If I were a candidate I’d just say that I don’t give a good goddamn about high school sports while so much important stuff is happening. Don’t make macro decisions around micro issues.
I think that pretty much has been the answer, but in flowery political speak.
As with the “what is a woman” I think dems and the left generally need to be better at responding to bad faith gotchas.
My answer to “What is a woman?” is "Anybody you’d hit on fifteen minutes before the bar closes.
I was reading an update yesterday from the Cato Institute, which ofc is very pro-immigration, but it does genuinely seem to be different situation compared to Europe.
I do think it’s amusing that these papers suggest illegal immigrants commit less crime because they are afraid of being deported - apparently stiffer penalties do deter criminals!
If you let people work while their asylum claims are processed, you create an incentive for them to come and file false claims. If there is nothing else limiting claims, you can end up in a situation where more and more people come and waiting times expand indefinitely. Processing claims quicker does indeed help solve this.
I fear most of the answers to this are cynical ones on the part of both parties.
True. But public relations is important in politics. That’s why Rosa Parks was made the face of the Montgomery bus boycott, rather than Claudette Colvin, a teenager who got pregnant during the court case. Even if Garcia is guilty, the US government should have to establish it before sending him to jail, and the court’s rules are supposed to ensure that. But unfortunately, an awful lot of people aren’t going to care about following procedures as long as they happened to get the right answer.
Hopefully the basic hostility of so many right-wing men to women will prevent this having wide appeal.
Dem politicians can’t say that kind of thing (which arguably is part of the problem). It’s offensive in multiple different ways; they’d be savaged.
More survey data to consider:
It has a section on messaging:
And in the section on ticket splitting, ‘Attacks on the GOP siding with
billionaires and cutting benefits’ was one of the most effective messages, which is not exactly ‘eat the rich’, but does cast them as the bad guys.
The survey also shows that voters who got their news from social media, especially Tiktok, swing more towards Trump. So yes, Dems need to do a better job of communicating on these platforms.
Other interesting points:
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Voters were far more interested in change than preserving the status quo, which was bad for Democrats as the incumbents, but is something they can adapt to and if the trend persists, find an appropriate candidate to promise change next time.
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Politically disengaged voters have become more Republican, so low turnout elections now benefit Democrats. This should help with the midterms, but may lead to overconfidence in the next Presidential election. Opposing voter ID may no longer be politically expedient.
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Young voters have become more Republican, especially young men. Could be a problem in the future if the trend continues.
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Trump likely won naturalised US citizens - the promised ‘permanent Democratic majority’ is unlikely to be delivered.
Two things on that:
- Let’s not bury the lede that the conservative talking points of “migrant crime wave” and the like (which are a big part of continuing public support, among some quarters, for the deportations) are completely false. Migrants in the US commit crimes at a significantly lower rate than people born in the US, fact.
- Deporting people who commit serious crimes (after being established in court) is not very controversial on either side of the political spectrum. It wouldn’t excuse anything this admin is doing, or imply that in the abstract more stiff sentences and penalties reduce recidivism (which is another conservative talking point that won’t stand up well to the data).
Compared to letting people stay and have their basic costs of living covered? Once people are in the country I think it helps all parties to let them work if they can.
I agree of course that processing claims faster and yes deporting people whose claims are rejected is an important part of making the system work.
Absolutely. But your point seemed to be that this is not a particularly good case for the media to focus on, and I am not seeing why that is the case. Precisely zero evidence has been presented that Garcia was in MS-13*, and now he’s been deported and jailed indefinitely, against court rulings. Seems a pretty cut and dried injustice to me. If people refuse to believe it because of propaganda, then that’s going to happen with whatever case we focus attention on.
* I’m not going to entertain the idea that wearing a chicago bulls top constitutes evidence. If it does, then TIL that I am also a member of MS-13 
Sure, okay.
I’m not sure how much this data affects support for deportations, since at least in some people’s minds, these are all ‘extra’ crimes, whatever the rate. I’d really like to see a study on how the number of asylum seekers/unauthorized immigrants arriving in an area affected voting patterns. If there’s a strong effect it suggests personal experience was more relevant, and if not, that messaging made more difference.
Yes. Does anyone know how effective the US is at deporting criminal migrants? (Or was, before the Trump admin abandoned due process.)
