https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/09/briefing/swing-voters-us-elections.htmlThis is an article people who actually want to win elections need to understand. It based on the results from polling done aimed specifically at both left leaning primary voters, and working class voters in general.QuoteYouGov, a large nonpartisan pollster, conducted the poll, in collaboration with Jacobin and the Center for Working-Class Politics, a new progressive group.
Some key takeaways:1. Sorry, but there really are such things as swing voters, and they really do decide elections.Quote blue-collar swing voters helped elect Barack Obama twice, Donald Trump once and Joe Biden in 2020.
They have also played a deciding role in congressional and state elections, including in Virginia last week.
In the current polarized political atmosphere, many college graduates follow politics obsessively — almost as if it were a sport — and identify with one of the two parties.
Many working-class voters, on the other hand, vote for both parties and sit out some elections.
2. It is not as simple as "Anyone who would ever vote for Trump is too dumb to ever ever be reachable so we can safely ignore them and run as far left as we like".Quote
A central conclusion is that infrequent voters are not a huge Democratic constituency just waiting to be inspired by a sufficiently progressive economic message. "That's just a fantasy," Bhaskar Sunkara, the founding editor of Jacobin, a socialist magazine and one of the poll's sponsors, told me, "and it's a fantasy we ourselves have engaged in." (In fairness, numerous other people — including Trump and, well, me — have believed that same misplaced idea.)
The poll instead finds that working-class swing voters hold a swirl of progressive and conservative views.
3. The left needs a version of progressive populism that is aimed at swing voters, not die hard lefties. The woke message does not get votes.Quote
Many Black working-class swing voters are attracted to candidates who focus on racial justice — by promising to "end systemic racism," for example. Many white working-class swing voters are turned off by these same positions. There is no simple answer on race for the Democratic Party, given that it must attract a multiracial coalition to win.
But the political costs of a campaign message focused on ethnic identity seem significantly larger than the benefits, Sunkara said. Among five different candidate sound bites presented to respondents, the worst-performing was one that the pollsters internally described as "woke moderate." Its first sentence sounds like something out of a corporate mission statement:
Our unity is our strength, and our diversity is our power.
But for too long, special interests have blocked critical progress in addressing systemic racism,
climate change, and access to affordable health care. We need creative leaders who will fight for our values,
listen to the experts, and make real change happen.
4. The good news - the best selling message was one that was progressive, even more popular then the right wing populist sound bite:Quote The second best-performing sound bite was one that pollsters internally referred to as "Republican."
It warned that "freedom is under threat from radical socialists, arrogant liberals and dangerous foreign influences."
Quote
the most successful sound bite was the "progressive populist" one. It was as pugnacious as the Republican entry, albeit with different targets:
This country belongs to all of us, not just the superrich.
But for years, politicians in Washington have turned their backs on people who work for a living.
We need tough leaders who won't give in to the millionaires and the lobbyists,
but will fight for good jobs, good wages, and guaranteed health care for every single American.
5. Identity politics as an issue in elections does not work. It does not sway polarized voters on either side (obviously) and tends to move swing voters the wrong way.Note: I am not making an argument about whether or not the left should care about race, racism, and what to do about it. This is entirely focused on how to win elections.
Angular momentum?
I'm not sure how you guys will ever fix your racial hangups if candidates can't talk about race in a progressive manner.
I'd like to see more ads aimed at schwing voters.
Quote from: Zoupa on November 09, 2021, 11:57:45 AM
I'm not sure how you guys will ever fix your racial hangups if candidates can't talk about race in a progressive manner.
He's not making an argument about whether or not the left should care about race, racism, and what to do about it.
Quote from: garbon on November 09, 2021, 12:00:01 PM
Quote from: Zoupa on November 09, 2021, 11:57:45 AM
I'm not sure how you guys will ever fix your racial hangups if candidates can't talk about race in a progressive manner.
He's not making an argument about whether or not the left should care about race, racism, and what to do about it.
I know, my post was just a comment on the impasse.
Quote from: Zoupa on November 09, 2021, 12:02:34 PM
Quote from: garbon on November 09, 2021, 12:00:01 PM
Quote from: Zoupa on November 09, 2021, 11:57:45 AM
I'm not sure how you guys will ever fix your racial hangups if candidates can't talk about race in a progressive manner.
He's not making an argument about whether or not the left should care about race, racism, and what to do about it.
I know, my post was just a comment on the impasse.
Mine was a copy and paste. :)
Quote from: Zoupa on November 09, 2021, 11:57:45 AM
I'm not sure how you guys will ever fix your racial hangups if candidates can't talk about race in a progressive manner.
It is definitely a problem, since doing so is key (and ought to be key) to a important constituency - minority voters.
IMO, however, the key to fixing the problem is getting the power to do so. That has to come first. The left has to win elections, and they have to do so in an environment where their inability to win important elections at the more local levels has created a rather fucked up playing surface where the right has disproportionate power to effect future elections.
If I thought that the left should never mention race ever again as election messaging, I would say that. I think the left has to learn how to WIN.
Now, I don't think that is the case, and in fact that would be counter-productive since there are people who won't vote if they think their real issues are being ignored.
So it is a fine line to be walked, for sure. I do think that there are more things that can be talked about then there is time, space, and attention to talk about them all. Given that systemic racism and its effects are one of several issues that are critical, it makes sense to focus in the context of elections on the critical issues that will sway the voters that need to be swayed.
I feel like this re-affirms things I've been saying for awhile about US politics.
Dems need to attract swing voters, not just double down on progressives. Issues around race are an important part of their overall message, but can be over-emphasized at the risk of alienating whites who are still in the majority. Attracting swing voters doesn't mean becoming right wing - issues around jobs, health care can all be very left-wing and popular.
US has two really big social problems: racism as a historical legacy, and stagnation in the social mobility that used to act as a safety valve for the comparative poverty of its social programs aimed at ameliorating somewhat the vast disparities in wealth that exist in the US population.
Of course these are interrelated (the poorest tend to be victims of historical racism), but of the two, poor whites are far more likely to care about the latter rather than the former.
Policies aimed at either providing greater social mobility, or better social programs for those left behind, seem to me to be a more likely election winner than policies aimed specifically combatting racism. That's simply a matter of self interest: poor people of all races would be interested in the latter, but not necessarily in the former.
Problem is that the latter likely requires promising more in the way of unpopular change (like higher taxes), while the former is easier to pay lip service to, and lip service is free.
The US has a third problem - created by our courts.
Electoral politics has an extremely high cost of entry and staying in office requires massive regular flow of funds. The funding system gives the greatest flexibility to large corporate funders.
Any discussion of likely feasible political programs and party strategy needs to take that basic reality into account.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on November 09, 2021, 01:30:28 PM
The US has a third problem - created by our courts.
Electoral politics has an extremely high cost of entry and staying in office requires massive regular flow of funds. The funding system gives the greatest flexibility to large corporate funders.
Any discussion of likely feasible political programs and party strategy needs to take that basic reality into account.
I feel like this is the last decade's complaint.
What's really changed politics in the last several years is the growth of low-dollar-value individual donors. Trump is raising hundreds of millions of dollars from individual donors. It's not only Trump - "the squad" and others on the progressive side are doing the same.
Quote from: Barrister on November 09, 2021, 01:36:24 PM
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on November 09, 2021, 01:30:28 PM
The US has a third problem - created by our courts.
Electoral politics has an extremely high cost of entry and staying in office requires massive regular flow of funds. The funding system gives the greatest flexibility to large corporate funders.
Any discussion of likely feasible political programs and party strategy needs to take that basic reality into account.
I feel like this is the last decade's complaint.
What's really changed politics in the last several years is the growth of low-dollar-value individual donors. Trump is raising hundreds of millions of dollars from individual donors. It's not only Trump - "the squad" and others on the progressive side are doing the same.
Don't believe the hype
Even Trump - who has focused his vast grift machine on the mass small donor base, raised most of the money spent in 2020 from itemized (big money) donors or from allied PACs, "independent" expenditures, etc. The Adelsons alone gave over $90 million, a guy who operates a gas pipeline gave $10 million, Blackstone gave $3 million, among many multi-million dollar donors. Those happen to be people in regulated industries treated very nicely under Trump.
If we focus on the legislature- take Joe Manchin, currently in the news. For 2017-22, most of his funding has been from $2700+ donors, with many top donors consisting of companies, law firms, and lenders focused on the fossil fuel industry.
Obama showed the fund raising potential from mass small donors. But that funding source has not replaced the big corporate money, it has just raised the overall cost of entry. Now major party candidates need to play both games to compete. And competing for real small donor money means building formidable organizations which again requires more money . . .
Quote from: Zoupa on November 09, 2021, 11:57:45 AM
I'm not sure how you guys will ever fix your racial hangups if candidates can't talk about race in a progressive manner.
Maybe - but do you need to talk so much? I think they'd be better doing more and talking about issues less - and as goes for all political campaigns that talk shouldn't be a checklist of issues, but a story.
I think one of the biggest problems the Democrats have had over the last decade and more is that they sound far more radical than they actually are. So they're scaring the horses without actually doing things that might excite/energise the people who want them to be radical. Which I think is probably the worst place to be.
I'm not necessarily concvinced that talk of a "swing voter" as some idealised median voter is right because I feel like swing voters will be different in different elections depending on what the parties strategies are. So I suspect what the "swing voter" is change in each election.
Quote from: garbon on November 09, 2021, 12:03:32 PM
Quote from: Zoupa on November 09, 2021, 12:02:34 PM
Quote from: garbon on November 09, 2021, 12:00:01 PM
Quote from: Zoupa on November 09, 2021, 11:57:45 AM
I'm not sure how you guys will ever fix your racial hangups if candidates can't talk about race in a progressive manner.
He's not making an argument about whether or not the left should care about race, racism, and what to do about it.
I know, my post was just a comment on the impasse.
Mine was a copy and paste. :)
I don't know where mine was going.
Quote from: Zoupa on November 09, 2021, 11:57:45 AM
I'm not sure how you guys will ever fix your racial hangups if candidates can't talk about race in a progressive manner.
I know a good way to definitely not fix them any time soon: have Republicans elected. Politics is the art of getting the best deal possible; sometimes the best you can do is merely stay in place for the moment, and every other option will lead you to going backwards. Sometimes it's even worse than that, and the best that you can achieve is to go backwards slowly. Such situations are bad, but you still have to make sure you have less ground to make up for when your choice of options improves.
Quote from: Sheilbh on November 09, 2021, 05:16:12 PM
I'm not necessarily concvinced that talk of a "swing voter" as some idealised median voter is right because I feel like swing voters will be different in different elections depending on what the parties strategies are. So I suspect what the "swing voter" is change in each election.
I think one thing that the Dems need to do a LOT better is being the ones to determine what the narrative will be for a given cycle.
Trump did this - remember when the wall was just about the most important thing to talk about for like....two years?
Quote from: Berkut on November 09, 2021, 06:43:45 PM
I think one thing that the Dems need to do a LOT better is being the ones to determine what the narrative will be for a given cycle.
Trump did this - remember when the wall was just about the most important thing to talk about for like....two years?
Absolutely - every time I've seen an interview by a political campaign people, or successful politicians they talk about how important it is to have a story and not just a string of policy announcements or ideas: where are we, how did we get here and how are you going to fix it. I think that's often dismissed as the insubstantial fripperies of politics - but I think that's totally wrong. The story is your strategy - it's your analysis as a leader, it gives direction and a "why" to the various things your proposing. That is what makes a political party an agent for change and exercising power, rather than just a think tank.
Trump was very good at that - and hammering it home because most people, sensibly, ignore politics and get on with their lives. Biden also had a story. I couldn't tell you what Clinton's story was - I don't recall the "why" for her campaign.
Hillary's was "I'm a woman, I'm Bill Clinton's wife, I've had some cool jobs, and I really want to be president."
Joe's was "Make America Sane Again."
I am thinking more about driving an overall narrative about what people should be thinking about.
The GOP making this entire thing about immigration was always kind of impressive, since literally none of our problems that actually mattered had much of anything to do with immigration, illegal or otherwise. Trump just played off of that.
Quote from: Berkut on November 09, 2021, 07:26:19 PMThe GOP making this entire thing about immigration was always kind of impressive, since literally none of our problems that actually mattered had much of anything to do with immigration, illegal or otherwise. Trump just played off of that.
I disagree because I don't think that's how politics works in general but on that particular example I don't think that's right. The GOP felt they needed/should shift on immigration to capture more voters after 2012. The "establishment" GOP was working on immigration reform though obviously there were rebels. All of the mainstream candidates were running in the primaries on relatively pro-immigration stances - Trump didn't play off that he was a disruptive candidate on immigration who forced the GOP right.
I think that was part of Trump's message - and success. It wasn't riffing off what the GOP had been saying, but exploiting the gap of the things they weren't saying or weren't willing to say. A bit like when he stood on the stage in South Carolina and said "Bush didn't make us safe - 9/11 happened and then we invadeed Iraq which was a disaster". You had all of these people saying it was going to be a disaster for his polling numbers and it wasn't because the only people in 2016 who couldn't say that Iraq was a mistake and a disaster were politicians in the GOP.
And of course that in itself played into Trump's story of American carnage that he alone could solve.
Cash in unmarked envelopes.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on November 09, 2021, 07:20:00 PM
Hillary's was "I'm a woman, I'm Bill Clinton's wife, I've had some cool jobs, and I really want to be president."
Also: I'm not the asshole in this election. Really.
