My point about voters is that everyone you EVER interact w on political twitter, at political events falls into the tails of this distribution (2.5%). Most people who watch mainstream major networks news, read @nytimes or @WAPO,watch Sunday shows would fall within the 13.5% bands
Although there are certainly some primary voters who hail from the two 34% areas, the bulk of the two party's primary electorates come from the right & left flank of this graph, which means the far left & right are far more extreme than average & even the center and mods are more
conservative and liberal than the average electorate. For all the convo about the Dem primary, polling consistently shows only about 40% of all people who plan to cast ballots in it, people who as a group are already non-representative of the whole country, have watched a debate
Much of the people sitting in those two 34% bands are America's "disengaged" (as @pewresearch calls them). They aren't particularly ideological, but bc of that, they aren't all that inclined to participate (although this is NOT the only thing driving our low participation rates).
So when I give public lectures and interviews I try to remind my audiences that if they are hearing me talk, they are in the 1%. And when they look around confused I clarify, "no, no, not the income 1%, the information 1%. Th engagement 1%. And this is the crisis that underlies
every other crisis we have in American politics."
I want to add this follower Q to the thread in case other people need this frame of reference. Very good Q!
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The Winds of Change:
Harris at Top of the Ticket is About to Shake It Up
🧵You know I prefer to have solid data to back up my assertions, but in this case I have decided for the benefit of your mental health to throw caution to the wind and get ahead of the data a bit.
The temptation to parcel out every poll this past week and next will be high (and the clicks they provoke too tempting) for them not to do so, but I want to make something crystal clear:
it will take until heading into the DNC in 3 weeks for the polls to have amassed enough data to tell us how much the dynamics of the race have changed by giving the American people the ONE thing they wanted: a younger candidate.
Today in 1933, Adolph Hitler swore this oath as he as he became the German chancellor:
“I swear loyalty to the Constitution, obedience to the law, and conscientious fulfillment of the duties of my office, so help me God.”
Having run on an explicitly authoritarian platform, within a year, Hitler had completely neutralized the "coalition government," outlawed all parties aside from the Nazis, purged the civil services of Jews and political foes, cracked down on the free press, and sent thousands of political enemies to Dachau.
In Hitler's Germany, Germans took a very different kind of oath, one to Hitler, not the law.
“I swear I will be true and obedient to the Führer of the German Reich and people, Adolf Hitler, observe the law, and conscientiously fulfill the duties of my office, so help me God.
Over the next 10 months, we are going to walk you through Project 1933 so you can appreciate the weakness of legal protections in the face of people committed to violating it and understand how Project 1933 relates to the Republican Party's Project 2025.
🧵Keep Calm and Listen to the Signal:
Polls are the Noise, Election Results are the Signal
I want to make something clear right up front: the 2024 presidential election will be decided within roughly 7 swing states and will produce a very tight margin for the eventual winner
The fact is from now, until Election Day, there is a 50/50 chance we lose, no matter what probabilities certain models spit out.
The Biden-Harris campaign strategy will make the choice clear in 2024: democracy or dictatorship, BUT
I need you to prepare yourselves now for the inevitability that roughly 50% of Americans are going to find Trump’s #Project2025 message of removing “unelected bureaucrats” from government agencies in order to “purge the deep state” highly attractive.
“In order to secure its power, the German people had to be brought to heel…within a few months the unions, every political party, and every independent organization, be it for the arts, sports, or youth, was disbanded and absorbed by nazi organizations.”
“There was still the law and the courts to which the victims of the Nazis turned, and the Nazis had the sense not to try to suddenly assault the German legal system. On the contrary they gradually lifted legal obstacles in order to destroy them, one after the other.”
“A decree of 1935 stated that decisions of the Gestapo could not be challenged, thereby giving the Gestapo the right to intern citizens in camps…All the German people were put under surveillance…the slightest misconduct was ferociously repressed.”