The Social Media Trap

[DaveP]

I am watching the Democrats sleep-walk right into this.

The West's national demography leans toward a conservative aging population that doesn't rely on social media for its raison d'etre.

We have seen the growing polarising effect of social media over the last decade or so spill over into politics.

Bernie has become the flag waver for all the minority protest groups and interests and social media gives the false impression that they add up to a majority.

However, middle America is more occupied with family orientated issues like jobs and education.

In response to the requirements for a successful candidate to beat Trump, they are voting for a 78 year old who's had a heart attack and a  gay man,  being on a different planet barely describes this strategy.  I have no problem with gay people, I have gay friends, but on the world stage what would his life be like?  Coastal America is not the real world, that is a harsh intolerent place and so the timing is way too premature.  America hasn't even managed to elect a woman yet.  Trump must be sleeping like a baby.

DaveP

 

[fazer]

The thing with Bernie, for me has more to do with who the VP would be.  As you mention his heart attack and age gives me pause that he would not finish office .  The social media as you say,  gives an illusion of a large group when it as you say is many minorities.  The students loan debt is quite a crisis that propels his popularity and shows, to me the hyper capitalism nature of a cascading problem of the education glut in degrees that fail to deliver the economic advantage sought.  The medical community of cost, scams and billing systems,  create a daunting challenge for people to pay for treatments.  Huge deductibles, creates another challenge compared to the time period I grew up in.    I was so happy to finally get on Medicare but the experience for me is a good one because my health is good.  For others with medical issues,  it may not be such a happy one. 

  I’m upset that the new budget promises an increase in defense spending but a reduction in Medicare and threats against SS .    How much money do you have to spend on defense?  These are problems that are not going away .  It points to challenges that won’t be addressed by the thinking of the past.    I heard the statement this morning that we need nature.  Nature doesn’t need us.  It’s a different future than the one I want to preserve.  Some kind of compromise is needed .

 

[JohnRoberts]

I am watching the Democrats sleep-walk right into this.

More like a nightmare, and the smarter ones realize it.

Primaries tend to give a larger voice to the more extreme elements in either party and the democratic base seems to have shifted even further left than it was last time around.  The handful of billionaires injecting themselves into this race have become the new millionaires to demonize, and mere millionaires like Bernie and Elizabeth Warren are apparently the new normal. 

The West's national demography leans toward a conservative aging population that doesn't rely on social media for its raison d'etre.

A bit of a generalization but there seems to be a political divide between liberal city mice, and conservative (fly over) country mice. 

We have seen the growing polarising effect of social media over the last decade or so spill over into politics.

I am not sure which is chicken and which is egg.... Politics has always been polarizing. I have long predicted that political operatives would embrace technology to improve targeted media messages. I also incorrectly predicted that smart phone cameras would make politicians more honest as stump speeches could be recorded. Instead social media has become weaponized to cancel politicians for things they said years, decades ago (or wore black face in yearbook photos?). This is almost like shooting fish in a barrel since any politician serving for any duration has hypocritically changed position like the political weather vanes they are.

Bernie has become the flag waver for all the minority protest groups and interests and social media gives the false impression that they add up to a majority.

Not exactly my sense of Bernie. He seems more authentic and less following trends than consistently pressing his vision of big government socialism. He is still unelectable IMO and his followers are unlikely to jump to another democrat especially if they perceive that he was screwed (again) by party leadership.

However, middle America is more occupied with family orientated issues like jobs and education.

An old political refrain "its the economy stupid" still holds water...  I would add healthcare to your short list, and any plans to blow up the existing insurance system does not seem likely to gain any large scale traction.

In response to the requirements for a successful candidate to beat Trump, they are voting for a 78 year old who's had a heart attack and a  gay man,  being on a different planet barely describes this strategy. 

Still early days but the favorite picked by the party leadership seems to be lagging in the early states. He still has a chance if he crushes South Carolina, but not looking very good so far.

I have no problem with gay people, I have gay friends, but on the world stage what would his life be like?  Coastal America is not the real world, that is a harsh intolerent place and so the timing is way too premature. 

Mayor Pete, is doing better than expected. Believe it or not his being gay is not his critical weakness, more like being a small city mayor with zero international relations experience.. Not ready for prime time.

America hasn't even managed to elect a woman yet. 