No, really.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on November 10, 2021, 10:04:21 AM
Quote from: Admiral Yi on November 09, 2021, 07:20:00 PM
Hillary's was "I'm a woman, I'm Bill Clinton's wife, I've had some cool jobs, and I really want to be president."
Also: I'm not the asshole in this election. Really.
No, really.
...and she was Not Wrong.
That's never been a winning message though.
Berkut, you may appreciate this series:
https://imightbewrong.substack.com/p/everyone-hates-the-educated-left
And
https://imightbewrong.substack.com/p/why-everyone-hates-the-educated-left
Quote from: ulmont on November 10, 2021, 10:35:33 PM
Berkut, you may appreciate this series:
https://imightbewrong.substack.com/p/everyone-hates-the-educated-left
And
https://imightbewrong.substack.com/p/why-everyone-hates-the-educated-left
That is some good stuff.
The resistance to this *data* on the left is rather telling.
I saw a couple of such articles over the last week. Hopefully it's a sign of a much-needed backlash against the woke liberalism. Hopefully the sane liberals will realize that they really are the silent majority in the liberal camp, and that they shouldn't be bullied into self-censorship by the woke cult.
Quote from: ulmont on November 10, 2021, 10:35:33 PM
Berkut, you may appreciate this series:
https://imightbewrong.substack.com/p/everyone-hates-the-educated-left
And
https://imightbewrong.substack.com/p/why-everyone-hates-the-educated-left
OK I'm confused. How is this twix non-ad a blow for or against transgender rights?
It's pretty common for young boys to like dressing up. Doesn't mean they're trans.
I would be half tempted here to think it's somebody normal having a shot at conservative " comedy" where the lack of a joke is claimed to be the joke.
Anyway. Overall yes. The left have to stop falling into the identity politics culture war traps the Conservatives want.
It's easier said than done though. When the Conservatives are ranting about how trans people are all scum bag rapists and need to be shot out of a cannon into the sun, the left can't not say "no" without betraying its core beliefs of equality and freedom for all.
It's a tricky situation in that the left has to stand up for the vulnerable whilst at the same time avoiding letting the right pretend that the left are the ones obsessed with trans rights and other such fringe issues.
Quote from: Berkut on November 10, 2021, 10:48:27 PM
That is some good stuff.
The resistance to this *data* on the left is rather telling.
The critique of Shor is not resisting his data. The critique is that Shor won't and can't release some of the data that he claims supports his conclusions because it is proprietary. That is why some skepticism remains.
Here is another article I saw: https://www.npr.org/2021/11/05/1052650979/mcwhorters-new-book-woke-racism-attacks-leading-thinkers-on-race.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/10/opinion/wokeness-racism-politics.html
QuoteLanguage is extremely powerful.
The stories it tells become our greatest religions, the credos of great nations and the mantras of our greatest wars.
The ways in which we define people and things can be liberating or trammeling; they can advance the cause of liberty and equality or cause societies to regress.
It is for that reason that we battle over language, over who gets to control and define it, over whose stories get told and how. It is for that reason that words that gather power are set upon by those who wish to defang them.
Perhaps no other word of the moment is so under attack as "woke," a word born as a simple yet powerful way of saying: "Be aware of and alert to how racism is systemic and pervasive and suffuses American life. Wake up from the slumber of ignorance and passive acceptance."
But because of its petit power, this small word was a prime candidate for co-option, for being turned against the people who used it. The opponents of wokeness — whether they be conservatives who believe it injures the ideal of America as inherently good, or moderate Democrats worried that it handicaps their electoral prospects — want to kill it.
Republicans want to recast "wokeness" as progressive politics run amok, and many establishment Democrats shrink from the term because they either believe that Republicans have succeeded at the task, or, of even more concern, they agree with those Republicans.
Being awake to and aware of how our systems of power operate creates enemies across the political spectrum because wokeness indicts both Republicans and Democrats alike. Wokeness indicts the status quo.
And so, wokeness has been referred to in the most hyperbolic language imaginable, from ideology to religion to cult. It has been so derided and adulterated that young people who are what one would have called woke five years ago no longer even use the term.
Perhaps nothing helps to illustrate the chasm between moderates and progressives as well as a skirmish last week between the Democratic strategist James Carville and the Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
On "PBS NewsHour," Carville was asked what went wrong with the Democratic Party to enable Glenn Youngkin to win "53 percent of suburban voters in Virginia," when only last year Donald Trump won just 45 percent.
"Well, what went wrong is this stupid wokeness," Carville responded. Broadening his response to races in cities across the country, he blamed the "defund the police lunacy" and said "some of these people need to go to a woke detox center or something."
But then he brought it back to language. "They're expressing language that people just don't use. And there's a backlash and a frustration at that," Carville said, adding: "We have got to change this and not be about changing dictionaries and change laws. And these faculty lounge people that sit around mulling about I don't know what are — they're not working."
Ocasio-Cortez had a different view: In an Instagram story, she said she thought the results showed "the limits of trying to run a fully, 100 percent, super moderated campaign that does not excite, speak to or energize a progressive base."
She never invoked wokeness, but that didn't stop local news outlets from running an article from the Sinclair Broadcast Group about her comments under the headline, "AOC Says McAuliffe Lost Because He Wasn't 'Woke' Enough, Carville Says the Opposite." (The headline was later changed to "AOC Says McAuliffe Lost Because He Didn't Energize a 'Progressive Base.'")
To be clear: Democrats didn't lose Virginia because progressives were too "woke." They lost because Youngkin lied about critical race theory to activate white racial anxiety. Don't blame wokeness for the reactions of whiteness.
Ocasio-Cortez objected on Twitter to the way her comments were originally characterized and tweeted that she had "Said nothing abt 'wokeness' which is a term almost exclusively used by older people these days btw."
She followed up with another tweet: "Like the average audience for people seriously using the word 'woke' in a 2021 political discussion are James Carville and Fox News pundits so that should tell you all you need to know."
This exchange does tell us something informative: "Woke" is now almost exclusively used by those who seek to deride it, those who chafe at the activism from which it sprang.
No wonder young people are abandoning the word. Opponents to the idea are seeking to render it toxic. They use it to stand in for change itself, for evolution, for an accurate assessment of history and society that makes them uncomfortable and deflates their hagiographic view of American history.
The opponents of wokeness are fighting over an abandoned word, like an army bombarding a fort that has been vacated: They don't appear fierce, but foolish.
QuoteOcasio-Cortez had a different view: In an Instagram story, she said she thought the results showed "the limits of trying to run a fully, 100 percent, super moderated campaign that does not excite, speak to or energize a progressive base."
That doesn't explain what happened in New Jersey. Nor does it explain why the official candidate in Buffalo lost to a write in candidate.
The people who are promoting the woke agenda are not telling us the word is lame and nobody uses it.
OK. Give me another label. I don't care about the word, I care about the ideas that it represents.
And those ideas are what is damaging progressives. Simply saying that people who use the term are old and just mean "progressive" is bullshit, and the people making that argument know it is bullshit.
Call it anything you want. The label isn't the point.
But once again, we will get into an argument about semantics, instead of content. Blast Carville for using a word, that is a lot easier then addressing the content, for sure. Do note that the article in question that we are supposedly discussing, isn't using "woke" in a derogatory way at all, and even the "woke" soundbite has nothing in it any of use who call ourselves progressives would even object to - but that isn't the point.
The problem with the label is that no matter what combination of letters you use to create it, pretty soon that label is going to become toxic, because the ideas behind that label are toxic. Offering an acceptable label also opens up your ideas for a succinct discussion, which is also not good for those whose ideas can only survive when they're not honestly and openly discussed.
What proof do you guys have that the left promoting "woke" ideas is what led to the defeat of the democratic governor in Virginia?
I struggle to see the link honestly.
I haven't seen someone use "woke" positively for many years. In the UK at least its just a word thrown about by nutters to demean anything vaguely leftish they don't like ala SJW and virtue signaller.
And far more than the left being woke it's the anti woke cult that are the problem. There are far left taking things too far people out there but they're not anywhere near power. They're randomers on the Internet.
"I would much rather win the argument then win elections"
Quote from: Zoupa on November 12, 2021, 03:20:58 AM
What proof do you guys have that the left promoting "woke" ideas is what led to the defeat of the democratic governor in Virginia?
I struggle to see the link honestly.
The OP lays out the link pretty clearly.
1. Non-politically aligned voters decide elections. They elected Obama, Trump, and Biden. These tend to be blue collar voters who have voted in either direction, and more importantly, are not super politically engaged, and often simply do not vote at all.
QuoteThe poll instead finds that working-class swing voters hold a swirl of progressive and conservative views. "To mobilize these voters will take a lot of grass-roots organizing efforts, particularly more labor-union-centered organizing," Sunkara said. "There is no simple programmatic solution" — for either party.
2. Among those voters, the poll asked them about what they responded to, and included several positive sound bites. "Positive" meaning each one was crafted to portray its message in a manner that was seen as most desirable to the political element that would tend to promote that particular idea.
Populist Progressive - "This country belongs to all of us, not just the superrich. But for years, politicians in Washington have turned their backs on people who work for a living. We need tough leaders who won't give in to the millionaires and the lobbyists, but will fight for good jobs, good wages, and guaranteed health care for every single American."
Republican - "freedom is under threat from radical socialists, arrogant liberals and dangerous foreign influences."
Mainstream Moderate
Woke Progressive
Woke Moderate - "Our unity is our strength, and our diversity is our power. But for too long, special interests have blocked critical progress in addressing systemic racism, climate change, and access to affordable health care. We need creative leaders who will fight for our values, listen to the experts, and make real change happen."
THe "Woke Moderate" polled the worst among these particular voters.
But the much more interesting point is that the Progressive Populist polled the BEST.
So these are not people who are just absolutely opposed to the populist message - not at all. They are in fact more receptive to it then the GOP message.
This is not about being against anything "vaguely leftist" unless you define being in favor of a progressive populist message as being against the left.
Quote from: Tyr on November 12, 2021, 03:24:56 AM
I haven't seen someone use "woke" positively for many years. In the UK at least its just a word thrown about by nutters to demean anything vaguely leftish they don't like ala SJW and virtue signaller.
And far more than the left being woke it's the anti woke cult that are the problem. There are far left taking things too far people out there but they're not anywhere near power. They're randomers on the Internet.
There are many problems with wokism, but the biggest one is the self-censorship it very successfully imposes. When somebody feels like they can't say something reasonable and nuanced because with sufficient motivation it may be interpreted as bias in the present or future, they're being victimized right here right now. They may not be getting cancelled, no one except themselves and their closest people may even suspect that they harbor some nuanced thoughts, but the mere perception that self-censorship is necessary to engage in to avoid devastating consequences breeds resentment.
If woke left seriously pisses off people like me, then maybe they're not doing something right. Obviously I wouldn't vote for the right in any case in the present situation, but what about people more marginally attached to the left?
Quote from: Tyr on November 12, 2021, 03:24:56 AM
And far more than the left being woke it's the anti woke cult that are the problem.
That depends on what problem you are talking about. Personally, I am talking about the problem of not winning elections. I think it is pretty clear from the data and how elections work that not getting enough people to vote for progressives is the actual problem.
That is kind of the nature of democracy. You have to get people to vote for your side. And that means convincing people who are not already convinced, by definition, convincing people who don't already agree with you.
IE....winning elections instead of arguments. You are engaged in the latter, I care more about the former.
Quote
There are far left taking things too far people out there but they're not anywhere near power. They're randomers on the Internet.
They certainly do influence elections, whether they have the power you believe or whether they are actually as dangerous to free speech and democracy as others believe. Again, your point here doesn't address the argument being made. Even if you are right, it isn't about power, it is about messaging and perception.
Again, you have to look at the entire picture. You cannot argue this is about being anti-progressive, since the core point here is in fact that the progressive message actually resonates with these voters! Just not the identity politics version of it.
Do you want to win elections so we can actually do things, or do you want to feel superior about being able to effectively signal how in tune you are with your fellow highly educated liberals? You can do the former, btw, without damaging the latter....
Quote from: DGuller on November 12, 2021, 08:50:45 AM
Quote from: Tyr on November 12, 2021, 03:24:56 AM
I haven't seen someone use "woke" positively for many years. In the UK at least its just a word thrown about by nutters to demean anything vaguely leftish they don't like ala SJW and virtue signaller.
And far more than the left being woke it's the anti woke cult that are the problem. There are far left taking things too far people out there but they're not anywhere near power. They're randomers on the Internet.
There are many problems with wokism, but the biggest one is the self-censorship it very successfully imposes. When somebody feels like they can't say something reasonable and nuanced because with sufficient motivation it may be interpreted as bias in the present or future, they're being victimized right here right now. They may not be getting cancelled, no one except themselves and their closest people may even suspect that they harbor some nuanced thoughts, but the mere perception that self-censorship is necessary to engage in to avoid devastating consequences breeds resentment.
If woke left seriously pisses off people like me, then maybe they're not doing something right. Obviously I wouldn't vote for the right in any case in the present situation, but what about people more marginally attached to the left?
The weird thing here is the resistance to the message.
The article is not saying wokism is terrible, or wrong, or anything like that - that isn't the point.
It is just saying that the message does not resonate with a particular group of voters who are rather important to actually winning elections...but don't worry, because there is another core progressive message that DOES resonate with them! In fact, it resonates with them better then any other message! The core progressive *economic* message is in fact the #1 message that this group responds to, even more then the right wing populist message.
