Soul-Searching, Recriminations Within Democratic Party

[underwaterrhymes]

I just listened to Jon Stewart’s podcast this week featuring Heather Cox Richardson.

Highly recommend.

[pixy0stix]

Are we getting to the point that Dems are going send Jill Stein money to pay for recounts again?

That was a wild time.

[neverfstop]

He blames Elon...

thehill.com/homenews/media/4985630-allan-lichtman-musk-disinformation-election-prediction/

Historian and political scientist Allan Lichtman is blaming disinformation and billionaire tech mogul Elon Musk for his incorrect prediction that Vice President Harris would win the presidency.

“And you know, as scholars have shown, once you dissolve truth, democracy dissolves along with it, the way authoritarian takes hold, and it’s taking hold all over the world, not just here, is not through force, but through the manipulation of information, as George Orwell warned in 1984 you know, in that dictatorship, war is peace, famine is plenty,” Lichtman said.

[ellipses84]

[mention]stuffandthings [/mention] Those are good points. People were shocked at the results and jumping to conclusions based on incomplete results last week. When we look at the final numbers, in hindsight, they are pretty close in every swing state and there are reasons for them. Like, Michigan had more 3rd party voters which we expected from a large middle eastern population. Rs for state races in AZ and NC were wildly unpopular. I think the total votes will only be around 6 million less than. 2020, not 20 million less.

[neverfstop]

I just heard today that Trump won by less than when he ran against Hillary for …

[Jalapeñomel]

If, that’s a big if, if the election was actually stolen, I don’t think anything would/could be done about it. The republicans made sure of it last election cycle.

[sonrisa]

On misinformation and low information - while driving I caught a part of an NPR show discussing this. It brought up a perspective not mentioned here.

High quality news information is generally behind a paywall. If you aren't paying, you are left with a lot of AI pink slime news, click bait "news," questionable podcasts, and the like. This is especially true if your primary language isn't English.

[gretchenindisguise]

Nov 12, 2024 19:41:11 GMT -5 sonrisa said:

On misinformation and low information - while driving I caught a part of an NPR show discussing this. It brought up a perspective not mentioned here.

High quality news information is generally behind a paywall. If you aren't paying, you are left with a lot of AI pink slime news, click bait "news," questionable podcasts, and the like. This is especially true if your primary language isn't English.

Couple that with local news channels being behind paywalls as well. I am in an area that unless I pay a cable subscription, hulu, youtube, et. - i don’t get local channels.

[pixy0stix]

Nov 12, 2024 21:15:06 GMT -5 gretchenindisguise said:

Nov 12, 2024 19:41:11 GMT -5 sonrisa said:

On misinformation and low information - while driving I caught a part of an NPR show discussing this. It brought up a perspective not mentioned here.

High quality news information is generally behind a paywall. If you aren't paying, you are left with a lot of AI pink slime news, click bait "news," questionable podcasts, and the like. This is especially true if your primary language isn't English.

Couple that with local news channels being behind paywalls as well. I am in an area that unless I pay a cable subscription, hulu, youtube, et. - i don’t get local channels.

This, the tv news being free, I get. Other than that, news has never been free. They had to pay their journalists somehow. Typically it was through (print based) subscriptions and advertisements.

I really think the whole "news should be free" sentiment that I've been seeing since the internet became a thing is what killed journalism. Once the internet became widely used the general public has thought that content should be free, which is what killed high quality news sites. I've always thought it would make a great example of how socialism can go wrong. Even the people who could afford to pay for the news stopped, making it virtually impossible for anyone to have access to news.

[sonrisa]

Nov 12, 2024 21:37:13 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

Nov 12, 2024 21:15:06 GMT -5 gretchenindisguise said:

Couple that with local news channels being behind paywalls as well. I am in an area that unless I pay a cable subscription, hulu, youtube, et. - i don’t get local channels.

This, the tv news being free, I get. Other than that, news has never been free. They had to pay their journalists somehow. Typically it was through (print based) subscriptions and advertisements.

