I like your approach, especially that you’re calling out the weird victim-blamey thing that’s seems to be happening, which I suspect is really just because people like to imagine we live in a just world, which we can hang onto if we can figure out “what the democrats did wrong.” Anyway, one question I have is about fundraising. You mention money in this post, but my understanding was that the democrats way out-performed Republicans in fundraising, so is raising more money really the answer? What kind of money?
This is a very good point. My response is speculative, and it also leads me to do something I didn't want to do, which is criticize the Democratic Party. There will be time for that. In this post I felt like I wanted to write about my values: if Trump had won 90% of the vote, he'd still be wrong. Anyway - the forces aligned with Trump did a better job reaching non-traditional voters and non-Republican voters. That is blindingly clear. The tech and manosphere worlds came out big for Trump in the last two weeks, and in my view this turned the election despite the unforced errors that his campaign made in the last week (such as the Long Island rally). So...more money wasn't going to help; they need to utilize social media more effectively, as well as building different kinds of alliances. I realize this is a bit vague - I'm an academic, not a political operative. For whatever reason, things did not work and we definitely have to figure it out.
I’m an academic too! It feels a bit like a catch 22. If racism and misogyny are even part of the problem (seems likely in the tech and manosphere worlds) then I don’t really want Democrats trying to change themselves to align with those values, which is not what you’re saying, but it just makes me wonder if winning is even possible at the moment if adapting ourselves to racist and misogynistic expectations is a requirement for even having a fighting chance. At what point do we lose ourselves in trying to win? These aren’t exactly questions for you. They’re just my questions.
Thank you for your straightforward approach here. I have been lamenting this knee-jerk "whose fault is it" rhetoric that has dominated since Wednesday morning. My $.02: yes, we have to tackle Nazism, and part of doing that is recognizing why so many "decent" people will step back and let Nazis take over. I listened yesterday to a podcast about fear; it was recorded several years ago. In it, one of the primary topics was how we, in Eurocentric cultures, often default to expressing fear as anger, because 1) fear does, very often, naturally turn into anger because that is evolutionarily advantageous; react to a threat by becoming aggressively threatening yourself. 2) fear is seen as weakness in our culture. We have been socialized (depending on positionality) to express fear as either helplessness/submissiveness or aggressive hostility. I believe that therefore, if we are not self-aware enough to acknowledge and name our fear, we are very likely to unconsciously turn it into a focused anger that leads us to believe the way to relieve the stress is to identify who is to blame. If we continue like this, everybody who is stuck in "whose fault is it mode" will, if given the chance, turn that focus on easily identifiable marginalized demographics because they are the easiest targets. And we arrive where we are now.
I fully agree with all of this. I'd add, besides fear, trauma is a huge issue; since 9/11 we've lurched from nightmare to nightmare, while experiencing huge technological transitions. The turn of the 19th century was, oddly, a similar time, with huge political and eocnomic changes, which smacked right up against World War I. But absolutely. Democrats constantly blame themselves; progressives blame Democrats; the media is happy to jump onboard...this is doing the Republican's job for them. I absolutely do not agree with the Trumpian/authoritarian/narcissist "never apologize, never say you are wrong." But...it's clear how effective "never being wrong" can be at building certainty and consensus. Constant name-calling and blaming just doesn't do that. I had issues with some of the DNC's choices, but I shut the fuck up - why do the Nazis work for them?
I like your approach, especially that you’re calling out the weird victim-blamey thing that’s seems to be happening, which I suspect is really just because people like to imagine we live in a just world, which we can hang onto if we can figure out “what the democrats did wrong.” Anyway, one question I have is about fundraising. You mention money in this post, but my understanding was that the democrats way out-performed Republicans in fundraising, so is raising more money really the answer? What kind of money?
This is a very good point. My response is speculative, and it also leads me to do something I didn't want to do, which is criticize the Democratic Party. There will be time for that. In this post I felt like I wanted to write about my values: if Trump had won 90% of the vote, he'd still be wrong. Anyway - the forces aligned with Trump did a better job reaching non-traditional voters and non-Republican voters. That is blindingly clear. The tech and manosphere worlds came out big for Trump in the last two weeks, and in my view this turned the election despite the unforced errors that his campaign made in the last week (such as the Long Island rally). So...more money wasn't going to help; they need to utilize social media more effectively, as well as building different kinds of alliances. I realize this is a bit vague - I'm an academic, not a political operative. For whatever reason, things did not work and we definitely have to figure it out.
I’m an academic too! It feels a bit like a catch 22. If racism and misogyny are even part of the problem (seems likely in the tech and manosphere worlds) then I don’t really want Democrats trying to change themselves to align with those values, which is not what you’re saying, but it just makes me wonder if winning is even possible at the moment if adapting ourselves to racist and misogynistic expectations is a requirement for even having a fighting chance. At what point do we lose ourselves in trying to win? These aren’t exactly questions for you. They’re just my questions.
Thank you for your straightforward approach here. I have been lamenting this knee-jerk "whose fault is it" rhetoric that has dominated since Wednesday morning. My $.02: yes, we have to tackle Nazism, and part of doing that is recognizing why so many "decent" people will step back and let Nazis take over. I listened yesterday to a podcast about fear; it was recorded several years ago. In it, one of the primary topics was how we, in Eurocentric cultures, often default to expressing fear as anger, because 1) fear does, very often, naturally turn into anger because that is evolutionarily advantageous; react to a threat by becoming aggressively threatening yourself. 2) fear is seen as weakness in our culture. We have been socialized (depending on positionality) to express fear as either helplessness/submissiveness or aggressive hostility. I believe that therefore, if we are not self-aware enough to acknowledge and name our fear, we are very likely to unconsciously turn it into a focused anger that leads us to believe the way to relieve the stress is to identify who is to blame. If we continue like this, everybody who is stuck in "whose fault is it mode" will, if given the chance, turn that focus on easily identifiable marginalized demographics because they are the easiest targets. And we arrive where we are now.
I fully agree with all of this. I'd add, besides fear, trauma is a huge issue; since 9/11 we've lurched from nightmare to nightmare, while experiencing huge technological transitions. The turn of the 19th century was, oddly, a similar time, with huge political and eocnomic changes, which smacked right up against World War I. But absolutely. Democrats constantly blame themselves; progressives blame Democrats; the media is happy to jump onboard...this is doing the Republican's job for them. I absolutely do not agree with the Trumpian/authoritarian/narcissist "never apologize, never say you are wrong." But...it's clear how effective "never being wrong" can be at building certainty and consensus. Constant name-calling and blaming just doesn't do that. I had issues with some of the DNC's choices, but I shut the fuck up - why do the Nazis work for them?