We continue to check off the diversity boxes (while I do not consider them important considerations). We need leaders who share our world vision and are capable of performing at that level.

Trump must be sleeping like a baby.

DaveP

I am pretty confident that President Trump is far from complacent. He understands what the odds were against him getting elected so knows that lightning could strike again.  President Trump was not much of a politician 3 years ago but he is learning the hard way from suffering near constant partisan attacks. He had remarkably turned twitter into a laser pointer to make news media chase the dancing light beam on whatever he points at. They are likely to continue as it works for them commercially despite being contrary to their open support of the opposition.

Sit back and enjoy the show it is just getting started...  8)

JR

PS: While just gossip for now, I have heard suggestions that Bloomberg is considering changing his primary residence from NY to avoid the conflict of adding Hillary a NY state resident to his ticket...  President Trump changed domicile from NY to FL primarily to reduce his tax exposure.  Of course Bloomberg could save on taxes too.

 

[JohnRoberts]

The thing with Bernie, for me has more to do with who the VP would be.  As you mention his heart attack and age gives me pause that he would not finish office .  The social media as you say,  gives an illusion of a large group when it as you say is many minorities.  The students loan debt is quite a crisis that propels his popularity and shows, to me the hyper capitalism nature of a cascading problem of the education glut in degrees that fail to deliver the economic advantage sought.  The medical community of cost, scams and billing systems,  create a daunting challenge for people to pay for treatments.  Huge deductibles, creates another challenge compared to the time period I grew up in.    I was so happy to finally get on Medicare but the experience for me is a good one because my health is good.  For others with medical issues,  it may not be such a happy one. 

  I’m upset that the new budget promises an increase in defense spending but a reduction in Medicare and threats against SS .    How much money do you have to spend on defense?  These are problems that are not going away .  It points to challenges that won’t be addressed by the thinking of the past.    I heard the statement this morning that we need nature.  Nature doesn’t need us.  It’s a different future than the one I want to preserve.  Some kind of compromise is needed .

The runaway budget growth is not due to discretionary spending, but entitlements that keep expanding and ratcheting up.  President Trump is the only politician with the cohones to touch that third rail of politics and suggest reductions (more evidence he is not a typical politician). We are living and working far longer than when these social programs were first created so it is just logical to adjust eligibility ages upward to reflect the modern reality.  Of course he will be characterized as mean, when he is trying to preserve the programs that will run out of funding, and/or saddle future generations with even more debt if allowed to grow unchecked.

Indeed both parties spend too much, but beware of simple answers for complex problems. There is a lot more work required, and politicians avoid the hard work when it might hurt their re-election chances. Yet another argument supporting term limits. 

JR

 

[DaveP]

Not exactly my sense of Bernie. He seems more authentic and less following trends than consistently pressing his vision of big government socialism.

  I think I mis-used "flag Waver", I should have said "Magnet for the disaffected".

The whole thinking of these groups is the triumph of idealism over reality.  People who are content with their situation do not vote for revolution.

@Fazer, I sympathise with your situation over healthcare.  It looks like a nation only gets one chance to choose a system in the beginning, it becomes almost impossible to jump ship as time goes by.  After WW2, the UK chose the National Health Service and the US chose job based Insurance.  This made the assumption that everyone would be employed of course.  The healthcare industry would be reluctant to co-operate with radical change IMHO.

DaveP

 

[JohnRoberts]

  I think I mis-used "flag Waver", I should have said "Magnet for the disaffected".

some might characterize the democratic party as that magnet, they euphemistically call themselves "big tent" .

The whole thinking of these groups is the triumph of idealism over reality.  People who are content with their situation do not vote for revolution.

Kids today are painfully ignorant of history (and civics, and). If anything they get taught a distorted version in schools.

@Fazer, I sympathise with your situation over healthcare.  It looks like a nation only gets one chance to choose a system in the beginning, it becomes almost impossible to jump ship as time goes by.  After WW2, the UK chose the National Health Service and the US chose job based Insurance.  This made the assumption that everyone would be employed of course.  The healthcare industry would be reluctant to co-operate with radical change IMHO.

DaveP

I have been paying close attention to this for decades and not simple, but lots of room for improvement.

There is not enough money in the world to give everybody every possible medicine or treatment, different systems have different ways of dealing with this funding shortfall. I won't repeat myself but see some evidence of improvement around the edges, while congress is not very functional these days.

