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It's not Trump


The Original Greaser Bob

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59 minutes ago, Al Bundy's Napoleon Hand said:

Agreed, but I think a bigger issue is just getting the message through to people silo-ed in their own information zones that allows the GOP to claim credit to their constituents for things like infrastructure bills that they voted against.

They have their own information zone because democrats withdrew infrastructure and coalition building efforts from those places, literally- meaning dissenting voices physically and digitally left those spaces. 

You are posting on a board that made the decision to silence Twitter, and many people here have chosen to abandon that part of the public square. That’s a strategic error, and in metaphorical terms that’s how the Democratic Party got here- playing moneyball at the demographic and county level.

I have said this before, but it’s germane here: right now, political operatives are actively discouraging straight white males from seeking Democratic nominations at the county and statewide level over representational concerns, regardless of their status and credibility in their communities. That’s a huge problem.  The best messaging in the world won’t help if the messenger can’t deliver it. 

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58 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

You are posting on a board that made the decision to silence Twitter, and many people here have chosen to abandon that part of the public square. That’s a strategic error

Clarifying something- I get why @immamac stopped Twitter embeds. I’m making a broader point about people who are concerned about what Twitter is doing to politics fleeing from the platform and then complaining about right wing information bubbles.

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1 minute ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

I’m making a broader point about people who are concerned about what Twitter is doing to politics fleeing from the platform and then complaining about right wing information bubbles.

We are basically 10 years into Trump and the disinformation campaigns on social media. It ended up with Trump being elected twice. 

There are no good answers on how to deal with this shit. But leaving Twitter, with a possibility over time of its influence weakening, is an understandable strategy. 

 

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12 minutes ago, Hank Kingsley said:

We are basically 10 years into Trump and the disinformation campaigns on social media. It ended up with Trump being elected twice. 

There are no good answers on how to deal with this shit. But leaving Twitter, with a possibility over time of its influence weakening, is an understandable strategy. 

 

No offense but this reminds me Texas Democrats “keeping their powder dry” in the 2000 election. What do people imagine will happen? Politically aware news consumers will leave Twitter and then what? The people who use Twitter for sports news will miss them and go to BlueSky before they get red pilled? 
This is 2025- attention is FAR more important and scarce than money.

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2 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

No offense but this reminds me Texas Democrats “keeping their powder dry” in the 2000 election. What do people imagine will happen? Politically aware news consumers will leave Twitter and then what? The people who use Twitter for sports news will miss them and go to BlueSky before they get red pilled? 
This is 2025- attention is FAR more important and scarce than money.

No offense but I'm not looking at this from a strategic political party perspective. 

IMO, social media peaked over a decade ago and it's usefulness has run its course. Trump's second electoral victory is enough proof that "fighting the good fight" through social media is a lost cause.

I deleted Twitter three months ago after being a heavy, every day user for almost 15 years. The surprising part is how little I miss it. Yeah, I'm not up to date on the world of sports like I used to be (probably the worst part), but my blood pressure is lower and I have more time to focus on my family, friends, and career. 

I'll continue my efforts via personal interactions moving forward. It's the only way to have a sincere or productive conversation now. 

 

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44 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

Clarifying something- I get why @immamac stopped Twitter embeds. I’m making a broader point about people who are concerned about what Twitter is doing to politics fleeing from the platform and then complaining about right wing information bubbles.

This is framed as a passive action being taken by many, when it is very much an active push out since he bought it. Flooded with bots, flooded with right-wing shit sniffers, the ads and algorithms are flooded with shit. He took the shit hose and started spraying shit all over the walls, and changed the algorithms so that new, fresh shit gets pumped in every week. I don't blame people for leaving the house. 

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16 hours ago, Dbeasy said:

I don’t disagree with anything you’ve said, except for the fact that you just demonstrated my whole point. The Republicans figured out a way to communicate that was effective: demonizing, etc. and the Democrats have not. 

I'd argue that the field is leveling here, at least what I saw with the Vance has sex with couches and the "weird" trend. Dems are fighting back and using the LBJ "get them to deny it".

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17 hours ago, Gatorubet said:

I will give a whack at disputing it.  

When Gingrich became speaker, he told told every republican congressman not to argue policy with their Democratic opponents, but to demonize their opponent as bad people: enemies of the country who wanted to hurt the country with their policies - that they were socialist communist liberals who were against God and American values.

That was a very effective strategy for the next 30 years.   Because dems telling Bubba that they are NOT a godless atheist socialist will not win the day.  It’s like the LBJ story about how he told his political advisor to spread the story that his opponent was having sex with barnyard animals.  When they told LBJ that it wasn’t true, LBJ said “Who cares? let’s get the son of a bitch to deny it!”  So debate content was no longer about issues so much as it was about God and country and “family values”

And people like Karl Rove perfected the art by having wedge issues like burning the American flag become pivotal in an election.   The Republican senators and congressman knew that the first amendment gave you that right, exactly the same right as standing on a soapbox and saying, “ I disagree with my countries long-standing racism”, or “ this country sucks because our foreign policy is literally killing people who are innocent.”    Republicans back then knew that the liberal position was true, but they also knew it was not politically effective to agree with supporting the constitution when Bubba wants to beat up the guy who would burn the flag.     It was brilliant, because taking the mature responsible position on preserving our constitutional liberties will get your ass defeated in an election.

The second thing that the Democrats were not responsible for is Rush Limbaugh and the advent of conservative drive time talk radio, and Fox News becoming what it is.     You are blaming the Democrats for not being effective communicators when the other half of the country are sworn to not listen to Democrats or any news that Democrats might be on, because it is “fake news”.     The active communication you blame democrats for failing requires two parties, one of whom agrees to listen to the other person communicating an idea.  They don’t do that.  In fact, listening to the other side or reading something from the other side’s news source is an act of treason that is against your team.   

The other problem is that there are numerous studies showing that people on the right embrace black-and-white simplistic ideology.   They have no time to learn why the Middle East is not all Arabs, but also Persians.  They have no interest in learning about Sunni and Shia and Wahabism - they are much more receptive to “bomb the desert into glass”, and “ make Gaza a beachside resort”.    

The short way to put it is that nuance and complexity is not something they have an interest in.   That is why “drain the swamp” has such an appeal. that is the only thing they need to learn to say. They don’t even have to know how to explain it to someone. 

There are other tangential issues like diminishing education, a total lack of emphasis on critical thinking and the liberal arts (the biggest sin being the word “liberal”, which does not mean what Cletus thinks it means).

The other thing is the rise of the toxic fundamentalist evangelical Christian community, and their desire to push theology over secular debate on issues.    If the magic sky fairy du jour tells you what rules to put on in vitro fertilization legislation, who are mere mortal democrats to oppose that?

The more the GOP took the low road the more successful they were.  I do not know when it happened, but we reached a tipping point.  We should’ve seen snowbilly Palin‘s popularity as the canery in the coal mine.  But alas, what she was selling is exactly what the voting population wanted. If the economic crisis of 2008 had not happened, McCain would’ve likely won.   

Finally, I’m not saying Democrats don’t have a lot of old and new feet wounds from their shooting.   But I disagree that they could overcome those other factors.  and I did not even go on a tirade against social media, another huge promoter of tribe thinking.

TL;DR

Apparently, we get the country we deserve.

