Where do we go from here?

[superrific]

Thank you for this. I am familiar with Dissent. I can't help but be reminded of the old Woody Allen joke about Dissent and Commentary merging into a new journal called Dysentery.

I am not a sociologist either, and certainly not an ethnographer. I am familiar with ethnography to a degree. Specifically I am more familiar with (though far, far from an expert) autoethnography, especially as it relates to narrative.

For me, and some of it can be because I am less familiar with the genre, when one says something like "studies show..." well I want to see the data from those studies. I get that as an ethnographer it may not be hard, numerical data, but then the author should make that more clear. The way that is worded, to me, makes it seem the author has numbers, percentages, etc. to back it up. The author is talking about demographics there and there is data regarding demographics.

Anecdotal is not the right word. Poor choice on my part. Again, thanks for the discussion. As usual, I focus on the writing, the style, the structure, the organization and in this regard I thought it was rather, hmmm, unmoored I'll call it.

1. I've never heard that joke. It's pretty funny. Also nerdy to an incredible degree. Woody Allen would have been a nobody if he had come around a decade later, lol.

2. Am I missing something here. How can a poster who calls himself Leo Bloom be so concerned with narrative?

3. I think the "studies show" issue you're pointing out is more a reflection of new media than anything. I've observed that articles in publications like slate, vox, 538 -- they are all getting shorter. Considerably. I don't know what's causing it. I'm guessing that they are paying less per piece, but I'm not sure that's the whole explanation. A guy like Ian Millheiser at Vox doesn't really write his column for the money, and even if he does, I doubt very much it took him more than half an hour (if that) to write the paragraph or two that seems now to be missing relative to his other work.

I'm guessing that the publications are themselves imposing a policy of reduced word counts. Serving a 3 paragraph article to a browser costs the same as a 30 paragraph one, so I'm thinking that they are insisting on lower word counts one of these reasons: a) they want a policy of uniformity in length, so that one person's longer articles don't make shorter articles look insubstantial by comparison; and/or b) they want to slim down their editorial staff and that requires a lower word count.

In any case, I'm not sure I would hold the lack of detail against the article, or even the journal.

 

[gregh1]

Seems like politics these days is a lot like sports fandom. I know many people are fans of a team due to some personal connection (you went to that school or you're from the city where the team is based or you moved there, whatever). Unfortunately there are only two teams in this sport and the other side is the most hated rival. This isn't everybody, to be sure, but I think it's a lot more than anybody wants to admit. It's not about policy or messaging or any of that, it's just you live around lots of people that are fans of one of the teams and so you're a fan of that team. I think this applies to Maga more than dems or traditional repubs. They probably won't even care if Trump's policies cause their team to lose, they'll still be a fan of their team, just like sports fans don't stop being fans of their teams every time they lose, the reactions of some fans on message boards every time their team loses notwithstanding...

Tribalism. And in addition to family, it can be the people you work with and definitely is the people you go to church with. Throw in some confirmation bias and you have scenarios like people easily believing that coach k is actually Satan incarnate, rather than a guy who looks like a rat but actually is great at putting together a team that plays D and puts the ball in the basket without too many fouls being called.

I think this accounts for big chunks. Some of these people can swap sides if they don't fall for the misinfo though.

 

[superrific]

What Moves Swing Voters (Published 2021)

A creative new poll tries to understand.

www.nytimes.com

Interesting article from 2021 in NYT.

That is very interesting. Will have to look at it more closely another day.

 

[LeoBloom]

1. I've never heard that joke. It's pretty funny. Also nerdy to an incredible degree. Woody Allen would have been a nobody if he had come around a decade later, lol.

2. Am I missing something here. How can a poster who calls himself Leo Bloom be so concerned with narrative?

3. I think the "studies show" issue you're pointing out is more a reflection of new media than anything. I've observed that articles in publications like slate, vox, 538 -- they are all getting shorter. Considerably. I don't know what's causing it. I'm guessing that they are paying less per piece, but I'm not sure that's the whole explanation. A guy like Ian Millheiser at Vox doesn't really write his column for the money, and even if he does, I doubt very much it took him more than half an hour (if that) to write the paragraph or two that seems now to be missing relative to his other work.

I'm guessing that the publications are themselves imposing a policy of reduced word counts. Serving a 3 paragraph article to a browser costs the same as a 30 paragraph one, so I'm thinking that they are insisting on lower word counts one of these reasons: a) they want a policy of uniformity in length, so that one person's longer articles don't make shorter articles look insubstantial by comparison; and/or b) they want to slim down their editorial staff and that requires a lower word count.

