USCE Winter 2023: change thread titles constantly, almost on a daily basis

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > USCE Winter 2023: change thread titles constantly, almost on a daily basis

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Dapper_Swindler: Feb 14, 2012; Im glad my instant dislike in you has been validated again and again.

Somaen posted:

Is he the competent fascist that will come after Trump that people were warning about? Seems like that was a fairly accurate prediction

In my opinion no, i think to a degree, desantis is much like Scott walker, really scary in state level that he has all the levers of power to do hosed up poo poo, but because he is a loving charisma void who sounds like a muppet and only actively campaigns to social conservatives and doing obvious cruel poo poo with no charisma. he scares away the moderates/normies/suburban libs. What conservatives types we should worry about is the hypothetical reborn Rockefeller republican.

Dapper_Swindler fucked around with this message at 12:48 on Jan 23, 2023

# ? Jan 23, 2023 12:46

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# ? Jun 8, 2024 21:03

Lib and let die: Aug 26, 2004

Discendo Vox posted:

There are few phrases I less wish to read than "Joe Biden is licking his chops."

I guess it's slightly better than reading "he pinned me against the wall and stuck a finger inside me"

# ? Jan 23, 2023 15:00

Failed Imagineer: Sep 22, 2018

Lib and let die posted:

I guess it's slightly better than reading "he pinned me against the wall and stuck a finger inside me"

Pretty sure he was licking his chops then too

# ? Jan 23, 2023 15:07

Lib and let die: Aug 26, 2004

Failed Imagineer posted:

Pretty sure he was licking his chops then too

C'mon, Jack, *lip smacking sounds* I heard you liked me!

# ? Jan 23, 2023 15:44

Mooseontheloose: May 13, 2003

-Blackadder- posted:

Cherry on top: The Dem's Florida operation is a complete poo poo show.
https://twitter.com/MariannaReports/status/1617225149476147205

I was an organizer for a Congressional race during the tea party wave and the fact that it's gotten worse is telling. My information is over a decade out of date but it looks like the same problems. The top level Florida dems don't want to venture anywhere and have their friends who will donate but want to make sure its just their people taken care of. none of the local party apparatuses work together and they don't want to do the nitty gritty organizing work to actually have a viable party.

# ? Jan 23, 2023 15:53

Paracaidas: Sep 24, 2016; Consistently Tedious!

Good series to keep an eye on from the Prospect is starting to roll out today (and will be in print soon, if that's your thing)
https://twitter.com/ddayen/status/1617527953667260418

One area I've been pleasantly surprised with the Biden admin has been with executive power and implementation, with the caveat that both have fallen well short --- just better than my rock bottom expectations.

quote:

In 2019, Ithaca, New York, a lush college town bounded by giant gorges, set a goal of going carbon-neutral by 2030. That might sound like a vague, feel-good pledge for a city in the liberal Northeast. But Ithaca�s timeline is unusually aggressive. Weatherizing and electrifying Ithaca�s old building stock, 40 percent of which was built before 1940, will mean tearing out boilers and gas stoves, installing heat pumps, and fixing drafty walls and leaky windows in some 6,000 buildings.

Ithaca�s Green New Deal is aimed not only at cutting emissions but at reducing economic inequality. More than a third of its residents live below the poverty line. The city chose Luis Aguirre-Torres, an energy expert who had previously managed international green-finance initiatives, to lead the operation. �We are the first in the world to attempt something so crazy,� Aguirre-Torres told NPR, adding, �it can be replicated all over the United States.�

Over the next year, Aguirre-Torres attracted more than $100 million in private capital to fund the overhaul. The venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and the investment bank Goldman Sachs are now among the investors with a stake in the heating and cooling systems that will be installed in Ithaca�s residential housing, much of it low-income. A green private equity firm is financing the transition of Ithaca�s commercial buildings.

Those commitments were secured in the heady summer of 2021, when interest rates were low and investors were rhapsodizing about environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG), a catchall term for investments that promise to bring about positive social change. ESG was in high demand: During the first half of 2021, it was mentioned in almost a fifth of corporate earnings calls.

