One reason that people care so much about politician’s own personal views on many matters is because politicians have immense power to shape policies around those matters. It’s fine to say that you trust the experts, but “the experts” are not a fixed entity. As we’re seeing now, Trump is packing many institutions with his loyal, true-believer cronies. They are now “the experts” in many areas. I would not want Democratic candidates to say they don’t have an opinion and they trust the experts on an issue if those experts are all appointed by Trump. I want to know what the candidate themselves thinks so that I can know what direction they will drive the issues if they get in power.
Nope – Kuo’s tactic does allow “talking about it”, eventually (admittedly, this is not explicit in what I quoted from The Big Picture Substack above). But not on Trumpian terms and not before the Trumpian candidate is called out for introducing a Bogeyman.
They are not. They’re an attack on the very idea of expertise. It’s absolutely a legit topic whether professional bodies should experience hostile takeovers by political cronies–but that’s a separate matter from whether professional guidelines should be established and, by default, respected.
… a candidate is not normally asked to vote, on the spot, during a debate, interview, or a press conference.
You sure showed me! Now our messaging problems are over! Everyone will vote Dem now.
Hang on now – this thread is about messaging, not voting. What was the point of the “how do you vote?” question?
Okay, that does clarify what you’re saying. But
Seconded. And this is a larger problem. Trying to turn political questions into technical ones caused a lot of problems during the pandemic (experts can and should say ‘if you follow X policy then Y will happen’, but it’s still a political decision to chose which trade-offs you prefer). And worse, it contributed to distrust of the experts from the side who didn’t get their way politically. Now there’s a new wave of anti-vaxxers and conspiracy theorists on the right.
I am unfortunately familiar with people using this tactic.
I won’t dismiss Kuo’s suggestion just because it isn’t rational, given most people aren’t rational, and are often persuaded by fallacies, appeals to emotion etc more than by solid arguments and data.
This is what a lot of Republicans (at least the online ones) believe has already happened: the left orchestrated a ‘long march through the institutions’ and now those institutions are hopelessly biased towards left-wing views and agendas.
The less conspiracyish version is that different professions attract different types of people, and those that require a lot of education but don’t pay very well, like academia, journalism, the civil service, and teaching tend to be pretty left-wing, while a profession like policing that pays a decent salary while not requiring a college degree attracts right-wingers. Do you think questions like ‘how much force should be used when arresting a suspect’? are technical ones best left to the experts in the police force? Republicans feel similarly about trusting institutions mostly staffed by left-wingers.
Unfortunately I think this thread is unrecoverable. Our culture warriors have dug in and are just looking to score points.
Ugh, because if Democrats keep saying they oppose something but then they vote for it anyways, their messaging will ring pretty hollow?
They also say that it’s white people who are the real victims of racism in our country, and that Christians are under existential threat, and a whole bunch of other patent nonsense. Just because they say something doesn’t make it equivalent to the truth. Indeed, it’s classic DARVO tactics.
That was the easy part of my comment to respond to. Can you reply to the rest?
The bolded need not be done. No one needs to say they “oppose something”. What they say is “You’re using X as a Bogeyman, as scapegoat, a fear monger”. EDIT: Then, once the stool has been kicked out from underneath the Trumpian, the Democrat can broach the subject if it makes sense to do so. Or not.
Kuo’s tactic puts the Trumpian candidate on the back foot. In a debate, a Democratic candidate doesn’t need to, for example, debate against a Trumpian claim that immigrants in Springfield, Ohio really were eating people’s pets. One might think “come now, that’s a totally different thing”, but it’s not – it’s still a Bogeyman tactic.
It’s interesting how they do that, isn’t it?
Now he’ll tell you, “Asked and answered”.
Is my question really this hard to understand, or are you being intentionally obtuse?
Who even is the Trumpian in this situation? 70% of Democrats oppose trans women in women’s sports without restriction. I’m asking what you tell them.
Sure–you’re comparing the police force to a body of scientific experts. I don’t think that comparison holds, but it’s worth a substantial debate, and if you want to start a new thread on it, that would be fine.
I can’t force you to do so, but I’d appreciate it if you’d no longer try to paraphrase what I’ve said or predict what I will say. You’ve not yet done so accurately, and there’s no room for productive conversation here.
And I can’t force you to engage in good faith, but I’d appreciate it if you actually responded to my questions rather than clipping out one line from each point to make snide remarks about.
This thread is not currently in a state where I think there’s good conversation to be held here, so I’m gonna dip unless and until it significantly changes.
Kuo’s tactic is not used to address voters directly. It is used to parry hostile debate or hostile media questioning.
Implicit in the thinking around this tactic, I believe (and this me thinking, not Kuo) is that – as you noted above – certain kitchen-table issues (e.g. inflation, housing costs) and national security issues (e.g. immigration, border) are first and foremost in voters’ minds. Voters as a collective, that is.
The corollary is that while (say) a Fox commentator or a debate opponent can be expected to spring a Bogeymen issue on a Democrat, a block of voters likely won’t. For example, I can’t recall any LGBT organizations attempting to put Harris on the spot** during the 2024 campaign. Similarly for Biden in 2020 and Clinton in 2016. Now, that’s going by my recall, so something could have happened and I missed it.
** Implicit in “put on the spot” is an attempted tear-down. I’m sure Harris/Biden/Clinton – or their campaigns/surrogates – met with and spoke with, say, LGBT representatives and opinion leaders. What I don’t believe happened (but would be interested to learn otherwise) is that someone representing LGBT interests attempted to pin down a Democratic Presidential candidate on a given issue and use the Democratic response as a smear. I DO recall this happening to Obama, but in the totality of his rise, campaign, and election … it didn’t seem to rise to the level of active harm to his chances.
What does this long post have to do with anything I have said in this thread?
I am not sure why but there is a complete breakdown of communication here. This seems like a complete non sequitur to anything I have been saying. By some of your posts, I gather you probably feel the same.
Like I said, I don’t know why there is this breakdown in communication, but I think it maps on to the issues the Democratic party as a whole are having, and the fact that we can’t communicate to each other at all is NOT a good sign.
We now have a 100-post hijack about who said what to who about trans-whatever in a 180-post thread about messaging techniques.
Stick a fork in this one; it’s done.