In any case, I'm not sure I would hold the lack of detail against the article, or even the journal.

It is hard for me to absorb the weight that I have had this user name for close to 24 years. Ah my pretentious youth shown through when choosing a name.

I do believe now I was looking at the article through a peer review lens which is not fair. Your notes on “studies” and article length are apt and fit modern parameters more than my initial judgements.

 

[superrific]

It is hard for me to absorb the weight that I have had this user name for close to 24 years. Ah my pretentious youth shown through when choosing a name.

I do believe now I was looking at the article through a peer review lens which is not fair. Your notes on “studies” and article length are apt and fit modern parameters more than my initial judgements.

I was just kidding around. Hope you didn't take offense. If it helps, I knew a guy straight out of college who was working on his first novel. He was styling it as a sequel to Ulysses or something like that. I politely suggested he should work on a simpler idea for his first novel. THAT's pretentious.

 

[LeoBloom]

I was just kidding around. Hope you didn't take offense. If it helps, I knew a guy straight out of college who was working on his first novel. He was styling it as a sequel to Ulysses or something like that. I politely suggested he should work on a simpler idea for his first novel. THAT's pretentious.

No offense at all. I took it as a joke. It still is one of my favorite novels.

But a sequel? Yowza.

 

[wmheel1287]

Why the IRA Didn’t Help Democrats

“Energy workers,” a union leader told us, “are politically homeless.” Here’s why the IRA legislation didn’t do much to change things.

jacobin.com

Good piece on a topic we’ve discussed a bit on this thread.

That piece posits that legislation and policy can reach working class voters. I do not believe that is the case.

 

[Zoo_View]

All due respect, if this is your perspective, why do you care enough about politics to post on a political message board? Do you understand what politics is?

You’re insulting one of the best poasters on Inside Carolina and this site AND one of the most supportive Tar Heels going.

 

[wmheel1287]

All due respect, if this is your perspective, why do you care enough about politics to post on a political message board? Do you understand what politics is?

I do understand what politics is now versus what it has been. Politics now is nothing more than a contest to entertain the masses. It is a reflection of our society's antipathy toward anything requiring commitment and effort. We have become the Roman Empire putting on spectacles to entertain the masses just enough to keep Caesar on the throne.

What you see in me now is the disillusionment of someone who has spent their entire adult life watching us devolve from a functioning democracy into an idiocracy.

Politics used to be policy. Now it is unserious grandstanding and one-liners.

And it's wonderful that you think policy can reach everyday voters. I just don't any longer. Did the ACA reach them? It has done more for the common man than any legislation since the New Deal and it's still detested by a majority of Americans simply because of who championed it.

 

[wmheel1287]

You’re insulting one of the best poasters on Inside Carolina and this site AND one of the most supportive Tar Heels going.

Oh, he's fine. We need young people to have some positivity. He has the rest of his life to become cynical.

 

[Carolina Fever]

I do understand what politics is now versus what it has been. Politics now is nothing more than a contest to entertain the masses. It is a reflection of our society's antipathy toward anything requiring commitment and effort. We have become the Roman Empire putting on spectacles to entertain the masses just enough to keep Caesar on the throne.

What you see in me now is the disillusionment of someone who has spent their entire adult life watching us devolve from a functioning democracy into an idiocracy.

Politics used to be policy. Now it is unserious grandstanding and one-liners.

And it's wonderful that you think policy can reach everyday voters. I just don't any longer. Did the ACA reach them? It has done more for the common man than any legislation since the New Deal and it's still detested by a majority of Americans simply because of who championed it.

Policy doesn't matter to MAGA. They will vote against their self interests for someone like Trump if they think it will get them the fascist country they desire for straight white Christians. And some people just worship him like they enjoy stupid and trashy reality TV shows. He is the perfect person for them.

 

[lawtig02]

I do understand what politics is now versus what it has been. Politics now is nothing more than a contest to entertain the masses. It is a reflection of our society's antipathy toward anything requiring commitment and effort. We have become the Roman Empire putting on spectacles to entertain the masses just enough to keep Caesar on the throne.

What you see in me now is the disillusionment of someone who has spent their entire adult life watching us devolve from a functioning democracy into an idiocracy.

Politics used to be policy. Now it is unserious grandstanding and one-liners.

And it's wonderful that you think policy can reach everyday voters. I just don't any longer. Did the ACA reach them? It has done more for the common man than any legislation since the New Deal and it's still detested by a majority of Americans simply because of who championed it.

