Matthew Sheffield Profile picture
Nov 8, 2020 11 tweets 3 min read Read on X
Joe Biden's first speech since his unofficial victory struck lots of the correct notes. We need unity and healing but it must be done correctly to work. Here's the link to the video and transcript if you missed it: npr.org/sections/live-…
The most important step in healing is to understand that the Trump/GOP coalition is not monolithic. And also, he should understand that the GOP elite does not act in good faith. Their goal is to do nothing.
Mitch McConnell figured out years ago that Americans don't support conservative economic or governmental views.

So instead of trying to pass laws to make that happen, his goal was to stop laws and use courts to push his agenda. I wrote about this in 2018 salon.com/2018/02/07/mit…
This is critical because even GOP voters don't support slashing the government the way that conservatives want. I know because I used to be a pollster.

Here's what I found: thehill.com/hilltv/what-am… Image
The key to national healing will be for Biden to separate Republican voters from Republican elites. This means that he MUST call out the Republicans for never presenting policies. This must be a DAILY exercise by his White House.
Republican voters don't know that the healthcare bill that Trump nearly signed in 2017 would have effectively removed pre-existing conditions protections from Obamacare.

They don't know that the GOP wants to take away Medicaid expansion from the millions who now have it.
Democrats were not paying attention as the GOP built a multi-billion-dollar parallel reality machine to ensnare religious people to manipulate them. This "Matrix" of media must be crushed through direct confrontation and accountability.
Even now, most mainstream media reporters and editors just don't know all-encompassing the conservative media panopticon really is.

RW media literally are claiming that Trump is going to win, even now:
One of the biggest things I am going to be doing in the months and years ahead will be to expose just how little conservative media figures know about politics.

When they're on cable news panels, their manipulative ignorance isn't called out.
Quite literally, US conservative politics has become an identity and a religion. The only way to free people from the delusion is outreach that fights the lies where they happen.

But I will need millions of people to help with this. Please spread the word! Thanks so much!
PS: One of the other things I want to do is expose how predatory the right-wing ecosystem is on its marks. They literally have no problem helping scam artists cheat elderly people out of their retirement savings: thebaffler.com/salvos/the-lon…

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More from @mattsheffield

Nov 6
🧵 The election is going to be decided by people who don't like the candidates. Donald Trump always had a core of voters who don't like him but vote for him anyway.

It seems that the Harris campaign wanted to build a group of this kind for herself.
But the two parties' possible voter universes are not the same and cannot be motivated with the exact same tactics.

Historically, speaking, American political parties were multi-ideological. But the right wing activists who took over the Republicans changed the party.
They changed the nature of who was in the party. As the inventors of cancel culture, they kicked out all of the liberal and moderate Republicans who used to be very common.

They did this through relentless media propaganda aimed at Republicans to make them more reactionary.
Read 22 tweets
Nov 4
🧵 After 9 long years, it's starting to look like Donald Trump has become overexposed to his fans.

Democrats have been significantly more enthused since Kamala Harris entered the race than Republicans have.

In a base turnout election, Trump loses. Image
Trump lost in 2020 because he failed to get some of his 2016 voters to come back to support him. You can slice who these people were, but demographically it was primarily white men. Trump improved his share among most other demographic groups.
These former voters either chose to vote for Joe Biden or they stayed home.

In 2024, he is trying to bring them back but Trump has not modified his message really at all. So why would they return?

As the race ends, Trump is playing to empty seats
Read 21 tweets
Oct 29
🧵 CNN just removed a far-right panelist for a racist remark against progressive commentator @mehdirhasan.

This was the right decision. But as a former TV booker, what happened is part of a much bigger problem...
Before going independent, I used to be a producer at @thehill on its "Rising" program.

Like all mainstream media shows, we were constantly trying to have balanced panel discussions. But we always had a problem: It was very difficult to find Republicans who weren't crazy.
@thehill Frequently, my colleagues would book right wing commentators and as someone who'd come out of conservative media, I often had to review them before they were put on air.

More than a few times, people who were "alt right" activists were booked before I removed them...
Read 15 tweets
Oct 3
🧵 The science behind why Donald Trump 'loves the poorly educated'

Far-right people are often obsessed w using so-called "race science" to prove that non-Europeans are less intelligent. Amusingly, the real science shows that right-wingers have lower cognitive abilities…
This thread is a summary of the latest @TheoryChange episode, continue along here or click through if you just want to watch, read, or listen to the whole thing: plus.flux.community/p/the-science-…
Since Donald Trump began his political career, a college degree has become a sort of proxy for "Trumpiness."

But education is not the primary divide. It's cognition.

Intelligence and cognition are often mistaken for each other, but they are not the same thing.
Read 16 tweets
Oct 1
🧵 The Republican party's specific ideas are horribly unpopular. Everywhere, it does almost nothing for its voters' economic or social interests.

Identity politics are the primary reason that Republicans are a competitive political party. Democrats know this but rarely say it...
Democrats have been stuck in a messaging trap for decades. They know their policies are more popular so they think they should run on them.

It doesn't work, because it doesn't answer the Republican message: Life sucks and will never get better. We'll respect you at least.
Of course, Republican elites do not actually respect their voters. They find them to be pathetic mouth-breathers who will believe whatever they're told. This is why they are such shameless grifters, scamming their followers with shitcoins, sneakers, gold scams.
Read 13 tweets
Sep 18
🧵 This Wall Street Journal deep dive into the Republican lies about Springfield is a must read look into JD Vance's total dishonesty.

After spreading vague rumors for days, Vance's staff provided one verified name, Anna Kilgore. Her cat was perfectly fine. Image
Vance also lied about diseases supposedly increasing in Springfield.

They are their lowest since 2013. Vance is trashing his own state and his own constituents to help his insane orange boss. Image
Vance was privately warned off the story before the debate by Springfield officials. He hadn't even checked before he slandered a city in his own state.

Despite the correction, he refused to retract. Then Trump promoted the lie as well.

Free link: msn.com/en-us/news/us/…
Image
Read 4 tweets

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