Please note that I'm not hyping the venture backed green transition model (nor, does it appear, is the author), but it's an interesting peg for the IRA.

quote:

Then, the post-pandemic economy turned grittier. Supply chain shocks made it hard to source appliances, and central bankers raised interest rates, slashing demand and tilting the economy toward recession. Capital suddenly had less appetite for longer-term investment. With energy prices also soaring, decarbonization schemes were put on pause, and ESG offerings began to include �energy security,� a designation that could mean investment in fossil fuels, seemingly in conflict with environmental aims.

That was bad news for Ithaca�s Green New Deal. By mid-2022, Aguirre-Torres told the Prospect in an interview, Ithaca�s decarbonization funding scheme was hanging by a thread: �It was no longer profitable.�

But last summer, the Biden administration passed an unprecedented set of subsidies for clean energy. �Suddenly, the Inflation Reduction Act made it work again,� Aguirre-Torres said. �It�s profitable for pretty much everybody. The bill is not passed on to the residents. Private equity makes money. The government manages to do what they want to do.�

The mechanisms here are interesting and it's a beat Dayen has been on since the bill was signed:

quote:

The IRA was indeed historic, pumping $369 billion into climate investments. But the revenues on clean-energy installation in a midsize city like Ithaca are still, on their face, hardly worth the cost of setting up the deal. To understand investors� involvement, it�s necessary to consider broader shifts in the energy system that are just beginning to come into view

The financial industry is eyeing the emergence of clean energy-as-a-service, where profit margins are slim for now but agreements could last in perpetuity. Ithaca is an early case study of how, due to the design of the IRA, the ambitions of the green-energy transition rest on deals between building owners, small cities, and Wall Street, the terms of which are only beginning to be negotiated.

THE ENERGY TRANSITION HAS BIG UP-FRONT COSTS, but the potential for massive long-term savings. In residential buildings, electrifying space and water heating can reduce utility bills, especially compared with fuel oil, propane, and electric resistance heat. The electrification advocacy group Rewiring America has averaged out potential savings and says the typical home could cut $516 per year by electrifying.

Ari Matusiak, Rewiring America�s CEO, has been a public booster for the IRA. �The nice thing about the Inflation Reduction Act is it effectively creates an electric bank account for every household in America,� he recently told the news site Vox.

But some groups focused on the climate transition have cautioned against leading with the claim that energy efficiency always saves money. In many places, air-source heat pumps are not yet cost-competitive with gas, though that could change with widespread deployment. Even where they are already competitive, savings would come on future utility bills. The question remains: Who pays up front for the equipment and manpower to retool the United States� 130 million buildings?

Despite its size, the IRA did not solve this problem. Rather than providing up-front cash, it runs through the tax code, so households may have to wait to receive benefits. And while heat pump rebates are generous, they only cover part of the cost of the equipment and installation, which can range well past $20,000 before incentives.

The article goes on to note the historical parallels, have some truly depraved corporate tech buzzword and blockchainery, a revolving door moment that's beyond predictable, and a pretty dour end:

quote:

Ithaca�s deal shows some of the compromises in the IRA�s public-private model. On one hand, low-income renters and homeowners need champions like Baird and Aguirre-Torres, energetic entrepreneurs attracting the investment needed to finance the transition at affordable rates, to chase down all available tax credits, and to find local contractors amid a shortage in construction labor.

But when the New Deal�s Public Works Administration set out to fund widespread electrification of rural America, it was up to local legislators to submit project proposals to the agency. That helped enterprising politicians build patronage networks and reinforce the constituency for public power. Today, instead of a public agency coordinating between direct federal subsidies, contractors, and public stakeholders, the initiative is being led by a community organizer turned Wall Street entrepreneur. A private foundation is providing first-loss capital, while investors look to package the product as an ESG security.

Baird is persuasive partly because his sense of urgency�and the creativity of the contracts he has designed�contrasts with the glacial pace and risk aversion of state agencies like NYSERDA. But given the information asymmetries between private investors in complex and untested deals, cities may be at a disadvantage when signing up with clean-energy investors like Alturus and BlocPower.

