are you old enough to remember how jon stewart put tucker carlson away for a decade in one night? send james mattis on joe rogan and let him do the shooting. call it whack-an-a-hole.
and i think she could have done it, but we never got to see ms harris unleashed: i just dont feel like her team was optimistic in attitude; ducking rogan is emblematic. he is not a particularly conservative or particularly even confrontational host. why were they scared? i think without whisperers in her ear about optics and unpredictability and risk, ms harris could have gotten the same bump. rogan is far easier than a debate. he has every incentive to give both candidates favorable situations so he can do this every year. i just dont understand the fear. the democratic party does not need someone who can go on rogan and "get along," it needs someone who isnt afraid of arguing with joe rogan in public and who is confident of winning such an argument. what makes me want to shoot myself is that thats apparently a high bar. i could do it you scared fuckers...joe rogan the host of fear factor is who youre afraid of? send mattis or gillibrand or AOC if you think such a venue is beneath a presidential candidate (fair position). and if this idea sparks pure worry in you - i feel like it would in a lot of people - i want you to be very specific about what you're afraid of. i have an idea or two, but you say it first.
We’ll have to wait for everything to settle down and get the final numbers, but my immediate take is that this is exactly the sort of result one might expect for an incumbent administration that barely won the first time and experienced very high rates of inflation during their term. There’s other weird historic/vibes pieces to it all, including the strong anti-incumbent mood of the entire planet right now, but I think if there’s any lesson to be learned here, it’s that fundamentals are just really, really hard to fight.
It didn't help that the most online people on the left were solely committed to a single issue (I/P) that could not have any positive impact for Kamala.
Israel has made it very clear that they will buy weapons somewhere else if they have to. Now these deluded American Muslims/woke lefty idiots have helped elect a leader who has told Israel "go for it, wipe them out."
It's social media for the most part. We've all seen the memes our uninformed friends have been passing around for years. When that becomes your only news source or it's backed up by grifters whose YouTube channels and podcasts spread nothing but misinformation, no amount of door-to-door campaigning is gonna compete with that.
A lot of people aren't capable of fighting against algorithms and the dopamine rush they are bombarded with 24/7. And they sure as hell aren't gonna pay for a legit news source (of which there are few in existence). Fear has always played better in the media than uplifting stories. The old stand by of “if it bleeds, it leads” has found its new home on people’s social media feeds to be just as profitable.
You're right, but I hate that you're right. It's the dumbest possible form of discourse. And it's so disappointing that the conservative approach of "we'll just take all our people and insulate them and tell them lies that they want to hear, then send them to the polls to vote against their best interests" actually works.
Definitely agree with the thrust of this argument - The Information put out a great graphic last month of Trump and Harris' podcast appearances side by side, and he was tripling her.
With that being said, it's not like Harris' campaign was under a rock Internet-wise. Maybe this makes me old, but I remember a time long ago where all I saw were coconut memes and Charli XCX songs everywhere. The Kamala HQ account got a ton of coverage for being run by a bunch of people in their early 20s.
I think the conservative media apparatus has become so effective because they poke and prod their messaging real time - in comment sections. Plus, audiences have been trained at this point to not trust the "corporate media" and turn to the Charlie Kirks of the world, whereas liberal-leaning audiences are split between Hasan Piker and the New York Times (the latter which requires, you know, reading).
We have to be careful to not take away too much. Trump clearly won because of inflation. I’m not sure there’s good evidence his online stuff even makes a difference.
I’m very convinced that podcasts are an excellent medium politicians should lean into. They often are less political than other mediums (great!), are way longer formats than tv (great!), and are a format that encourages you to feel like you’re part of a fun chatty hang out with your friends (great!).
Way less convinced that spending all your time on twitter, focusing on the trend of the day, chasing approvals of the craziest, partisan, and most toxic people online, etc is a good campaign strategy. Look at the Desantis campaign underperforming (super online) vs mayor Pete outperforming (say yes to every podcast).
This is an interesting thing but it also leads me to consider the counterfactual where Biden had announced he wasn’t running in 2023 and democrats would have had a regular primary: wouldn’t they have developed their own podcast sphere in that case, just because it would also be an effective way to win a Dem primary and carry momentum into the general election? FWIW AOC won in 2018 and seems to also have run a rather online native campaign, showing a way for an online campaign to work in a democratic context (even if not everything generalizes from her district).