And Charlie Strong was given a rotting roster of entitled pussies that found ways to lose to awful teams.  It does not matter if he was not responsible for it.  It was his job to fix it, and when he proved he couldn't, he was gone.   Democrats are the Charlie Strong of politics.  Nice people, but completely unequipped to deal with what is happening in this country.  The time to nuke party leadership and start with a fresh approach from a fresh set of faces was after Hilary got run by DJT.  Now, I'm not sure the party can recover.  As a brand, it's toxic.  Want evidence?

In a warning for Colorado Democrats, a new poll shows their popularity slipping. Now what?

Survey reveals problems for state’s dominant party and is another sign of conflict over its direction

Spoiler

A majority of Colorado voters have a negative view of both the Democratic and Republican parties, according to a recent poll that also found they increasingly identify Republicans with the working class and solutions to economic problems.

The poll comes as the national Democratic Party searches for a path forward in the wake of former Vice President Kamala Harris’ loss to now-President Donald Trump in November. The strength of Republicans’ identification with working-class issues is a warning shot for a party that’s lost ground across the country.

In Colorado, where Democrats backslid slightly but largely maintained their recent gains in November, the results — funded and trumpeted by a centrist group — also hammer upon now-familiar divisions between the party’s left and moderate wings over how to consolidate and exercise Democrats’ reliable position atop state government.

“It is true that the Democratic Party in Colorado is not a monolith,” said Kyle Saunders, a political scientist at Colorado State University. “It is not an ideological monolith — it’s a very diverse set of groups in coalition to support the Democratic cause. And while progressives want to pull the party further to the left, the concern over maintaining the Democratic advantage in Colorado is genuine, and I think that’s what this poll is trying to establish.”

“Whether it does so effectively,” he continued, “is up to the reader.”

The poll, conducted by Keating Research, found that 45% of respondents had a favorable view of the Democratic Party, against 51% who viewed the party negatively. Just 37% had a favorable view of the Republican Party, versus 56% who viewed it unfavorably.

The poll was conducted in mid-December on behalf of One Main Street, a centrist Democratic dark-money group that doesn’t reveal most of its donors. Keating surveyed 1,225 Colorado voters, and the margin of error was 3.5 percentage points. Keating is a Colorado-based firm that generally polls Democratic issues.

The vast majority of self-identified Democrats and Republicans in the survey said they supported the party to which they aligned. But unaffiliated voters — who make up a plurality of Colorado voters — had a negative view of both parties, though they were more favorable toward Democrats than Republicans.

Still, a majority of unaffiliated voters — and a majority of voters overall — said Republicans better represented the working class and were better at addressing the economy and inflation than Democrats.

Voters also said the economy and cost of living, housing and immigration were the top issues facing the state; Republican and suburban voters, though, said they were primarily focused on immigration.

As for what motivated voters in the Nov. 5 presidential election, the economy was the top issue, ahead of immigration and a three-way tie of anti-Trump sentiment, candidates’ character and women’s rights.

Though the poll included some questions about Republicans and Trump, the bulk of its results were devoted to the Democratic Party, its November losses and voters’ views on where the party should go from here — an ongoing debate in which One Main Street has a well-established position.

“What we really learned on this poll is it showed that Democrats really need to focus on kitchen-table, bread-and-butter economic issues,” said Andrew Short, the executive director of One Main Street. “That folks are looking for leaders to really come together and find collaborative solutions to the big issues that we’re facing, that they’re sick of the political theatrics and those focused more on their Twitter likes than actually crafting good policy.”

“More work to do,” party chair says

Shad Murib, the chair of the Colorado Democratic Party, said Democrats had “more to work to do” on “putting its money where its mouth is” with voters on economic issues.

He pointed to a recent Quinnipiac University poll of American voters that found the national Democratic Party was deeply unpopular — even more so than among Colorado voters.

In that way, the Keating poll was something like good-ish news for Colorado Democrats, Murib said: The party’s brand in the state hasn’t suffered as much as it has nationally, even after six years of firm Democratic control, and November brought mixed results.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Yadira Caraveo lost her reelection bid to the House of Representatives, meaning Colorado’s eight congressional seats are now evenly split between Democrats and Republicans. But Democrats in the statehouse maintained their firm legislative majorities, though they lost their supermajority control in the House in a nail-biter contest in El Paso County.

Still, Murib said he was concerned about Colorado voters’ identification of the Republican Party with the working class. A plurality of the poll’s participants also said Democrats lost in November because the party was out of touch with voters.

“That’s something I’ve been really concerned with and (that) is the canary in the coal mine from the national election,” Murib said of the November results. “The public is seeing Republicans as best representing the working class and the poor, and Democrats as representing elites. That’s why we’re focused intensely on economic abundance for all.”

As much as the poll showed warning signs for the Democratic Party, it — and in particular the questions it posed to voters — also served as another shot in the ongoing fight among the party’s moderate and progressive factions. That fight isn’t new, but it’s become an existential struggle nationally as the party tries to gather itself after November’s losses.

The battle is also increasingly prominent in Colorado as gubernatorial candidates begin to jockey to replace Gov. Jared Polis in two years.

The poll asked voters, for instance, if they thought the Democratic Party should now tack “to the left,” “to the right” or toward “bridging the divide to find workable answers.” The last one is the position that One Main Street supports, and poll respondents overwhelmingly selected that option, too.

It also asked about general policy objectives like “building generational wealth” and creating “high-quality jobs,” versus specific left-wing policy goals, like rent control and “free health care.”

“I think One Main Street has a financial interest in making sure that what they stand for appears to be popular — so, like any other poll, they’re trying to prove their value in the ecosphere,” Murib said.

Members of the Senate’s State, Veterans & Military Affairs Committee as lawmakers listened to testimony on Senate Bill 3 in the Old Supreme Court Chamber in the Colorado State Capitol in Denver on Jan. 28, 2025. The bill would enact a ban on sales of a wide swath of semiautomatic firearms that accept detachable magazines. (Photo by Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post)

New legislative caucus underlines fight

One Main Street is no stranger to the struggle for party influence: The group spent millions of dollars last summer to back the more moderate candidates in several Democratic primaries. It also recently helped launch the “Opportunity Caucus” in the legislature, composed of several Democratic members it supported last year.

Since the launch, that caucus has started an accompanying group that allows it to raise money on its own — a move that raised eyebrows among other Democratic legislators.

Short, One Main Street’s executive director, said the poll’s “language was fair and focused on economic opportunity.”

Murib agreed that the Democratic Party needed to focus more on economic issues.

Here's a link, but it's behind a paywall: https://www.denverpost.com/2025/02/02/colorado-democrats-republicans-one-main-street-poll-shifts-voters/

Donald Trump built a base by acknowledging a lot of people had shitty lives, putting the blame on political opponents and promising to fix it.  He did that first to the Republican Party, then to the Democrats.  Now he's started similar positioning with Canada.  There is a pattern here.

A working class rural white guy I know who voted for Trump put his decision this way:  "Donald Trump represents hope for a whole lot of people like me."  Unsaid in that is what his life seems like without DJT acknowledging the worth of people like him:  hopeless.  He's a handyman.  Lives in a trailer.   He never voted before 2016.

