1) If I can make one lasting contribution to the Resistance, I would like to help all of you learn to interpret what politicians are saying to you, so you can correctly use it in your activism. It's crucial that you all master this skill. I'll explain it to you in this thread.
2) One obvious example: we all know Mitch McConnell is a liar. Yet whenever he announces he's doing something corrupt and awful, and he says he has the votes, we always believe him. Even though it usually turns out he was lying about having the votes.
3) Why does McConnell keep doing this? Because we choose to keep falling for it. He convinces us that he's beaten us on something, so we get discouraged and stop fighting on that issue. This increases the odds that he'll end up having the votes for it after we give up.
4) Another example: moderate politicians and swing votes always verbally play both sides, no matter which side they're going to end up voting with. They have to throw some red meat to whichever side they're going to end up pissing off.
5) For instance, Lisa Murkowski's attack on Schiff yesterday was absolutely not a sign that she'll vote against witnesses. Her words told us NOTHING. She's verbally hedging her bets. She's making a point of pandering to both sides ahead of her vote.
6) Murkowski will vote whichever way she decides gives her the best odds of keeping her seat. She's probably waiting to see the next round of impeachment poll numbers before deciding on witnesses. But even if she has made up her mind, nothing she says will provide any clue.
7) Our side completely blows it when we see Murkowski or Romney pandering to the other side, and we conclude we've lost that person's vote, and we stop trying to pressure them. If we understood what we were hearing from these politicians, we wouldn't be screwing up like this.
8) We don't even seem to understand what the politicians on our own side are saying. Speaker Pelosi said in early 2019 that she didn't want to impeach Trump, because if she did end up doing it, she wanted moderate voters to interpret it as her doing it reluctantly.
9) Our course she was very probably going to end up impeaching him, and she knew it. But she wasn't talking to you. Also, she NEVER said she wasn't going to do it. She only said she didn't WANT to do it. I don't want to do my laundry. But I probably will anyway.
10) Then you've got people like Joe Manchin, a Democrat in a deep red state. He has never once cast a DECIDING vote against the Democrats. He's 1000% loyal to the Democratic Party. Yet because of the strategy he uses to remain in office, the Resistance thinks he's a backstabber.
11) Manchin ONLY votes with the Republicans on things where it's going to be decided by more than one vote anyway, and Manchin's vote wouldn't have made a difference. Then he can go home to West Virginia and say he's bipartisan, even though he's never helped the GOP even once.
12) In fact I can guarantee you Chuck Schumer gives Manchin specific permission to vote against the Democrats in those meaningless instances, because Schumer wants Manchin to keep his seat. The alternative in West Virginia would be a deranged far-right Republican.
13) Manchin also verbally panders to the other side sometimes, so that when he votes like a loyal Democrat, he can go home to his red state and point to the remarks he made in favor of the other side. This kind of thing is the most basic of political realities.
14) Yet because almost no one in the Resistance understands how politics works, we waste a ton of time attacking Manchin, mistakenly accusing him of casting DECIDING votes against the party, and trying to weaken him – when his votes are 100% LOYAL TO THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY.
15) Because we don't understand how to interpret the words of the Republican swing voters, we give up and stop pressuring them. Even though we successfully pressured Murkowski and Collins into saving Obamacare, we now have amnesia about this, as if it never happened.
16) Did we never understand why we won the Obamacare fight? It wasn't just McCain being McCain. His vote wouldn't have mattered, except we had already pressured Murkowski and Collins into voting to save Obamacare as well.
17) Sometimes we successfully pressure the Republican swing voters to vote our way. Sometimes they vote the other way. That's why they're SWING voters. They vote for whichever side they fear the most on that issue. When we prematurely back off, they definitely vote the other way.
18) Spoiler alert: all politicians, on both sides, speak in code most of the time. Most of what they say can be ignored, because it has very little relation to what they're going to end up doing. Want to know what a politician will do? Ignore their words, follow their motivations
19) Motivation #1 for every elected official is to try to keep their own seat if possible. The do-gooders know they need to keep their seat in order to keep doing good. The corrupt ones know they need to keep their seat in order to keep the dirty money flowing into their pocket.
20) Republican Senators care ZERO about Trump's fate. Each morning they look at Trump's poll numbers nationally and in their home state/district, and then they decide how strongly or weakly to back Trump each day. It's about literally nothing else, beyond their own reelection.
21) If Trump's approval rating had gone below about 30% at any point, House and Senate GOP would have fed Trump to an alligator to save their own seats amidst his downfall. If they vote to acquit him, it'll be a calculation that it gives them the best odds of keeping their seats.
22) The good guys use calculations too. Pelosi structured impeachment in a way that would get the job done, while also aiming not to lose any House seats over it. It's why she tends to win. She's good at strategy. Most of her own supporters don't really understand how she wins.
23) Everything I've said in this thread is so simple, a ten year old can understand it. If none of this is clicking for you, it's only because you're so locked in to your existing false notions about how politics works. If you want to be more effective, you have to set crap aside
24) 90% of political analysis, particularly on TV, is based on these false premises:
- Politicians are saying what they mean
- Everything in politics is done by magic wand
In fairness, no wonder most of you have no idea how politics actually works. You're hearing this shit.
- Politicians are saying what they mean
- Everything in politics is done by magic wand
In fairness, no wonder most of you have no idea how politics actually works. You're hearing this shit.
25) Bottom line: if you want to accomplish anything good as a political activist, START LEARNING HOW POLITICS WORKS.
Either that, or go do something else with your life, because nothing is more harmful than a political activist who doesn't understand they game they're playing.
Either that, or go do something else with your life, because nothing is more harmful than a political activist who doesn't understand they game they're playing.