How is this not amazingly good news to everyone on the left, *including* those who personally like the "woke" message the most? Surely if your goal is to actually effect change and make things better, then the #1, #2, and #3 priority should be "get elected!" and here is a clear way to do that more effectively by focusing the message on progressive ideas that resonate with the voters!
I am simply baffled.
QuoteThat depends on what problem you are talking about. Personally, I am talking about the problem of not winning elections. I think it is pretty clear from the data and how elections work that not getting enough people to vote for progressives is the actual problem.
That is kind of the nature of democracy. You have to get people to vote for your side. And that means convincing people who are not already convinced, by definition, convincing people who don't already agree with you.
IE....winning elections instead of arguments. You are engaged in the latter, I care more about the former.
And the problem there is anti-woke. Not "woke".
The right's favourite game of identity politics is very well served by the existence of people who have nothing to do with left wing candidates. Its truly bizzare how often you see left wing politicians being smeared with stuff dredged from the internet that has absolutely nothing to do with them.
On these issues it is very much the right that is on the offence and left wing politicians can not abandon vulnerable groups to them. When the right are going on about how foreigners are bad and trans people are evil then the left would be fundamentally abandoning their core values to go along with this. It would be a step away to such an extent that it wouldn't even help win any elections as it would open a gaping chasm between themselves and left aligned people.
Its a delicate balance for the mainstream left. They absolutely 100% have to defend the vulnerable whilst at the same time they need to find a way to counter the anti-woke agenda that would smear them as being identical to the wackiest of shouty twitter nutters.
Quote from: DGuller on November 12, 2021, 08:50:45 AM
Quote from: Tyr on November 12, 2021, 03:24:56 AM
I haven't seen someone use "woke" positively for many years. In the UK at least its just a word thrown about by nutters to demean anything vaguely leftish they don't like ala SJW and virtue signaller.
And far more than the left being woke it's the anti woke cult that are the problem. There are far left taking things too far people out there but they're not anywhere near power. They're randomers on the Internet.
There are many problems with wokism, but the biggest one is the self-censorship it very successfully imposes. When somebody feels like they can't say something reasonable and nuanced because with sufficient motivation it may be interpreted as bias in the present or future, they're being victimized right here right now. They may not be getting cancelled, no one except themselves and their closest people may even suspect that they harbor some nuanced thoughts, but the mere perception that self-censorship is necessary to engage in to avoid devastating consequences breeds resentment.
If woke left seriously pisses off people like me, then maybe they're not doing something right. Obviously I wouldn't vote for the right in any case in the present situation, but what about people more marginally attached to the left?
So what do you suggest we do about them?
They're there and they always will be. Thanks to the internet we are more exposed to them than we would historically be. Its the same as with the far right; they've been allowed to connect with each other and become more extreme from mutual feedback loops and the way twitter works.
Left wing politicians outright coming out and blanket condemning them would be a bit weird as unlike with the far right what they tend to do isn't so obviously "bad", merely stupid and counter-productive.
Quote from: Tyr on November 12, 2021, 09:11:47 AM
Quote from: DGuller on November 12, 2021, 08:50:45 AM
Quote from: Tyr on November 12, 2021, 03:24:56 AM
I haven't seen someone use "woke" positively for many years. In the UK at least its just a word thrown about by nutters to demean anything vaguely leftish they don't like ala SJW and virtue signaller.
And far more than the left being woke it's the anti woke cult that are the problem. There are far left taking things too far people out there but they're not anywhere near power. They're randomers on the Internet.
There are many problems with wokism, but the biggest one is the self-censorship it very successfully imposes. When somebody feels like they can't say something reasonable and nuanced because with sufficient motivation it may be interpreted as bias in the present or future, they're being victimized right here right now. They may not be getting cancelled, no one except themselves and their closest people may even suspect that they harbor some nuanced thoughts, but the mere perception that self-censorship is necessary to engage in to avoid devastating consequences breeds resentment.
If woke left seriously pisses off people like me, then maybe they're not doing something right. Obviously I wouldn't vote for the right in any case in the present situation, but what about people more marginally attached to the left?
So what do you suggest we do about them?
They're there and they always will be. Thanks to the internet we are more exposed to them than we would historically be. Its the same as with the far right; they've been allowed to connect with each other and become more extreme from mutual feedback loops and the way twitter works.
Left wing politicians outright coming out and blanket condemning them would be a bit weird as unlike with the far right what they tend to do isn't so obviously "bad", merely stupid and counter-productive.
We should keep challenging them on social media, and the left as a whole ought to bring into our mainstream message the rejection of any kind of speech silencing. This doesn't even have to be direct, it can be entirely indirect.
But again, this is really a tangent to the basic point I was trying to raise in the thread. No matter what you think about the woke ideals, the point is that they don't convince the people who need to be convinced when it comes to ending the right wing stranglehold on the non-highly educated middle class.
But there is a progressive, leftist message that can. Focus on that. It isn't easy, because that woke message (and seriously, I am using the term to simply reference the ideas behind them, in this context I don't even think those ideas are negative at all, the soundbite for example "Our unity is our strength, and our diversity is our power. But for too long, special interests have blocked critical progress in addressing systemic racism, climate change, and access to affordable health care. We need creative leaders who will fight for our values, listen to the experts, and make real change happen." is perfectly fine with me - nothing there that I disagree with at all) does energize a left wing voting bastion who, while they are not likely to vote for the GOP instead, might just not vote at all if you ignore them.
I think the left has to start winning a lot more elections. Not just the presidency, and not just at the national level. They have to become relevant locally again outside of their urban bastions.
Quote from: Berkut on November 12, 2021, 09:18:26 AM
Quote from: Tyr on November 12, 2021, 09:11:47 AM
Quote from: DGuller on November 12, 2021, 08:50:45 AM
Quote from: Tyr on November 12, 2021, 03:24:56 AM
I haven't seen someone use "woke" positively for many years. In the UK at least its just a word thrown about by nutters to demean anything vaguely leftish they don't like ala SJW and virtue signaller.
And far more than the left being woke it's the anti woke cult that are the problem. There are far left taking things too far people out there but they're not anywhere near power. They're randomers on the Internet.
There are many problems with wokism, but the biggest one is the self-censorship it very successfully imposes. When somebody feels like they can't say something reasonable and nuanced because with sufficient motivation it may be interpreted as bias in the present or future, they're being victimized right here right now. They may not be getting cancelled, no one except themselves and their closest people may even suspect that they harbor some nuanced thoughts, but the mere perception that self-censorship is necessary to engage in to avoid devastating consequences breeds resentment.
If woke left seriously pisses off people like me, then maybe they're not doing something right. Obviously I wouldn't vote for the right in any case in the present situation, but what about people more marginally attached to the left?
So what do you suggest we do about them?
They're there and they always will be. Thanks to the internet we are more exposed to them than we would historically be. Its the same as with the far right; they've been allowed to connect with each other and become more extreme from mutual feedback loops and the way twitter works.
Left wing politicians outright coming out and blanket condemning them would be a bit weird as unlike with the far right what they tend to do isn't so obviously "bad", merely stupid and counter-productive.
We should keep challenging them on social media, and the left as a whole ought to bring into our mainstream message the rejection of any kind of speech silencing. This doesn't even have to be direct, it can be entirely indirect.
But again, this is really a tangent to the basic point I was trying to raise in the thread. No matter what you think about the woke ideals, the point is that they don't convince the people who need to be convinced when it comes to ending the right wing stranglehold on the non-highly educated middle class.
I disagree with this.
Working class people aren't all racist homophobic shit bags.
What cracks them is when its presented that there's an agenda of giving MORE to vulnerable groups than they get. The core left wing values of equality for all are indeed valued by a majority of people. Its what the far right itself likes to play with and hide behind with the all lives matter nonsense.
We need hold the message that minority groups deserve full and equal rights, they should be allowed to get on with their lives unhindered. And importantly we need to somehow get through that its all we want. The conspiracies of social justice critical race trans-enforcement bollocks are just that. Nonsense.
As things are going now with the growth of the anti-woke cult the right are trying to grab equality for themselves and try to present the left as the unreasonable extremists.
Of course as is known too well giving fake news the oxygen of publicity to rubbish it isn't a smart move. The effective way to counter fake news has been discussed for years and there's no real concensus. A quick dismissal then shifting the topic seems the best bet to me.
Quote from: Zoupa on November 12, 2021, 03:20:58 AM
What proof do you guys have that the left promoting "woke" ideas is what led to the defeat of the democratic governor in Virginia?
I struggle to see the link honestly.
I don't think there is one in Virginia. OTOH I don't think the OSC explanation flies either in light of what happened elsewhere.
Quote from: Tyr on November 12, 2021, 09:33:20 AM
Quote from: Berkut on November 12, 2021, 09:18:26 AM
Quote from: Tyr on November 12, 2021, 09:11:47 AM
Quote from: DGuller on November 12, 2021, 08:50:45 AM
Quote from: Tyr on November 12, 2021, 03:24:56 AM
I haven't seen someone use "woke" positively for many years. In the UK at least its just a word thrown about by nutters to demean anything vaguely leftish they don't like ala SJW and virtue signaller.
And far more than the left being woke it's the anti woke cult that are the problem. There are far left taking things too far people out there but they're not anywhere near power. They're randomers on the Internet.
There are many problems with wokism, but the biggest one is the self-censorship it very successfully imposes. When somebody feels like they can't say something reasonable and nuanced because with sufficient motivation it may be interpreted as bias in the present or future, they're being victimized right here right now. They may not be getting cancelled, no one except themselves and their closest people may even suspect that they harbor some nuanced thoughts, but the mere perception that self-censorship is necessary to engage in to avoid devastating consequences breeds resentment.
If woke left seriously pisses off people like me, then maybe they're not doing something right. Obviously I wouldn't vote for the right in any case in the present situation, but what about people more marginally attached to the left?
So what do you suggest we do about them?
They're there and they always will be. Thanks to the internet we are more exposed to them than we would historically be. Its the same as with the far right; they've been allowed to connect with each other and become more extreme from mutual feedback loops and the way twitter works.
Left wing politicians outright coming out and blanket condemning them would be a bit weird as unlike with the far right what they tend to do isn't so obviously "bad", merely stupid and counter-productive.
We should keep challenging them on social media, and the left as a whole ought to bring into our mainstream message the rejection of any kind of speech silencing. This doesn't even have to be direct, it can be entirely indirect.
But again, this is really a tangent to the basic point I was trying to raise in the thread. No matter what you think about the woke ideals, the point is that they don't convince the people who need to be convinced when it comes to ending the right wing stranglehold on the non-highly educated middle class.
I disagree with this.
Working class people aren't all racist homophobic shit bags.
I think the problem is that you are presenting a false dilemna. Those are not the only two alternatives, and in fact, the presentation in this fashion, that either you fully buy into the most lefty of left ideals about ideintity politics or you must be a "racist homophobic shitbag" is exactly the attitude that pisses people off.
To be fair, there *are* racist homophobic shitbags out there. They are likely not reachable however, so should be simply discounted. They are going for their Trumps no matter what.
Quote
What cracks them is when its presented that there's an agenda of giving MORE to vulnerable groups than they get. The core left wing values of equality for all are indeed valued by a majority of people. Its what the far right itself likes to play with and hide behind with the all lives matter nonsense.
...or the left with the "either you agree with the left wing identity politics message, AND agree that it ought to be the first, second, and third priorities for all political thought, or you must be a "racist homophobic shitbag". Which of course the right then picks and jams down their throat, because they like winning elections more then they like presenting fair and nuanced arguments.
Your attitude is EXACTLY what turns off middle class and non-college educated voters.
Quote
We need hold the message that minority groups deserve full and equal rights, they should be allowed to get on with their lives unhindered. And importantly we need to somehow get through that its all we want. The conspiracies of social justice critical race trans-enforcement bollocks are just that. Nonsense.
Start with not presenting the issue as "you agree with us or you are likely a racist homophobic shitbag".
Quote
As things are going now with the growth of the anti-woke cult
And maybe consider that it is possible to be anti-woke without being part of the right, or a member of a cult, and that conflating "woke" with "all things progressive" is both inaccurate, counter productive, and frames the discussion in a fashion that means there cannot be a satisfactory outcome, or even a rational discussion about tactics and strategy.
Woke != progressive.
Quote
the right are trying to grab equality for themselves and try to present the left as the unreasonable extremists.
Of course, they have figured out how to win way out of proportion to their numbers. They will continue to run the same strategy that has gotten them power as long as the left continues to let them.
Your argument sounds to me a lot like "we should keep doing the exact same thing we have been doing and hope it just gets better".
In the US at least, the outcome has been absolutely horrifically bad. Given how marginal the actual right wing message is among most actual Americans, the fact that they have managed to capture more the 50% of the political power in this country is an astoundingly bad outcome. I don't think the answer is to keep on doing the same thing.
Quote from: Berkut on November 12, 2021, 09:53:30 AM
I think the problem is that you are presenting a false dilemna. Those are not the only two alternatives, and in fact, the presentation in this fashion, that either you fully buy into the most lefty of left ideals about ideintity politics or you must be a "racist homophobic shitbag" is exactly the attitude that pisses people off.
This is the message the media are trying to build. This idea that the nasty metropolitan liberal elite lefties think all working class people are horrible racists unless you totally and completely bow down and agree with mandatory gender changes and self-flagellation for white people.
Its bollocks.
Quote
...or the left with the "either you agree with the left wing identity politics message, AND agree that it ought to be the first, second, and third priorities for all political thought, or you must be a "racist homophobic shitbag". Which of course the right then picks and jams down their throat, because they like winning elections more then they like presenting fair and nuanced arguments.