Donald Trump is the product of both parties and the government they ran having ignored these people for decades.  They were a-political, because no one from either party made them feel worthy of consideration in our governance.  Many of them were accurately described by Hilary as "deplorable".  But they are humans, citizens and voters and writing them off as unimportant was a huge mistake that created the context where someone like DJT could do what he is doing.

It doesn't matter if Trump is full of shit.  If he's going to make those people's lives worse.  If he's more about enriching the rich and the common folk were just pawns in his game.  It doesn't matter if they are cut off from reality by the conservative info sphere.  It's the oppositions job to overcome all of that.  The people who will stop this will be the people that can figure out how to connect with that working class base and give them a different form of hope than what DJT has given them.  That is obviously not the Democratic Party, at least as we have known it the last decade.

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37 minutes ago, Goredho said:

Donald Trump built a base by acknowledging a lot of people had shitty lives, putting the blame on political opponents and promising to fix it.  He did that first to the Republican Party, then to the Democrats.  Now he's started similar positioning with Canada.  There is a pattern here.

So far it isn't working in Canada.  They are pissed off.  I work with Canadians daily and many of their friends have canceled trips to the US and are making concerted efforts to not buys things made in the USA.  

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14 hours ago, David Dennison said:

LBJ called it.

Yes he did! And more than that to say "for a generation" showed how much foresight he had, and how much he understood the pulse of the American people.

No disrespect meant when I say this but I didn't truly realize the depth of the sense of entitlement by White America until recently. The average White American male feels like no one is more qualified than them and can't fathom a world where a minority deserves/accomplishes anything more than they do. Right wing white women are somewhere clapping about getting rid of DEI not understanding they are the number one demographic receiving benefits. They think DEI means black people. We are like last on the list of beneficiaries of DEI. Every other group is a bunch of savages. Every other group has a lower IQ.

People keep saying Dems need better messaging but how do you beat that messaging?

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6 minutes ago, Leeroy Jenkins said:

So far it isn't working in Canada.  They are pissed off.  I work with Canadians daily and many of their friends have canceled trips to the US and are making concerted efforts to not buys things made in the USA.  

Yeah, we’ll see.  The kind of person Trump is selling hope to is not a person with the means to travel abroad.

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23 minutes ago, Leeroy Jenkins said:

So far it isn't working in Canada.  They are pissed off.  I work with Canadians daily and many of their friends have canceled trips to the US and are making concerted efforts to not buys things made in the USA.  

Conversely I polled two of my coworkers (both in Ontario/Toronto if that matters) and they say they aren't bothered by it and in fact want Trudeau to continue to be bullied because they hate Trudeau so much.

Quote

No disrespect meant when I say this but I didn't truly realize the depth of the sense of entitlement by White America until recently. The average White American male feels like no one is more qualified than them and can't fathom a world where a minority deserves/accomplishes anything more than they do. Right wing white women are somewhere clapping about getting rid of DEI not understanding they are the number one demographic receiving benefits. They think DEI means black people. We are like last on the list of beneficiaries of DEI. Every other group is a bunch of savages. Every other group has a lower IQ.

People keep saying Dems need better messaging but how do you beat that messaging?

Good question. I'm reminded of Bill Burr mentioning how the "Gucci-booted white women" hijacked the BLM and MeToo movements and made it about them, while being historically complicit. The question you pose (and the answer, ultimately) is a tough knot to untangle.

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2 hours ago, Hank Kingsley said:

No offense but I'm not looking at this from a strategic political party perspective. 

IMO, social media peaked over a decade ago and it's usefulness has run its course. Trump's second electoral victory is enough proof that "fighting the good fight" through social media is a lost cause.

I deleted Twitter three months ago after being a heavy, every day user for almost 15 years. The surprising part is how little I miss it. Yeah, I'm not up to date on the world of sports like I used to be (probably the worst part), but my blood pressure is lower and I have more time to focus on my family, friends, and career. 

I'll continue my efforts via personal interactions moving forward. It's the only way to have a sincere or productive conversation now. 

 

You hit on the only utility twitter had for me and that was breaking sports news. I miss that instant notification but in reality, I find out about most things I care about eventually and it works out.  

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2 hours ago, kevwun said:

I get what you are saying, but there's literally no hope for Twitter.  It's only going to get worse and worse. 

Imagine typing that and not viewing it as an incredible opportunity.  The progressive mindset, in a nutshell.
 

1 hour ago, BurdineBandit said:

This is framed as a passive action being taken by many, when it is very much an active push out since he bought it. Flooded with bots, flooded with right-wing shit sniffers, the ads and algorithms are flooded with shit. He took the shit hose and started spraying shit all over the walls, and changed the algorithms so that new, fresh shit gets pumped in every week. I don't blame people for leaving the house. 

I don’t “blame people” for leaving. That’s a good thing. I do blame politically aware  progressives for abandoning the space, and the apolitical people who are left behind. 
 

1 hour ago, kevwun said:There's no way to make it better while Musk owns it.  That's the bottom line.  He can and does silence any critics on it.

lol, who said anything about making it better?  Propaganda wars are not some kind of joint effort to improve public discourse. 

 

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24 minutes ago, Goredho said:

 

It doesn't matter if Trump is full of shit.  If he's going to make those people's lives worse.  If he's more about enriching the rich and the common folk were just pawns in his game.  It doesn't matter if they are cut off from reality by the conservative info sphere.  It's the oppositions job to overcome all of that.  The people who will stop this will be the people that can figure out how to connect with that working class base and give them a different form of hope than what DJT has given them.  That is obviously not the Democratic Party, at least as we have known it the last decade.

Unless you can get Congress to pass a law telling them not to listen to conservative info sphere, and that they must listen to Democrats, your suggestion sounds very muck like demanding world peace - and saying that is the Democrats job to do that.  I mean, that sounds good at all, but it is probably a tad naïve to just say “go implement that!”

And as long as brown, black and gay people are identified with the Democrats, telling Joe lunchpail how they will make his life better won’t work if the person describing how democrats are going to do that is brown or black or gay or Muslim. 

But it is a legitimate problem. 

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8 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

Imagine typing that and not viewing it as an incredible opportunity.  The progressive mindset, in a nutshell.
 

I don’t “blame people” for leaving. That’s a good thing. I do blame politically aware  progressives for abandoning the space, and the apolitical people who are left behind. 
 

lol, who said anything about making it better?  Propaganda wars are not some kind of joint effort to improve public discourse. 

 

Vote with your feet.  It is the basis of economics and the freemarket.  Progressive mindset indeed.

Leaving is a small but important act that will help DE platform heinous content.   If the eyes leave the ad dollars will follow.   That sort of content should be the third rail that no one would want to be associated with.  Honestly I think much less of folks that are still on twitter.  They either don't get it or don't care.

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2 minutes ago, Gatorubet said:

Unless you can get Congress to pass a law telling them not to listen to conservative info sphere, and that they must listen to Democrats, your suggestion sounds very muck like demanding world peace - and saying that is the Democrats job to do that.  I mean, that sounds good at all, but it is probably a tad naïve to just say “go implement that!”

And as long as brown, black and gay people are identified with the Democrats, telling Joe lunchpail how they will make his life better won’t work if the person describing how democrats are going to do that is brown or black or gay or Muslim. 

But it is a legitimate problem. 