I really think the whole "news should be free" sentiment that I've been seeing since the internet became a thing is what killed journalism. Once the internet became widely used the general public has thought that content should be free, which is what killed high quality news sites. I've always thought it would make a great example of how socialism can go wrong. Even the people who could afford to pay for the news stopped, making it virtually impossible for anyone to have access to news.

I'm not arguing that news should be free. Journalists should be paid and that means the news consumers need to pay them. The solution isn't free journalism.

However, I personally hadn't thought of that as contributing so highly to the misinformation /information gap (more than the right wing deliberate misinformation in some cases) until they discussed it. 

[pixy0stix]

Nov 12, 2024 22:32:49 GMT -5 sonrisa said:

Nov 12, 2024 21:37:13 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

This, the tv news being free, I get. Other than that, news has never been free. They had to pay their journalists somehow. Typically it was through (print based) subscriptions and advertisements.

I really think the whole "news should be free" sentiment that I've been seeing since the internet became a thing is what killed journalism. Once the internet became widely used the general public has thought that content should be free, which is what killed high quality news sites. I've always thought it would make a great example of how socialism can go wrong. Even the people who could afford to pay for the news stopped, making it virtually impossible for anyone to have access to news.

I'm not arguing that news should be free. Journalists should be paid and that means the news consumers need to pay them. The solution isn't free journalism.

However, I personally hadn't thought of that as contributing so highly to the misinformation /information gap (more than the right wing deliberate misinformation in some cases) until they discussed it. 

Right. I wasn't disagreeing with you, the individual. I'm disagreeing with the entire premise. News, in this country, has never been free. And the "news should be free" sentiment killed the journalism we did have. Which fits the "what went wrong" question for the whole thread.

[sonrisa]

Nov 12, 2024 22:44:30 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

Nov 12, 2024 22:32:49 GMT -5 sonrisa said:

I'm not arguing that news should be free. Journalists should be paid and that means the news consumers need to pay them. The solution isn't free journalism.

However, I personally hadn't thought of that as contributing so highly to the misinformation /information gap (more than the right wing deliberate misinformation in some cases) until they discussed it. 

Right. I wasn't disagreeing with you, the individual. I'm disagreeing with the entire premise. News, in this country, has never been free. And the "news should be free" sentiment killed the journalism we did have. Which fits the "what went wrong" question for the whole thread.

Ahh - I wasn't thinking of it as an answer to "what went wrong?" and more of an answer to "Why do people think all these outlandish things?"

The solution isn't free journalism. It's combatting shitty AI generated news and other click bait. (That was where the radio conversation was going). Even if every journalist was independently funded and every real news site could be completely free, it's never going to be as eye popping as crap. 

[neverfstop]

ugh.... axios

Democratic leaders are increasingly anxious about being left with a big bill from Vice President Harris' campaign, which is likely to end millions of dollars in debt, four people familiar with the matter tell Axios' Alex Thompson.

Why it matters: Debt beyond a few million bucks could hamper the DNC's efforts to rebuild the party over the next four years.
The intraparty tension is putting fresh scrutiny on how the Harris team — which raised well over $1 billion in less than five months between the campaign and outside groups — spent its money.

DNC chair Jaime Harrison privately has expressed concerns about the campaign's spending and has asked about the potential level of debt, two people familiar with the matter told Axios.
The extent of the debt remains unclear because the campaign is still raising money and receiving invoices from vendors and others.

[wildrice]

Nov 12, 2024 23:23:19 GMT -5 sonrisa said:

Nov 12, 2024 22:44:30 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

Right. I wasn't disagreeing with you, the individual. I'm disagreeing with the entire premise. News, in this country, has never been free. And the "news should be free" sentiment killed the journalism we did have. Which fits the "what went wrong" question for the whole thread.

Ahh - I wasn't thinking of it as an answer to "what went wrong?" and more of an answer to "Why do people think all these outlandish things?"