 

[Mulberry Heel]

Policy doesn't matter to MAGA. They will vote against their self interests for someone like Trump if they think it will get them the fascist country they desire for straight white Christians. And some people just worship him like they enjoy stupid and trashy reality TV shows. He is the perfect person for them.

This is similar to my thinking as well. I've just come to the conclusion that we've become a society that aims for the lowest common denominator in everything - trashy reality shows are all the rage on more and more TV networks, our so-called "news" networks (including CNN & MSNBC) don't cover actual news or provide straight news anymore, it's all blowhard opinion shows and superficial news on celebrities and other crap 24/7, and so on. And Trump is the perfect president for our society right now - all bread and circuses with no substance, no depth, and no nothing, really. Just be entertaining and outrageous and threaten and bully the right people and you're golden. In my opinion this is eventually and inevitably going to blow up when we face a major crisis or economic downturn of some sort (it did during the pandemic to some extent), but I think that something worse than the pandemic is eventually going to happen, and the sheer incompetence and idiocy of Trump and his government (and our current society generally) will bite us all in the ass. But until then it's bread and circuses all the way.

 

[Carolina Fever]

If we could get rid about half of the voting population.

 

[CFordUNC]

Absolutely loved that show

 

[Zoo_View]

That’s considered an insult to you?

All I’m saying is, if I was half as cynical as a lot of you, I wouldn’t even post about politics, follow politics, or talk to anyone about politics. If you think nothing makes a difference, just stop talking about it.

Especially on a thread titled “where do we go from here?” This is about the path forward. Not sitting around and moping about the current state of things. If you think nothing matters, fine. Don’t bring it here when I’m trying to discuss specifics of a piece. It’s not helpful.

Any statement that begins, “All due respect….” is going to be an insult.

It’s similar to the phrase(s), “Let me be honest…../Honestly……/I’m going to be frank…..”…….one hears the speaker say such words and one knows the speaker is lying.

You closed with, “Do you understand what politics is?”

You don’t see that statement as an insult?

OK.

 

[wmheel1287]

That’s considered an insult to you?

All I’m saying is, if I was half as cynical as a lot of you, I wouldn’t even post about politics, follow politics, or talk to anyone about politics. If you think nothing makes a difference, just stop talking about it.

Especially on a thread titled “where do we go from here?” This is about the path forward. Not sitting around and moping about the current state of things. If you think nothing matters, fine. Don’t bring it here when I’m trying to discuss specifics of a piece. It’s not helpful.

Now it's my turn to respond to you. I never said nothing matters. You took that from.it because you don't like my point of view. I said that show, spectacle, and bombast matter. I said that policy doesn't move most voters and it specifically does not move the working class.

You want a path forward? Then you'd better be willing to acknowledge that all the reading, research, and scholarly thought in the world isn't going to change the fact that Americans crave a cult of personality currently.

The ONLY path forward that I see to winning for Democrats is to build a cult of personality in the same way that Republicans have built around Trump. Policy...even enormously popular and successful policy will not dent that.

We are in a post-truth society. What matters totally is perception and showmanship.

Take it from someone who turns classes into performance and "entertains" for a living. They don't want anything more or less than leaving feeling better than they came in, substance be damned.

Trump is circus entertainment and that is preferable to most of the country.

 

[Carolina Fever]

Now it's my turn to respond to you. I never said nothing matters. You took that from.it because you don't like my point of view. I said that show, spectacle, and bombast matter. I said that policy doesn't move most voters and it specifically does not move the working class.

You want a path forward? Then you'd better be willing to acknowledge that all the reading, research, and scholarly thought in the world isn't going to change the fact that Americans crave a cult of personality currently.

The ONLY path forward that I see to winning for Democrats is to build a cult of personality in the same way that Republicans have built around Trump. Policy...even enormously popular and successful policy will not dent that.

We are in a post-truth society. What matters totally is perception and showmanship.

Take it from someone who turns classes into performance and "entertains" for a living. They don't want anything more or less than leaving feeling better than they came in, substance be damned.

Trump is circus entertainment and that is preferable to most of the country.

I really believe reality TV and social media has a lot to do with why things are like that, too. Just dumbed down the population even more

 

[Carolina Fever]

more substance here than what you said originally, still an incredibly cynical take and one that I, needless to say, don’t think is accurate at all.

It is for roughly half of the population.

 

[eternalheel]

I'm sure we're in reruns, but....

"Politics is the entertainment division of the military industrial complex."