Yeah, it's not easy, or any old democrat would have done it already.  But ultimately, if the establishment wants to stay established, they have to successfully connect to more voters than those who are voting to tear it down.  And the pool of voters participating in elections now includes a whole lot of previously apolitical poor white folks that Trump mobilized to vote to tear down the establishment.  They've got very little to lose with Trump taking a hatchet to the federal government.

People who don't like the MAGA/project 2025 agenda can either embrace the challenge of figuring out how to connect to these now active voters (and it may take white male faces to communicate to them), or they can expect to live in Trump's America for the foreseeable future.  I think it's naive to think otherwise.

 

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Bozo, your impression of Twitter seems pretty naive, like you don't really use it. 

A lot of us were screaming from the rooftops immediately when Musk took over and started implementing serious changes. I watched its destruction in real time. It is now 100% ineffective in creating meaningful or fruitful conversation. It is a gelatinous monster that absorbs any discourse/information and spits out venom. It simply needs to die. 

 

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2 minutes ago, safe sex said:

Musk will NOT let progressive voices substantially challenge or change Twitter in any way. Honestly surprised that you think it's possible, Bozo

It’s really hard to articulate how much the subversion of Twitter crushed the resistance lines of communication and mobilization.  Like that was clearly a main goal from the takeover.  

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5 minutes ago, safe sex said:

Musk will NOT let progressive voices substantially challenge or change Twitter in any way. Honestly surprised that you think it's possible, Bozo

Yes. 

The reality is most of these Trumpers get off on trolling and triggering the left.. The confrontation fuels them. It increases their engagement numbers and monetization.

If people on the left leave, and political Twitter effectively become a larger version of the failing Truth Social, it will suffer and die off. IMO ghosting these right wing assholes is how you hurt them. Because engagement, not their actual beliefs or stances, is what feeds them. 

 

 

 

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Spoiler

Where Are the Democrats?
Times journalists sit down to discuss the state of the Democratic Party.
2025-02-06T06:00:10-05:00
This transcript was created using speech recognition software. While it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript and email transcripts@nytimes.com with any questions.

speaker 1
This podcast is supported by NetSuite. If you’re in it to win, meet your next MVP — NetSuite by Oracle. NetSuite is your full business management system in one convenient suite. With NetSuite, you’re running your accounting, your finance, your HR, your e-commerce, and more all from your online dashboard. Upgrade your playbook and make the switch to NetSuite, the number one cloud ERP.

speaker 3
Get the CFO’s Guide to AI and Machine Learning at NetSuite.com/NYT. NetSuite.com/NYT.

anna foley
Excuse me. Hi.

speaker 4
Hi.

anna foley
My name is Anna Foley. I’m with “The New York Times.” Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?

speaker 4
OK.

anna foley
How does it feel to be a Democrat right now? [PIANO MUSIC]

speaker 5
That’s an interesting question.

speaker 6
I feel like Rocky Balboa. We just got punched. We just got knocked down. We got knocked down really hard, and it hurts.

speaker 7
I think, to be honest with you, it feels a little bit like we’re all in a listless ship, kind of just spinning about.

speaker 8
As a Democrat, it feels a little frustrating. We are a bit of a punching bag at the moment.

speaker 9
We’ve lost sight of our values. And sometimes, we get so overinvested into the policy differences that we end up separating ourselves.

speaker 10
But I also think it’s important to note that we’re not completely in the wilderness, right? This was not some election where Trump won by 20 points. It was a close election.

speaker 11
I think we missed the mark somewhere. And if there was ever a time, if there was ever an inflection point, it is now.

speaker 12
So we’ve got a lot of work ahead of us.

michael barbaro
From “The New York Times,” I’m Michael Barbaro. This is “The Daily.” Today, how the Democratic Party is navigating the dominance of President Trump and reckoning with the reality that more and more voters are souring on its message. I spoke with three of my colleagues, politics reporters Shane Goldmacher and Reid Epstein, and congressional correspondent, Annie Karni. It’s Thursday, February 6.

So, friends, welcome to the roundtable. Reid and Annie, thank you for making the trek over to the Washington studio. Good to have you.

reid epstein
Hi, Michael.

annie karni
Can I quote Glinda from “Wicked?” “It’s good to see me, isn’t it?”

michael barbaro
Yes, you can. That was great. And Shane —

shane goldmacher
Hello.

michael barbaro
Yeah, sorry —

reid epstein
I was also going to say hi to Shane.

michael barbaro
Oh, yes. Well, Shane, thank you for being here with me in the New York studio. All three of you have been very closely covering the story of the Democratic Party in this moment. And you know this well. Whenever a party loses a presidential election, we speak of it wandering through the wilderness. When a party loses a presidential race and both chambers of Congress, we speak of that party as being in an especially dark wilderness. And when you lose the presidency and both chambers of Congress, and the new president of the opposing party takes 300 executive actions that undo everything your party has ever stood for, I don’t really know that there is a phrase for it. Do you have one in mind?

shane goldmacher
Deep in the wilderness.

annie karni
Existential crisis.

reid epstein
You know, I had somebody before the election tell me that if Trump won that Democrats would be way more effed than they were last time, to sanitize that phrase a little bit.

michael barbaro
Thank you.

reid epstein
And when I checked in with her last week, she said that it was worse than she anticipated, even more bad than they thought.

michael barbaro
Even more effed than the previous effed. OK, so I want to start by talking about the kind of soul searching that the Democratic Party is doing and whether that soul searching has started to arrive at any kind of consensus about what exactly the party’s problems are and how systemic and deep those problems are. From a distance, it doesn’t look like there’s a consensus. So let’s talk about that, Shane. I want to start with you.

shane goldmacher
Yeah I mean, I think the question of how deep in the wilderness is the Democratic Party is when I asked a whole bunch of Democrats in the last couple of weeks,

michael barbaro
You literally burned up the phone lines of the Democratic Party.

shane goldmacher
Yeah, I called it basically as many people as I could to say, just how deep is this hole? And actually, the answer was really surprising to me, which is that there is not at all an agreement on the size of the hole that the Democratic Party finds itself in. And the reason is that yes, they’ve lost the White House and the House and the Senate, and they’re watching all these things erode faster than imaginable.

But they also have watched wipe-out elections in their lifetime — In the 1980s, when Democratic Party won a single state in a presidential election, that this doesn’t look like that. This is not, in fact, a wipeout of the Democratic Party. And so if you don’t think the party is in as deep of a hole, you’re not looking to make that kind of big, systemic change.

And I think that disagreement on just how screwed the party is central to understand what they’re going to do to get out of the hole, right? If you think that they’re pretty close, then you’re not going to make big changes. You’re going to wait for Trump to overreach, and you’re going to hope to pick up a few seats. And you get a foothold in the House of Representatives in 2026.

michael barbaro
Annie, it sounds like Shane is describing a split between those who think, look, the math, look at the House. It’s tactical. Our message couldn’t have been that bad If we almost retained control of the House of Representatives.

annie karni
Yes, I’ve heard that argument a lot from DNC people, especially after the election, were kind of saying, look, we actually outperformed in a lot of these districts. We did really well this cycle. And that was a hard argument to take seriously. Like, they lost the House, and they’re saying, like, no, we actually won.

michael barbaro
Nancy Pelosi was a proponent of that.

annie karni
They did outperform in a lot of districts where they should have done worse than they did. They outperformed the top of the ticket.

reid epstein
And I think there’s a difference between the people who look at this and say, they only need to win two or three seats to win back the majority, and the people who look at what has happened in Washington and in the country over the last two weeks in change. Like, Trump does not have a mathematical advantage in the government that’s requisite to the types of actions that he’s taken place since he’s been president. And that’s, I think, where some of this bifurcation has taken place. And because a lot of the Democrats came in to this new Trump administration, I think, with an unrealistic anticipation of what he would do once he became the president, and they were clearly ill-prepared politically, certainly, for the types of actions that Trump has taken.

michael barbaro
Reid, I want to put something to you, since both Shane and Annie have been giving voice to the let’s not freak out. Democratic point of view in this moment. I want you to contemplate the case for a freak out. This was something written by one of the three of you, and here’s what it says.

