not "sat in place" waiting. [Incidentally the idea I'd be a Democrat voter back in 2010, for an even more liberal Dem party would have been unthinkable to me, but I also didn't expect the GOP to go full fash just 6 years later. When the alternative is fascism it is odd the political party you will throw your lot in with.]

[Savonarola]

Call him Charles Foster Trump:



He just wants to be loved.   

Jedediah Leland: You don't care about anything except you. You just want to persuade people that you love 'em so much that they ought to love you back. Only you want love on your own terms. Something to be played your way, according to your rules.

Kane: A toast, Jedediah: to Love on my own terms.

[Josquius]

News story going about that Putin has endorsed Biden.

Some real games being played there. 

[Barrister]

The idea the left, at least in America, is "sitting and waiting on demographic change" is not supported by any evidence. It all stems from articles that came out in the early 2010s with titles like "Demographics is Destiny" and then people mapped that onto their assumptions / feelz about politics.

The Democratic party is hilariously different on a huge number of important policy issues in 2024 than it was in 2010 when this narrative started. They have not "sat in place" waiting. [Incidentally the idea I'd be a Democrat voter back in 2010, for an even more liberal Dem party would have been unthinkable to me, but I also didn't expect the GOP to go full fash just 6 years later. When the alternative is fascism it is odd the political party you will throw your lot in with.]

Was listening to a podcast which interviewed Ruy Teixeira who wrote the book I think you're thinking about "The Emerging Democratic Majority" back in 2002 - which yes, basically predicted that demographics would lead to increasing numbers of Democratic voters.

He freely admitted that the problem with the thesis is the voting patters of various groups has changed - that non-college educated whites which used to vote Democratic at at least 40% has broken strongly for the Republicans, so that even though there are more blacks and other voters of colour (he didn't like those terms) that hasn't led to the democratic majority he once predicted.

[crazy canuck]

The idea the left, at least in America, is "sitting and waiting on demographic change" is not supported by any evidence. It all stems from articles that came out in the early 2010s with titles like "Demographics is Destiny" and then people mapped that onto their assumptions / feelz about politics.

The Democratic party is hilariously different on a huge number of important policy issues in 2024 than it was in 2010 when this narrative started. They have not "sat in place" waiting. [Incidentally the idea I'd be a Democrat voter back in 2010, for an even more liberal Dem party would have been unthinkable to me, but I also didn't expect the GOP to go full fash just 6 years later. When the alternative is fascism it is odd the political party you will throw your lot in with.]

Was listening to a podcast which interviewed Ruy Teixeira who wrote the book I think you're thinking about "The Emerging Democratic Majority" back in 2002 - which yes, basically predicted that demographics would lead to increasing numbers of Democratic voters.

He freely admitted that the problem with the thesis is the voting patters of various groups has changed - that non-college educated whites which used to vote Democratic at at least 40% has broken strongly for the Republicans, so that even though there are more blacks and other voters of colour (he didn't like those terms) that hasn't led to the democratic majority he once predicted.

He not only "freely admitted it" as he points out in his new book, his original book stressed that in order for the thesis to hold, working class voters would need to be kept in the tent.  It's just that people didn't (and still don't) pay any attention to that important part of what he was saying.

[viper37]

I think Jon Stewart's importance is massively exaggerated by the type of people that watch the Daily Show or care what he says / does.

He is basically a figure that was only ever consumed by people well ensconced in Democratic politics (often specifically anti-Republican sentiment), those people aren't important because they don't need influenced. I don't think Stewart ever has, or ever will, affect much of substance because his content is just consumed by people already in alignment with Jon's politics.

I think right wing figures have a lot more influence because of the nature of the right wing. Left of center people aren't looking at a pundit figure like Stewart to "guide them", they are mostly looking for entertainment or to see Republican hypocrisy pointed out. Right wingers on the other hand often decide what issues to care about quite literally by watching right wing pundits, this is how issues that don't actually affect most people's lives (like the border) have become so important to this group of people.

I think there is a big divergence in how lefties and righties consume media, and it makes partisan agents more effective on the right intrinsically. There are certainly left wing propagandists in the mold of Tucker and Hannity, but they tend to have very small audiences, that sort of personality just doesn't capture large viewership or listenership on the left.

What you are saying is that Republican voters are stupid and need to be guided into voting the right way?

[OttoVonBismarck]

What you are saying is that Republican voters are stupid and need to be guided into voting the right way?

Eh, I don't think the intelligence difference between the two parties is statistically relevant. Like the GOP has become the party of anti-education and to some degree is heavily embracing people who aren't able or willing to pursue post-secondary education. But a lot of uneducated people vote Democrat. And education is never a perfect indicator of general intelligence.

My take is a lot of Republicans are just revanchists, but they aren't familiar enough with wonky political science terms like that to understand what revanchism is. They know they don't like things that have changed in their lives, and they support things that reverse or impede those changes. They also, mostly, know that some of the things they liked in the past--like being able to slap the secretary on the ass at work, being able to call blacks niggers and everyone at the bar laughs along with them, etc are "not acceptable" in society so they keep it more to themselves. But when pundits and candidates come along who feed into these feelings, they embrace it. To some degree they are actively seeking out things to be mad about that they can blame on Democrats, because their world view has strongly internalized the idea that it is Democrats and non-conservatives in general who are to blame for "ruining how things were."

There's a lot of closed-minded thinking in the left, that can be just as obnoxious, it just manifests differently. I don't think conservatives gobble up whatever nonsense Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson serve because they are stupider, on average, than Democrats--I think they are just deliberately more interested in feeding negative news to serve their "revenge fantasies" on liberal America.

[grumbler]

A majority of Republicans believe that the US is in an existential crisis, and that they are the only heroes who can save it.  That's why they absolutely must believe that Trump won the 2020 election, because, if they believe that he didn't, then they have to realize that they are in the minority.  They have to believe that they represent the majority of (at least white) America because they think that, if the country was run honestly, they'd never lose an election.  So their superhero task is to eliminate the dishonest office-holders who don't share their, and America's, viewpoint.