This morning, Charlie focuses on what's wrong with the Republican Party, including members' lack of courage and conviction regarding 1/6. Much needed. But let me ask another question - what the hell is wrong with the Democrats? Why is Congress not in session on 1/6? Why is the House and Senate not considering resolutions honoring po…
This morning, Charlie focuses on what's wrong with the Republican Party, including members' lack of courage and conviction regarding 1/6. Much needed. But let me ask another question - what the hell is wrong with the Democrats? Why is Congress not in session on 1/6? Why is the House and Senate not considering resolutions honoring police officers, condemning violence of the protesters, condemning the attempt to stop the counting of the electoral votes. It wouldn't be hard to write the resolutions in such a way that they express highly popular views about what happened on 1/6 yet many Republicans members of Congress will be pushed to vote against those resolutions by lunatic members of their base. Democrats continue to commit political malpractice.
So you are wondering why congress is not doing more performative politics instead of actually passing legislation to fix the problems? Seems odd to me, but Bill Kristol would like this tweet 10 times.
Well, obviously the Electoral Count Act should be modified. That should have been legislative priority No. 1 for the Dems. But resolutions are quick and easy and a great vehicle for making political statements. It's a piece of cake to tee them up and make the pro-insurrection Republicans look bad. And yet the Dems are taking a pass.
Because it is ineffective. Everyone either knows how bad this mess was or is actively retconning it. All the resolutions and statements in the world are beside the point.
Performance art is not performance... if you can't get the actual performance, then doing the performance art part of it is nothing more than a form of maturbation and/or virtue signaling.
I certainly don't agree it is "ineffective." Will it by itself move the needle? Absolutely not. But it's part of a message that needs to be repeated over and over again. That's how to do messaging. This is something Republicans understand, but Democrats don't. If a message doesn't work for Dems the first time, they just give u
Believe it or not, there are independent people out there and there are Republicans out there who aren't Trumpers. If you're not speaking to them, you're just leaving a messaging vacuum that the Trumpers will fill.
It is largely ineffective in our contemporary culture and media environment... especially once it gets folded, bended, stapled, and mutilated by the media. I say this from the perspective of someone who has studied/taught rhetoric and persuasion for decades.
There are not a lot of independent people out there. There might be a fair number of people who are not registered R or D and who call themselves independent--but they aren't really any more persuadable than a D or an R--they just jump back and forth between D and R on the basis of how they perceive things going for them when the time comes to cast their vote... at least, that is what the data and research says.
Persuasion is difficult and persuasion on the basis of reason or argumentation (vice emotional appeal or appeals to identity) especially so.
Voting behavior is largely non-rational and based upon identity and emotion rather than policy or actual results.
This is why D messaging usually sucks. They are too busy trying to be rational and make policy arguments. The Rs know that is a losing game.
Understood re voting behavior. But I would hate it for the Dems to become like Rs. there has to be a way to touch voters' emotions in a different way - the better angels of our nature?
Quo usque tandem abutere, Trumpe, patientia nostra? quam diu etiam furor iste tuus nos eludet? quem ad finem sese effrenata iactabit audacia? nihilne te nocturnum praesidium Capitoli, nihil urbis vigiliae, nihil timor populi, nihil concursus bonorum omnium, nihil hic munitissimus habendi senatus locus, nihil horum ora voltusque moverunt? patere tua consilia non sentis, constrictam iam horum omnium scientia teneri coniurationem tuam non vides?
This morning, Charlie focuses on what's wrong with the Republican Party, including members' lack of courage and conviction regarding 1/6. Much needed. But let me ask another question - what the hell is wrong with the Democrats? Why is Congress not in session on 1/6? Why is the House and Senate not considering resolutions honoring police officers, condemning violence of the protesters, condemning the attempt to stop the counting of the electoral votes. It wouldn't be hard to write the resolutions in such a way that they express highly popular views about what happened on 1/6 yet many Republicans members of Congress will be pushed to vote against those resolutions by lunatic members of their base. Democrats continue to commit political malpractice.
So you are wondering why congress is not doing more performative politics instead of actually passing legislation to fix the problems? Seems odd to me, but Bill Kristol would like this tweet 10 times.
Well, obviously the Electoral Count Act should be modified. That should have been legislative priority No. 1 for the Dems. But resolutions are quick and easy and a great vehicle for making political statements. It's a piece of cake to tee them up and make the pro-insurrection Republicans look bad. And yet the Dems are taking a pass.
Because it is ineffective. Everyone either knows how bad this mess was or is actively retconning it. All the resolutions and statements in the world are beside the point.
Performance art is not performance... if you can't get the actual performance, then doing the performance art part of it is nothing more than a form of maturbation and/or virtue signaling.
I certainly don't agree it is "ineffective." Will it by itself move the needle? Absolutely not. But it's part of a message that needs to be repeated over and over again. That's how to do messaging. This is something Republicans understand, but Democrats don't. If a message doesn't work for Dems the first time, they just give u
Believe it or not, there are independent people out there and there are Republicans out there who aren't Trumpers. If you're not speaking to them, you're just leaving a messaging vacuum that the Trumpers will fill.
Lifelong Dem here - agree the Dems today are very bad at messaging.
It is largely ineffective in our contemporary culture and media environment... especially once it gets folded, bended, stapled, and mutilated by the media. I say this from the perspective of someone who has studied/taught rhetoric and persuasion for decades.
There are not a lot of independent people out there. There might be a fair number of people who are not registered R or D and who call themselves independent--but they aren't really any more persuadable than a D or an R--they just jump back and forth between D and R on the basis of how they perceive things going for them when the time comes to cast their vote... at least, that is what the data and research says.
Persuasion is difficult and persuasion on the basis of reason or argumentation (vice emotional appeal or appeals to identity) especially so.
Voting behavior is largely non-rational and based upon identity and emotion rather than policy or actual results.
This is why D messaging usually sucks. They are too busy trying to be rational and make policy arguments. The Rs know that is a losing game.
Understood re voting behavior. But I would hate it for the Dems to become like Rs. there has to be a way to touch voters' emotions in a different way - the better angels of our nature?
Republicans are so good at messaging that I would have made that McConnell speech my closing argument in the Impeachment trial.
McConnell continues:
Quo usque tandem abutere, Trumpe, patientia nostra? quam diu etiam furor iste tuus nos eludet? quem ad finem sese effrenata iactabit audacia? nihilne te nocturnum praesidium Capitoli, nihil urbis vigiliae, nihil timor populi, nihil concursus bonorum omnium, nihil hic munitissimus habendi senatus locus, nihil horum ora voltusque moverunt? patere tua consilia non sentis, constrictam iam horum omnium scientia teneri coniurationem tuam non vides?
Trump is not Catilina ;) and McConnell is not Cicero