Like anything else, penalties will be subject to the law of diminishing returns. It’s obvious that very low penalties will fail to have a deterrent effect; for example, if the penalty for not buying a rail ticket is not much higher than the cost of buying one, then more people will risk it. However, at some point the penalty is sufficiently serious that increasing it isn’t going to make much difference. The real question is where that point is for different crimes.
As long as the allowance is low enough, yes. The point of working temporarily would be to save enough money to take home with you, or to send to family. A low living allowance isn’t going to allow for that so it’s not such a big incentive.
It’s more than zero. There are other cases where there is even less evidence, and they weren’t even from El Salvador - so what the heck is the justification for sending them there? But this one is still egregious, and the law they are using clearly bullshit. I hope the US government is forced to bring them all back and give them proper hearings.
Ok, but again these are people that are a net contribution to society, in terms of their taxes and doing jobs that Americans don’t want to do. And if the logic of “extra” crimes applies here, then where do we stop? e.g. “Mormons are the scourge of America; it doesn’t matter if they commit crimes at a lower rate than the general population, those are still extra crimes”.
It’s pretty close to zero. He was in a public place where there were some gang members and he has tattoos. But yes, we agree on the big picture that his should have his day in court, and in the meantime be returned home.
I’m not sure what data there is by area, but I’d happily wager that “migrant crime wave” was a much bigger factor than personal experience. From exit polls, this was the most common reason for giving for voting for Trump. It implies a lot of Americans in red, non-border states with a relatively low migrant population still saw this as a top issue. And, after all, there’s a reason conservative media kept on this for years.
I should also add that I think it probably does feel like personal experience to the average fox / newsmax / oann viewer. They cherry-pick individual cases and show them in gratuitous detail. It cements a particular view of migrants or minorities in people’s minds. Never mind that they could have found white violent crime more easily (heck, they could find it in the white house).
Pete Buttigieg appeared on a bro podcast (Flagrant), and, AFAICT, did very well. I didn’t listen to the whole thing (it’s 3 hours!!!), but the parts I listened to were great.
Democrats should be doing this weekly at the very least. There’s really nothing to lose – the audiences of these podcasts mostly only get their news about Democrats and Democratic priorities from liars and grifters; if they heard about it from smart and skilled Democratic communicators, it can only help. Even if only a little bit.
Also, it’s just bad mathing to treat these “extra” crimes as presenting “extra” danger.
I’ll exaggerate the effect to demonstrate.
Slowtown, USA, has a population of 1,000 native-born Americans. Every year, 100 violent crimes are committed, at random. Each resident has a 10% chance of being a victim of a violent crime each year.
Then the immigrants move in, en masse. The population swells to 100,000, and the crime swells, too: now, each year, 1,000 violent crimes are committed. Each resident now has a 1% chance of being a victim of a violent crime each year.
Was Slowtown a safer place to live before or after the immigrants moved in?
Another thing Democrats should be doing – highlighting incidents like this (in which ICE made American citizen little girls stand outside in the rain in their underwear, among other awful things):
…and tying it to Republicans’ trying to lower the age of marriage, directly courting/marrying underage girls when they’re adults (ala Roy Moore), and similar. Just little things like “isn’t it weird that Republicans in office keep doing things like this”, and naming those things. Get it in voter minds, again and again, that Republicans keep doing weird things to little girls, on policy or personally.
From what I have seen, that is extremely far from being an accurate depiction of crime in America, and it matters for the conclusion of your hypothetical. AIUI, in the US crime is mostly concentrated in big cities, and in certain parts of those cities. If you can afford to live in a good neighborhood, and know which places to avoid, your chance of victimisation is pretty low.
Slowtown, USA would have a much lower crime rate than the national average, and even there, chance of victimisation is not random: a lot of the violent crimes are likely bar fights and domestic abuse, so if you don’t drink, and are lucky enough to marry a good person, you are at almost no risk of being a victim. Now suppose 1000 immigrants move in. It’s quite plausible that they raise crime rates locally, even if they commit fewer crimes per person than people in nearby Big City. It’s also possible that they commit different types of crime: robbing old ladies vs getting in fights with other young men. Now people in Slowtown are scared to go out at night, and they resent it.
Another point: the people of Slowtown are those who wanted to live in a town of 1000 people, where they knew everyone and everyone knew them. Anyone who likes change and variety already moved to Big City.
