Thread by @InnuendoStudios

Yesterday I ran an (extremely unscientific) experiment to check on the health of lefty discourse. Some of you may have twigged I was up to something with this tweet.

Thread incoming.
@ewarren has been independently ranked the top candidate on racial justice by two organizations - The Root and The Center for Urban and Racial Equity."" src="/images/1px.png" data-src="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ESCwvJkW4AEj6iI.png">

I wanted a temperature check of what kind of replies this provoked.

Before I get into it, these are not remotely laboratory conditions; my Twitter following is a self-selecting group, and I found it impossible to phrase the tweet in a way that wouldn't skew the replies.

As I suspect, a lot of people assume I was saying this to defend Warren, because... why else would I bring it up? I wondered if I could push it in other directions by adding "thoughts?" or "discuss" or "🤔," but they all seemed likely to skew in different directions

Simply stating the fact without context seemed like it would get the *closest* to people's gut reaction, but I know it biases people towards arguing against the position they think I'm taking. I did my best, but, again, this is not good science.

I'm gonna go through the breakdown of responses I got, but, for starters, I got close to 1000 likes and 90-something replies, so a ratio of about 10 likes per reply.

My average tweets are usually about 1:20, so this was either more discourse or fewer likes than usual.

I counted the replies and broke them into categories. Many spiraled out into threads, but categorizing replies to replies to replies gets complicated and it was too many tweets to count anyway, so I narrowed to merely replies to the original tweet.

Also, many tweets could have fit into multiple categories, so I tried to determine which category fit best. Fortunately, there weren't many that were hard to determine.

Also, for anyone interested, here are the rankings themselves:

The Root: theroot.com/every-democrat…

The Center for Urban and Racial Equity: urbanandracialequity.org/2020presidenti…

Let's begin.

Misc. Dismissive of Me/the Importance of the Subject: 24.1%

A lot of these are people simply saying "bruh" or "this ain't it, chief" or calling me a shitlib. Some were quite nasty. Others dismissed that having strong race policy matters.

This was the largest category.

Misc. Dismissive of Warren: 19.5%

A catch-all for things like "she's insincere" or "she's a liar" or (most commonly) it doesn't matter because she doesn't have the delegates to win.

The latter assumes the only reason to bring up her race policy is to secure your vote.

(this is maybe a good time to remind people that I have publicly stated, repeatedly, that I'm voting for Bernie Sanders)

Warren is a racist: 12.6%

Usually centering her having claimed for a long time to have Native American heritage. A lot of insisting Sanders is better on race, either citing things he's said or the ways his economic policies with help POC.

(no on pointed to anything Sanders has actually *done* for Black people during his time in office, nor any specifically race-oriented policy he's proposed, which is one of the complaints in the surveys)

(also, I would like to see someone engage with the fact that Sanders is weaker on race than a white lady who falsely claimed to be Native American. if you're saying Warren's a racist, what does that say about Sanders?)

Dismissive of the Validity of the Articles: 11.5%

Most of these were centered on The Root, questioning their methodology, calling them neoliberals, a couple people assuming they're white. Most glossed over that CURE came to the same conclusion.

Attempt at Nuanced Discussion: 9.2%

People engaging with the subject and/or asking questions. Many were still critical of Warren, but allowed the possibility that a flawed candidate can have some solid policies, or that Sanders can be the best option yet still have failings.

Unrelated: 8.0%

Memes, GIFs, and non sequiturs with no real content. Also one racist guy calling The Root "the melanin brigade."

[Insert Political Subject Here] is More Important: 6.9%

Bernie is better or Warren is bad because of Medicare for All, foreign policy, the economy, etc. etc. Sometimes had the soft implication that racially-inclusive economic policy is as good/better than explicit race policy.

(this is a good time to state, yet again, that healthcare policy and race policy are not things we have to choose between. there is literally no reason Bernie Sanders can't give us M4A *and* have a strong platform on race. social justice is not a dump stat.)

Misc. Supportive of Warren: 5.7%

People saying "good for her" or "that's why she's got my vote" or complaining about all the people shitting on her in the replies.

As you can see, there were not actually very many of these.

Misc. Supportive of Sanders: 1.1%

One person just hoo-rah'd Sanders without acknowledging the subject at all.

Figured Out I Was Fishing for Replies: 1.1%

Also one person gathered that I was probably up to something.

All in all, when stating that Warren had been ranked the top candidate on race by two different groups, 74.6% of the responses were some flavor of negative, often hostile, and many insulting me personally for bringing it up.

This is, again, without stating whether this speaks well of Warren, even if that is the most common assumption. (The fact that it should be the most common assumption is noteworthy.)

As I've said, I'm voting for Sanders, but I'm uncomfortable with the feeling that I have to keep repeating "I'm voting for Sanders" for people to take me seriously.

That any acknowledgment that Sanders has weaknesses, that Warren can be better than him at literally anything, is treated as heresy. That even implying "race is important, too" got me called a capitalist.

I've been wondering for a long time whether the lefty discourse is unhealthy or if I'm just hyperfixating on a handful of negative experiences, but this feels like partial confirmation.

The statement that Warren is better on race than Sanders should not meet with 75% hostility.

I would like to remind everyone that every single policy Sanders is proposing will exist under capitalism, that voting for Sanders is not bucking the system but participating in it, and that he is proposing a European model of "capitalism with more regulations."

And, in my opinion, that's the best we've got on offer, but it's a deeply compromised position as far as I'm concerned. And making Sanders the avatar of the American Left does pull the center towards the left, but it also pulls the left towards the center if you let it.

What chafes me about the treatment of Warren is that she's advocating for more or less the same, and I prefer Sanders merely because he goes farther in some areas. But Warren calls this what it is: liberal capitalism. Sanders calls it a revolution.

I guess I just expect people not to buy that, and to keep demanding better.

And, if all the candidates are some flavor of capitalist, than any vote is a compromise, and Warren vs. Sanders is a question of which compromises you're willing to make.

Every complaint I have about Sanders are the ways he's not left enough. And Warren is, on some social issues, to his left.

This does not mean you should vote for Warren, it means you should demand better of Sanders.

And I am utterly exhausted watching people do backflips trying not to say "race just isn't as important as economics." As if that were true, and as if we'd have to choose even if it were.

Fellow Sanders voters: I think we should get our shit together.

/thread

pie chart