Help! I’m illiterate and thus should listen to this podcast but I only know how to use Spotify podcasts. Is I Might Be Wrong coming to Spotify in the near future?
You're lucky twice! First for mashing the keys in a way that managed to communicate your needs, and second because yes, it's on Spotify! Follow this link and click the Spotify icon: https://cms.megaphone.fm/channel/imightbewrong
OK, I didn't listen to the whole thing (I'm a reader not a listener), but somewhere in the middle that I skipped to you seem to think that Shor is relevant because he is correctly explaining how to win more elections. My experience with the activist left is that they don't really care very much about winning elections. If they did, a lot more of them wold have voted for HRC in 2016, rather than sitting it out or voting Green (as a big percentage of those I know personally did, even in the swing states of Wisconsin and Ohio [not a swing state anymore but it kinda sorta was in 2016]). Today, as a consequence, we have the KGB banning abortion. (KGB = Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, Barrett.) But hey, whatevs, Hillary was just so corporate!!!
Much of the left is STILL doubling down on this; see eg Michael Moore's recent satirical substack post. (Yeah, he's got one, in case you didn't know; the latest MM post is all about his new MM merch store! And to think he used to be a hero of mine ...) Anyway, this No Good Very Bad tendency of the left cannot be combatted with "but Shor is telling us how to win", because too much of the left doesn't care about winning. They care about Not Compromising Their Sacred Principles No Matter What, because that's what their lefty friends cheer on.
I don't know how to combat this, but "if you don't compromise things will get much worse" doesn't seem to work.
I think the important question is: How do people who DO care about winning elections deal with this movement? And the conclusion I'm coming to is that the Democratic brand needs to demonstrate some independence from this weird cult, which will help us do well with independents, and cult members can either 1) Cast a pragmatic vote (which they sometimes do), or 2) Take their ball and go home (which, as you note, they sometimes also do). Obviously, it would be good to have more of the first and fewer of the second, so you don't want to piss people off for no reason, but I think that signaling "we are not insane" is increasingly important and Democrats should do so in clear language.
Also worth noting: People in the cult believe things that I think are wrong and harmful, so I also oppose what they're doing on principle. So, someone could dismiss my analysis as motivated reasoning (I can't prove that it's not!). But I don't think it's that.
So how do you prove you're not part of the Weird Cult? You can go full Manchin or Sinema perhaps--but I would think dismissing the culty stuff while actively proposing: here's what I want to provide that's positive for the middle class, here is what I want to provide that's positive for the working class . . . I think that would be more helpful.
But to do that they have to (a) care what the working class and middle class think about things and (b) talk to those people. Ewww!
"the conclusion I'm coming to is that the Democratic brand needs to demonstrate some independence from this weird cult" That would be a very good thing to do, but it's hard to pull away from the activist cult. For example, I think all Democrats in Congress currently support the Equality Act, which would allow any man to enter any womens' space (and vice versa of course) and actually make it illegal to prevent it! It It should be called the Straight-Male-Wet-Dream Act.
This again results from only talking to your friends on Twitter, for the most part. They need to talk to actual people who have legitimate concerns about women's safety and that biological women can have safe spaces, that female prisoners are protected from biologically male prisoners, that women can have their own sports and compete in those areas . . . You're right that biological women no longer being able to enjoy the right of free association is not popular with the common folks . . . but again, they'd have to talk to regular people in their day-to-day lives, and that's so icky.
The right is in the same No Compromise position, generally, although at least a few of the politicians that have been elected seem to be able to. But the Truly Principled never feel they should have to compromise. And the Faithful among the electorate are always horrified if they do.
Help! I’m illiterate and thus should listen to this podcast but I only know how to use Spotify podcasts. Is I Might Be Wrong coming to Spotify in the near future?
You're lucky twice! First for mashing the keys in a way that managed to communicate your needs, and second because yes, it's on Spotify! Follow this link and click the Spotify icon: https://cms.megaphone.fm/channel/imightbewrong
Thshanmk yooouu
OK, I didn't listen to the whole thing (I'm a reader not a listener), but somewhere in the middle that I skipped to you seem to think that Shor is relevant because he is correctly explaining how to win more elections. My experience with the activist left is that they don't really care very much about winning elections. If they did, a lot more of them wold have voted for HRC in 2016, rather than sitting it out or voting Green (as a big percentage of those I know personally did, even in the swing states of Wisconsin and Ohio [not a swing state anymore but it kinda sorta was in 2016]). Today, as a consequence, we have the KGB banning abortion. (KGB = Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, Barrett.) But hey, whatevs, Hillary was just so corporate!!!
Much of the left is STILL doubling down on this; see eg Michael Moore's recent satirical substack post. (Yeah, he's got one, in case you didn't know; the latest MM post is all about his new MM merch store! And to think he used to be a hero of mine ...) Anyway, this No Good Very Bad tendency of the left cannot be combatted with "but Shor is telling us how to win", because too much of the left doesn't care about winning. They care about Not Compromising Their Sacred Principles No Matter What, because that's what their lefty friends cheer on.
I don't know how to combat this, but "if you don't compromise things will get much worse" doesn't seem to work.
I think the important question is: How do people who DO care about winning elections deal with this movement? And the conclusion I'm coming to is that the Democratic brand needs to demonstrate some independence from this weird cult, which will help us do well with independents, and cult members can either 1) Cast a pragmatic vote (which they sometimes do), or 2) Take their ball and go home (which, as you note, they sometimes also do). Obviously, it would be good to have more of the first and fewer of the second, so you don't want to piss people off for no reason, but I think that signaling "we are not insane" is increasingly important and Democrats should do so in clear language.
Also worth noting: People in the cult believe things that I think are wrong and harmful, so I also oppose what they're doing on principle. So, someone could dismiss my analysis as motivated reasoning (I can't prove that it's not!). But I don't think it's that.
So how do you prove you're not part of the Weird Cult? You can go full Manchin or Sinema perhaps--but I would think dismissing the culty stuff while actively proposing: here's what I want to provide that's positive for the middle class, here is what I want to provide that's positive for the working class . . . I think that would be more helpful.
But to do that they have to (a) care what the working class and middle class think about things and (b) talk to those people. Ewww!
"the conclusion I'm coming to is that the Democratic brand needs to demonstrate some independence from this weird cult" That would be a very good thing to do, but it's hard to pull away from the activist cult. For example, I think all Democrats in Congress currently support the Equality Act, which would allow any man to enter any womens' space (and vice versa of course) and actually make it illegal to prevent it! It It should be called the Straight-Male-Wet-Dream Act.
This again results from only talking to your friends on Twitter, for the most part. They need to talk to actual people who have legitimate concerns about women's safety and that biological women can have safe spaces, that female prisoners are protected from biologically male prisoners, that women can have their own sports and compete in those areas . . . You're right that biological women no longer being able to enjoy the right of free association is not popular with the common folks . . . but again, they'd have to talk to regular people in their day-to-day lives, and that's so icky.
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The right is in the same No Compromise position, generally, although at least a few of the politicians that have been elected seem to be able to. But the Truly Principled never feel they should have to compromise. And the Faithful among the electorate are always horrified if they do.