The solution isn't free journalism. It's combatting shitty AI generated news and other click bait. (That was where the radio conversation was going). Even if every journalist was independently funded and every real news site could be completely free, it's never going to be as eye popping as crap. 

I actually wonder if the solution should be free journalism. Or at least one solution. Idk who would pay for it (advertising I guess) but I think it's pretty clear most people in this country are not willing to go out of their way for accurate information, so we need to start making it easy. The industry has changed - we need to pivot accordingly instead of just putting everything behind a paywall. People are being subscriptioned to death.

To be clear I pay for multiple news subscriptions myself, but I can afford it without hardship and also care about such things. I am in the minority on both of those things though.

[stuffandthings]

Nov 13, 2024 10:13:15 GMT -5 wildrice said:

Nov 12, 2024 23:23:19 GMT -5 sonrisa said:

Ahh - I wasn't thinking of it as an answer to "what went wrong?" and more of an answer to "Why do people think all these outlandish things?"

The solution isn't free journalism. It's combatting shitty AI generated news and other click bait. (That was where the radio conversation was going). Even if every journalist was independently funded and every real news site could be completely free, it's never going to be as eye popping as crap. 

I actually wonder if the solution should be free journalism. Or at least one solution. Idk who would pay for it (advertising I guess) but I think it's pretty clear most people in this country are not willing to go out of their way for accurate information, so we need to start making it easy. The industry has changed - we need to pivot accordingly instead of just putting everything behind a paywall. People are being subscriptioned to death.

To be clear I pay for multiple news subscriptions myself, but I can afford it without hardship and also care about such things. I am in the minority on both of those things though.

I mean...my thing is that we DO have free journalism. It's called NPR and PBS.

[sonrisa]

Nov 13, 2024 10:24:06 GMT -5 stuffandthings said:

Nov 13, 2024 10:13:15 GMT -5 wildrice said:

I actually wonder if the solution should be free journalism. Or at least one solution. Idk who would pay for it (advertising I guess) but I think it's pretty clear most people in this country are not willing to go out of their way for accurate information, so we need to start making it easy. The industry has changed - we need to pivot accordingly instead of just putting everything behind a paywall. People are being subscriptioned to death.

To be clear I pay for multiple news subscriptions myself, but I can afford it without hardship and also care about such things. I am in the minority on both of those things though.

I mean...my thing is that we DO have free journalism. It's called NPR and PBS.

Both are English language. Neither help Vietnamese speakers, for example. The point of the discussion was that if you speak anything other than English, and don't pay for a news service, access to accurate, journalist created news is hard. Especially when you get most of your info online. (They spoke about misinformation among Spanish, Vietnamese, and other diverse language speaking voters, but didn't address Univision or Telemundo during the segment I heard, which seemed an oversight).

[stuffandthings]

Nov 13, 2024 11:07:33 GMT -5 sonrisa said:

Nov 13, 2024 10:24:06 GMT -5 stuffandthings said:

I mean...my thing is that we DO have free journalism. It's called NPR and PBS.

Both are English language. Neither help Vietnamese speakers, for example. The point of the discussion was that if you speak anything other than English, and don't pay for a news service, access to accurate, journalist created news is hard. Especially when you get most of your info online. (They spoke about misinformation among Spanish, Vietnamese, and other diverse language speaking voters, but didn't address Univision or Telemundo during the segment I heard, which seemed an oversight).

I just meant that since those systems already exist for free, just not in non-English languages, it seems like it would be easier to use that existing system than try to create something new. Like, it seems like a Spanish-language version of NPR/PBS would be relatively easy to set up and would create a bunch of jobs for Spanish speakers without feeding the advertising frenzy that is privately-owned news.

[jeaniebueller]

Nov 13, 2024 6:50:54 GMT -5 neverfstop said:

ugh.... axios

Democratic leaders are increasingly anxious about being left with a big bill from Vice President Harris' campaign, which is likely to end millions of dollars in debt, four people familiar with the matter tell Axios' Alex Thompson.

