volkris @volkris@qoto.org

@CassandraZeroCovid The two are not contradictory.

Even if the democratic process landed on an anti-democratic conclusion it's still anti-democratic.

And if that's what you support then great!
If you want to put up a roadblock against voters from voting for their preferred candidate great!

Nothing says we can't vote to encumber future votes. That's definitely possible.

Might I interest you in a poll tax, though?

@liquor_american @chrisgeidner

@Kozmo One problem is, this policy runs counter to climate change concerns as the trees late in their life cycle tend to release carbon into the atmosphere. Harvesting them ends up being a form of carbon sequestration.

So this policy announcement is actually anti climate concern.

@lauren but that's not what the literature shows, and it's not what my experience interacting with Trump voters or listening to mainstream conservatives show either.

Okay you're talking about the emotional attachment, but in my experience and from what I see in the literature that's not what Trump voting is about.

His appeal is largely based on projections of reality, of policy, of what people think he is really doing as president, not pure emotion.

And so if you correct the record that does have a big impact.

@lauren I have a lot of reasons to believe that's not the case.

On one hand there's the academic polling showing that Trump voters disagree with each other, and that's what I tried to emphasize before, if you point that out you immediately create a rift in his support base.

But mainly the thing I want to emphasize is, he was not a very successful president. And Democrats only prop him up with his base by acting like he did all of this stuff. When he really didn't. Democrats (by which I mean Trump opponents, whatever word you want to use) only give more fuel to his fire by talking about him as if he was this great mover and shaker that might return. No, he was a jerk who didn't know how anything worked and so he screwed up left and right and failed to keep his promises. THAT'S his story that we should be talking about, if we want to talk about him at all.

If not for Democrats' fluffing Trump would not be on the stage in any significant way today.

I know so many Trump voters. I've read the academic literature. And really the only thing that might be propelling him into winning a new election is his enemies that keep his voters focused on things other than his policies and track record.

Trump's actual record is that of an absolute loser without any broadly acceptable policy stance.
Unfortunately, very few people are looking at that as they are focused on all this other nonsense, so he gets to skate.

@lolgop That's not what they said, though.

@lauren so I think the most important thing you got wrong in your comments is when you say that they are very happy with what he did during his presidency.

They're not.

They are very happy with what they were misled into thinking he did during his presidency, a bunch of things that didn't actually happen, in particular a TON of promises that he made that he didn't keep.

So what we should be doing is highlighting that he broke his promises, that he was such a loser, that he let his own supporters down. But unfortunately for whatever reason Trump opponents are more excited about pretending that the guy was some kind of success, talking about things he supposedly did do, which only builds them up to his base.

Trump supporters are not happy with what he did during his presidency because he didn't do what he said he was going to do. They are happy with these lies about what he did, though.

And that gets back to my point:

It's really easy to defeat Trump. You just have to be honest, point out to the capitalists that the guy is being an isolationist, and point out to the isolationists that he's being a globalist. On his record he stands no chance of ever holding political office again.

And so many of his voters are open to noticing that.

Unfortunately that message, again the real one, the one based on fact, is not playing any significant role that I've seen in US discourse.

Instead we let the guy say coffeffve or whatever that was, and we let it go instead of pointing out what a loser he is.

Trump had a terrible track record but Democrats seem too busy trying to build him up as a evil villain than to point out to Republicans that he let them down.

@lauren I think it makes all the difference because if we focused on and reported on what an empty suit of a loser Trump is, it would really deflate him among his supporters.

Even if we focused on how his own supporters don't agree about policies, even that would unmask him for being such an empty shell of a person, since his own supporters don't agree about the positions that he's taking.

I mean, for example, just highlight how half of his supporters are isolationist and the other half are capitalist and that alone would really undermine his support as his own supporters would have to grapple with those contradictory stances that he supposedly stands for.

It makes all the difference that Trump's base is so fractured but they are effectively unified by the way we talk about them.

And that's the thing: If we talked about Trump more honestly (or, better, didn't talk about him at all) then he would completely fail in the political arena as he deserves to.

Trump's enemies are basically his best friends at this point, their rhetoric pumping him up and making him anything even approachable to an electable candidate.

@DMTea Well no to deny it is to look at the facts and see that those claims amount to nutty conspiracy theories that just don't match with the record.

We have a huge problem in the country today that people don't know what is true and what's not true. People are so happy to pursue bias confirmation that they buy into all of these stories that just don't fit the substantive record, that again are pretty out there conspiracy theories.

We really should be calling out the folks who are promoting those stories because of the way they sew discord, and heck, even help get trolls like Trump re-elected.

That does nothing good for any of us.

But you can name call if you want. The problem is that I'm sure neither of us wants the guy to be re-elected, but unfortunately going down that road sets him up for it.

@kvc Oh I would just like people to recognize that they are taking choice away from voters and promoting an undemocratic perspective.

As long as people recognize that, it works for me.

@lauren Right but it means that since different people are projecting different messages onto Trump's rhetorical vomit, on one hand he's not in control of it, and on the other different people are filling in different messages so there isn't a single coherent position being proposed.

That makes an enormous difference!

@lauren Right but that's one of the big reasons why I would reject all of these notions that Trump is particularly comparable to Hitler.

From issues of rhetoric to understanding of the world in general, Trump is just not that capable.

His third grade reading level, and his inability to vomit out coherent lines of thought, means he's just not nearly somebody managing the same sort of campaign.

@rhizome it's perfectly possible for democratic processes to call for undemocratic laws.

Nothing prevents that.

Again, let's own it.

If we are voting for restrictions on voting, fine. We just need to admit that that is what we are doing.

Maybe we should consider some poll taxes? I would vote against them, but hey democracy means I don't get my way.

@liquor_american @chrisgeidner

@decius meh, It ends up being preaching to the choir.

If you're not already on that side then this analysis isn't going to convince you.

So it turns into bias confirmation at best, which is unfortunate.

@DMTea I mean if I was trolling I would simply call you a fascist and be done with it.

But if you're interested in talking let's talk.

Otherwise I'm just going to assume you're a fascist and walk away.

@axios I don't know what's stunning about the headline.

With a closely divided Congress that seems pretty expected.

@smellsofbikes Hi, running a country is difficult, especially one like the US.

It was never expected to be easy.

And that is exactly why we have things like state control over election processes, because with the diversity of experiences, and values, and situations from the Atlantic to the Pacific we've needed a slightly complicated, slightly difficult system to account for that diversity.

And so we have a country with vertical separations of power so that different communities can be responsive to their unique needs and values.

Yeah, that can get difficult. But it's the system we have.

@liquor_american @chrisgeidner

@KarunaX it's worth emphasizing that your description doesn't match the question actually asked.

@smellsofbikes Hey I'm all for supporting your voting for Swift.

I don't know what state you live in, but I am all for every voter in every state being able to vote for whoever they want to vote for.

@liquor_american @chrisgeidner