Evans, for her part, is putting her trust in Ithaca�s new financiers. �It is in BlocPower�s best interests to keep costs low,� she told the Prospect. Plus, she added, �Alturus is mission-driven, in the same sense as the Green New Deal.�

More of the series will be available at
https://twitter.com/ddayen/status/1617530103763959810

# ? Jan 23, 2023 16:00

haveblue: Aug 15, 2005; Toilet Rascal

Paracaidas posted:

Good series to keep an eye on from the Prospect is starting to roll out today (and will be in print soon, if that's your thing)

"Scouting a solution, he hit it off with Donnel Baird, another charismatic green-energy leader who has generated a flurry of news coverage for his startup BlocPower. Baird tweets under the name �Turn Buildings Into Teslas.�"

:chloe:

# ? Jan 23, 2023 16:22

Automata 10 Pack: Jun 21, 2007; Ten games published by Automata, on one cassette

Dapper_Swindler posted:

In my opinion no, i think to a degree, desantis is much like Scott walker, really scary in state level that he has all the levers of power to do hosed up poo poo, but because he is a loving charisma void who sounds like a muppet and only actively campaigns to social conservatives and doing obvious cruel poo poo with no charisma. he scares away the moderates/normies/suburban libs. What conservatives types we should worry about is the hypothetical reborn Rockefeller republican.

When I�m more optimistic, I think that even if DeSantis gets past Trump and the primaries the �Don�t Say Gay Bill� will sink him. Republicans tried to target one of the more vulnerable LGBTQ demographics in the midterms and it repelled everybody but the nazis, and DeSantis broadly targeted queer folk with a bill that coerces everybody back in the closet. And 80% of Americans support laws that protect queer folk: https://thehill.com/changing-america/respect/equality/599240-support-for-lgbtq-rights-on-the-rise-poll/ And now you have a generation of young adults who grew up with lgbtq friends, classmates, and teachers who can more clearly see through the lies and understand the harm the conservatives want to inflict.

However we are living in a world where more and more conservative lunatics are brute forcing themselves into gaining control of the flow of information. They will, without a doubt, try to gaslight us into thinking he�s a Reaganesque moderate and if the Economy is still in shambles by 2024 then there may be enough desperate people willing to believe that message.

Automata 10 Pack fucked around with this message at 16:36 on Jan 23, 2023

# ? Jan 23, 2023 16:27

Paracaidas: Sep 24, 2016; Consistently Tedious!

haveblue posted:

"Scouting a solution, he hit it off with Donnel Baird, another charismatic green-energy leader who has generated a flurry of news coverage for his startup ~~BlocPower~~ Triangle Shirtwaist Energy Solutions. Baird tweets under the name �Turn Buildings Into Teslas.�"

(I felt that was covered under

Paracaidas posted:

some truly depraved corporate tech buzzword and blockchainery

)

# ? Jan 23, 2023 16:28

Main Paineframe: Oct 27, 2010

Solkanar512 posted:

Why was Dean ignored by the Obama administration, anyway? That never made any sense to me, especially after his success actually making races competitive.

It was like he was just exiled or something.

A 50-state strategy is by definition a long-term plan, as it can take many years to build up a state party from basically nothing. It's not something where you're gonna see results in a single term.

Obama, on the other hand, was all about short-term thinking. Building up the Dem Party a decade in the future was of no direct use to a guy who would be term-limited out after eight years, and it turned out he wasn't much of a party loyalist in the end.

On top of that, Obama had a tendency to neglect national party figures and organizations, instead preferring his own inner circle and his own organizations. Obama surrounded himself with data-driven types who sought to make "efficient" use of money by identifying seats that were likely flippable and spending almost exclusively on those races, regarding any spending in areas that weren't immediately vulnerable as a waste. There were a lot of people in party machines who were skeptical of money spent in red states that weren't likely to deliver an immediate win, and Obama surrounded himself with those types.