Your attitude is EXACTLY what turns off middle class and non-college educated voters.
You're repeating a gammon fallacy here. "Oh you just call everyone who disagrees with you a nazi!!"- I often get this thrown at me even when I haven't actually called anyone a nazi. I see it all the bloody time.
As said it isn't woke which is the main problem. Its the anti-woke cult which has built up this idea of 'woke' as an all powerful enemy, the intolerant 'tolerant' left which is so horrible and not open to other points of view because it has no time for far right extremists.
Their spin is disagree with one view, no matter how abhorrent it is, then you're somehow intolerant of all people with different viewpoints.
Quote
Start with not presenting the issue as "you agree with us or you are likely a racist homophobic shitbag".
I mean, if you disagree with "Gay people should be allowed to shag and love each other as much as they want and being black should be no impediment to living your life" then I hate to break it to you but....
Quote
And maybe consider that it is possible to be anti-woke without being part of the right, or a member of a cult, and that conflating "woke" with "all things progressive" is both inaccurate, counter productive, and frames the discussion in a fashion that means there cannot be a satisfactory outcome, or even a rational discussion about tactics and strategy.
Woke != progressive.
Thats just the thing.
Woke DOES equal all things progressive in their eyes. Its just the latest term they use much like SJW and virtue signaller.
Dare to speak up and say "Yeah, I don't care if someone is trans, leave them alone" then you're instantly grouped in with the nuttiest of fringe internet commenters who think people should be allowed to change their gender on a whim.
Quote
Of course, they have figured out how to win way out of proportion to their numbers. They will continue to run the same strategy that has gotten them power as long as the left continues to let them.
Your argument sounds to me a lot like "we should keep doing the exact same thing we have been doing and hope it just gets better".
If the left needs to become identical to the far right to win then what's the point in winning?
We aren't just talking Blairite moving economically to the centre a bit here. We're talking about giving up on fundamental human rights and pushing back several decades of progress that have made the world a better place for a large number of people.
No, we're talking about learn to see nuance.
Quote from: Eddie Teach on November 12, 2021, 10:32:49 AM
No, we're talking about learn to see nuance.
That's the point that is being missed here.
The mainstream left do see nuance.
They are not the shouty nutters on the internet.
The shouty nutters spend a lot of their time and energy attacking the mainstream left in fact- often to the detriment of attacking the right.
The right however...they have really thrown in their lot with their shouty nutters. As the left sticks to the centre and tries to hold the line the right have lurched right in the quest to push things back. They've learned that selling tax breaks for the rich to poor people doesn't work but by playing identity politics and they can gain a lot by convincing poor white people that the problem is the nasty intolerant left trying to destroy white working class men (just look at this ignorant pink haired tranny on twitter! He-she is totally the same person as the left wing politicians!")
Disagree with 'woke' radicals all you want. In themselves they're not the problem. They're wrong but they're mostly harmless.
Where they are a problem is in providing ammunition to the anti-woke movement which is having very real effects at the ballot box in tricking people into voting for your Trumps and Johnsons.
Contrary to what the media presents the problem is not the mainstream left being too 'woke'. Rather its how the left can maintain distance from these people whilst still keeping their vote and not betraying their core progressive values.
The right has got into a position where it safely can give a nod and a wink to the nazis and get their support whilst managing not to alienate most people too much.
The left isn't so lucky with its extremists.
A few points
1) the Yougov analysis is hardly breaking news. The formula of focusing messaging on jobs, economics, health care has been at the core of every successful Democratic effort for decades: Clinton, Obama, the 2018 midterms, the 2020 election.
2) For that very reason, the Democrats were kind of screwed in Nov 2021 because while jobs have been holding up, real incomes have taken a hit from inflation. One can argue about the fairness of sticking that to the Democrats as the party in power but that's just the way it is.
3) I see little evidence that what happened in Virginia had anything to do with "woke" rhetoric. The Democrats got slammed nationally because Biden's popularity is low, Congress is worse and people are not feeling good about the present state of the economy. Specific to Virginia, the Democrats ran a lackluster campaign, not because they pushed "woke" rhetoric but because they focused on tarring Youngkin as a Trumpite and the voters didn't buy it. Youngkin OTOH pulled off the extraordinary feat of getting full-blown Trumpist support, while appealing nice and reasonable to educated RINOish moderates. E.g., White women in VA who voted slight Biden in 2020 broke sharply for the affable guy in the sweater. This could be a good formula for the GOP in other locations but will be very hard to replicate as there was no primary in Virginia and Youngkin's selection was engineered by state party leadership.
Quote from: Berkut on November 09, 2021, 09:26:16 AM
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/09/briefing/swing-voters-us-elections.html
This is an article people who actually want to win elections need to understand. It based on the results from polling done aimed specifically at both left leaning primary voters, and working class voters in general.
The study is here: https://images.jacobinmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/08095656/CWCPReport_CommonsenseSolidarity.pdf
It does not exactly support the conclusions in the NYT story.
To begin with, the focus of the report is really on the left leaning Democrat primary voters, not the swing voters. Among the left leaning primary voters, all the left messages were viewed favorably. The progressive populist got the highest result, but only by a few % points. And among voters 18-44, the woke progressive message was slightly preferred (within the margin of error)
With respect to the swing voters specifically, the report had this to say:
QuoteOf our survey respondents, 23% identified as independents who do not lean toward the Democrats or the Republicans. That said, only a small fraction reported changing their presidential votes between parties— from 2016 to 2020, less than 3% of all respondents did so. This is consistent with mountains of political science research showing that the partisan preferences of
US voters are quite stable. As a result, even under the most optimistic assumptions, candidate characteristics or messaging are likely to have at best a modest impact on swing voters' choices at the ballot box.
(Note however, that with many political campaigns resulting in very close margins, even small effects may be very significant)
Among this group, the NYT ranking of the candidate messages holds. However, it is important to note that the error bars are quite long and thus the all the apparent differences fall within the margin of error. In particular there does not appear to be any material difference between the results for woke progressive, woke moderate, and mainstream moderate. Progressive populism does seem to have a small edge but again within the margin of error.
Interesting eary indications that the strongest swing in Virginia was in areas with large Hispanic populations, which follows similar points in 2020.
This is what I mean when I say it's not helpful to have an image of the archetypal swing voter - I think Matt Yglesias is guilty of this when he points out that the median American voter is a 50 something white guy without a degree. The focus in this thread on Obama-Trump voters and the white working class etc maybe held for 2008-16. Arguably that voter has gone to the GOP because they've been trending that way for years and 2008/12 were maybe exceptions.
But I think if Democrats are seriously weakening among Hispanic voters that's a big risk for them in their coalition. The same analysis may apply cut-and-paste but I'm not sure that we know that yet.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on November 12, 2021, 11:18:16 AM
Quote from: Berkut on November 09, 2021, 09:26:16 AM
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/09/briefing/swing-voters-us-elections.html
This is an article people who actually want to win elections need to understand. It based on the results from polling done aimed specifically at both left leaning primary voters, and working class voters in general.
The study is here: https://images.jacobinmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/08095656/CWCPReport_CommonsenseSolidarity.pdf
It does not exactly support the conclusions in the NYT story.
To begin with, the focus of the report is really on the left leaning Democrat primary voters, not the swing voters. Among the left leaning primary voters, all the left messages were viewed favorably. The progressive populist got the highest result, but only by a few % points. And among voters 18-44, the woke progressive message was slightly preferred (within the margin of error)
With respect to the swing voters specifically, the report had this to say:
QuoteOf our survey respondents, 23% identified as independents who do not lean toward the Democrats or the Republicans. That said, only a small fraction reported changing their presidential votes between parties— from 2016 to 2020, less than 3% of all respondents did so. This is consistent with mountains of political science research showing that the partisan preferences of
US voters are quite stable. As a result, even under the most optimistic assumptions, candidate characteristics or messaging are likely to have at best a modest impact on swing voters' choices at the ballot box.
(Note however, that with many political campaigns resulting in very close margins, even small effects may be very significant)
Among this group, the NYT ranking of the candidate messages holds. However, it is important to note that the error bars are quite long and thus the all the apparent differences fall within the margin of error. In particular there does not appear to be any material difference between the results for woke progressive, woke moderate, and mainstream moderate. Progressive populism does seem to have a small edge but again within the margin of error.
You seem to be working rather hard to wave this away.
1. The NYT article, *explicitly* states that that the focus of the report is not exactly the same as the focus of the article, so your "To begin with..." implication that this is somehow some kind of discovery of some sort of nefarious bate and switch is bogus:
QuoteYou can read the full poll results here. (If you do, note that the beginning of the report focuses on a Democratic-leaning group of working-class voters — who are relevant to primary elections — rather than the swing voters who have been my focus.)
And the actual poll results almost exactly align with the message of the NYT article:
Quote
What Style of Campaign Rhetoric Is Most Effective
for Progressive Candidates?
Key Takeaways
1. Campaign messaging that avoids woke rhetoric is popular among many
working-class voters.
· Given a choice between five different styles of political rhetoric, the
progressive populist soundbite— which pitted "people who work for
a living" against "the superrich" — was at least as, if not more popular than, the four other options (woke progressive, woke moderate,
mainstream moderate, and Republican). The progressive populist and
mainstream moderate choices consistently fared better than either
of the woke options.
2. Explicitly populist and class-based rhetorical appeals are popular with
working-class voters— and may be especially important for candidates
aiming to win blue-collar workers to a progressive platform.
· Among certain key demographics — including rural/small-town
voters, self-identified working-class voters, and voters in blue-collar
occupations— the progressive populist candidate enjoyed more support than all the other candidates, including the mainstream moderate.
3. When combined with a candidate with a non-elite background and a
political platform focused on economics, populist rhetoric proved even
more attractive to our respondents
The article is specifically looking at how to influence those "modest results". They matter.
And your claim that the error bars are so long that they all fall within the margin of error is rather disingenuous. They all fall within the margin of error if you overlap all five responses with one another. But the delta between the progressive populist response (the favorable response with this group) and the woke response (the least favorable) is significant, and only overlap in the very extreme. To the extent that you can dismiss the data on those grounds, you might as well simply throw out the entire poll, and in fact, the vast majority of polls that are trying, in good faith, to figure out nuance between competing positions.
Quote from: Sheilbh on November 12, 2021, 11:31:01 AM
Interesting eary indications that the strongest swing in Virginia was in areas with large Hispanic populations, which follows similar points in 2020.
This is what I mean when I say it's not helpful to have an image of the archetypal swing voter - I think Matt Yglesias is guilty of this when he points out that the median American voter is a 50 something white guy without a degree. The focus in this thread on Obama-Trump voters and the white working class etc maybe held for 2008-16. Arguably that voter has gone to the GOP because they've been trending that way for years and 2008/12 were maybe exceptions.
But I think if Democrats are seriously weakening among Hispanic voters that's a big risk for them in their coalition. The same analysis may apply cut-and-paste but I'm not sure that we know that yet.
But the data does not show that. They have not "gone to the GOP", at least not all of them.
The data is right there in front of us. These people are reachable. They just aren't reachable with the particular message some people demand they be reached with, but ARE reachable with a populist progressive message.
Quote from: Tyr on November 12, 2021, 10:26:20 AM
If the left needs to become identical to the far right to win then what's the point in winning?
So preaching a populist progressive message is now "identical to the far right"?
This is, again, exactly the fucking problem. You care more about posturing then winning.
You would rather scream about how racist and assholes blue collar workers are if they don't accept 100% of the left wing agenda then actually convince them to vote for us.
QuoteWe aren't just talking Blairite moving economically to the centre a bit here. We're talking about giving up on fundamental human rights and pushing back several decades of progress that have made the world a better place for a large number of people.
We are not at all talking about giving up anything at all. Nobody in this thread has proposed giving up on anything like that.
This is exactly the problem. The demand that unless you parrot exactly the issues as one element of the left demand with exactly their language and their emphasis, why, you must be in favor or "...giving up on fundamental human rights and pushing back several decades of progress that have made the world a better place..." Or perhaps you are a homophibic racist shitbag?
Quote from: Berkut on November 12, 2021, 11:51:16 AM
Quote from: Sheilbh on November 12, 2021, 11:31:01 AM
Interesting eary indications that the strongest swing in Virginia was in areas with large Hispanic populations, which follows similar points in 2020.
This is what I mean when I say it's not helpful to have an image of the archetypal swing voter - I think Matt Yglesias is guilty of this when he points out that the median American voter is a 50 something white guy without a degree. The focus in this thread on Obama-Trump voters and the white working class etc maybe held for 2008-16. Arguably that voter has gone to the GOP because they've been trending that way for years and 2008/12 were maybe exceptions.
But I think if Democrats are seriously weakening among Hispanic voters that's a big risk for them in their coalition. The same analysis may apply cut-and-paste but I'm not sure that we know that yet.
But the data does not show that. They have not "gone to the GOP", at least not all of them.
The data is right there in front of us. These people are reachable. They just aren't reachable with the particular message some people demand they be reached with, but ARE reachable with a populist progressive message.
Fine, that's just not what happened in Virginia and New Jersey.
Also, this is not happening in a vacuum. The other side deploys their new and improved dog whistles, and scared white folks flock. Voters have agency.