“Democrats who share the bleak outlook for their future see statistical signs of the party’s decline everywhere. Blue states are ceding population to red states. Voter registration figures are mostly headed in the wrong direction for the Democrats. More Americans are identifying with the GOP than with Democrats. And Democrats lost ground in this last election among core constituencies, including lower income Latino and younger voters, as President Trump swept every battleground state.”

That’s the case for freaking out. And Shane, that was your sentence, your paragraph. It seems like a pretty strong case for freaking out if you’re the Democratic Party.

reid epstein
And the people who are making the case for freaking out, frankly, have been doing more freaking out over the last couple of weeks, right? They were freaking out from the morning after the election. And their case is not without merit, frankly. We saw what happened in the election. We saw kind of all of these demographics moving away from the party.

What none of the people who have been moved toward what we would call an autopsy or a post-election review have wanted to discuss has been kind of the origin of why all those things went the wrong way. And none of them want to talk about the idea of the fact that or the reality that they all got behind a very unpopular president and basically told the American people that he wasn’t too old, that he wasn’t too frail, and on and on and on, and backed him until they didn’t, by which point, lots of these voters didn’t believe them when they said anything else because of what they had said about Biden.

michael barbaro
I mean, let’s talk about that point you’re raising, the origins of the Democrats problems. If you’re inclined to think that this is an existential crisis moment for the party, it makes sense to ask the question, what exactly went wrong? Reid, you’re pointing to the observation that Biden’s weaknesses as a candidate and party leaders’ decision to not ask him to step aside earlier might be a factor.

But when we ask the question of what went wrong, it seems like that might be a very narrow reading of things. And Shane, I want to ask you about something that Congressman Pat Ryan from Upstate New York says about the Democratic Party. He’s not talking about whether Joe Biden stayed in the race too long, and Democrats weren’t eyes wide open about his health and his various problems. He says that the Democratic brand overall is so weak at this point that the only way Democrats like him can win is by running against the Democratic brand, which, of course, is not a great strategy if you’re a Democrat. So I want to broaden the conversation to what someone like a Congressman Pat Ryan says are deeper problems with the party’s identity, ideology, and its relationship to the voters.

shane goldmacher
I mean, I think Pat Ryan’s putting his finger on this fundamental problem that’s facing the party that’s beyond Joe Biden. It’s a structural problem about the Democratic brand, which is, if you look at the House of Representatives, more Democrats need to win Trumpy districts to get a majority. And the same is true for the Senate. And so you need the brand to be such that you can win the majority by not having to run against the brand.

Republicans hold a majority with basically no one. There are arguably two house Republicans who run against the national Republican brand, and they still have a majority. There are a dozen Democrats who try to distance themselves from the national brand in the way that Pat Ryan is describing.

The optimist case for Democrats around, OK, the hole is not that deep — the concern really is that means the party is missing an opportunity for introspection. Somebody else said to me, one of the only advantages of losing is getting to think about how you reset and rebuild. And if you’re not going to actually do that rethinking about what the party stands for, then you’re unlikely to end up succeeding over the long haul.

reid epstein
I think the bigger issue is that it’s a vibes problem and what people think of Democrats. And that really goes back farther than Biden. It goes back to Obama, when the party was seen as college professors drinking wine, being in urban enclaves, where the Democratic Party of FDR and Truman and Kennedy was much more of a working-class party.

annie karni
Another person making that same argument is Congresswoman Marie Gluesenkamp Perez from Washington State. She owns an auto shop with her husband. She’s been making the case that the Democratic Party does not respect the working class and that they need more working class people in Congress, that all these progressive policies like student loan forgiveness, she voted against it. Why? Because no one in her district went to college. So she’s saying that, to Reid’s point, some of this is for urban, educated people and is leaving out large swaths of the country that Democrats aren’t speaking to. That’s what people like Perez are making.

reid epstein
And there are so many affinity groups, to use a phrase in vogue in some of these circles, in the Democratic coalition at this point. They had a discussion at the Democratic National Committee meeting over the weekend about whether to maintain a gender balance among their vice chair positions because some people might not consider themselves men or women. And so those types of discussions percolate out into the broader culture of what it means to be a Democrat.

Now, nobody was actually watching the Democratic Party’s meeting over the weekend.

michael barbaro
You were.

reid epstein
Nobody who was not being paid to do so, I think, was watching it. But for people who are not engaged in one of those groups, they can get turned off by that, even if Democrats think their issues and agenda are in the interest of these very people who are turned off by the way they present themselves.

michael barbaro
Right, and Shane, I want to bring that up with you, because I think one of the questions that a proper soul-searching exercise might lead to among Democrats is the idea that the Democratic Party — and I want your feedback on this, based on your reporting — has allowed its coalition, the many fragments of it, activists especially, to push the entire party and its brand toward a less recognizable place than the Democratic Party of 15 or 20 years ago, a party that, for example, speaks of undocumented immigrants as not requiring any level of criminal punishment or justice if they cross the border illegally, which Kamala Harris said in 2020 as a Democratic candidate, talks about diversity as a vital goal, sometimes in ways — talks about diversity and DEI as hugely important to the identity of the party and the country, endorses things like medical interventions for trans youth.

I’m generalizing here, but a party that talks about those things in that ways, is it overly beholden not to a broad cross-section of the electorate, but to the loudest voices in its coalition?

shane goldmacher
Hey, I think that’s a big part of the conversation inside the party. It’s a question of what do you emphasize? What do you put forward? If you are letting the party be defined in the views of an average voter as focused on those issues, it makes it harder to make an economic case to those same voters.

So “The New York Times” and IPSOS just did a poll. How do people view the Democratic Party? How do people view the Republican Party? The top two issues that people associated with the Democratic Party were abortion and LGBT rights. And those are not in the top issues for what voters cared about overall. And the top issues for Republicans were around the economy and immigration, which were among the top issues for voters. So Democrats are going to be supportive of diversity programs in general. The question is how much you emphasize that.

reid epstein
And when you look at the issues that professional Democrats in Washington think of as their core issues, they’re all very popular. Abortion rights are popular. Raising the minimum wage is popular. Most of the economic agenda that they talk about, even if people aren’t hearing them, is pretty popular. The problem comes in that the actual Democrats who run for office themselves are less popular because they have to accede to all these various things that different groups want. But when any of these issues have been put on the ballot as standalone referenda, they almost always pass.

michael barbaro
What you’re pointing to, Reid, is what I think explains why the party can’t quite make up its mind, as it does this soul searching and thinking about the nature of its problems, about whether this is a moment for revolution or caution because it looks at what happened in those congressional races and says, we didn’t do horribly. And it looks at these issues, sometimes in isolation, and says, they stand up OK on their own. So maybe we’re not a party in crisis. And so that debate has not been resolved.

