Mangy Jay Profile picture
2 Dec, 10 tweets, 2 min read
This take is somewhat a-historic and does not incorporate what we know about the election results so far.
Dems have been on-trend to gain w/ white college ed voters (esp women) over the past few years. It makes sense to target these voters as a demographic. Would it make sense to target these voters over and above POC? Absolutely not. So it's a good thing that's not what happened.
Is there evidence that trying to flip white college voters hurt Dems' performance down-ballot?

No. This evidence does not exist.
Is there evidence of a continued Democratic weakness w/ white non-college voters?

Yes.

Have Democrats ignored the concerns of the lower SES voters w/in the group of "white no-college?"

No.
Can outreach on economic policy be improved w/ this group? Probably.

But there are also many indicators that the subset of "white-no-college" voters who are Trump supporters are motivated by social, not economic concerns.
If people are arguing for a shift in ideology to persuade members of this group, they are implicitly arguing that we throw POC under the bus.
The idea that Biden lost serious ground w/ Black voters is a myth. The data do not support it. It is true that Dems overall lost support with some segments of Latino voters & that we should figure out why that is, as well as improve Latino outreach for moral & strategic reasons.
However, we need to be clear here: many non-Latino pundits who pontificate about why we had weaknesses w/ certain subsets of Latino voters don't seem to understand that the answers to "Latino outreach" will be extremely heterogeneous.
In some cases, it may be that Obama-Biden were not good enough on immigration reform. But if you hear "Latino weakness" and you immediately think "immigration," you are likely making some false assumptions about large groups of voters in the "Latino" umbrella.
That's not to say immigration reform isn't a huge issue for many Latino voters, but it's not a unifying explanatory variable for a lot of the trends we're seeing. And it also obscures other issues that are variously important to diff groups w/in the Latino umbrella.

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Mangy Jay

Mangy Jay Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @magi_jay

4 Dec
When Pelosi wouldn't accept a GOP deal, she was called a ghoul. Now, if she accepts a deal, she is also a ghoul. I see very few explicit arguments that acknowledge we have to negotiate w/ the GOP & what we should deem as non-negotiable vs. what is up for compromise.
Would you accept a temporary liability shield for employers in order to ensure people get UI or can pay their rent? I might. It's a difficult pill to swallow & I hate it. But, again, we are negotiating w/ the GOP. We can't pass anything w/out their help.
I'm tired of seeing just a self-righteous scream instead of an actual ethical argument here. We have to negotiate with the GOP. I don't want to. But we have to. There's no other way. So: make an argument about what we should sacrifice & what we should hold sacred.
Read 6 tweets
4 Dec
Well, maybe you shouldn't have wrapped your untenable & wildly unpopular economic policies in a big racist science-denying bow for the past 50 years news-herald.com/opinion/conspi… Image
Maybe if y'all wanted a robust American economic conservatism to serve as a balance to economic progressivism, you could have sold this conservatism on its actual "merits" rather than using other methods (racism & other assorted bigotries) to get people to vote for it.
Cause it sure looks to me like "conservatives" have been using bigotry, innuendo, and lies as their main appeal to voters and you know what? Maybe that's created a nice hotbed of radicals whose motivations cannot be appealed to through reason and/or truth.

Just a thought.
Read 5 tweets
4 Dec
These data are interesting & I recommend taking a look at them. Of course many are using them rather illogically to confirm their priors. In a highly polarized electorate, you would expect the upper left/lower right quadrants to be relatively less dense.
I see a lot of people using the observation that the lower right quadrant is *more* sparse than the upper left quadrant as evidence that Dems' electoral strategy is broadly "bad," w/out following through on some of the logic.
If you argue that Democrats should focus on the upper left quadrant, you need to establish at least two things:

1. Does the fact that these voters are more numerous entail the red-voting ones are more persuadable? (The answer is no)
Read 5 tweets
3 Dec
This article raises a number of different ethical Q's that functionally overlap. 1st is the prioritization of placebo recipients for the real vaccine. 2nd is the quality of the data. If placebo recipients receive the vaccine too soon, will that compromise efficacy results?
One thing that is of potential concern is how well the researchers defined the length of the placebo trial--both for themselves in terms of data quality & for participants who chose to enroll in the trial. Were participants fully informed of how long the placebo trial would last?
Additionally, it should be noted that participants should be able to get the vaccine regardless of the length of the placebo phase. This could just generally involve them dropping out of the trial. If they want to be prioritized, however, that involves a more complicated process
Read 7 tweets
2 Dec
I'm not going to make a personal argument about "Defund the Police," but it sounds like Obama is just talking about the slogan and the slogan itself. He is not criticizing the underlying idea of redistributing resources
Obama specifically mentions 1. putting resources into helping people before they are involved in any crime and 2. redistributing funds such that police are not charged w/ responding to situations that are better taken care of by mental health professionals/social workers.
Again: I have said it before and I will say it again: I think I have no place in the actual debate over the slogan. I think that's a within-community debate w/ a lot of different opinions & I don't see what my voice adds to it.
Read 4 tweets
1 Dec
I'm not sure if people realize this, but a lot of the plans that have come out of @amprog during Neera Tanden's tenure are to the left of Biden's platform. This includes their healthcare proposal.
CAP has also highlighted issues that too often go ignored. Their work on disability is extensive. Under Tanden's lead, they've also taken a very intersectional approach to economic policy. For an example:
americanprogress.org/issues/economy…
Overall, I would highly recommend looking at the work put out by CAP. The team is skilled at both describing the origins of weaknesses/disparities in our society & how to build solutions to these problems. Another example is their work on Early Childhood: americanprogress.org/issues/early-c…
Read 5 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!