This is coming from the poll, not the apparently right wing New York Times article:
Quote. Candidates who invoked progressive populist messaging were viewed
just as favorably as candidates who used other types of campaign messaging, while candidates who opted for woke messaging were typically
viewed less favorably than other Democratic candidates. This was
true across virtually all our measures of the working class. The pattern mostly held across racial groups as well. This suggests that while
there is a considerable risk of alienating sections of the working class
by employing woke talking points, there is no similar risk posed by
avoiding them — those sections of the working class that prefer woke
messaging are not alienated by populist progressivism.
Quote from: Zoupa on November 12, 2021, 12:02:16 PM
Quote from: Berkut on November 12, 2021, 11:51:16 AM
Quote from: Sheilbh on November 12, 2021, 11:31:01 AM
Interesting eary indications that the strongest swing in Virginia was in areas with large Hispanic populations, which follows similar points in 2020.
This is what I mean when I say it's not helpful to have an image of the archetypal swing voter - I think Matt Yglesias is guilty of this when he points out that the median American voter is a 50 something white guy without a degree. The focus in this thread on Obama-Trump voters and the white working class etc maybe held for 2008-16. Arguably that voter has gone to the GOP because they've been trending that way for years and 2008/12 were maybe exceptions.
But I think if Democrats are seriously weakening among Hispanic voters that's a big risk for them in their coalition. The same analysis may apply cut-and-paste but I'm not sure that we know that yet.
But the data does not show that. They have not "gone to the GOP", at least not all of them.
The data is right there in front of us. These people are reachable. They just aren't reachable with the particular message some people demand they be reached with, but ARE reachable with a populist progressive message.
Fine, that's just not what happened in Virginia and New Jersey.
Also, this is not happening in a vacuum. The other side deploys their new and improved dog whistles, and scared white folks flock. Voters have agency.
Of course they do! Which is why we should figure out how to convince them!
And again, it's not ALL of them. Just some of them. Not even that many of them would make a radical difference, at least in US politics.
As to what effect this had in VA, I don't know. I know a lot of people who voted previously did not vote. That seems a problem that this might be touching on, but is likely more just exhaustion among a group of voters who are not generally inclined to vote anyway.
The problem that the right's crazies are in a perpetual state of crazy activity while the lefts base tends to just relax and pass unless there is something really egregious is a different problem.
Quote from: Berkut on November 12, 2021, 11:58:09 AM
Quote from: Tyr on November 12, 2021, 10:26:20 AM
If the left needs to become identical to the far right to win then what's the point in winning?
So preaching a populist progressive message is now "identical to the far right"?
They're not doing that. That the right are having success pretending they are is the problem.
QuoteThis is, again, exactly the fucking problem. You care more about posturing then winning.
I care about what is best for people. Not petty culture war bollocks.
QuoteYou would rather scream about how racist and assholes blue collar workers are if they don't accept 100% of the left wing agenda then actually convince them to vote for us.
Holy reading failure batman. Didn't I just cover this?
Quote
We are not at all talking about giving up anything at all. Nobody in this thread has proposed giving up on anything like that.
Yet you have not given any answer for what you actually want.
Make no mistake. The people crying about how the moderate left are identical to the crazies won't rest until they are fully aligned with the far right.
Hell. Even then politics as football will find a way to keep them the enemy.
Quote
This is exactly the problem. The demand that unless you parrot exactly the issues as one element of the left demand with exactly their language and their emphasis, why, you must be in favor or "...giving up on fundamental human rights and pushing back several decades of progress that have made the world a better place..." Or perhaps you are a homophibic racist shitbag?
This is exactly the problem. The demand that unless you parrot exactly the issues as one element of the right demand with exactly their language and their emphasis, why, you must be in favor or "...giving up on fundamental human rights and pushing back several decades of progress that have made the world a better place..." Or perhaps you are woke?
Sure - I don't use "gone to the GOP" as a moral condemnation. Just factually they voted Republican having previously voted Democrat. That's what makes them swing voters.
My point is that when we talk about swing voters we're always fighting the last war to an extent and we shouldn't go in with the idea of what that swing voter should look like - that all depends on your overall strategy, the coalition you're building and how you target it. It's not clear to me, for example, from what I've read that the Hispanic voters who have swung to the GOP in the last couple of years are necessarily working class voters (as defined in that poll). They might well be, but I don't know - as I say I think it's definitely relevant in 2008-16 but I think things have shifted.
In the last two big elections in 2018-20 the key swing voters have surely been college educated, white middle class voters because that's how the Democrats won. Are we sure they still won't be the key democgraphic and what's the message which works for them (I suspect that might not be populist progressivism)? Or is it the Hispanic voters as this new vulnerability for Democrats - what the message that works for them?
Obviously that goes for both sides - if the Democrats were going all in on populist progressive messaging then I imagine that Republicans would be working very hard to understand the message that undermines that or to focus on the least positive bits. So the other way of reading this is that if you're a Republican the key is to focus on the "woke moderate" position and hammer that every day, which I think they're doing pretty well.
The skill and the bit that moves from "one cool trick to win elections" to actually winning is obviously how you construct a message that: turns out your base, reaches undecided voters, convinces some of your opponent's voters to come over to you and isn't vulnerable to loads of attacks. That's a challenge and much as I'd love to think that populist left message is the answer I'm not sure it's that simple. That's also where I think the strategy/story point comes in because it needs to be more than a grab-bag of messages even if they poll or focus group well. There needs to be some coherence.
I read a piece (which I'll post in the Brexit thread because it's about the UK) which I think is possibly a little bit relevant to this.
I am not one element of the right though. I am no element of the right.
I haven't given an answer for what *I* want?
I don't understand the question - aren't my political views on Languish pretty clear? Is there some question about that?
In the context of this particular discussion, what I want is to convince fellow progressives to focus more on winning elections, understanding why they are NOT winning elections, and fix that problem so that we can achieve our actual political goals. That is what I want.
But I get the feeling that isn't what everyone on the left wants. The immediate and visceral reaction to actual data and strategy around winning is pushed back against rabidly - to me, it is basically saying that you would rather be "right" then be in power and actually set things right.
I personally am opposed to much of what I consider to be "woke" left wing activism (and not, that isn't what the right defines as woke) on principled grounds, practical grounds, and in this narrow sense, political grounds.
Quote from: Berkut on November 12, 2021, 11:49:08 AM
You seem to be working rather hard to wave this away.
I don't see why - I am in accord with your views on this and sympathetic to the point being made. But I also agree with your point that the data should drive the analysis, not the other way around. And the data is more equivocal than the NYT article suggests.
QuoteThe NYT article, *explicitly* states that that the focus of the report is not exactly the same as the focus of the article, so your "To begin with..." implication that this is somehow some kind of discovery of some sort of nefarious bate and switch is bogus:
QuoteYou can read the full poll results here. (If you do, note that the beginning of the report focuses on a Democratic-leaning group of working-class voters — who are relevant to primary elections — rather than the swing voters who have been my focus.)
The section you quoted - accurately in its original parentheses - appears at the very end of the article. There is no indication before that point that the swing voter analysis was in fact only a small part of the overall report. Any reasonable reader would conclude that the was the primary or even sole focus of the analysis unless and until they reached that last parenthetical sentence. Even then, the NYT writer is suggesting that the non-swing voter portion is just something in the "beginning" of the report. That is incredibly misleading because in reality the swing voter analysis takes up 2 pages in the middle of a 76 page report. After that the report continues to discuss the full sample. The messaging results of the swing voter analysis are never discussed again and the swing voter sub-sample is only mention three times in the next 30 pages, in each instance to note their preference for candidates that label themselves independent.
The NYT article simply gives a misleading impression about what the report was really about.
QuoteAnd the actual poll results almost exactly align with the message of the NYT article:
I distinguish the numerical pull *results* from the "takeaway" analytical summary. The reason I do so is that the takeaways -while not an unreasonable way of characterizing the results - do not give a proper sense of the relatively marginal nature of the effects and the large margin of error in the numbers.
QuoteAnd your claim that the error bars are so long that they all fall within the margin of error is rather disingenuous. They all fall within the margin of error if you overlap all five responses with one another. But the delta between the progressive populist response (the favorable response with this group) and the woke response (the least favorable) is significant, and only overlap in the very extreme. To the extent that you can dismiss the data on those grounds, you might as well simply throw out the entire poll, and in fact, the vast majority of polls that are trying, in good faith, to figure out nuance between competing positions.
All of the left messages overlap with progressive populist, and in the case of the bete noire woke progressive message, the overlap is quite substantial. Moreover, the total distance from the median points is not great (around 54-47%). Thus, the idea that these swing voters gush over prog pop and utterly despise woke prog is not supportable. Over the collectivity there is mild preference for the former.
That distinction is significant for many reasons - to take just one it may be the case that you could change or flip those results by tinkering with the exact content of the message being polled.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on November 12, 2021, 12:36:01 PM
All of the left messages overlap with progressive populist, and in the case of the bete noire woke progressive message, the overlap is quite substantial. Moreover, the total distance from the median points is not great (around 54-47%). Thus, the idea that these swing voters gush over prog pop and utterly despise woke prog is not supportable. Over the collectivity there is mild preference for the former.
Two bars overlapping does not imply "no statistical difference", confidence intervals can't be stacked additively like that. If you want to know know the confidence interval for the difference, you have to calculate it directly (or know what the covariance term is). You can't infer the confidence interval for the difference from two confidence intervals for the two means (and even if you assume independence, it's not as simple as checking for overlap, the standard deviations are not additive, variances are).
The real swing voter is one that doesn't normally vote at all. That's how populists get into power. See Weimar Germany's elections - the higher the turnout, the more votes Hitler got. It's the same with Brexit - highest vote share in any UK wide election/referendum etc for 20 years. Ditto in the 2020 US election - many voters came out for Trump to fight the Dems, but more voted against because of his record. Memories of the latter will fade, but the resolve of the former will remain, making him more electable in 2024.
IMO a high turnout is actually a bad sign for democracy, contrary to popular belief.
Quote from: DGuller on November 12, 2021, 12:53:47 PM
Two bars overlapping does not imply "no statistical difference"
Good thing I didn't say that then. :)
"Thus, the idea that these swing voters gush over prog pop and utterly despise woke prog is not supportable. Over the collectivity there is mild preference for the former."
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on November 12, 2021, 02:01:46 PM
Quote from: DGuller on November 12, 2021, 12:53:47 PM
Two bars overlapping does not imply "no statistical difference"
Good thing I didn't say that then. :)
"Thus, the idea that these swing voters gush over prog pop and utterly despise woke prog is not supportable. Over the collectivity there is mild preference for the former."
I was also addressing the original statement, even though I quoted the follow-up one:
QuoteHowever, it is important to note that the error bars are quite long and thus the all the apparent differences fall within the margin of error. In particular there does not appear to be any material difference between the results for woke progressive, woke moderate, and mainstream moderate. Progressive populism does seem to have a small edge but again within the margin of error.
You don't know whether the differences fall within the margin of error, you don't have enough information. Something falling within the margin of error is synonymous with "not statistically significant".
Quote from: PJL on November 12, 2021, 01:21:43 PM
The real swing voter is one that doesn't normally vote at all. That's how populists get into power. See Weimar Germany's elections - the higher the turnout, the more votes Hitler got. It's the same with Brexit - highest vote share in any UK wide election/referendum etc for 20 years. Ditto in the 2020 US election - many voters came out for Trump to fight the Dems, but more voted against because of his record. Memories of the latter will fade, but the resolve of the former will remain, making him more electable in 2024.
IMO a high turnout is actually a bad sign for democracy, contrary to popular belief.
I think that is the part that is missing in this discussion. If US democracy depends on attracting people who are willing to vote GOP at this time, God help the US.
Quote from: DGuller on November 12, 2021, 02:14:00 PM
You don't know whether the differences fall within the margin of error, you don't have enough information. Something falling within the margin of error is synonymous with "not statistically significant".
I avoided making statements about statistical significance. I don't even know how the error margins were calculated or what standard was used.
The report itself does make a representation about statistical significance:
"Similarly, if the bars around one dot overlap with the bars around another
dot, we cannot conclude that there is any statistical difference between the
two characteristics."
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on November 12, 2021, 02:23:12 PM
Quote from: DGuller on November 12, 2021, 02:14:00 PM
You don't know whether the differences fall within the margin of error, you don't have enough information. Something falling within the margin of error is synonymous with "not statistically significant".
I avoided making statements about statistical significance. I don't even know how the error margins were calculated or what standard was used.
As I already said, it's the same thing. Margin of error and statistical significance are two terms for exactly the same concept, both require a standard to be picked. Something that's within the margin of error is not statistically significant, and vice versa. When you say that something is within the margin of error, you're saying that it's statistically insignificant, regardless of whether you think you're avoiding saying that or not.
Such a statement, regardless of which of the two equivalent phrases you use, are meant to dismiss a data-driven argument. I'm being pedantic about it because your dismissal was unwarranted.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on November 12, 2021, 02:25:20 PM
The report itself does make a representation about statistical significance:
"Similarly, if the bars around one dot overlap with the bars around another
dot, we cannot conclude that there is any statistical difference between the
two characteristics."
They're wrong about that then. It's a common mistake.
If the authors of the report are denying statistical significance and given the report does not otherwise disclose the method of calculation or standard uses, I would be more hesitant than you to ascribe significance that the authors do not.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on November 12, 2021, 02:44:15 PM
If the authors of the report are denying statistical significance and given the report does not otherwise disclose the method of calculation or standard uses, I would be more hesitant than you to ascribe significance that the authors do not.