And we’re going to go take a break. And when we come back, we’re going to talk about the next important debate that flows very naturally from this one, which is what should the party’s tactics be in this moment, especially if it hasn’t made up its mind about its soul searching. So we’ll be right back.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

emily badger
I’m Emily Badger. I’m a reporter with “The New York Times.” Since the pandemic, empty office buildings have become much more common in many cities. Why can’t we just turn them into housing? It’s actually a really complicated question. To answer this question, you have to find a developer trying to turn an office building into apartments, ride a rickety elevator to the 30th floor of a construction site to see the interior guts of a building, find an expert in incandescent light bulbs who can explain to you how they fundamentally change office buildings. And that’s just the beginning of what you have to do.

When you subscribe to “The New York Times,” you are sending reporters like me out into the world to ask questions of dozens of different experts, to go and visit places most people don’t get to go, to try to come back with answers, and then turn all of that into something that anyone can understand. If you’d like to become a subscriber, head to NYTimes.com/subscribe.

You need to see the animated floor plans in this piece.

michael barbaro
OK, welcome back, Annie, Reid, Shane, where we left off was with a Democratic Party that has not firmly established the nature of the problem, which, in theory, makes it pretty hard to come up with a set of tactics for how to conduct itself. But the president and his blitz of activity has required the party to make a set of decisions about how to respond. So I want to talk about that. It feels like the party is having a split personality on the question of whether to be a party of protest in this moment or a party of waiting and seeing what the country’s reaction to Trump will be.

So I want to first play a clip from Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, the minority leader in the House, who is taking the don’t overreact approach. Let me just play that for you guys.

archived recording (hakeem jeffries)
We understand that extreme MAGA Republicans have a strategy. They want to flood the zone with outrage, but we can’t chase every outrage. I’m a Yankee fan, and Aaron Judge is my favorite player. One of the reasons that he’s a great hitter is that he does not swing at every pitch. We’re not going to swing at every pitch. We’re going to swing at the ones that matter for the American people.

michael barbaro
Then there’s a contrasting view articulated by Democratic Senator Chris Murphy from Connecticut, who says, right now, you have to swing at every pitch. He said, “Trump floods the zone every hour of every day. We have to do the same thing.”

So those seem like the two contrasting arguments on tactics, and I want you all to help me understand the basis for both of those and also, which one seems to be prevailing in the first two weeks or so of the Trump presidency.

shane goldmacher
Well, I’m just excited to talk about baseball with Reid on the podcast. I mean, I think it breaks down to the question of, is less more, or is more more? And that is one that is really gripping. Democrats, especially having watched Trump flood the zone in 2024 in the media. He was an omnipresence in the campaign trail in a way that a more cautious Kamala Harris picked her spots and often performed in those spots. And it wasn’t quite enough.

And so there are a lot of Democrats saying, get out there and respond to everything. And that is the Chris Murphy school of thought, saying, it’s not that all these fights are winners. In fact, some of them might not be winners, but the act of opposing is powerful. Those two sides are just, like, pulling at each other each day. And because Trump is making so much news, every day, the Democrats have a new opportunity to either respond or not.

michael barbaro
And you’re watching that debate play out in Congress, which you cover really closely, and where it would seem Democrats have one of their major levers of power, which is the bully pulpit of Congress opposing cabinet nominees from the president if they want to or deciding that the right move in this moment is to work with Trump on issues like immigration. So what are you seeing?

annie karni
I’m seeing a huge shift in real time. So I think when Trump was elected, Democrats really wanted to show part of our brand is that we honor free and fair elections. He won. He won the popular vote. We’re not going to just be opposed to be opposed. We’re going to go to his inauguration. We’re going to consider his nominees on his or her merits.

That started to shift with some of the actions the Trump administration was taking. The federal funding freeze was the most obvious place where Democrats could stage on the merits a huge protest, also cutting off USAID, letting Elon Musk plug in his personal hard drive to the entire Treasury database.

michael barbaro
Metaphorically speaking.

annie karni
Yes. So these are actions that now they feel differently. It’s moving, and it’s moving under pressure from outside of Congress.

Reid wrote a really good story about Democratic governors calling Schumer and saying, oppose all of them and him saying, no, it’s better to pick our spots. That has already shifted. As of yesterday, Chuck Schumer now told his caucus, I’m voting against everyone now, and I urge you to do the same. Even someone like Chris Murphy, Mr. Swing at Every Pitch — he started out voting for some, and he said to us, I changed my mind.

michael barbaro
Interesting, in real time.

annie karni
I no longer think that we can have any leg to stand on if we’re saying yes to some of this stuff.

reid epstein
And some of that is because of actions that Trump has taken as so offended people like Chris Murphy. But some of it is because only in recent days has there been any attempt to organize Democratic voters to call Senate offices and tell them, vote no.

michael barbaro
I want to talk for just a moment about the message that these Democrats, now determined to swing at more pitches, are articulating. This week, we saw them try to pick their first real foil. And as you’re starting to hint at folks here, it wasn’t as much Trump as it was Elon Musk. And in some of the protests that Democratic lawmakers held across Washington over the past few days, they decided to train their fury at him. Let me just play a clip from somebody whose name has come up in this conversation, Senator Chris Murphy.

archived recording (chris murphy)
We don’t pledge allegiance to the billionaires. We don’t. pledge allegiance to Elon Musk.

archived recording (crowd)
No!

archived recording (chris murphy)
We don’t pledge allegiance to the creepy 22-year-olds working for Elon Musk.

We pledge allegiance to the United States of America.

archived recording (crowd)
Yeah!

michael barbaro
Why approach this torrent of activity from the White House through the person of Elon Musk, Shane? And does that seem effective?

shane goldmacher
I’m not sure if it’s going to be effective yet, but the big soul searching that the Democratic Party has been going through since the election is, how did they lose ground among working class voters? And so in Musk, they have a billionaire foil, as you heard Chris Murphy just say. And they can say, nobody voted for this guy, so we might be willing to give Trump some leeway, talking about those voters in the middle, but we’re not giving this guy any leeway.

And right now, the party is debating not just do you take on Elon Musk, but do you support particular programs that he’s targeting. USAID is something he said he wants to dismantle, unravel, get rid of. This has not been a kind of thing with broad popular support in the United States, but it is part of the kind of agenda the Democrats have. What do you do? Well, you pick the fight with Elon Musk instead of the defense of USAID.

michael barbaro
Right. You mentioned USAID. Reid, when I think of USAID and Democratic lawmakers standing in front of it and saying that something is wrong when the Trump administration cuts spending to the United States Agency for International Development, it makes me wonder if the Democrats do need to resolve that debate over what went wrong in this last election. Because foreign aid, which is what USAID is most known for, is not a top priority for voters. And so it looked to some the party was doing what it did over the past few years and not in a good way. It was speaking to its progressive base, defending the status quo on foreign aid. That is perhaps how you get the activists left motivated. But those images circulate across the country, and do they not do the party any favors?

reid epstein
It’s also worth remembering that I think the protests in front of the USAID building was on Monday. And the members of Congress who there were all from the Greater Washington area. But a lot of the people who work in that building who were shut out are the constituents of the members of Congress from Northern Virginia and Maryland who were there. And so that was as much of a local concern for those members of Congress speaking to their own voters as it was sort of a broader national brand.