I don’t wanna do the whole “Bernie would have won” because clearly he didn’t, but the democrats won in 2020 when 17 people entered the primaries and lost in 2016 and 2024 when the top of the funnel was much smaller. On the flipside Trump lost as an incumbent in 2020 when he was busy being president and didn’t need to compete in a primary election. It seems to me the primary election is a great place to see what works in the context of the current election cycle and cleanse yourself of “this is how we normally do things”. Then the trick is just to elect someone that can last 8 years …
But what does that look like in practice? I tried posting/commenting on eX-Twitter, Reddit, and other sites through the whole campaign. Most of it got no attention at all, and what engagement I did was mostly from people who already agreed with me. I realize that professionals who do this for a living may be better at making stuff get reach, but where does that leave us? The outcome of future elections is determined by who's better at manipulating social media algorithms? By the politics of which billionaire happens to buy the next hip new social media site? And even if the "legacy media" continues to fight for reason, what future does it have, with its subscribers so disproportionately old, and an apparent unwillingness of young people to pay trivial amounts for real information? It feels like Fahrenheit 451 is real, and I have no idea what to do about it.
I think the one flaw in the logic here is that just because Trump won, it doesn't mean his campaign strategy worked. Harris was facing an uphill battle the whole time, and Trump's victory just means she wasn't able to do enough to climb that hill. And there's some evidence that Harris's campaign actually did work better than Trump's: As you mentioned, she overperformed in swing states, enough that she erased his Electoral College advantage. Maybe it just happens to be that the swing states shifted left relative to the country this cycle for reasons that had nothing to do with the campaign, but it could be explained pretty easily if Harris actually had a good campaign, and that her ground game in the swing states was enough to prevent her from suffering the same losses there that she did everywhere else. They just weren't enough to stem the losses entirely, which would've been necessary to win.
Jeremiah, I don't know if this is your lane, but can you scour social media and find out where (and why) all the Democratic voters went? Hope my memory is right but it looks like Trump got around the same vote totals as 4 years ago but Harris got a lot less than Biden did.
Maybe the Republicans are the ones stealing votes? A few days before the election Texas sued the DOJ to stop the feds from monitoring our state elections.
The line "it's more important to win Joe Rogan than it is to win James Mattis" makes me want to shoot myself.
are you old enough to remember how jon stewart put tucker carlson away for a decade in one night? send james mattis on joe rogan and let him do the shooting. call it whack-an-a-hole.
and i think she could have done it, but we never got to see ms harris unleashed: i just dont feel like her team was optimistic in attitude; ducking rogan is emblematic. he is not a particularly conservative or particularly even confrontational host. why were they scared? i think without whisperers in her ear about optics and unpredictability and risk, ms harris could have gotten the same bump. rogan is far easier than a debate. he has every incentive to give both candidates favorable situations so he can do this every year. i just dont understand the fear. the democratic party does not need someone who can go on rogan and "get along," it needs someone who isnt afraid of arguing with joe rogan in public and who is confident of winning such an argument. what makes me want to shoot myself is that thats apparently a high bar. i could do it you scared fuckers...joe rogan the host of fear factor is who youre afraid of? send mattis or gillibrand or AOC if you think such a venue is beneath a presidential candidate (fair position). and if this idea sparks pure worry in you - i feel like it would in a lot of people - i want you to be very specific about what you're afraid of. i have an idea or two, but you say it first.
We’ll have to wait for everything to settle down and get the final numbers, but my immediate take is that this is exactly the sort of result one might expect for an incumbent administration that barely won the first time and experienced very high rates of inflation during their term. There’s other weird historic/vibes pieces to it all, including the strong anti-incumbent mood of the entire planet right now, but I think if there’s any lesson to be learned here, it’s that fundamentals are just really, really hard to fight.
It didn't help that the most online people on the left were solely committed to a single issue (I/P) that could not have any positive impact for Kamala.
What is (I/P)?
Israel/Palestine
Aha, sure. I thought the acronym for that was TCITME. The Clusterfuck In The Middle East.
Like we control Israel lol.
Israel has made it very clear that they will buy weapons somewhere else if they have to. Now these deluded American Muslims/woke lefty idiots have helped elect a leader who has told Israel "go for it, wipe them out."
It's social media for the most part. We've all seen the memes our uninformed friends have been passing around for years. When that becomes your only news source or it's backed up by grifters whose YouTube channels and podcasts spread nothing but misinformation, no amount of door-to-door campaigning is gonna compete with that.
A lot of people aren't capable of fighting against algorithms and the dopamine rush they are bombarded with 24/7. And they sure as hell aren't gonna pay for a legit news source (of which there are few in existence). Fear has always played better in the media than uplifting stories. The old stand by of “if it bleeds, it leads” has found its new home on people’s social media feeds to be just as profitable.