The good thing about math is that 2+2=4 even if Gauss for some reason wrote that it's 5. The math is what it is, regardless of what people with even very high authority say it is. What the authors say based on fallacious logic should have no bearing on what you think is correct.
I do doubt the underlying data more now than before you pointed out this paragraph, since if the authors get the basic math about confidence intervals wrong, then it's harder to trust them to get the softer aspects of statistics like sampling bias right. My hesitancy would come from that part, not because I would trust them that 2+2=5 because it's useful for my argument.
Quote from: DGuller on November 12, 2021, 03:02:08 PM
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on November 12, 2021, 02:44:15 PM
If the authors of the report are denying statistical significance and given the report does not otherwise disclose the method of calculation or standard uses, I would be more hesitant than you to ascribe significance that the authors do not.
The good thing about math is that 2+2=4 even if Gauss for some reason wrote that it's 5. The math is what it is, regardless of what people with even very high authority say it is. What the authors say based on fallacious logic should have no bearing on what you think is correct.
I don't disagree but given the data reporting it is more like saying ~2 + 2?? = 4
The appeal Berkut makes to a Blarite move the the middle is a good example of the danger of simply wanting to win elections for winning sake. Blair and for that matter Clinton did a lot of harm by buying into the right wing ideology of the day that markets should be made free. The deregulation that occurred in the name of the third way and appeasing centre right voters did a lot of harm.
The better thing to do is not give in to silly public policy choices and instead organize a base that will support public policy choices that make sense.
Quote from: DGuller on November 11, 2021, 08:09:11 PM
Here is another article I saw: https://www.npr.org/2021/11/05/1052650979/mcwhorters-new-book-woke-racism-attacks-leading-thinkers-on-race.
Attacking the liberal position on race has been McWhorter's schtick for 2 decades now, though, so you have to take that with a grain of salt: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000OCXGJ6/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tkin_p2_i4
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on November 12, 2021, 04:06:17 PM
Quote from: DGuller on November 12, 2021, 03:02:08 PM
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on November 12, 2021, 02:44:15 PM
If the authors of the report are denying statistical significance and given the report does not otherwise disclose the method of calculation or standard uses, I would be more hesitant than you to ascribe significance that the authors do not.
The good thing about math is that 2+2=4 even if Gauss for some reason wrote that it's 5. The math is what it is, regardless of what people with even very high authority say it is. What the authors say based on fallacious logic should have no bearing on what you think is correct.
I don't disagree but given the data reporting it is more like saying ~2 + 2?? = 4
There is no fuzziness in the part where Var(X-Y) = Var(x) + Var(Y) - 2 * Cov(X, Y), the formula always holds to the 29th decimal place and more. What they said in your quoted paragraph is true only for the most negative possible value of the Cov(X, Y) term (which does happen when you have only two categories that are mutually exclusive). This part is the purely hard science part of statistics, so there is no ~ or ? about it, it's just dead wrong.
The fuzziness is that we don't know exactly what the error rates they are reporting represent or how they are calculated.
Quote from: Berkut on November 12, 2021, 12:33:45 PMI am not one element of the right though. I am no element of the right.
I haven't given an answer for what *I* want?
I don't understand the question - aren't my political views on Languish pretty clear? Is there some question about that?
I don't know what prompted this and I'm not really sure what you mean.
[quote[In the context of this particular discussion, what I want is to convince fellow progressives to focus more on winning elections, understanding why they are NOT winning elections, and fix that problem so that we can achieve our actual political goals. That is what I want.
But I get the feeling that isn't what everyone on the left wants. The immediate and visceral reaction to actual data and strategy around winning is pushed back against rabidly - to me, it is basically saying that you would rather be "right" then be in power and actually set things right.[/quote]
Right - and my point is that how you win elections and what that looks like depends on what your actual political goals look like. You need the strategy first - which is why I think Democrats struggle because they are a coalition party of interests while I think the GOP are far more ideologically coherent so have a more defined strategy (and, looking at that same data, if you're the GOP your main tactic in opposing the Dems will be trying to heighten fights that focus on the woke wing of the Democrats).
I think you must be meaning someone else if you're saying I'd rather be right than win :lol:
QuoteThe appeal Berkut makes to a Blarite move the the middle is a good example of the danger of simply wanting to win elections for winning sake. Blair and for that matter Clinton did a lot of harm by buying into the right wing ideology of the day that markets should be made free. The deregulation that occurred in the name of the third way and appeasing centre right voters did a lot of harm.
The better thing to do is not give in to silly public policy choices and instead organize a base that will support public policy choices that make sense.
The Blair (and Brown) government was the most redistributive government in British history, it more or less eliminated poverty among the elderly and lifted millions of children out of poverty - not to mention the minimum wage, huge improvements in healthcare and education etc. For example it doubled the percentage of the population that went to university. That's not to mention the profound shifts in social attitudes on race and sexuality. Because the entire Labour party has spent the last decade shitting on its record, has rather diminished it but it had real achievements.
But also I think that fundamentally misreads Blair. He's the model of what I'm talking about: he had an analysis and a strategy which defined the messages (though he obsessively tested what message worked). It wasn't just about winning. And I think the period in the 80s when Blair and Brown shared an office as new MPs was hugely important because I think that hot-housed that analysis.
As much as I love him, I think his analysis is wrong now (and perhaps always was been even if it worked for a while) - and I think mimicking it now would be catastrophic.
Edit: And I think on the key point Blair is right - presentation and comms can only take you so far. You need the analysis, strategy and policies they lead to and they need to talk to each other or you'll lose.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on November 12, 2021, 04:50:10 PM
The fuzziness is that we don't know exactly what the error rates they are reporting represent or how they are calculated.
That actually doesn't matter at all. There is no fuzziness in 2+2=4 just because you don't know whether you're adding two bananas to two bananas, or two oranges to two oranges. The variance formula applies the same way regardless.
Quote from: crazy canuck on November 12, 2021, 04:27:37 PM
The appeal Berkut makes to a Blarite move the the middle is a good example of the danger of simply wanting to win elections for winning sake. Blair and for that matter Clinton did a lot of harm by buying into the right wing ideology of the day that markets should be made free. The deregulation that occurred in the name of the third way and appeasing centre right voters did a lot of harm.
The better thing to do is not give in to silly public policy choices and instead organize a base that will support public policy choices that make sense.
Yeah, the 90s sure were a terrible time... :P
But mroe seriously, your analysis only holds if you think that losing an election only to fight on in the next is a valid strategy. When you're concerned that if the wrong side wins US democracy will be fatally wounded you can't afford to take that risk.
Quote from: Barrister on November 12, 2021, 05:08:07 PM
Quote from: crazy canuck on November 12, 2021, 04:27:37 PM
The appeal Berkut makes to a Blarite move the the middle is a good example of the danger of simply wanting to win elections for winning sake. Blair and for that matter Clinton did a lot of harm by buying into the right wing ideology of the day that markets should be made free. The deregulation that occurred in the name of the third way and appeasing centre right voters did a lot of harm.
The better thing to do is not give in to silly public policy choices and instead organize a base that will support public policy choices that make sense.
Yeah, the 90s sure were a terrible time... :P
But mroe seriously, your analysis only holds if you think that losing an election only to fight on in the next is a valid strategy. When you're concerned that if the wrong side wins US democracy will be fatally wounded you can't afford to take that risk.
That is a valid point. But I guess I am more pessimistic that the Dems can save US democratic institutions by moving even more to the right.
Quote from: crazy canuck on November 12, 2021, 05:16:11 PM
Quote from: Barrister on November 12, 2021, 05:08:07 PM
Quote from: crazy canuck on November 12, 2021, 04:27:37 PM
The appeal Berkut makes to a Blarite move the the middle is a good example of the danger of simply wanting to win elections for winning sake. Blair and for that matter Clinton did a lot of harm by buying into the right wing ideology of the day that markets should be made free. The deregulation that occurred in the name of the third way and appeasing centre right voters did a lot of harm.
The better thing to do is not give in to silly public policy choices and instead organize a base that will support public policy choices that make sense.
Yeah, the 90s sure were a terrible time... :P
But mroe seriously, your analysis only holds if you think that losing an election only to fight on in the next is a valid strategy. When you're concerned that if the wrong side wins US democracy will be fatally wounded you can't afford to take that risk.
That is a valid point. But I guess I am more pessimistic that the Dems can save US democratic institutions by moving even more to the right.
Who has suggested that anyone move more to the right though? You just made that up out of whole cloth.
The entire point is that there are progressive, left wing messages that can and do appeal to blue collar workers. There are other messages that do not.
We should focus more on the progressives messages that appeal to them then the ones that turn them off.
That is not moving to the right at all.
Quote from: crazy canuck on November 12, 2021, 04:27:37 PM
The appeal Berkut makes to a Blarite move the the middle is a good example of the danger of simply wanting to win elections for winning sake. Blair and for that matter Clinton did a lot of harm by buying into the right wing ideology of the day that markets should be made free.
THis is not coherent.
Was the problem that they "simply" wanted to win elections, or that they bought into right wing ideology about free markets?
And damn, I was not aware that the 90s and Clinton era was such a clear hell hole.
https://www.theonion.com/bush-our-long-national-nightmare-of-peace-and-prosperi-1819565882
Quote from: Berkut on November 12, 2021, 05:47:13 PM
Quote from: crazy canuck on November 12, 2021, 04:27:37 PM
The appeal Berkut makes to a Blarite move the the middle is a good example of the danger of simply wanting to win elections for winning sake. Blair and for that matter Clinton did a lot of harm by buying into the right wing ideology of the day that markets should be made free.
THis is not coherent.
Was the problem that they "simply" wanted to win elections, or that they bought into right wing ideology about free markets?
And damn, I was not aware that the 90s and Clinton era was such a clear hell hole.
https://www.theonion.com/bush-our-long-national-nightmare-of-peace-and-prosperi-1819565882
Yeah, it's weird the way the far left rewrites history to make themselves look like they were correct. Clinton was, arguably, the best post-WW2 US president because he
didn't cling to failed left-wing policies and made rational decisions even when those irritated both the far left and the far right. He worked to get policies passed a hostile legislature by avoiding the extremist trap of making better the enemy of good.
Quote from: Berkut on November 12, 2021, 05:45:01 PM
Quote from: crazy canuck on November 12, 2021, 05:16:11 PM
Quote from: Barrister on November 12, 2021, 05:08:07 PM
Quote from: crazy canuck on November 12, 2021, 04:27:37 PM
The appeal Berkut makes to a Blarite move the the middle is a good example of the danger of simply wanting to win elections for winning sake. Blair and for that matter Clinton did a lot of harm by buying into the right wing ideology of the day that markets should be made free. The deregulation that occurred in the name of the third way and appeasing centre right voters did a lot of harm.
The better thing to do is not give in to silly public policy choices and instead organize a base that will support public policy choices that make sense.
Yeah, the 90s sure were a terrible time... :P
But mroe seriously, your analysis only holds if you think that losing an election only to fight on in the next is a valid strategy. When you're concerned that if the wrong side wins US democracy will be fatally wounded you can't afford to take that risk.
That is a valid point. But I guess I am more pessimistic that the Dems can save US democratic institutions by moving even more to the right.
Who has suggested that anyone move more to the right though? You just made that up out of whole cloth.
The entire point is that there are progressive, left wing messages that can and do appeal to blue collar workers. There are other messages that do not.
We should focus more on the progressives messages that appeal to them then the ones that turn them off.
That is not moving to the right at all.
You seem to forget what you posted not long ago when you called for a move to the centre. Since the move is from the left, by definition that is a move further to the right.
It is certainly a good a idea to have progressive policies that can be better pitched. But that is a different thing from moving politically further to the right in order to inhabit some mythical middle ground or the Blarite rhetoric of the third way.
Quote from: grumbler on November 12, 2021, 06:15:29 PM
Quote from: Berkut on November 12, 2021, 05:47:13 PM
Quote from: crazy canuck on November 12, 2021, 04:27:37 PM
The appeal Berkut makes to a Blarite move the the middle is a good example of the danger of simply wanting to win elections for winning sake. Blair and for that matter Clinton did a lot of harm by buying into the right wing ideology of the day that markets should be made free.
THis is not coherent.
Was the problem that they "simply" wanted to win elections, or that they bought into right wing ideology about free markets?
And damn, I was not aware that the 90s and Clinton era was such a clear hell hole.
https://www.theonion.com/bush-our-long-national-nightmare-of-peace-and-prosperi-1819565882
Yeah, it's weird the way the far left rewrites history to make themselves look like they were correct. Clinton was, arguably, the best post-WW2 US president because he didn't cling to failed left-wing policies and made rational decisions even when those irritated both the far left and the far right. He worked to get policies passed a hostile legislature by avoiding the extremist trap of making better the enemy of good.
Its funny that pointing out that deregulation was bad makes one far left in the US context. That is probably why things are so messed up in your country.
Quote from: crazy canuck on November 12, 2021, 06:19:33 PM
Quote from: Berkut on November 12, 2021, 05:45:01 PM
Quote from: crazy canuck on November 12, 2021, 05:16:11 PM
Quote from: Barrister on November 12, 2021, 05:08:07 PM
Quote from: crazy canuck on November 12, 2021, 04:27:37 PM
The appeal Berkut makes to a Blarite move the the middle is a good example of the danger of simply wanting to win elections for winning sake. Blair and for that matter Clinton did a lot of harm by buying into the right wing ideology of the day that markets should be made free. The deregulation that occurred in the name of the third way and appeasing centre right voters did a lot of harm.