Why it matters: Debt beyond a few million bucks could hamper the DNC's efforts to rebuild the party over the next four years.
The intraparty tension is putting fresh scrutiny on how the Harris team — which raised well over $1 billion in less than five months between the campaign and outside groups — spent its money.

DNC chair Jaime Harrison privately has expressed concerns about the campaign's spending and has asked about the potential level of debt, two people familiar with the matter told Axios.
The extent of the debt remains unclear because the campaign is still raising money and receiving invoices from vendors and others.

If their campaign is in debt, its absolutely ridiculous.

[Jalapeñomel]

Nov 13, 2024 6:50:54 GMT -5 neverfstop said:

ugh.... axios

Democratic leaders are increasingly anxious about being left with a big bill from Vice President Harris' campaign, which is likely to end millions of dollars in debt, four people familiar with the matter tell Axios' Alex Thompson.

Why it matters: Debt beyond a few million bucks could hamper the DNC's efforts to rebuild the party over the next four years.
The intraparty tension is putting fresh scrutiny on how the Harris team — which raised well over $1 billion in less than five months between the campaign and outside groups — spent its money.

DNC chair Jaime Harrison privately has expressed concerns about the campaign's spending and has asked about the potential level of debt, two people familiar with the matter told Axios.
The extent of the debt remains unclear because the campaign is still raising money and receiving invoices from vendors and others.

I'm not certainly familiar with what a billion dollars will get you in a campaign (or elsewhere lol), but I have no idea how you can raise this kind of money and then walk away in debt. That seems...mishandled at best. 

[pixy0stix]

Nov 13, 2024 10:24:06 GMT -5 stuffandthings said:

Nov 13, 2024 10:13:15 GMT -5 wildrice said:

I actually wonder if the solution should be free journalism. Or at least one solution. Idk who would pay for it (advertising I guess) but I think it's pretty clear most people in this country are not willing to go out of their way for accurate information, so we need to start making it easy. The industry has changed - we need to pivot accordingly instead of just putting everything behind a paywall. People are being subscriptioned to death.

To be clear I pay for multiple news subscriptions myself, but I can afford it without hardship and also care about such things. I am in the minority on both of those things though.

I mean...my thing is that we DO have free journalism. It's called NPR and PBS.

It's not actually free, either. If the donations and other funding went away, so would it. They rely on publishing bland, palatable news so they don't upset their consumers. There's no such thing as free journalism in the US.

[StrawberryBlondie]

Nov 12, 2024 13:59:06 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

Are we getting to the point that Dems are going send Jill Stein money to pay for recounts again?

That was a wild time.

I *totally* forgot about that.

[pixy0stix]

Nov 13, 2024 13:17:39 GMT -5 StrawberryBlondie said:

Nov 12, 2024 13:59:06 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

Are we getting to the point that Dems are going send Jill Stein money to pay for recounts again?

That was a wild time.

I *totally* forgot about that.

I think it was one of those catalyst points where Trump, or people in Trump's orbit, saw that they could easily sow the seeds of "the election is rigged". So I haven't forgot about it.

[wanderingback]

Nov 13, 2024 12:54:17 GMT -5 Jalapeñomel said:

Nov 13, 2024 6:50:54 GMT -5 neverfstop said:

ugh.... axios

Democratic leaders are increasingly anxious about being left with a big bill from Vice President Harris' campaign, which is likely to end millions of dollars in debt, four people familiar with the matter tell Axios' Alex Thompson.

Why it matters: Debt beyond a few million bucks could hamper the DNC's efforts to rebuild the party over the next four years.
The intraparty tension is putting fresh scrutiny on how the Harris team — which raised well over $1 billion in less than five months between the campaign and outside groups — spent its money.

DNC chair Jaime Harrison privately has expressed concerns about the campaign's spending and has asked about the potential level of debt, two people familiar with the matter told Axios.
The extent of the debt remains unclear because the campaign is still raising money and receiving invoices from vendors and others.

I'm not certainly familiar with what a billion dollars will get you in a campaign (or elsewhere lol), but I have no idea how you can raise this kind of money and then walk away in debt. That seems...mishandled at best. 