Also, and most importantly, many influential members of Obama's inner circle had a personal or political dislike for Howard Dean. In particular, Rahm Emanuel (along with his close friend and political advisor, David Axelrod) spent the mid-00s feuding with Dean over Democratic strategy. As one of the biggest skeptics of the 50-state strategy, he fought bitterly with Dean over the allocation of party resources in 2006, and then fought even more over the credit for the 2006 wins. By all accounts, there was an huge amount of bad blood between them after that (mostly due to Rahm's notoriously venomous personality). When Rahm and Axelrod were brought into the Obama camp, they made sure that Dean was completely ostracized from the White House. And they were hardly the only ones, either; for example, Robert Gibbs left the Kerry campaign in 2004 to join a plausibly-deniable dark-money group dedicated exclusively to running attack ads against Dean.

Here's a snippet from a Rahm puff piece in 2006 that neatly summarizes both establishment opposition to the 50-state strategy, the general working relationship between Rahm and Dean, and what Rahm thought of people who didn't do what he wanted:

quote:

On a late-spring day in 2006, Emanuel and Charles Schumer, the New Yorker in charge of winning the Senate for the Democrats, walked into the office of party Chairman Howard Dean.

Emanuel, once again, was ready for a fight.

For months, he and Schumer had been imploring the iconoclastic former presidential candidate to channel more money into congressional campaigns. Dean had been pushing a "50-state strategy" to build a Democratic operation in every part of the country.

The national party usually spent millions to help House candidates, but Dean was instead using the money to build this far-flung operation, to Emanuel's immense frustration. He felt Dean's strategy wasted money in unwinnable places.

According to Emanuel, the meeting devolved into a confrontation over resources. Emanuel said that the Republicans planned to heavily fund key races and that if Dean refused to do the same, it would amount to unilateral disarmament. Dean replied that he was fielding activists in every corner of every state.

Ridiculing the effort, Emanuel told Dean that he had seen no sign of it. "I know your field plan. It doesn't exist," he recalled saying. "I've gone around the country with these races. I've seen your people. There's no plan, Howard."

The tongue-lashing was another example of how Emanuel took a sledgehammer to intraparty niceties, making plenty of enemies along the way.

The gravitational center of Democratic antagonism toward Emanuel was the Congressional Black Caucus. Many of the caucus' 43 members complained that Emanuel had not hired enough African-American staffers. They also protested that when he harangued lawmakers to pay their DCCC dues, he did not recognize how hard it was for black politicians, many of whom represented poorer areas, to raise money. The protests often erupted into shouting matches. "If a person says, ` Danny Davis, where are your dues?' I may have a particular difficulty getting my dues that you don't know about or you don't relate to," Rep. Danny Davis, the West Side Democrat, said last summer. "Rahm don't take no prisoners."

Emanuel was privately contemptuous of such complaints. He saw the Black Caucus as one more party faction, like conservative Democrats, that would rather complain than work. Asked about the number of black staffers at the DCCC (two African-Americans were on his senior staff of about 10 people) he waved his hand dismissively. "You know that every [DCCC] chairman has faced the same criticism?" he said. "OK. So I don't give a [expletive]," he added, literally spitting.

Then he began ranting about his conservative party colleagues. "They hate me too, because I'm arrogant and pushy with them. … Because they've never, ever WORKED! NOBODY! NONE OF 'EM!"

Note that although that article credits Emanuel with the Dem wins in 2006, that wasn't the general perception outside of Chicago politics. Dean's 50-state strategy ended up getting most of the credit for the 2006 wins, and there's absolutely no chance that Rahm ever forgave him for that.

# ? Jan 23, 2023 16:31

Killer robot: Sep 6, 2010; I was having the most wonderful dream. I think you were in it!; Pillbug

Automata 10 Pack posted:

However we are living in a world where more and more conservative lunatics are brute forcing themselves into gaining control of the flow of information. They will, without a doubt, try to gaslight us into thinking he�s a Reaganesque moderate and if the Economy is still in shambles by 2024 then there may be enough desperate people willing to believe that message.

This kinda worked for Trump in that people mistaking him for a moderate arguably pushed him over the top., But the only reason it did at all was because he'd never been in office and thus had zero legislative history, while simultaneously being willing to say anything and promise anything since his campaign was promising poo poo and seeing how much people cheered. Why is there reason to think that would work with DeSantis who has zero of that going for him?

