It’s not too late for them to do the right thing. Lincoln Project should take the L and publicly pledge to give a lot of their fundraising to the people who actually made a big difference.
There’s potential incentive bc @ProjectLincoln is def in scam territory w these results. It’s a pretty bad rep even tho GOP has a thing for failing up.
Come clean, say “listen, we thought it’d work, it didn’t,& in good faith we’re gonna raise X mil for these ppl who deserve it”
And for folks who think it persuaded Republicans, I’d be interested to see data on how effective their videos and NYC billboards were at persuasion. Especially data that justifies $67,000,000.
It’s not that persuasion doesn’t work, it’s a Q of if this was persuasion at all ⬇️
BTW I’m definitely happy to be proven wrong. If we can get independent data that @ProjectLincoln’s videos and billboards were directly responsible for really effective R ➡️ D persuasion - $67 million of it - I’ll publicly apologize. But we just haven’t seen any.
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There are folks running around on TV blaming progressivism for Dem underperformance.
I was curious, so I decided to open the hood on struggling campaigns of candidates who are blaming progressives for their problems.
Almost all had awful execution on digital. DURING A PANDEMIC.
Underinvestment across the board. Some campaigns spent $0 on digital the week before the election. Others who spent did so in very poor ways.
If I spent only $12k on TV the week before an election & then blamed others after, you’d ask questions. That’s how it looks seeing this.
Ideology + messaging are the spicy convos a lot of people jump to but sometimes it’s about execution and technical capacity.
Digital execution was not good, polls were off, ironically DCCC banned the firms who are the best in the country at Facebook bc they work w progressives!
Imagine trying to explain to your colleagues who are members of Congress what Twitch is 😭
Some context for a few folks getting upset at this: Congress is voting on legislation regarding Twitch today.
It’s totally fine if you don’t know what Twitch is. But tech literacy is becoming an growing need in Congress so we can legislate to protect people’s privacy, etc.
When our legislative bodies aren’t sufficiently responsive to tech, then that means we don’t have the tools required to protect people.
This is partially why companies know way more about you than you may even be aware of - bc it’s legal, and Congress is struggling to keep up.
People who are actually “cancelled” don’t get their thoughts published and amplified in major outlets.
This has been a public service announcement.
The term “cancel culture” comes from entitlement - as though the person complaining has the right to a large, captive audience,& one is a victim if people choose to tune them out.
Odds are you’re not actually cancelled, you’re just being challenged, held accountable, or unliked.
I have an entire TV network dedicated to stoking hatred of me. A white supremacist w/ a popular network show regularly distorts me in dangerous ways, & it’s a normal part of my existence to get death threats from their audience.
“Defund” means that Black & Brown communities are asking for the same budget priorities that White communities have already created for themselves: schooling > police,etc.
People asked in other ways, but were always told “No, how do you pay for it?”
So they found the line item.
Lots of DC insiders are criticizing frontline activists over political feasibility and saying they need a new slogan.
But poll-tested slogans and electoral feasibility is not the activists’ job. Their job is to organize support and transform public opinion, which they are doing.
Our job as policymakers is to take the public’s mandate and find + create pockets to advance as much progress as possible.
Progress takes a team of different roles. You don’t criticize a pitcher for not being a catcher.
We can respond in ways that don’t undercut impt work