Yeah, wtf. I hate it here.
A billion fucking dollars.

[sakoro]

Nov 13, 2024 11:43:04 GMT -5 stuffandthings said:

Nov 13, 2024 11:07:33 GMT -5 sonrisa said:

Both are English language. Neither help Vietnamese speakers, for example. The point of the discussion was that if you speak anything other than English, and don't pay for a news service, access to accurate, journalist created news is hard. Especially when you get most of your info online. (They spoke about misinformation among Spanish, Vietnamese, and other diverse language speaking voters, but didn't address Univision or Telemundo during the segment I heard, which seemed an oversight).

I just meant that since those systems already exist for free, just not in non-English languages, it seems like it would be easier to use that existing system than try to create something new. Like, it seems like a Spanish-language version of NPR/PBS would be relatively easy to set up and would create a bunch of jobs for Spanish speakers without feeding the advertising frenzy that is privately-owned news.

And they need to lower the level of English since Morning Edition and Newshour are likely at college-level while the majority of the country is at 8th grade level.

And Elon has already announced that he wants to eliminate public funding for PBS/ NPR.

[wildrice]

Nov 13, 2024 13:06:12 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

Nov 13, 2024 10:24:06 GMT -5 stuffandthings said:

I mean...my thing is that we DO have free journalism. It's called NPR and PBS.

It's not actually free, either. If the donations and other funding went away, so would it. They rely on publishing bland, palatable news so they don't upset their consumers. There's no such thing as free journalism in the US.

I think they both have a marketing problem as news agencies, too. I had no idea PBS did journalism - I think of them as public educational TV. I did go to their website and lo and behold, there were news articles! 

NPR is obviously news but it's literally called Public Radio so it's never my first thought as a place to seek out news articles, either. Maybe I'm a minority here but I think a lot of people are more likely to go to their local newspaper/TV news or one of the big national publications like the NY Times. Not to mention cable news.

I think paying for journalism is important in the current system, but it's pretty clear most people in the US do not give a shit about actual journalism and certainly aren't going to put out money to access it. If NPR and PBS are our options for free, high quality news, maybe we need to get them in front of people more. 

[nothingcontroversial]

Nov 13, 2024 12:54:17 GMT -5 Jalapeñomel said:

Nov 13, 2024 6:50:54 GMT -5 neverfstop said:

ugh.... axios

Democratic leaders are increasingly anxious about being left with a big bill from Vice President Harris' campaign, which is likely to end millions of dollars in debt, four people familiar with the matter tell Axios' Alex Thompson.

Why it matters: Debt beyond a few million bucks could hamper the DNC's efforts to rebuild the party over the next four years.
The intraparty tension is putting fresh scrutiny on how the Harris team — which raised well over $1 billion in less than five months between the campaign and outside groups — spent its money.

DNC chair Jaime Harrison privately has expressed concerns about the campaign's spending and has asked about the potential level of debt, two people familiar with the matter told Axios.
The extent of the debt remains unclear because the campaign is still raising money and receiving invoices from vendors and others.

I'm not certainly familiar with what a billion dollars will get you in a campaign (or elsewhere lol), but I have no idea how you can raise this kind of money and then walk away in debt. That seems...mishandled at best. 

I just learned that the party leaders in Philly expect to be given "walking around money" by the Democratic Party, and that there was a lot of finger-pointing this year because of it.


www.abc27.com/pennsylvania-politics/pennsylvania-democrats-at-odds-over-2024-election-losses/

[jeaniebueller]

they did a lot of dumb ad buys, in MI, I was being bombarbed with ABORTION ads 24/7, you couldn't escape it. Also, MI passed Prop 3 last year protecting reproductive rights, so running these particular ads in our state was a missed opportunity to run an ad about other aspects of the platform. Just my opinion though, and i'm shooting from the hip here.