The better thing to do is not give in to silly public policy choices and instead organize a base that will support public policy choices that make sense.
Yeah, the 90s sure were a terrible time... :P
But mroe seriously, your analysis only holds if you think that losing an election only to fight on in the next is a valid strategy. When you're concerned that if the wrong side wins US democracy will be fatally wounded you can't afford to take that risk.
That is a valid point. But I guess I am more pessimistic that the Dems can save US democratic institutions by moving even more to the right.
Who has suggested that anyone move more to the right though? You just made that up out of whole cloth.
The entire point is that there are progressive, left wing messages that can and do appeal to blue collar workers. There are other messages that do not.
We should focus more on the progressives messages that appeal to them then the ones that turn them off.
That is not moving to the right at all.
You seem to forget what you posted not long ago when you called for a move to the centre. Since the move is from the left, by definition that is a move further to the right.
It is certainly a good a idea to have progressive policies that can be better pitched. But that is a different thing from moving politically further to the right in order to inhabit some mythical middle ground or the Blarite rhetoric of the third way.
The subject of conversation here has nothing to do with moving anywhere.
And I love the idea that the middle ground is a myth. That is so delightful!
Quote from: Berkut on November 12, 2021, 06:26:40 PM
Quote from: crazy canuck on November 12, 2021, 06:19:33 PM
Quote from: Berkut on November 12, 2021, 05:45:01 PM
Quote from: crazy canuck on November 12, 2021, 05:16:11 PM
Quote from: Barrister on November 12, 2021, 05:08:07 PM
Quote from: crazy canuck on November 12, 2021, 04:27:37 PM
The appeal Berkut makes to a Blarite move the the middle is a good example of the danger of simply wanting to win elections for winning sake. Blair and for that matter Clinton did a lot of harm by buying into the right wing ideology of the day that markets should be made free. The deregulation that occurred in the name of the third way and appeasing centre right voters did a lot of harm.
The better thing to do is not give in to silly public policy choices and instead organize a base that will support public policy choices that make sense.
Yeah, the 90s sure were a terrible time... :P
But mroe seriously, your analysis only holds if you think that losing an election only to fight on in the next is a valid strategy. When you're concerned that if the wrong side wins US democracy will be fatally wounded you can't afford to take that risk.
That is a valid point. But I guess I am more pessimistic that the Dems can save US democratic institutions by moving even more to the right.
Who has suggested that anyone move more to the right though? You just made that up out of whole cloth.
The entire point is that there are progressive, left wing messages that can and do appeal to blue collar workers. There are other messages that do not.
We should focus more on the progressives messages that appeal to them then the ones that turn them off.
That is not moving to the right at all.
You seem to forget what you posted not long ago when you called for a move to the centre. Since the move is from the left, by definition that is a move further to the right.
It is certainly a good a idea to have progressive policies that can be better pitched. But that is a different thing from moving politically further to the right in order to inhabit some mythical middle ground or the Blarite rhetoric of the third way.
The subject of conversation here has nothing to do with moving anywhere.
And I love the idea that the middle ground is a myth. That is so delightful!
Ok, if it has nothing to do with moving anywhere I am not sure why you said moving to the middle (whatever that means) is what should be done.
The middle ground isn't a myth - it's just not where people think it is.
When they say middle ground they mean politically centrist, vaguely technocratic wonks like the people round Clinton. In polling, at least in the UK, the middle ground wants nationalised energy and transport, far higher taxes on the rich, lots of state spending AND strict limits on immigration, law and order and the death penalty. The middle ground is actually fund the NHS, hang the paedos :lol:
Quote from: DGuller on November 12, 2021, 04:54:47 PM
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on November 12, 2021, 04:50:10 PM
The fuzziness is that we don't know exactly what the error rates they are reporting represent or how they are calculated.
That actually doesn't matter at all.
Of course it matters if you defining statistical significance in a certain way (e.g. X% confidence interval) but the error bars are calculated based on a different assumption.
Quote from: Berkut on November 12, 2021, 06:26:40 PM
The entire point is that there are progressive, left wing messages that can and do appeal to blue collar workers. There are other messages that do not.
Why don't these "other" messages appeal to blue collar workers?
Quote from: Zoupa on November 12, 2021, 10:26:53 PM
Quote from: Berkut on November 12, 2021, 06:26:40 PM
The entire point is that there are progressive, left wing messages that can and do appeal to blue collar workers. There are other messages that do not.
Why don't these "other" messages appeal to blue collar workers?
Because they are susceptible to tribal identities, the message is easily re-cast as being against them, it is at its root an attack on their privilege, and some part of that message is fucking stupid.
But again, the debate about whether or not the message is right is a different discussion entirely. Even if you grant that the most woke of the wokiest wokesters are 100% correct...it is still dumb to lose elections over the insistence that the message be front and center, since losing means you don't get to do anything about it anyway.
And the left has been losing. A lot. A lot a lot a lot. And I am not talking about Virginia - I am talking about the last two decades.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on November 12, 2021, 10:13:33 PM
Quote from: DGuller on November 12, 2021, 04:54:47 PM
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on November 12, 2021, 04:50:10 PM
The fuzziness is that we don't know exactly what the error rates they are reporting represent or how they are calculated.
That actually doesn't matter at all.
Of course it matters if you defining statistical significance in a certain way (e.g. X% confidence interval) but the error bars are calculated based on a different assumption.
If you read the same page you quoted from earlier, but go one paragraph up, you would find out that error bars are exactly the visualization of confidence intervals. Frankly, given the context of other things discussed, it wouldn't make sense for them to be anything else, even if that paragraph weren't there.
Quote from: Berkut on November 12, 2021, 10:44:47 PM
Quote from: Zoupa on November 12, 2021, 10:26:53 PM
Quote from: Berkut on November 12, 2021, 06:26:40 PM
The entire point is that there are progressive, left wing messages that can and do appeal to blue collar workers. There are other messages that do not.
Why don't these "other" messages appeal to blue collar workers?
Because they are susceptible to tribal identities, the message is easily re-cast as being against them, it is at its root an attack on their privilege, and some part of that message is fucking stupid.
But again, the debate about whether or not the message is right is a different discussion entirely. Even if you grant that the most woke of the wokiest wokesters are 100% correct...it is still dumb to lose elections over the insistence that the message be front and center, since losing means you don't get to do anything about it anyway.
And the left has been losing. A lot. A lot a lot a lot. And I am not talking about Virginia - I am talking about the last two decades.
Apart from Bernie and 5-10 Democrat congress members, I'm not aware of any politicians that ran on any platform that would perhaps qualify.
What does exist is grassroots movement, like for example BLM, where some of their members wrote pieces, demonstrated or voiced their opinion on defunding the police for example. That message of redistributing a percentage of the frankly obscene police budget dollars to other services quickly got picked up by the standard gop liars.
That (white) voters can be so easily scared and convinced by obviously false or disingenuous talking points... It speaks to a deeper rot, perhaps in education or what have you, I have no idea.
The main problem is one of the two parties has decided to gradually stop playing by the rules. It's very hard to revert back once 35-45% of your citizens believe in all this shit.
I recognize your point that if you don't win, you can't do anything. But you can't ask, for example, brown people to sit down and be quiet or else whitey is gonna scare and vote for the fascists. Kind of a big ask.
All that to say I don't really see a way out as I think the US is too far gone. Maybe it was always doomed, with structural fault lines which were always going to crack the system eventually.
Quote from: Zoupa on November 12, 2021, 11:12:20 PM
Quote from: Berkut on November 12, 2021, 10:44:47 PM
Quote from: Zoupa on November 12, 2021, 10:26:53 PM
Quote from: Berkut on November 12, 2021, 06:26:40 PM
The entire point is that there are progressive, left wing messages that can and do appeal to blue collar workers. There are other messages that do not.
Why don't these "other" messages appeal to blue collar workers?
Because they are susceptible to tribal identities, the message is easily re-cast as being against them, it is at its root an attack on their privilege, and some part of that message is fucking stupid.
But again, the debate about whether or not the message is right is a different discussion entirely. Even if you grant that the most woke of the wokiest wokesters are 100% correct...it is still dumb to lose elections over the insistence that the message be front and center, since losing means you don't get to do anything about it anyway.
And the left has been losing. A lot. A lot a lot a lot. And I am not talking about Virginia - I am talking about the last two decades.
Apart from Bernie and 5-10 Democrat congress members, I'm not aware of any politicians that ran on any platform that would perhaps qualify.
What does exist is grassroots movement, like for example BLM, where some of their members wrote pieces, demonstrated or voiced their opinion on defunding the police for example. That message of redistributing a percentage of the frankly obscene police budget dollars to other services quickly got picked up by the standard gop liars.
That (white) voters can be so easily scared and convinced by obviously false or disingenuous talking points... It speaks to a deeper rot, perhaps in education or what have you, I have no idea.
The main problem is one of the two parties has decided to gradually stop playing by the rules. It's very hard to revert back once 35-45% of your citizens believe in all this shit.
I recognize your point that if you don't win, you can't do anything. But you can't ask, for example, brown people to sit down and be quiet or else whitey is gonna scare and vote for the fascists. Kind of a big ask.
All that to say I don't really see a way out as I think the US is too far gone. Maybe it was always doomed, with structural fault lines which were always going to crack the system eventually.
You might be right. It might be too far gone.
And I totally understand the point that we cannot ask minorities to shut up or anything like that.
I just think we have to pick our battles and pick our message. If there is any hope, it can only be based on winning elections in an already unfair electoral environment.
Note that what I am saying here is only about messaging and elections. What is done once power is achieved is an entirely different thing.
I do think that if my optimism is correct, things are bad, but could actually swing the right way very quickly (potentially) with the Democratic/Progressive party taking significant control for some time, while the GOP re-sorts itself back out into something less grotesque. That may not be likely, but it's the only chance we have other then sitting back and watching things get a LOT worse before they ever get better.
Quote from: Zoupa on November 12, 2021, 11:12:20 PM
What does exist is grassroots movement, like for example BLM, where some of their members wrote pieces, demonstrated or voiced their opinion on defunding the police for example. That message of redistributing a percentage of the frankly obscene police budget dollars to other services quickly got picked up by the standard gop liars.
That (white) voters can be so easily scared and convinced by obviously false or disingenuous talking points... It speaks to a deeper rot, perhaps in education or what have you, I have no idea.
The main problem is one of the two parties has decided to gradually stop playing by the rules. It's very hard to revert back once 35-45% of your citizens believe in all this shit.
This is false.
First some BLM protestors chanted "defund the police." Then someone else at the NYT wrote that they didn't actually mean that, that *really* meant redirect police budgets to social workers that can nonviolently deal with the homeless and psychos. No one of course asked the orginal chanters what they actually meant or what they actually wanted.
Then there was congresswoman Omar who tweeted "abolish the police" and then quickly deleted the tweet. Remember that discussion? GOP liars didn't hijack her twitter account.
Then there was AOC tweeting to "abolish ICE." Here on Languish Joan and others claimed that she *actually* meant reform the culture of ICE. How do they know that' what she actually meant?
You and I remember that chanting and the NYT article very differently. I'd be interested to know if there was any polling/interviews done with BLM organizers or prominent members to establish exactly what they want. Of course the GOP doesn't need that level of detail, they need the chanting as is for their dog whistle.
As for Omar and AOC, clearly they don't have as much weight as you think. How many other congress members took up their talking points? 3? How many senators? 1, maybe? The top 3 democrats are Biden, Pelosi and Schumer. You'd be hard-pressed to convince anybody these 3 old geezers are revolutionaries...
I don't see what's wrong about abolishing ICE. It was founded in 2003. :mellow: Hardly indispensable to the survival of the nation...
Quote from: Admiral Yi on November 13, 2021, 12:13:50 AM
First some BLM protestors chanted "defund the police." Then someone else at the NYT wrote that they didn't actually mean that, that *really* meant redirect police budgets to social workers that can nonviolently deal with the homeless and psychos. No one of course asked the orginal chanters what they actually meant or what they actually wanted.
I do recall some of the other chanters going "yeah, no, when we say defund the police, we mean defund the police". I imagine people at NYT went "FFS, grab on when someone throws you a rope, you numbskulls", before collective facepalming.
Quote from: Zoupa on November 13, 2021, 12:28:33 AM
I don't see what's wrong about abolishing ICE. It was founded in 2003. :mellow: Hardly indispensable to the survival of the nation...
It's not like nothing of the kind was there before. In fact, before ICE there was INS.
What AOC states is that ICE's regulatory oversight is lacking/baked into its mandate, hence her call to abolish it and not reform it. She also suggested replacing it by a new agency, independent from the DHS, with a different mandate and heavier oversight.
Not exactly open borders here.
Of course, the Dems are never going to get 100% message discipline as they can't control what grassroot movements and there will always be some progressive officials. Similar situation for Republicans except that it seems to be okay to swing to crazier and crazier positions.
Defunding and abolishing the police it must be remembered isn't exactly extreme fringe anarchist insanity as much as it is painted that way.
Northern Ireland shows that this is a workable solution when the established police force is too baked into one side of a divide. In their case religious, so why not racial?
But this is an example of the problem being talked about. The overwhelming majority of left wing politicians have nothing to do with this at all. One or two politicians gave a little thumbs up to the slogans but even for them it isn't a policy they hold.
Yet listen to the media and its adherents and Biden is gunning for killing all the police.
Quote from: garbon on November 13, 2021, 02:42:57 AM
Of course, the Dems are never going to get 100% message discipline as they can't control what grassroot movements and there will always be some progressive officials. Similar situation for Republicans except that it seems to be okay to swing to crazier and crazier positions.