# ? Jan 23, 2023 16:41

Oxyclean: Sep 23, 2007

haveblue posted:

"Scouting a solution, he hit it off with Donnel Baird, another charismatic green-energy leader who has generated a flurry of news coverage for his startup BlocPower. Baird tweets under the name �Turn Buildings Into Teslas.�"

Feel like it's going to be difficult to get buildings to a point where they can run over children.

# ? Jan 23, 2023 16:43

FlamingLiberal: Jan 18, 2009; Would you like to play a game?

Mooseontheloose posted:

I was an organizer for a Congressional race during the tea party wave and the fact that it's gotten worse is telling. My information is over a decade out of date but it looks like the same problems. The top level Florida dems don't want to venture anywhere and have their friends who will donate but want to make sure its just their people taken care of. none of the local party apparatuses work together and they don't want to do the nitty gritty organizing work to actually have a viable party.

I feel like it�s been that way forever.

The only people who get to run anything with the FL Dems are the ones that are there to grift and not actually try and fix the party

# ? Jan 23, 2023 16:44

Queering Wheel: Jun 18, 2011; [url=https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3876906]

I agree with whoever said DeSantis is just a Floridian Scott Walker. He does well in Florida because tons of chuds/old people live there and because the state Dem party sucks rear end. It's either going to be Trump vs Biden again or someone else that surprises everyone.

# ? Jan 23, 2023 16:49

Staluigi: Jun 22, 2021

Queering Wheel posted:

I agree with whoever said DeSantis is just a Floridian Scott Walker. He does well in Florida because tons of chuds/old people live there and because the state Dem party sucks rear end. It's either going to be Trump vs Biden again or someone else that surprises everyone.

Really, I had always thought it was going to be trump or walker 100%

# ? Jan 23, 2023 16:51

bird food bathtub: Aug 9, 2003; College Slice

Oxyclean posted:

Feel like it's going to be difficult to get buildings to a point where they can run over children.

They'll just have to double down on having buildings randomly burst in to flames.

# ? Jan 23, 2023 16:53

Mooseontheloose: May 13, 2003

Killer robot posted:

This kinda worked for Trump in that people mistaking him for a moderate arguably pushed him over the top., But the only reason it did at all was because he'd never been in office and thus had zero legislative history, while simultaneously being willing to say anything and promise anything since his campaign was promising poo poo and seeing how much people cheered. Why is there reason to think that would work with DeSantis who has zero of that going for him?

Also, Trump for all his awfulness at the start was playing the media and didn't come across as whiney when he was challenged. Have you seen any of the videos anytime DeSantis calls him out on his bullshit? He crumbles pretty quickly with no suaveness and just gets angry almost immediately and this is to places that are nominally friendly to him. Imagine having to do a national campaign where you have to explain your bullshit all the time.

# ? Jan 23, 2023 16:55

-Blackadder-: Jan 2, 2007; Game....Blouses.

Somaen posted:

Is he the competent fascist that will come after Trump that people were warning about? Seems like that was a fairly accurate prediction

He could be.

Dapper makes good points.

Additionally to those points, DeSantis has a "glass jaw"; he can't handle media confrontation. There's a good article rolling around detailing how he only engages with Conservative media and has blocked all MSM from his events. That may not play on the national stage.

Here's the competent fascist part:

DeSantis seems to have run regression on Conservatives and identified exactly what gives people who spent their formative years burning ants with a magnifying glass a stiffy. He then purified it, packaged it, and mainlined it directly into their veins.

If you troll Conservative social media spaces, they can't get enough of him. It's like he's doing math. If there is a Conservative version of Darkseid's Anti-Life Equation, DeSantis has definitely figured it out.

We may end up getting lucky that Trump is around to deal with him for us. Or maybe we get unlucky and all the assumptions everyone is making about DeSantis being nonviable nationally will be the expectations that end up being subverted.

# ? Jan 23, 2023 16:57

FlamingLiberal: Jan 18, 2009; Would you like to play a game?

