I am terrified that he will.DeletedUser wrote: ↑Mon Apr 01, 2024 2:24 pm Is the Donald actually going to win this election somehow?
https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/amp/rcna146206Clinton is right that the 2024 election has possibly existential stakes for our democracy, and that Trump and Biden are vastly different candidates. But how she expressed that view left more than a little to be desired. While she may not hold office anymore, she remains among the most prominent political figures in the country and, like any Biden surrogate, she has a responsibility to address voters’ doubts in a way that meets them where they are. She not only failed to do that — she seemed uninterested in it.
The core problem with Clinton’s communication style in her remarks is an absence of empathy. Polling indicates that Biden is cursed by the same problem as she was in 2016 — high unfavorability that puts him on roughly equal footing with Trump. Clinton not only fails to grapple with the reasons that some segments of the population might find both candidates prohibitively distasteful, but also appears to not want to understand it. “Get over yourself” and “I don’t understand it” are not messages of persuasion. Nor do they qualify as firing up the base. They’re borderline scornful.
But any serious political observer should be able to understand why Biden’s disapproval is high. Yes, much of the blame lies with a combination of political polarization and the burden of incumbency. Voters frequently attribute everything bad in society to the president, regardless of whether he has influence over it. But some of it is linked to inflation during Biden’s presidency, and the belief among many voters that Trump’s management of the economy benefited them more than Biden’s. “Get over yourself” will not rebut those arguments.
Clinton’s self-satisfied response also betrays an inattentiveness to one of the biggest issues dividing the Democratic caucus. While she speaks of Biden being self-evidently “compassionate,” polling indicates that huge swaths of the Democratic electorate — particularly young people — disapprove of his approach to Israel’s brutalization of the Gaza Strip in response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attacks. While it’s unclear what things will look like closer to November, Biden’s alienation of young and progressive voters on the issue could dampen the turnout. Expressing bewilderment at people who believe that Biden is complicit in genocide will only further repel those who believe that a protest vote or deliberate abstention is in order.
This is to say nothing of engaging the huge part of the American public that never votes — one-third of eligible voters didn’t vote in the last election. This group of people can't be dismissed as a bunch of apolitical morons who can’t tell that Biden and Trump are different people. As a population that skews low-income and nonwhite, a disproportionate number of them are likely to feel that mainstream institutional politics have little to offer them and that their lives are not meaningfully changed by who is in office. That’s far from an unreasonable sentiment to hold, and it won't change unless Democrats view it as their responsibility to change that.
Rather than dismissing the parts of the public who find both candidates objectionable, Democrats should be scrambling to crack the code to winning them over. Curiosity on this matter will not just lead to more delicate messaging, but also policy ambition. What is Biden willing to do to address the mass killing of civilians in Gaza? What can he offer people who feel they’re far away from being able to pay their most basic bills? 2024 is an existential election for democracy — but these, too, are existential questions.
To me, this is a great example of how the MSM's bent toward "balance" is actually deeply fucked when one side is "more or less normal but flawed" and the other side is...the present state of the right.ousdahl wrote: ↑Fri Apr 05, 2024 8:32 amhttps://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/amp/rcna146206Clinton is right that the 2024 election has possibly existential stakes for our democracy, and that Trump and Biden are vastly different candidates. But how she expressed that view left more than a little to be desired. While she may not hold office anymore, she remains among the most prominent political figures in the country and, like any Biden surrogate, she has a responsibility to address voters’ doubts in a way that meets them where they are. She not only failed to do that — she seemed uninterested in it.
The core problem with Clinton’s communication style in her remarks is an absence of empathy. Polling indicates that Biden is cursed by the same problem as she was in 2016 — high unfavorability that puts him on roughly equal footing with Trump. Clinton not only fails to grapple with the reasons that some segments of the population might find both candidates prohibitively distasteful, but also appears to not want to understand it. “Get over yourself” and “I don’t understand it” are not messages of persuasion. Nor do they qualify as firing up the base. They’re borderline scornful.
But any serious political observer should be able to understand why Biden’s disapproval is high. Yes, much of the blame lies with a combination of political polarization and the burden of incumbency. Voters frequently attribute everything bad in society to the president, regardless of whether he has influence over it. But some of it is linked to inflation during Biden’s presidency, and the belief among many voters that Trump’s management of the economy benefited them more than Biden’s. “Get over yourself” will not rebut those arguments.
Clinton’s self-satisfied response also betrays an inattentiveness to one of the biggest issues dividing the Democratic caucus. While she speaks of Biden being self-evidently “compassionate,” polling indicates that huge swaths of the Democratic electorate — particularly young people — disapprove of his approach to Israel’s brutalization of the Gaza Strip in response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attacks. While it’s unclear what things will look like closer to November, Biden’s alienation of young and progressive voters on the issue could dampen the turnout. Expressing bewilderment at people who believe that Biden is complicit in genocide will only further repel those who believe that a protest vote or deliberate abstention is in order.
This is to say nothing of engaging the huge part of the American public that never votes — one-third of eligible voters didn’t vote in the last election. This group of people can't be dismissed as a bunch of apolitical morons who can’t tell that Biden and Trump are different people. As a population that skews low-income and nonwhite, a disproportionate number of them are likely to feel that mainstream institutional politics have little to offer them and that their lives are not meaningfully changed by who is in office. That’s far from an unreasonable sentiment to hold, and it won't change unless Democrats view it as their responsibility to change that.