[wildrice]

Spending more than a billion dollars in about 3 months truly is shameful. Thinking of all of the charitable organizations that could have taken those donations and used them to actually help people makes me honestly feel kind of sick. Especially given the outcome. I spent probably around $300 myself between merch and donations, and wish I had just given it to someone else. Or stuck it in savings in case one or both of our jobs ends up being eliminated with this new administration!

No shade at Kamala herself for that, but the system is horribly broken if they are able to spend (and even raise!) that much money while people in this country aren't even having their basic needs met and the donations aren't going to places that can help with that.

[nospaekae]

I was on a flight with Bernie yesterday. We both sat at the gate in Burlington for 20 min or so. I had some questions I wanted to ask, but wasn't sure I was up for yelling old man at that time of the morning.

[laladypoet]

Nov 12, 2024 12:53:01 GMT -5 stuffandthings said:

Nov 12, 2024 12:16:55 GMT -5 ellipses84 said:

There’s a lot of conspiracy theories but most of them have legit explanations or even if there are any concerns they wouldn’t add up to interference in every swing state, because every state does their voting process differently. Voter suppression / online misinformation / lack of critical thinking is our biggest issue in this election. Considering there’s a known cheater and a tech billionaire with Russian ties / interference running against a prosecutor VP, if anything shady happened, the International Intelligence community knows about it and the U.S. was watching and investigating. I don’t think Democrats theorizing or spreading conspiracy theories on the internet helps. I know some IT security people have notified the Governor of PA.

Not every state has paper in person ballots. Some are digital in person. Not every state can track ballots. A lot of people freaking out about their ballot not being counted aren’t checking the correct place, or they voted in person and it cannot be tracked. Some machines do have modems in them even though they aren’t supposed to and they aren’t supposed to be set up to the internet. I think the news stories where poll workers were talking about Starlink are referring to checking people in /checking ID on computers with Starlink, not voting machines or counting machines with Starlink.

I don’t see anything wrong with looking into concerns, or doing some strategic recounts in certain areas so both side feel confident with the integrity of the election. Sometimes close races trigger recounts and it sounds like that is happening per Kamala’s campaign.

I definitely support looking into concerns and doing recounts when needed! What I don't support is conspiracy theories about the election outcome, especially ones predicated on the statements of a man who is A) a well-known liar, and B) famously a close friend of Vladimir Putin, who has been attempting to disrupt American elections for the past 20-some years. Every state has a chain of custody for their balloting process. Every single state has a final canvass where representatives from all parties are involved.

Rare instances of election fraud are almost always super obvious to experts because of how mathematically precise turnout data is these days. Remember Mark Harris in NC in 2018? That was obvious to most folks following the count in real time. The amount of time and money needed to pull off an election fraud of this scale is nearly impossible, and definitely impossible for people with as little self-control and subtlety as the Trump campaign's leaders.

I would urge people not to share any election theories or information unless it is reported in a news source. I despise Trump, but one important prerequisite to fascism is a belief on the behalf of the people that democracy doesn't work.

Also, I just want to say--in Wisconsin, we have to hand-order the ballots at the end of the night to tally the write-ins. (Tabulators can see that a write-in was selected but can't read people's handwriting to know who they voted for as a write-in). And I SAW, with my own eyes, a sizable number of ballots where people voted for Trump and then voted for Democrats down the ballot. I saw ballots where people voted third party or write-in and then voted for Democrats down the ballot. One person even voted for all Democrats, including our Senator, but wrote in Gretchen Whitmer for president. I live in the bluest county in Wisconsin, and I saw these ballots with my own eyes. Our margins were smaller here than in 2020 and that's what tipped Wisconsin red. I have a copy of the elections tape to prove it, if anyone wants to see it. (We're allowed to keep copies of the unofficial results tape, which print out of the tabulator before the votes are electronically sent in, if we want them.)

I'm coming back to this because I do believe what you're saying HOWEVER I think mail in and provisional ballots were suppressed or denied. here's one article I found.

www.koat.com/article/election-day-absentee-ballots-rejected-2024/62816770

couldn't this have had an effect?