Trump is going to destroy DeSantis in a debate. DeSantis totally froze last year on stage when Charlie Crist asked him if he would commit to not running for President in 2024.

# ? Jan 23, 2023 17:02

bird food bathtub: Aug 9, 2003; College Slice

-Blackadder- posted:

He could be.

Dapper makes good points.

Additionally to those points, DeSantis has a "glass jaw"; he can't handle media confrontation. There's a good article rolling around detailing how he only engages with Conservative media and has blocked all MSM from his events. That may not play on the national stage.

Here's the competent fascist part:

DeSantis seems to have run regression on Conservatives and identified exactly what gives people who spent their formative years burning ants with a magnifying glass a stiffy. He then purified it, packaged it, and mainlined it directly into their veins.

If you troll Conservative social media spaces, they can't get enough of him. It's like he's doing math. If there is a Conservative version of Darkseid's Anti-Life Equation, DeSantis has definitely figured it out.

We may end up getting lucky that Trump is around to deal with him for us. Or maybe we get unlucky and all the assumptions everyone is making about DeSantis being nonviable nationally will be the expectations that end up being subverted.

I feel the uncomfortable truth that we're going to be shoved into dealing with is finding out exactly how far down the path of open fascism the country as a whole is. There is absolutely a constituency that loves him specifically because he is delivering the suffering and destruction of their perceived foes via openly, loudly, and proudly hijacking the political system away from representational democracy.

Are they a large enough constituency and in the right places to win a national presidential election? I think this is going to be tested and I don't have enough faith remaining in the country to give an absolutely unequivocal "No" as an answer.

# ? Jan 23, 2023 17:16

Mooseontheloose: May 13, 2003

bird food bathtub posted:

I feel the uncomfortable truth that we're going to be shoved into dealing with is finding out exactly how far down the path of open fascism the country as a whole is. There is absolutely a constituency that loves him specifically because he is delivering the suffering and destruction of their perceived foes via openly, loudly, and proudly hijacking the political system away from representational democracy.

Are they a large enough constituency and in the right places to win a national presidential election? I think this is going to be tested and I don't have enough faith remaining in the country to give an absolutely unequivocal "No" as an answer.

We also don't know if the national media learned its lessons from Trump. They might view him as a unique event and just be stenographers for DeSantis.

# ? Jan 23, 2023 17:29

selec: Sep 6, 2003

https://twitter.com/aaronkatersky/status/1617548434763915264?s=46&t=OMpJEMBorLGjtB_64kbyHQ

Curious as to which faction of the NYC FBI office this guy was in. Dirty feds, regardless, should come as no surprise.

Answered my own question by reading a couple tweets down:

https://twitter.com/aaronkatersky/status/1617552411421278213?s=46&t=OMpJEMBorLGjtB_64kbyHQ

# ? Jan 23, 2023 17:30

Ethiser: Dec 31, 2011

Yes he wants to make being gay illegal, but right now the economy isn�t great so maybe he deserves a shot - A large amount of voters

# ? Jan 23, 2023 17:31

Queering Wheel: Jun 18, 2011; [url=https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3876906]

Ethiser posted:

Yes he wants to make being gay illegal, but right now the economy isn�t great so maybe he deserves a shot - A large amount of voters

We literally just had an election where everyone was worried about this, and the GOP barely even got the House.

# ? Jan 23, 2023 17:41

Killer robot: Sep 6, 2010; I was having the most wonderful dream. I think you were in it!; Pillbug

bird food bathtub posted:

I feel the uncomfortable truth that we're going to be shoved into dealing with is finding out exactly how far down the path of open fascism the country as a whole is. There is absolutely a constituency that loves him specifically because he is delivering the suffering and destruction of their perceived foes via openly, loudly, and proudly hijacking the political system away from representational democracy.

Are they a large enough constituency and in the right places to win a national presidential election? I think this is going to be tested and I don't have enough faith remaining in the country to give an absolutely unequivocal "No" as an answer.

That strategy turned out to be a pretty big loser in midterms, even where voting demographics tend to favor the right. I'm curious why you think that's likely to change in 2024.