Rather than dismissing the parts of the public who find both candidates objectionable, Democrats should be scrambling to crack the code to winning them over. Curiosity on this matter will not just lead to more delicate messaging, but also policy ambition. What is Biden willing to do to address the mass killing of civilians in Gaza? What can he offer people who feel they’re far away from being able to pay their most basic bills? 2024 is an existential election for democracy — but these, too, are existential questions.
A more-than-occasional arrival in the email these days is a question expressed two ways, one with dripping condescension and the other with courtesy:
Why don’t our opinion platforms treat Donald Trump and other politicians exactly the same way. Some phrase it differently, asking why we demean the former president’s supporters in describing his behavior as monstrous, insurrectionist and authoritarian.
I feel for those who write. They believe in Trump and want their local news source to recognize what they see in him.
The angry writers denounce me for ignoring what they call the Biden family crime syndicate and criminality far beyond that of Trump. They quote news sources of no credibility as proof the mainstream media ignores evidence that Biden, not Trump, is the criminal dictator.
The courteous writers don’t go down that road. They politely ask how we can discount the passions and beliefs of the many people who believe in Trump.
This is a tough column to write, because I don’t want to demean or insult those who write me in good faith. I’ve started it a half dozen times since November but turned to other topics each time because this needle is hard to thread. No matter how I present it, I’ll offend some thoughtful, decent people.
The north star here is truth. We tell the truth, even when it offends some of the people who pay us for information.
The truth is that Donald Trump undermined faith in our elections in his false bid to retain the presidency. He sparked an insurrection intended to overthrow our government and keep himself in power. No president in our history has done worse.
This is not subjective. We all saw it. Plenty of leaders today try to convince the masses we did not see what we saw, but our eyes don’t deceive. (If leaders began a yearslong campaign today to convince us that the Baltimore bridge did not collapse Tuesday morning, would you ever believe them?) Trust your eyes. Trump on Jan. 6 launched the most serious threat to our system of government since the Civil War. You know that. You saw it.
The facts involving Trump are crystal clear, and as news people, we cannot pretend otherwise, as unpopular as that might be with a segment of our readers. There aren’t two sides to facts. People who say the earth is flat don’t get space on our platforms. If that offends them, so be it.
As for those who equate Trump and Joe Biden, that’s false equivalency. Biden has done nothing remotely close to the egregious, anti-American acts of Trump. We can debate the success and mindset of our current president, as we have about most presidents in our lifetimes, but Biden was never a threat to our democracy. Trump is. He is unique among all American presidents for his efforts to keep power at any cost.
Personally, I find it hard to understand how Americans who take pride in our system of government support Trump. All those soldiers who died in World War II were fighting against the kind of regime Trump wants to create on our soil. How do they not see it?
The March 25 edition of the New Yorker magazine offers some insight. It includes a detailed review of a new book about Adolf Hitler, focused on the year 1932. It’s called “Takeover: Hitler’s Final Rise to Power” and is by historian Timothy W. Ryback. It explains how German leaders – including some in the media -- thought they could use Hitler as a means to get power for themselves and were willing to look past his obvious deficiencies to get where they wanted. In tolerating and using Hitler as a means to an end, they helped create the monstrous dictator responsible for millions of deaths.
How are those German leaders different from people in Congress saying the election was stolen or that Jan. 6 was not an insurrection aimed at destroying our government? They know the truth, but they deny it. They see Trump as a means to an end – power for themselves and their “team” – even if it means repeatedly telling lies.
Sadly, many believe the lies. They trust people in authority, without questioning the obvious discrepancies or relying on their own eyes. These are the people who take offense to the truths we tell about Trump. No one in our newsroom gets up in the morning wanting to make a segment of readers feel bad. No one seeks to demean anyone. We understand what a privilege it is to be welcomed into the lives of the millions of people who visit our platforms each month for news, sports and entertainment. But our duty is to the truth.
Our nation does seem to be slipping down the same slide that Germany did in the 1930s. Maybe the collapse of government in the hands of a madman is inevitable, given how the media landscape has been corrupted by partisans, as it was in 1930s Germany.
I hope not.
In our newsroom, we’ll do our part. Much as it offends some who read us, we will continue to tell the truth about Trump.
I’m at cquinn@cleveland.com
Thanks for reading.
It's naive to think that one side's own messaging can (or should be expected to) overcome the media's biased framing of the sides and the issues. And that is the point: horserace, bothsides framing simply is biased against the less-extreme side (in that, for example, doing so dramatically shifts the Overton window to the more extreme side).ousdahl wrote: ↑Fri Apr 05, 2024 1:41 pm You’re preaching to the choir here fish.
I agree that Trump is an existential threat to the republic, and I struggle to understand how he’s even still politically viable, let alone not behind bars.
But I think there’s a lesson to be learned from Hillary too here.
Trump was almost as toxic even back in 2016, and he still managed to pull one out on what should have been a layup for the dems.
To avoid that happening again, I think Biden would be doing himself a favor to consider more than just the “not Trump” messaging, and do more to assure he isn’t alienating certain voter demographics he would be better off appealing to for votes.
Again, fuck Trump! But not every other American feels that way.
Ummmmm.....ousdahl wrote: ↑Mon Apr 08, 2024 7:10 pm Reminder of wut?
lulz
https://x.com/hillaryclinton/status/177 ... 8ZiR9WCcTg