It does seem like a totally asynchronoous problem. It makes no sense.
It's like the GOP is just expected to lie and race bait and make shit up, so it is just baked into their brand and accepted without consequence beyond what they have already paid.
It makes no fucking sense.
Quote from: Zoupa on November 13, 2021, 12:28:33 AM
You and I remember that chanting and the NYT article very differently. I'd be interested to know if there was any polling/interviews done with BLM organizers or prominent members to establish exactly what they want. Of course the GOP doesn't need that level of detail, they need the chanting as is for their dog whistle.
As for Omar and AOC, clearly they don't have as much weight as you think. How many other congress members took up their talking points? 3? How many senators? 1, maybe? The top 3 democrats are Biden, Pelosi and Schumer. You'd be hard-pressed to convince anybody these 3 old geezers are revolutionaries...
I don't see what's wrong about abolishing ICE. It was founded in 2003. :mellow: Hardly indispensable to the survival of the nation...
I need some clarification. When you talk about the big GOP lie, what exactly are your referring to? I took it to mean crazy ass shit doesn't exist at all on the progressive left, whereas on sober reflection I'm wondering if you meant something about the real possibilities of that crazy ass shit becoming real policy.
Quote from: Tyr on November 13, 2021, 03:34:59 AM
Defunding and abolishing the police it must be remembered isn't exactly extreme fringe anarchist insanity as much as it is painted that way.
Northern Ireland shows that this is a workable solution when the established police force is too baked into one side of a divide. In their case religious, so why not racial?
But this is an example of the problem being talked about. The overwhelming majority of left wing politicians have nothing to do with this at all. One or two politicians gave a little thumbs up to the slogans but even for them it isn't a policy they hold.
Yet listen to the media and its adherents and Biden is gunning for killing all the police.
The original texts of abolishing and defunding are exactly as crazy as they're made out to be.
The college-educated white person suburban-friendly reboots are much less crazy.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on November 13, 2021, 12:36:49 PM
Quote from: Zoupa on November 13, 2021, 12:28:33 AM
You and I remember that chanting and the NYT article very differently. I'd be interested to know if there was any polling/interviews done with BLM organizers or prominent members to establish exactly what they want. Of course the GOP doesn't need that level of detail, they need the chanting as is for their dog whistle.
As for Omar and AOC, clearly they don't have as much weight as you think. How many other congress members took up their talking points? 3? How many senators? 1, maybe? The top 3 democrats are Biden, Pelosi and Schumer. You'd be hard-pressed to convince anybody these 3 old geezers are revolutionaries...
I don't see what's wrong about abolishing ICE. It was founded in 2003. :mellow: Hardly indispensable to the survival of the nation...
I need some clarification. When you talk about the big GOP lie, what exactly are your referring to? I took it to mean crazy ass shit doesn't exist at all on the progressive left, whereas on sober reflection I'm wondering if you meant something about the real possibilities of that crazy ass shit becoming real policy.
I was referring to "If you vote Biden or any Democrat in office, they're gonna defund the police".
Quote from: Zoupa on November 14, 2021, 04:43:04 AM
I was referring to "If you vote Biden or any Democrat in office, they're gonna defund the police".
At the federal level that's probably true. Small chance of the FBI, or Marshals or Park Police getting defunded. It's a little more complicated at the city and local level. After all the Seattle city council did vote to cut funding by 40%, and the mayor did permit the (temporary) establishment of the Seattle Free Zone on Queen Anne Hill.
On a personal note I got a kick out of Queen Anne being the cop free zone because I spent a couple weeks crashing in a buddy's sister's basement during a college summer.
Quote from: DGuller on November 12, 2021, 10:52:28 PM
If you read the same page you quoted from earlier, but go one paragraph up, you would find out that error bars are exactly the visualization of confidence intervals. Frankly, given the context of other things discussed, it wouldn't make sense for them to be anything else, even if that paragraph weren't there.
So I did read the page and the footnotes
The footnote says is that the central points are generated by a conjoint analysis and used to generate a marginal mean and then cites to a paper that outlines the concept. https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/tjl-sharing/assets/MeasuringSubgroupPreferences.pdf. The body text then uses the word "confident" in relation to the bars, but does not indicate what standard of confidence is being used or how it is being determined (the Leepert, Hobolt paper indicates that it *should* be a measurement of standard error).
There is also a second footnote on the same page that states the following: "In some cases, however, the lack of statistical significance is caused not by the lack of a real difference between two estimates, but rather because we only have a small number of respondents for a given demographic group, which makes our confidence in the estimates for that group lower. In these cases we can often draw useful conclusions from estimates that are not statistically significant, even as we recognize that we should not draw strong conclusions from such estimates." Now you might say that the size of sample should be and is taken into account in the size of the error bars and that could be true here but if that was so this is very odd way of phrasing the matter.
There are two possibilities here. Either they fully understand and properly implemented the methodology they describe and are correctly and accurately interpreting its meaning in terms of statistical significance (albeit with the standard left unstated). Or they are clueless mooks who can't add 2+2 in which case how confident can we be that they did any of the steps of the analysis correctly?
Bottom line is no matter how you interpret the situation, the report provides no basis to conclude that there is a meaningful and statistically significance difference in the "good" progressive populist message and the "bad" woke progressive message among the subgroup of independent swing voters (on page 45), which is the key takeaway of alleged "finings" reported in the NYT article. If you contend otherwise, please show where I am wrong.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on November 13, 2021, 12:13:50 AM
Then there was AOC tweeting to "abolish ICE." Here on Languish Joan and others claimed that she *actually* meant reform the culture of ICE. How do they know that' what she actually meant?
I don't recall what I said but if what AOC means about "abolishing ICE" is to break up the over-wieldy superagency and parcel out its functions in a more rational way, it's a proposal worthy of consideration. In fact it makes sufficient sense that it was already done in small part - pieces of the original agency were broken out over the years.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on November 15, 2021, 11:45:09 AM
Quote from: DGuller on November 12, 2021, 10:52:28 PM
If you read the same page you quoted from earlier, but go one paragraph up, you would find out that error bars are exactly the visualization of confidence intervals. Frankly, given the context of other things discussed, it wouldn't make sense for them to be anything else, even if that paragraph weren't there.
So I did read the page and the footnotes
The footnote says is that the central points are generated by a conjoint analysis and used to generate a marginal mean and then cites to a paper that outlines the concept. https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/tjl-sharing/assets/MeasuringSubgroupPreferences.pdf. The body text then uses the word "confident" in relation to the bars, but does not indicate what standard of confidence is being used or how it is being determined (the Leepert, Hobolt paper indicates that it *should* be a measurement of standard error).
There is also a second footnote on the same page that states the following: "In some cases, however, the lack of statistical significance is caused not by the lack of a real difference between two estimates, but rather because we only have a small number of respondents for a given demographic group, which makes our confidence in the estimates for that group lower. In these cases we can often draw useful conclusions from estimates that are not statistically significant, even as we recognize that we should not draw strong conclusions from such estimates." Now you might say that the size of sample should be and is taken into account in the size of the error bars and that could be true here but if that was so this is very odd way of phrasing the matter.
There are two possibilities here. Either they fully understand and properly implemented the methodology they describe and are correctly and accurately interpreting its meaning in terms of statistical significance (albeit with the standard left unstated). Or they are clueless mooks who can't add 2+2 in which case how confident can we be that they did any of the steps of the analysis correctly?
Bottom line is no matter how you interpret the situation, the report provides no basis to conclude that there is a meaningful and statistically significance difference in the "good" progressive populist message and the "bad" woke progressive message among the subgroup of independent swing voters (on page 45), which is the key takeaway of alleged "finings" reported in the NYT article. If you contend otherwise, please show where I am wrong.
I decided to cut to the chase and look at their code on their Github page. That way I can see exactly what they did, and I can also analyze for myself which differences are significant.
They do say in three different places that their results can be fully replicated in the code on their GitHub page, which adds to my confidence in their work. Putting your code that can be fully replicated out on GitHub is a good practice, and says that you're not afraid of someone calling bullshit on your analysis. Unfortunately, they do not actually provide a link for their GitHub page, and none can be found by any Google search term I can think, which subtracts from my confidence in their work. :hmm:
Absent GitHub, I'll just what I said before, and which also seems to be alluded to in your latest link in the section about reference category: differences can be significant even with error bars overlapping, regardless of how the error is calculated. No matter the standard, no matter what you're estimating the error of, no matter how you do it, that is still the case. I can't phrase it any differently.
I will repeat my conclusion from the beginning:
Bottom line is no matter how you interpret the situation, the report provides no basis to conclude that there is a meaningful and statistically significant difference in the "good" progressive populist message and the "bad" woke progressive message among the subgroup of independent swing voters (on page 45), which is the key takeaway of alleged "finings" reported in the NYT article.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on November 15, 2021, 01:07:24 PM
I will repeat my conclusion from the beginning:
Bottom line is no matter how you interpret the situation, the report provides no basis to conclude that there is a meaningful and statistically significant difference in the "good" progressive populist message and the "bad" woke progressive message among the subgroup of independent swing voters (on page 45), which is the key takeaway of alleged "finings" reported in the NYT article.
I disagree that these are the only two possible conclusions. They stated that they judgmentally interpreted some difference as significant even if the math showed them not to be. If it turns out that they messed up the math, which so far it sounds very definite to me that they did, then they might have reached the right conclusions with the wrong logic. If they overruled math that actually didn't need overruling in the first place, then their conclusions can still be valid. Data doesn't change just because it's not properly interpreted.
I e-mailed the author for the link to GitHub. Let's see what happens. :hmm:
Odds on a cease and desist letter? :D
Quote from: DGuller on November 15, 2021, 01:15:14 PM
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on November 15, 2021, 01:07:24 PM
I will repeat my conclusion from the beginning:
Bottom line is no matter how you interpret the situation, the report provides no basis to conclude that there is a meaningful and statistically significant difference in the "good" progressive populist message and the "bad" woke progressive message among the subgroup of independent swing voters (on page 45), which is the key takeaway of alleged "finings" reported in the NYT article.
I disagree that these are the only two possible conclusions. They stated that they judgmentally interpreted some difference as significant even if the math showed them not to be. If it turns out that they messed up the math, which so far it sounds very definite to me that they did, then they might have reached the right conclusions with the wrong logic. If they overruled math that actually didn't need overruling in the first place, then their conclusions can still be valid. Data doesn't change just because it's not properly interpreted.
The null holds until there is evidence warranting its rejection.
The null cannot hold.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on November 15, 2021, 02:48:52 PM
Quote from: DGuller on November 15, 2021, 01:15:14 PM
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on November 15, 2021, 01:07:24 PM
I will repeat my conclusion from the beginning:
Bottom line is no matter how you interpret the situation, the report provides no basis to conclude that there is a meaningful and statistically significant difference in the "good" progressive populist message and the "bad" woke progressive message among the subgroup of independent swing voters (on page 45), which is the key takeaway of alleged "finings" reported in the NYT article.
I disagree that these are the only two possible conclusions. They stated that they judgmentally interpreted some difference as significant even if the math showed them not to be. If it turns out that they messed up the math, which so far it sounds very definite to me that they did, then they might have reached the right conclusions with the wrong logic. If they overruled math that actually didn't need overruling in the first place, then their conclusions can still be valid. Data doesn't change just because it's not properly interpreted.
The null holds until there is evidence warranting its rejection.
It's not that cut and dried in practice. Despite popular belief, you are allowed to use judgment in reaching conclusions from statistical data. If the authors on some level felt that the "bars not overlapping" standard was too strict for practical considerations, they would not be automatically wrong in going "we believe that the differences are significant despite wide confidence intervals due to low sample size". It would be a case of their judgment making up for the overly strict implicit assumption that all categories are perfectly negatively correlated with each other.
Quote from: DGuller on November 15, 2021, 02:55:19 PM
It's not that cut and dried in practice. Despite popular belief, you are allowed to use judgment in reaching conclusions from statistical data. If the authors on some level felt that the "bars not overlapping" standard was too strict for practical considerations, they would not be automatically wrong in going "we believe that the differences are significant despite wide confidence intervals due to low sample size". It would be a case of their judgment making up for the overly strict implicit assumption that all categories are perfectly negatively correlated with each other.
But they did not exercise their judgment in that way, they exercised it in the the opposite way.
And I don't see how in this case judgment could be used in any other way. The standard I gave is "meaningful and statistically significant". Putting aside the sample size and the error bars, the raw % of approval for the two messages is 53 vs 47. Again this study is in the nature of a survey where there was no testing of sensitivity to different formulations of the soundbite. (For example, and purely hypothetically, imagine changing the woke prog message from "transformative change" to "real change" - the message is substantively the same but the language is simpler and more direct. Does that change the result?)
Any political analyst that based messaging solely on the basis of this finding in this study would IMO be guilty of malpractice. To be clear, I think the conclusion is broadly correct. I just don't think these particular findings of this particular study is the killer piece of evidence supporting the conclusion and the breathlessness of the NYT piece is misplaced.
Quote from: DGuller on November 15, 2021, 02:10:00 PM
I e-mailed the author for the link to GitHub. Let's see what happens. :hmm:
I finally got a response. They won't be releasing the data for the time being due to ongoing research, but hope to release it soon. :hmm: I don't know about that, I think that when you say that reproducible code is available, it should be available now, not some time later. I'm definitely not trusting this report until I get my hands on the reproducible code.