By the time there was a protest in front of the Treasury building on Tuesday night, there were dozens of members of Congress from all over the country who were there. It was a much bigger, sort of broader protest than the USAID one, which, to me, has not seemed to be in the mainstream of what most of these Democrats are pushing to the center. It seems to be the most engaged and frankly, online Democrats are talking about and some people in Washington whose constituents work in that building.

michael barbaro
Mm-hmm. I want to now turn to something that was happening in Washington that I believe one of you raised a little bit earlier in this conversation that seems extremely well timed. The Democratic National Committee met just outside Washington to make what feels like one of the most important big decisions about the party’s identity since the election. And it feels like that would be very informed by the conversation we’re having here. It was going to choose its next chairperson. My question to you, Reid and Shane, because I know you were both there, was, did it reveal anything about these debates we’ve been discussing here about the nature of the problem, nature of the solution for Democrats?

reid epstein
The short answer is no, it did not.

michael barbaro
OK. Shane, why does Reid say that?

shane goldmacher
Yeah, let’s tell you who the person they selected was to tell you why the answer is no. The person they picked is a guy named Ken Martin, who is the chair of the Minnesota State Democratic Party. And he has been in that position for years. And he won the national party chairmanship by coalition building inside the party. The party picked, in a choice of insiders, perhaps the most inside candidate. Now, he’s promising some potential changes, but that is not what he ran on.

reid epstein
It’s important to note that when Shane and I talked with Ken Martin after he won, the things that he said to us were, like, the party doesn’t need to change any of its policies. It doesn’t need to change its message. It needs to change how it distributes its message and how voters hear its message but not the core of what the party is about. And on what happened in the election, he promised to conduct an after action review and make it public. But when we asked him if that review would address the question of whether Joe Biden should have run, he said no, it would not.

michael barbaro
It feels like the question of the party’s identity so clearly not being resolved in this moment in a major way is likely to be resolved most clearly when the party begins to coalesce around a future leader. I wonder how much we’re getting a feel for who the party’s next avatar might be in the crucible of this Trump blitzkrieg moment.

reid epstein
I think the history has told us the ideas and people who look like they’re popping out of this moment proved to be exactly not who ends up being that person. In 2004, the last time Democrats had really lost at this same level, there was a big discussion of should the party, again, move to the middle, and find a moderate white candidate in the era of George W. Bush. But by 2008, it was a totally different candidate. It was Barack Obama who came about.

So I think it’s too early to even have a sense of the kind of Democrat who is going to help them get out of the wilderness. But the person needs to inherit a party brand that isn’t so broken that you can’t run ahead of it enough to win.

michael barbaro
Annie, what are you seeing? Because it seems like the loudest voices are in Congress right now, even if the next Democratic nominee might not be someone in Congress.

annie karni
Well, there’s a lot of younger senators who definitely see an opportunity to be the future leader of their party. The clip you played of Chris Murphy, that sure sounded like someone campaigning for president. And there’s a lot of younger, by Senate standards, lawmakers who probably look in the mirror and see an opportunity in 2028 to be the future of the party.

michael barbaro
I have one final question. Does the future of the Democratic Party at this moment mean or even require former Vice-President Kamala Harris standing up and saying, it’s not me?

shane goldmacher
No, I don’t — I think that it’s not central to the party’s conversation. She will be, if she chooses to run again, one of multiple candidates. She might start ahead in the polls, but she is one of multiple at this point.

annie karni
If she’s running, that’s not deterring anyone else from running.

shane goldmacher
The Democratic Party doesn’t typically go back to the well again for a person who’s lost before. The Republican Party has this long history of picking somebody who was the nominee or almost was the nominee. Democrats have traditionally won — and Joe Biden is the exception — by finding a fresh face.

reid epstein
Not since Adlai Stevenson has somebody had the nomination twice.

michael barbaro
All right, well, with that incredible, obscure, helpful bit of historical context, I’d like to thank the three of you — Annie, Reid, Shane, thank you very much.

shane goldmacher
Thank you.

annie karni
Thank you.

reid epstein
Thank you. [MUSIC PLAYING]

michael barbaro
We’ll be right back.

daniel alarcón
After the movie “Free Willy” became a hit, word got out that the star of the film, a killer whale named Keiko, was sick and still living in a tiny pool in a Mexican amusement park. Fans were outraged. Kids demanded his release. I’m Daniel Alarcón. From Serial Productions in “The New York Times: comes “The Good Whale,” a story about the wildly ambitious science experiment to return Keiko to the ocean. Listen to new episodes on Thursdays. Want early access to the whole show? Subscribe to the “Times” at nytimes.com/podcasts to listen on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

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michael barbaro
Here’s what else you need to know today.

archived recording (donald trump)
In a few moments, I’ll sign a historic executive order to ban men from competing in women’s sports. It’s about time.

michael barbaro
President Trump signed an executive order seeking to ban transgender women and girls from participating in women’s sports by denying federal funding to any schools that allow it.

archived recording (donald trump)
Under the Trump administration, we will defend the proud tradition of female athletes, and we will not allow men to beat up, injure, and cheat our women and our girls. From now on, women’s sports will be only for women.

[cheering, applause]
michael barbaro
And the White House walked back Trump’s surprise proposal to seize control of Gaza and permanently relocate the 2 million Palestinians who live there after it was forcefully rejected by the Arab world.

^ARCHIVED RECORDING (MARCO RUBIO)^” What President Trump announced yesterday is the offer, the willingness of the United States to become responsible for the reconstruction of that area. And while you are rebuilding —

Instead, White House officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, reframed Trump’s offer as a plan for the US to merely oversee Gaza’s reconstruction and insisted that he would not commit US troops to the territory, as his original plan seemed to require. Finally —

archived recording (donald trump)
She will lead the Democrats — you know where they’re going to — She’s going to lead them right down.

michael barbaro
— at the White House, the president showed up for the swearing in ceremony of his new attorney general, Pam Bondi, and suggested that, in her role as the nation’s top law enforcement official and leader of the Justice Department, traditionally a nonpartisan job, Bondi would take a dim view of Democrats.

archived recording (donald trump)
I’m supposed to say she’s going to be totally impartial with respect to Democrats, and I think she will be as impartial as a person can be. I’m not sure if there’s a possibility of totally, but she’s going to be as total as you can get.

michael barbaro
Today’s episode was produced by Rob Szypko, Anna Foley, Diana Nguyen, and Olivia Natt. It was edited by Patricia Willens and Lexie Diao. It contains original music by Diane Wong, Marion Lozano, and Rowan Niemisto, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly.

That’s it for “The Daily.” I’m Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.

Seemingly timely and appropriate podcast today on the NYT's "The Daily":

Where are the Democrats? Times journalists sit down to discuss the state of the Democratic Party

 

Edited by DDD Dad
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If the left wants to re-enter the conversation and capture apolitical or low information people, the venue is YouTube. The usefulness of social media is almost dead. YouTube is free and lots of people (particularly Gen Y & Z) are increasingly watching it to the point where it's effectively replacing cable TV.