# ? Jan 23, 2023 17:42

Staluigi: Jun 22, 2021

Ethiser posted:

Yes he wants to make being gay illegal, but right now the economy isn�t great so maybe he deserves a shot - A large amount of voters

Gas so expensive?! Well better vote for fascist cranks. Hmm gas still expensive. Better keep voting for them

# ? Jan 23, 2023 17:54

Automata 10 Pack: Jun 21, 2007; Ten games published by Automata, on one cassette

Killer robot posted:

This kinda worked for Trump in that people mistaking him for a moderate arguably pushed him over the top., But the only reason it did at all was because he'd never been in office and thus had zero legislative history, while simultaneously being willing to say anything and promise anything since his campaign was promising poo poo and seeing how much people cheered. Why is there reason to think that would work with DeSantis who has zero of that going for him?

By lying and creating a false narrative that he a "moderate" that "just gets stuff done". One that the more centrist media outlets will give credence to in order to appear unbiased while conservative oligarchs flood all information markets with disinformation. If eggs are $10, people will remember hearing that Florida did really well during the pandemic and recovers well after hurricanes and think "Well, maybe he's a little authoritarian but he gets stuff done."

Automata 10 Pack fucked around with this message at 18:10 on Jan 23, 2023

# ? Jan 23, 2023 18:06

FlamingLiberal: Jan 18, 2009; Would you like to play a game?

Automata 10 Pack posted:

By lying and creating a false narrative that he a "moderate" that "just gets stuff done". One that the more centrist media outlets will give credence to in order to appear unbiased while conservative oligarchs flood all information markets with disinformation.

I don�t think it�s going to be as easy for DeSantis to get positive media coverage

With Trump in 2016 he was able to run on his TV show that painted him as a successful businessman

# ? Jan 23, 2023 18:09

Killer robot: Sep 6, 2010; I was having the most wonderful dream. I think you were in it!; Pillbug

Automata 10 Pack posted:

By lying and creating a false narrative that he a "moderate" that "just gets stuff done". One that the more centrist media outlets will give credence to in order to appear unbiased while conservative oligarchs flood all information markets with disinformation. If eggs are $10, people will remember hearing that Florida did really well during the pandemic and recovers well after hurricanes and think "Well, maybe he's a little authoritarian but he gets stuff done."

That's what I said though. That's the thing that worked, uniquely, for Trump because of benefits he had that DeSantis lacks, and in a much different media landscape. You haven't really pointed out why you think this is a likely, or even reasonably plausible, chain of events in 2024.

# ? Jan 23, 2023 18:15

Mooseontheloose: May 13, 2003

Staluigi posted:

Gas so expensive?! Well better vote for fascist cranks. Hmm gas still expensive. Better keep voting for them

DEMOCRATS COULDN'T GET IT DONE IN 24 MONTHS BETTER CHANGE GOVERNMENT.
* Republicans literally don't do anything while in government*
Well hold on, we need to wait and see if their ideas worked.

# ? Jan 23, 2023 18:16

FlamingLiberal: Jan 18, 2009; Would you like to play a game?

If the GOP had run on the economy and not weird Internet nonsense they probably do a lot better than they did

# ? Jan 23, 2023 18:19

Morrow: Oct 31, 2010

The issue is DeSantis didn't run on the economy, his brand is all about making Florida a place that no one who had children ever wanted to live in.

# ? Jan 23, 2023 18:28

nine-gear crow: Aug 10, 2013

FlamingLiberal posted:

If the GOP had run on the economy and not weird Internet nonsense they probably do a lot better than they did

Weird internet nonsense is all they have left because they're not able to fully explain anymore why the economy somehow gets worse every time they hold power for a couple of years :thunk:

# ? Jan 23, 2023 18:30

Zwabu: Aug 7, 2006

It's impossible to predict with confidence how DeSantis will perform once elections are actually going.

One thing that is clear, his political messaging and positioning is not subtle - everything is maximum right wing rear end in a top hat all the time. As others have said, his media persona is dour, negative and combative, which his base loves.

The guy made his rep being the Against Any Covid Mitigation Strategy guy and is going to continue to lean into this going forward by all appearances.