You're right, but I hate that you're right. It's the dumbest possible form of discourse. And it's so disappointing that the conservative approach of "we'll just take all our people and insulate them and tell them lies that they want to hear, then send them to the polls to vote against their best interests" actually works.
"What's the matter with Kansas?"
(the book) is still right on.....
Definitely agree with the thrust of this argument - The Information put out a great graphic last month of Trump and Harris' podcast appearances side by side, and he was tripling her.
With that being said, it's not like Harris' campaign was under a rock Internet-wise. Maybe this makes me old, but I remember a time long ago where all I saw were coconut memes and Charli XCX songs everywhere. The Kamala HQ account got a ton of coverage for being run by a bunch of people in their early 20s.
I think the conservative media apparatus has become so effective because they poke and prod their messaging real time - in comment sections. Plus, audiences have been trained at this point to not trust the "corporate media" and turn to the Charlie Kirks of the world, whereas liberal-leaning audiences are split between Hasan Piker and the New York Times (the latter which requires, you know, reading).
We have to be careful to not take away too much. Trump clearly won because of inflation. I’m not sure there’s good evidence his online stuff even makes a difference.
Don't forget immigration. That was big even among my Democratic friends but the party leadership wouldn't listen until it was too late.....
I’m very convinced that podcasts are an excellent medium politicians should lean into. They often are less political than other mediums (great!), are way longer formats than tv (great!), and are a format that encourages you to feel like you’re part of a fun chatty hang out with your friends (great!).
Way less convinced that spending all your time on twitter, focusing on the trend of the day, chasing approvals of the craziest, partisan, and most toxic people online, etc is a good campaign strategy. Look at the Desantis campaign underperforming (super online) vs mayor Pete outperforming (say yes to every podcast).
This is an interesting thing but it also leads me to consider the counterfactual where Biden had announced he wasn’t running in 2023 and democrats would have had a regular primary: wouldn’t they have developed their own podcast sphere in that case, just because it would also be an effective way to win a Dem primary and carry momentum into the general election? FWIW AOC won in 2018 and seems to also have run a rather online native campaign, showing a way for an online campaign to work in a democratic context (even if not everything generalizes from her district).
I don’t wanna do the whole “Bernie would have won” because clearly he didn’t, but the democrats won in 2020 when 17 people entered the primaries and lost in 2016 and 2024 when the top of the funnel was much smaller. On the flipside Trump lost as an incumbent in 2020 when he was busy being president and didn’t need to compete in a primary election. It seems to me the primary election is a great place to see what works in the context of the current election cycle and cleanse yourself of “this is how we normally do things”. Then the trick is just to elect someone that can last 8 years …
But what does that look like in practice? I tried posting/commenting on eX-Twitter, Reddit, and other sites through the whole campaign. Most of it got no attention at all, and what engagement I did was mostly from people who already agreed with me. I realize that professionals who do this for a living may be better at making stuff get reach, but where does that leave us? The outcome of future elections is determined by who's better at manipulating social media algorithms? By the politics of which billionaire happens to buy the next hip new social media site? And even if the "legacy media" continues to fight for reason, what future does it have, with its subscribers so disproportionately old, and an apparent unwillingness of young people to pay trivial amounts for real information? It feels like Fahrenheit 451 is real, and I have no idea what to do about it.
Whoever told Harris not to go on Rogan deserves to be fired, taken outside and shot, and fired again.
I think the one flaw in the logic here is that just because Trump won, it doesn't mean his campaign strategy worked. Harris was facing an uphill battle the whole time, and Trump's victory just means she wasn't able to do enough to climb that hill. And there's some evidence that Harris's campaign actually did work better than Trump's: As you mentioned, she overperformed in swing states, enough that she erased his Electoral College advantage. Maybe it just happens to be that the swing states shifted left relative to the country this cycle for reasons that had nothing to do with the campaign, but it could be explained pretty easily if Harris actually had a good campaign, and that her ground game in the swing states was enough to prevent her from suffering the same losses there that she did everywhere else. They just weren't enough to stem the losses entirely, which would've been necessary to win.
Jeremiah, I don't know if this is your lane, but can you scour social media and find out where (and why) all the Democratic voters went? Hope my memory is right but it looks like Trump got around the same vote totals as 4 years ago but Harris got a lot less than Biden did.
Maybe the Republicans are the ones stealing votes? A few days before the election Texas sued the DOJ to stop the feds from monitoring our state elections.
I thought that whole deal was weird.....
They haven't finished counting the West Coast yet.