Slowtown residents are the sort of people who view you with suspicion if you moved there from a different state, let alone a different country. They absolutely hate their lives being disrupted by an influx of immigrants. Now their town is full of strangers who speak a different language, listen to different music, and go to a different church. House prices have doubled, and the newcomers will work for lower wages and in worse conditions, so it’s even harder to get a job. They can no longer gossip with their neighbours, because the neighbours don’t speak English very well. Those neighbours sure gossip with each other, though.
These people are low in the personality trait ‘openness to experience’, and like introversion, this is often seen as a character flaw in Western culture. When a NYT journalist comes to the local diner to ask why they are voting for Trump, they talk about the 2 high profile crimes committed by migrants, because it’s a safe thing to object to. It won’t mark them as low status or get them accused of racism like hating foreign food and preferring familiar people and culture would.
Well, yes. As I said, I exaggerated stuff in a hypothetical to show a mathematical principle. It was in no way intended to be “an accurate depiction of crime in America.” You’ve correctly pointed out many ways in which it’s inaccurate (and made a few mistakes, but I’ll make my wisdom save and not go down the rabbit hole of your mistakes), but since it was explicitly labeled as inaccurate, all of those points are irrelevant.
The point is that worrying about “extra crimes” instead of the crime rate is mathematically unsound. If you’re correct that people are worried about “extra crimes” as though that presents increased risk, then people are mathing poorly. The correct response to that is education, not accommodation.
I don’t think bringing back sundown towns is a winning message for Democrats. But that’s just me.
Saw this and strongly endorse it:
A swing voter is not a centrist. It’s like, a guy who loves guns but has a gay sister, loves weed but hates food stamps because his cousin who owes him 50 bucks gets them. (Also, Osama was Iraqi.) You don’t win that guy with a carefully crafted platform, you do it by not seeming fucking lame.
It’s not about picking the perfect balance of issues (i.e. gotta move to the center on trans rights and immigration). It’s about simple and believable messaging and making sure they hear the message.
The point is that you can’t educate people out of disliking change. And you can’t make them feel safe just by showing them statistics.
It’s correct that swing voters or moderates are not people with average positions on each issue; they are mostly people who are disengaged from politics and whose views don’t follow the artificial ideological lines of current-day parties.
However, that does not mean vibes are the only thing that matters. Usually one or two issues will be more important than the rest, and what they are can change with each election. This time it was the economy and immigration. Who knows what will be most relevant in 2028?
And boy have I not missed all the Debbie Downers now on Bluesky, who say shit like “voters are morons, there’s no getting around that”.
Sure. If people are approaching it from an irrational perspective that’s mathematically unsound, you can’t fix that with numbers. You can’t reason people out of a position they didn’t reason themselves into. But what you can do is dismiss their purported reasons for objecting, as a way to get at the real reasons. If they don’t feel safe because they’re racist or xenophobic, it’s key that we recognize that’s the real reason, not that the crime rate is frightening them.
Diagnose the problem accurately if you want to fix it.
If they don’t understand the crime rate statistics the same way you do, you can hardly conclude that since your understanding shows there’s nothing to fear, they must be lying about the source of their fear, and they’re actually racist or xenophobic. They may very well be frightened by their perception of the crime rate, even if you’d disagree.
How does declaring that the people who disagree with you are racist help you solve the problem (which, presumably, is that so many people disagree with you that Trump can get elected)?
ETA:Maybe that comes off glib. I’m genuinely asking: if you’re right, and the reason so many people are concerned about “immigration” or “crime rates” is actually because those people are racist - then what? Enough people are racist to give Trump wins on the racism issue specifically? Do you honestly believe that, and if so, why would you even want to be part of the same country as those people?
And finally, how is any of this any different than the failed strategy we’ve been using since 2012?
I didn’t say they were lying. I suggested how to correct a mathematical misperception, and Demontree suggested that was pointless. At that point, if it’s not math, let’s not pretend it is.
I gave an example of how people can still be personally at a higher risk of crime, even if that’s not reflected in the overall crime rate. I can invent some numbers if you like, but I doubt you have any more need of that than I did.
It does about as much good as telling introverts they are bad people if they don’t vote for the president promising mandatory weekly block parties and a ban on working from home.
But if you think the real issue is xenophobia, there are ways to address that. IIRC, contact between groups where they don’t get to know each other personally tends to increase suspicion and fear, while contact where they do get to know each other personally tends to decrease it. So facilitating socialising between long time residents and new immigrants, and persuading more people to volunteer to help out with settling the newcomers would probably help.
That would be a long-term project though, not a message you can spread in a podcast.