Right Wing social media loves him precisely because he's an rear end in a top hat but these same qualities will blunt his appeal outside the chuds.

It's easy to build a formidable looking position when you're preaching only to your hand picked audience with that kind of simple message, hard to know if he can win over any non Trump voters which he will need to do to win a general election. On the one hand (assuming he beats Trump or Trump just drops out) he won't have the advantage of pre-politics celebrity that Trump had, but on the other hand he will have the credibility that a term in statewide office brings. He definitely won't have the advantage that swing voters will be able to project their own desired qualities onto him that his record as governor won't contradict.

And Biden's position going into election season, both with respect to the economy and other factors (document scandal etc.) will factor heavily into how much work DeSantis will have to do to win over swing voters.

Rudy looked strong going into the primaries and he went nowhere. On paper Jeb should have been strong but he was a zero on the campaign trail.

# ? Jan 23, 2023 18:34

Mooseontheloose: May 13, 2003

nine-gear crow posted:

Weird internet nonsense is all they have left because they're not able to fully explain anymore why the economy somehow gets worse every time they hold power for a couple of years

Also the economy is in this quantum state of being both good and bad shape. If you're the GOP and screaming the economy is bad, well unemployment is low and pay is getting better (though well below where it should be) its hard to connect to voters given your platform.

# ? Jan 23, 2023 18:34

Zwabu: Aug 7, 2006

FlamingLiberal posted:

If the GOP had run on the economy and not weird Internet nonsense they probably do a lot better than they did

But it's so much easier to stream angrily and generate memes and catchy social media bits attacking the transgendered though!

# ? Jan 23, 2023 18:35

Automata 10 Pack: Jun 21, 2007; Ten games published by Automata, on one cassette

Killer robot posted:

That's what I said though. That's the thing that worked, uniquely, for Trump because of benefits he had that DeSantis lacks, and in a much different media landscape. You haven't really pointed out why you think this is a likely, or even reasonably plausible, chain of events in 2024.

I'm pretty sure I addressed it? But okay,

DeSantis having a track record compared to Trump's lack of one in 2016 isn't necessarily a disadvantage. Florida's economy boomed during the pandemic and they recovered from Hurricane Ian shockingly well. His stance on the covid restrictions is, sadly, seemingly paying off for him also.

But he's also a Hitler, and that's bad. But the media is trying to label him as "Moderate" already regardless. And now with the trend of billionaire conservative oligarchs buying major information channels like CNN and Twitter, they can more easily sand down the more fashy parts of his image and pump disinformation to obfuscate the stuff they cannot sand down. And if people are still struggling in 2024 since the pandemic, yeah, they may accept the messaging and vote in the hitler.

Automata 10 Pack fucked around with this message at 18:51 on Jan 23, 2023

# ? Jan 23, 2023 18:39

bird food bathtub: Aug 9, 2003; College Slice

Killer robot posted:

That strategy turned out to be a pretty big loser in midterms, even where voting demographics tend to favor the right. I'm curious why you think that's likely to change in 2024.

You make a good point, and I really should take more hope from the midterm results I guess. I feel it's going to take a much longer trend of more severe GOP losses before I can begin having an optimistic outlook about future outcomes again. There's been so much poo poo for so long I just don't have any sense of it reversing on a more permanent term basis. There's decades worth of this poo poo just getting worse and worse that the idea that we've finally reached the breaking point and started repudiating it as a country just doesn't resonate with me anymore.

# ? Jan 23, 2023 18:39

PeterWeller: Apr 21, 2003; I told you that story so I could tell you this one.

The GOP did run on the economy. They wouldn't shut up about gas prices and inflation.

# ? Jan 23, 2023 18:40

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# ? Jun 8, 2024 21:03

Automata 10 Pack: Jun 21, 2007; Ten games published by Automata, on one cassette

PeterWeller posted:

The GOP did run on the economy. They wouldn't shut up about gas prices and inflation.

They were also trying to tell us concussed football players and daytime talk show doctors were going to fix the economy.

# ? Jan 23, 2023 18:47

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > USCE Winter 2023: change thread titles constantly, almost on a daily basis

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