I have heard campaign health care promises that even the politicians won't admit cost estimates for (some >$10T). That is a lot of money even for us.  :

JR

 

[Scodiddly]

I don't think I buy into the basic premise of old people not using social media, because facebook is an area where Trump has had a huge media presence.  And while the kids have moved on there are a lot of older folks on fb.

Also I wouldn't put much of a bet on the results from the first two states, both small and mostly white, being what eventually happens.  Even with these non-perfect candidates Democratic fundraising is doing much better than Republican.

 

[JohnRoberts]

I don't think I buy into the basic premise of old people not using social media, because facebook is an area where Trump has had a huge media presence.  And while the kids have moved on there are a lot of older folks on fb.

yup FB is for old farts to share pictures of their grandchildern....kids are using instagram, snapchat, or whatever (how would I know?).

Also I wouldn't put much of a bet on the results from the first two states, both small and mostly white, being what eventually happens. 

yup... only significant result may be the votes Warren did not get as she was expected to do much better as a neighbor from a nearby state.

Even with these non-perfect candidates Democratic fundraising is doing much better than Republican.

Don't forget the multiple democratic billionaires spending their own money... I see Bloomberg ads all over the place, only a handful of ads from Steyer, but I do not actually watch ads, so may not have recognized all his before I deleted them. 

It is still early and South Carolina will be an important test of a key democratic demographic.  Lots of time for mo stuff to drop. The oppo research on Bloomberg has started to parcel out mud.  No amount of money can unring some bells, but most politicians have skeletons in their closets that are easier to find these days. 

Enjoy the show it is just getting started.

JR

 

[DaveP]

I don't think I buy into the basic premise of old people not using social media, because facebook is an area where Trump has had a huge media presence.  And while the kids have moved on there are a lot of older folks on fb.

Yes, they have moved on to Instagram and Snapchat, but perhaps its more accurate to say that older people are not so dependent on how many followers or likes they get.  In the UK so many kids have commited suicide because of social media problems, they seems to need the support of like minded people so that it becomes a very confined world divorced from reality.  The silent majority do not give so much thought to the left and right wing issues that are all over social media.

In the UK we just had an election where you would have thought that the young and the left would have done well according to the social media.  But the real world kicked in and they were wiped out because they had no idea that the majority were most concerned with getting Brexit done.  The US seems to be going down the same route and I expect a similar result.

DaveP

 

[ruffrecords]

Anyone seen the maryl Streep film on Netflix about the USA being the biggest tax haven in the world. Apparently in 2016 the top 60 biggest US corporations paid no tax at all despite earning a total of $79 billion. Is anything being done about that? Surely it is an election issue?

Cheers

Ian

 

[JohnRoberts]

Anyone seen the maryl Streep film on Netflix about the USA being the biggest tax haven in the world. Apparently in 2016 the top 60 biggest US corporations paid no tax at all despite earning a total of $79 billion. Is anything being done about that? Surely it is an election issue?

Cheers

Ian

Meryl Streep?


The leaked Panama Papers was an actual thing (2015), anonymous file leak revealing gross tax fraud practiced by an offshore law firm.

I try not to get my history from hollyweirds version of reality.

There is a non-fiction book on the subject that is probably more credible.  (Jake Bernstein’s 2017 nonfiction book Secrecy World: Inside the Panama Papers Investigation of Illicit Money Networks and the Global Elite.)

This wasn't a campaign issue in 2016 when it was fresh, there is no shortage of outrage these days.

JR

 

[Gold]

Trump is less popular than Jimmy Carter was coming up to reelection. He has a hard slog.

I don’t think Bloomberg would be much better than Trump. He’s awful. Maybe worse than Trump because he’s smart and competent and can figure out how to actually get something done. “Mike Will Get it Done” scares me.

 

[living sounds]

People mostly agree with Bernie Sanders' policy positions. And he is very good at communicating them. Democrats may be too scared to nominate him, but he's would have a good chance of a big win if he were the nominee. This is not the 1972 election.

 

[living sounds]

Coastal America is not the real world, that is a harsh intolerent place and so the timing is way too premature. 

What an absurd comment. Coastal America is a big part of the real world. It is just underrepresented electorally. Don't forget Hillary Clinton, who was absurdly villified by the right and stabbed in the back by Comey a few days before the election still received 3.5 million more votes than Trump.

