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Lara Putnam Profile picture
@lara_putnam
May 2, 2021 • 28 tweets • 11 min read • Read on X
The Big Lie is still in place because the trusted communication infrastructure that supported & cemented the Big Lie is still in place. If your plans/advice to Dems re future elections aren't grappling w/this ongoing reality, *you're* the one living in a fantasy version of the US
Like this👇 should not be an evergreen tweet. yet here we are
As a Cardcarrying Historian™ I've been thinking a lot about what sources future historians will have to work with in reconstructing this moment: & am struck by how radically different your understanding of just what happened in 2020—& what people thought about—will be, depending
The political debate that was going on in the semi-private public realm of community Fb groups looked nothing like the range of debate visible thru elite media sources. An example is the role of perceptions of "Antifa violence", which I tried to trace here
2020's polling miss was just one repercussion of a *broader* accelerating fracture of communication spaces & willingness to communicate across them. I don't see center-to-left analysts+activists grappling w this: everyone seems too busy insisting results proved their priors right
This @peterdslevin piece from last month is really important in capturing the layered & reinforcing dynamics involved. It's not just about Trump. It's not just about Facebook. It's not just disinfo per se.
& I'm here to tell you, it's not just Iowa. newyorker.com/news/campaign-…
👇How can you trust politicians who aren't talking about the reality you are convinced exists (elsewhere)? But how can Dem politicians span that gap when the RW version of reality—on basic questions like "is COVID serious?" or "did Biden win the election"—has moved beyond truth? Image
I was fascinated by this @PerryUndem research in which "Trump's lies"/"Pres Trump cares about people like me"+views of BLM are the strongest predictors of vote choice. Does this mean opinions of Trump simply *drove* vote choice tho? Correlation≠causation perryundem.com/wp-content/upl… Image
If the election was all about Trump then, all good! national nightmare: over. But what if it's that those questions are the ones that index most efficiently which communications universe respondents inhabit? A world in which Trump lies? or one in which he's the American dream? Image
Note too "Joe Biden's lies" highly cited by Trump voters. & “Kamala Harris is tricking everyone. She only cares about becoming president” was among very strongest vote predictors. We're all convinced we're being lied to bc we're personally factchecking against different realities ImageImage
This week I dived back into the rabbit hole of links shared in community Fb groups before & after the election, up thru Jan 6 when Fb cracked down & everything changed. I ran back into this: which has been viewed 1.6 million times (+another 900K on YouTb?) facebook.com/10004452648566… Image
It really exemplifies how many actors leaned in to the distrust-disinfo[-profit] cycle—I mean here's someone w 2.9 million Fb followers + 1.9 million on YT who AFAIK hasn't even made the "journalists routinely namecheck as conspiracist" big time (but see👇 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JP_Sears Image
[not irrelevant👇]
Picking this thread up again & starting w/👇bc...
...my TL is again seesawing btwn Round No. I'veLostCount of the Dem messaging wars OTOH & handwringing about demography[might-not-actually-be]destiny OTO. & I'm left asking:
When do we get the pundit-cycle that focuses on the many layers of rules/institutions/networks in between? ImageImage
I'm increasingly pessimistic about all this👇actually: but to me that makes it even more urgent for Dem-side groups to be spending/planning NOW in support of infrastructure that will make the next decade or so of natl GOP election victories less damaging
👇👇
I'm talking about the organizations, networks, rules, interaction spaces & channels that enable people to find ways to do politics together (=internal infrastructure) & to reach out & connect/persuade/engage people~voters more broadly (=external infrstrct)
.@Mlsif+others talked👇about how change can happen in this realm: "It’s like putting old tires in the sea where there used to be coral reefs. Things stick to them & all of a sudden you’ve got the possibility of an ecosystem that works as a coral reef again micahsifry.medium.com/organizing-in-…
& I tried to sum up some trends in Dem-side grassroots infrastructure building here👇 There's been party-building, in some places. & non-party issue-focused local org growth in others. All good! But it's been scotch-taped together. & still limited in reach prospect.org/politics/other…
It's not just money needed. Eg in cities it would help if state/nat'l Dems even just leaned on local powerholders to follow already-existing rules, such that party structures play the role of fair competition space, & people who want power work to expand the electorate to compete
There are other spaces where a little money would go a long way to build internal infrastrucrture. Eg in rural areas, matching funds for schoolboard & other waay downballot canddates. Fellowships for young people to form/join Dem-side local orgs & travel to meet others regionally
But I'm not arguing that local participatory politics can fix everything, or that its strength or weakness explains everything. It can't, & it doesn't!
[👇 not me!] Image
+: there are feedback loops. By now the predominance of RW communication ecosystems in much of the country makes it increasingly irrational for Dems to make any electoral effort @ all in many rural spaces👇 But making the rational choice makes things worse
This👇exchange fr the day after election sticks w/me: esp bc I know @ErinNinehouser IRL & have seen the dedication she pours into organizing & relational outreach. If even people like Erin start asking Why even try in the face of this? you've got a problem Image
👇👇👇
picking up this🧵 fr a month ago to hope that this👇fr @mattyglesias is by now a central focus for *someone* in the Dem-side sphere,??
A baseline incentivized-to-be-reality-based local news media was previously baked into the US political balance & is disappearing before our eyes Image
Not irrelevant: over the past few weeks I've seen a surge of mentions, w/in private groups, of printed issues of Epoch Times arriving unrequested on doorsteps in different Pgh suburbs. Would be great to have a sense of the extent of the push underway... theatlantic.com/politics/archi…