  • Hook 'Em 2
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The # of YT views that Trump events/clips got compared to Harris was greater by several orders of magnitude iirc

 

Lots of work to do, and trying to bring people together doesn't create near as much engagement as trying to divide people

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1 hour ago, locodos said:

Vote with your feet.  It is the basis of economics and the freemarket.  Progressive mindset indeed.

Indeed I cannot imagine a better example of the progressive mindset than taking your own product off the shelves and calling that act “voting with your feet,” as if the buyers will seek you out if you make your product harder to find.
Extra credit for lecturing a market professional about “the freemarket.”

1 hour ago, locodos said:

Leaving is a small but important act that will help DE platform heinous content

This you?


 

 

1 hour ago, locodos said:

That sort of content should be the third rail that no one would want to be associated with.  Honestly I think much less of folks that are still on twitter.  They either don't get it or don't care

“And in closing, let me add that my privilege protects me from the consequences of losing elections. Therefore I don’t care about the people who I choose not to understand or engage with, even though they  collectively form a majority.”

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1 hour ago, Hank Kingsley said:

Bozo, your impression of Twitter seems pretty naive, like you don't really use it.

Well I’m still on Twitter, so I’m not sure you are coming from a position of authority on this one. 
 

 

1 hour ago, Hank Kingsley said:

It is now 100% ineffective in creating meaningful or fruitful conversation.

Wait. Stop. You think you win a propaganda fight with an existential threat through meaningful conversation. Do you understand what’s at stake here?

1 hour ago, safe sex said:

Musk will NOT let progressive voices substantially challenge or change Twitter in any way. Honestly surprised that you think it's possible, Bozo

The British will NOT allow the colonies to assemble militia on Lexington common. Honestly surprised you think that’s possible, Captain Parker. 

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1 minute ago, safe sex said:

The # of YT views that Trump events/clips got compared to Harris was greater by several orders of magnitude iirc

 

Lots of work to do, and trying to bring people together doesn't create near as much engagement as trying to divide people

Yes, the right already effectively owns YouTube. The clever thing Trumpians figured out is to connect with users/viewers outside of politics. The Daily Wire has a college football podcast under their umbrella. They hire people to talk about celebrity/entertainment news. Joe Rogan is a force because he covers so many different subjects with his guests, that he's able to capture a viewer's political attention when he focuses on it. Candace Owens is owning the Lively/Baldoni Hollywood drama discourse on YT right now, and the next suggested video from her is an "investigative" documentary series she created to prove Brigitte Macron is a man. 

Right now you have people like Hasan Piker and Sam Seder at the Majority Report as the longstanding major voices on YT. Half of their content is making fun of Tim Pool and other right wing nuts. It's just not moving the needle and is all about politics all the time. 

The left needs to cast a much wider net. 

 

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39 minutes ago, Hank Kingsley said:

If the left wants to re-enter the conversation and capture apolitical or low information people, the venue is YouTube. The usefulness of social media is almost dead. YouTube is free and lots of people (particularly Gen Y & Z) are increasingly watching it to the point where it's effectively replacing cable TV.

No. The venue is everywhere. All channels, all spaces. You tube for one thing, Twitter for another, and so on. It is asymmetric and asynchronous opposition that forces them to play whack-a-mole and exhausts their capacity for containment while forcing their divisions open. 

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2 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

Keyboard Warriors v. Gravy Seals

Kenan Thompson Popcorn GIF by Saturday Night Live

I certainly hope so, but the chances of political conflict moving into the physical realm are exceptionally high and for some populations we’re already there. As usual, white progressives will be the last to recognize it, until they in the crosshairs, precisely because they have largely withdrawn from right wing spaces. 

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It's not Trump, its the Republican party, including in Congress, and their fealty to Trump, so I'm not sure I see the difference. Democrats are boring and can be annoying sometimes but they have never tried to completely dismantle the federal government nor have they ever stoked a violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol that got law enforcement officers killed. Blaming "Congress" for letting this happen is just not accurate, its the Republicans in Congress that are letting this happen.

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1 hour ago, locodos said:

Honestly I think much less of folks that are still on twitter.  They either don't get it or don't care.

there is some Ukrainian news stuff that I can’t see on other platforms.  I get it and I care, but not enough to self limit some sources I find valuable.

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40 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

Indeed I cannot imagine a better example of the progressive mindset than taking your own product off the shelves and calling that act “voting with your feet,” as if the buyers will seek you out if you make your product harder to find.
Extra credit for lecturing a market professional about “the freemarket.”

 

“And in closing, let me add that my privilege protects me from the consequences of losing elections. Therefore I don’t care about the people who I choose not to understand or engage with, even though they  collectively form a majority.”

If a product is free, you are the product.  I know that you get this simple concept.  By continuing to engage on the platform you are providing your views (unique impressions), data, and content for monetization by the platform in exchange for content from others and access to the platform.

If a platform does not provide content or interactions desired by users, they leave > ad purchasers leave > content providers leave.

I'm sure that you don't want to talk about that transaction so you're deflecting.  

 

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1 hour ago, safe sex said:

The # of YT views that Trump events/clips got compared to Harris was greater by several orders of magnitude iirc

 

Lots of work to do, and trying to bring people together doesn't create near as much engagement as trying to divide people

Weirdly enough my nightly viewings of old Yale history lectures and BBC Shakespeare productions only go up by like 1 or 2 views a day. There must be some problem with their counting system.

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1 hour ago, Hank Kingsley said:

Yes. 

The reality is most of these Trumpers get off on trolling and triggering the left.. The confrontation fuels them. It increases their engagement numbers and monetization.

If people on the left leave, and political Twitter effectively become a larger version of the failing Truth Social, it will suffer and die off. IMO ghosting these right wing assholes is how you hurt them. Because engagement, not their actual beliefs or stances, is what feeds them. 

 

 

 

That's a pretty hypocritical statement considering the liberal echo chamber cloak room that you are posting in.

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3 minutes ago, Elvis said:

That's a pretty hypocritical statement considering the liberal echo chamber cloak room that you are posting in.

I suspect he's not talking about simple partisan policy differences and debating those out, but instead, it's likely more about how Elon's site boosts Nazis and racist content.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/elon-musk-antisemitic-comments-x-post-actual-truth/
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/x-twitter-elon-musk-nazi-extremist-white-nationalist-accounts-rcna145020
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/elon-musk-german-afd-alice-weidel-anti-immigrant-party-live-event-x-rcna186950 

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2 hours ago, locodos said:

If a product is free, you are the product.  I know that you get this simple concept.  By continuing to engage on the platform you are providing your views (unique impressions), data, and content for monetization by the platform in exchange for content from others and access to the platform.

If a platform does not provide content or interactions desired by users, they leave > ad purchasers leave > content providers leave.

I'm sure that you don't want to talk about that transaction so you're deflecting.  

 

Thank you for mansplaining key theoretical elements of my lived professional experience to me. However, you are making a category error.
 

You seem to be under the impression that Twitter is still primarily a business that exists to create an operating profit, and that by staying on the platform, politically active and news aware people who object to its takeover as a propaganda platform are making it more successful. Neither of those things are true. You also seem to be under the impression that leaving Twitter is working on some level as a political isolation strategy, and it’s not. It’s only isolating progressives. 

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