The more pressing question to me is if the increasingly authoritarian Trump government can be kept from putting its thumbs even more on the scale. And what happens if Trump loses and refuses to leave...

 

[DaveP]

And what happens if Trump loses and refuses to leave...

What an absurd comment.

DaveP

 

[JohnRoberts]

What an absurd comment. Coastal America is a big part of the real world. It is just underrepresented electorally. Don't forget Hillary Clinton, who was absurdly villified by the right and stabbed in the back by Comey a few days before the election still received 3.5 million more votes than Trump.

The more pressing question to me is if the increasingly authoritarian Trump government can be kept from putting its thumbs even more on the scale. And what happens if Trump loses and refuses to leave...

Hard to tell which characterizations are more absurd but thanks for thinking about us.  8)

The city mice tend to lean left while country mice lean right. Many large cities are suffering due to decades of being managed by city mice.

I think we'll keep the electoral college to preserve states rights, and prevent tyranny of the masses...  We are a republic focussed on preserving individual liberty, not a simple democracy that can easily oppress unpopular minorities.

The older I get the smarter our founders seem.

JR

 

[living sounds]

Well, we've seen this before in different countries and at many times in history. People have been hurting for a long time economically and society went through some big transformations. Wars and terrorist attacks have flipped switches in many peoples thinking. Media is underregulated and propaganda is proliferating like it hasn't in the West for almost a century. In comes the demagogue and his cronys. The Republican Party has long shown signs of moral decline, but people like Trump, Barr, McConnell who lack any moral compass are really a new low. They don't care for the rule of law, for fairness or decency. Only power.

You still have a chance to try and see what is going on there for what it really is. Before it is too late.

 

[JohnRoberts]

Well, we've seen this before in different countries and at many times in history. People have been hurting for a long time economically and society went through some big transformations. Wars and terrorist attacks have flipped switches in many peoples thinking. Media is underregulated and propaganda is proliferating like it hasn't in the West for almost a century. In comes the demagogue and his cronys. The Republican Party has long shown signs of moral decline, but people like Trump, Barr, McConnell who lack any moral compass are really a new low. They don't care for the rule of law, for fairness or decency. Only power.

You still have a chance to try and see what is going on there for what it really is. Before it is too late.

I am afraid your partisan slurs and hyperbolic warning is not persuasive (to convince me at least, you sound convinced.).

Maybe watch the elections in Iran coming in a matter of days (feb 21) for an example of elections under harsh authoritarian rule. Iran tends to hold elections that even Jimmy Carter doesn't like.  I expect more of the same this time. The Iranian public are not happy about the weak economy depressed by sanctions. The Iranian government will try to blame the west to deflect the blame from their own aggressive support of terrorism**** in the region, nuclear weapons program, etc that caused the sanctions to be imposed. 

In fact you might even like the bad things Iran's supreme leader is saying about President Trump this week. 

JR 

****terrorists don't usually consider themselves terrorists, and the label is used as a catch-all to describe many different factions.

 

[living sounds]

I have no illusions of penetrating the bubble.

 

[JohnRoberts]

To get back almost on topic, it looks like ex-mayor Mike Bloomberg has purchased a ticket to the show... 

There have always been uber-wealthy around with political aspirations, but the social media machinery did not exist to allow them to manipulate public sentiment on this scale and timeliness just by spreading around their personal wealth... Besides all the TV ads I see, he is making Facebook more profitable (reportedly spending $1M a day there).  :

This is IMO historic as the first time since I have been paying attention that somebody got this far purely on high dollar spend  advertising.  He has been able to stand behind the artifice for now, but since he bought his way into the debate, he will have to actually answer questions and respond to other candidates face to face.  He can't win them over by buying each a pony.

The opposition research has ratcheted up dropping multiple embarrassing previous statements from the wayback machine, with  the occasional example of changing  modern social mores.  He does not need my help but there was at least one example that was horribly out of context, effectively turning a charitable effort into a grossly prejudicial smear.  But he is a big (rich) boy so will survive without my help, whether he survives the debate stage is anybody's guess and I will resist predicting the future (again).

Should be more interesting to watch than past debates if only to see how his fellow candidates attack him. I probably won't watch, but will look for the highlights after.  8)


JR