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Sherm's avatar

The PA GOV race reminds me of the old Sagan quote: "They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown." The Mastriano campaign is built on testing whether he's part of the former group, or the latter.

My theory: there's a significant subset of the electorate who vote on diffuse but strongly-held inclinations. Barack Obama is a smart, nice man, so I like him. Donald Trump is a tough fighter, so I like him too. Kari Lake is that nice lady from the TV. Hilary Clinton is a robotic grifter. Doug Mastriano is that nut who has the facebooks. Oz is a Jerseyite carpetbagger. The narratives are hard to crack, because the people who hold them aren't engaged in the process. They gather *just* enough information to decide, and then check out. You have to find a way to grab their attention and shape the story they're telling themselves, preferably early, because getting them to reconsider it will take a catastrophe.

My suspicion is that the overturn of Roe was such an event for a lot of them. We miss just how much it shaped things, because we're nerds, so we're always paying attention. We saw it coming. But a lot of people genuinely thought that it was a categorical impossibility. Now they know it's not, so they're looking again. And the more people like Lindsay Graham do to make them question how solid their understanding of the world is, the more they're going to question.

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Susan Johnston's avatar

My question is if a possible 40% of the electorate questions the legitimacy of the 2020 election, what will happen if the Mastrianos and Lakes and Tudors lose? Will they quietly accept the outcome or will they expand their outrage, threatening violence and revolution?

Their extremism is normalized.

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