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More from @lara_putnam

Lara Putnam Profile picture
Nov 9, 2023
to appreciate the scale of Dems' statewide success this wk you have to cast your mind back to the distant past of... Nov 2021, at whch point it looked fully possible the PA electorate would keep speeding rightward twice as fast as it had lurched left after the election of DJTrump
Here's an even clearer metric I ended up with, one that captures turnout shifts as well as vote choice swings: change in net votes by county, averaged across statewide candidates each year to create something close to generic Dem v generic Rep results Image
In Delco, Montco, Philly & Allegheny Dems had hung on to some anti-Trump era gains, but pretty much everywhere else* across the state—most impactfully in Bucks, SCPA, & the big non-Allegheny counties of SWPA--Republicans were ascendant

*ok Dauphin Lackawanna & Monroe broke even Image
Read 12 tweets
Lara Putnam Profile picture
Nov 13, 2022
It was certainly plausible to think that John Fetterman would have a uniquely strong performance among white working-class or rural Pennsylvanians but... that didn't turn out to be the case at all?🤷‍♀️
The results are especially striking because surely holding everything equal, one would expect Doug Mastriano's appeal to be strongest in the rural+rust belt areas that swung hard in support of Donald Trump: & Oz to be more appealing in the upscale/moderate/cosmopolitan suburbs?
The darker green counties here are the ones where Shapiro outperformed Fetterman most strongly: which is the same as saying, where Oz outperformed Mastriano most strongly. SCPA/the capitol region, Bucks, but also Cambria, Westmoreland, Butler, Erie🤷‍♀️
Read 14 tweets
Lara Putnam Profile picture
Nov 11, 2022
Return of the 2018 Coalition, On Steroids (A Quick Thread on 2022 in Pennsylvania Before this Website Collapses).

tl;dr After Dobbs, the suburbs' anti-Dem realignment screeched to a halt & the anti-Trump realignment returned Image
Lots of things happened around the end of June: Dobbs, bipartisan bills, gas prices coming down, Jan 6 hearings gaining news. The exact proportions of which had an impact on who may remain up for debate. But what's clear is things changed & stayed changed
The geography of voter reg trend shifts was striking: Dems stopped hemorrhaging voters in PA's "Middle Suburb"/once-industrial counties: & went back to posting 2016-18 style gains in PA's upscale/cosmopolitan "Urban Suburb" counties
Read 20 tweets
Lara Putnam Profile picture
Nov 9, 2022
This👇is not wrong! But note it's not just a demographic thing. The state & local organizations created/recreated by the anti-Trump grassroots ran through the tape for downballot Dems this year: even while hearing (& believing!) national voices foretelling doom
National voices #onhere have not yet processed what a stunning year this was for downballot Dems in PA. The inverse of 2020, when the presidential result distracted attention from PA Dems' grim downballot slide. PA lived the midterm backlash 2 ys early!💪
.@LetsTurnPABlue @TuesdaysToomey @acttogethernepa etc — plus the groups of different origin & profile who saw their potential & figured out how to partner: @seiuhcpa @NewPennsylvania @UniteforPA & many more
Read 13 tweets
Lara Putnam Profile picture
Nov 9, 2022
Because you are all about to realize you need to know this: in 2021 Democratic PA Supreme Court candidate Maria McLaughlin's share of provisional ballots in both Lehigh & Northampton counties was exactly 20 ppt higher than her share of EDay+Mail votes in each.
...& likewise in Montgomery County. fwiw. 👀
... and likewise in Bucks 👀 . 2021 provisionals were 19 ppts more Dem than the combined E-Day and Mail ballots were.
Read 4 tweets
Lara Putnam Profile picture
Nov 9, 2022
So back in August @Mlsif & I wrote a thing. Most normal people who read it only focused on what we said about apocalyptic emails (& agreed), while natl groups that run postcard-writing programs only focused on what we said about postcards (& disagreed) BUT nytimes.com/2022/08/01/opi…
...the core of the piece wasn't about either of those things. It was about what a better way of building Democratic connections to volunteers AND to voters would look like: one in which communication runs laterally between them, building local knowledge & local capacity over time
We described how local activists gained knowledge of the electorate around them, & on that basis recruited candidates+prioritized tactics: not just "honing the message" to work locally, but *creating the messengers* who could effectively deliver it. In 2021 they battled to a draw
Read 9 tweets

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