The threat of misinformation, conspiracy theory and social media to our democracy

[Eric the Green]

(04-24-2022, 09:52 AM)beechnut79 Wrote:

(04-23-2022, 01:19 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(04-23-2022, 09:33 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(04-22-2022, 01:08 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Obama, any more than any other president, was not perfect in his decisions and actions. But this was mostly because he was not given support from young people who decided Obama was not perfect or change did not happen fast enough, and then gave up, as well as independents and moderates who decide to blame the president for everything that happens. He says what we need to hear now, and we need to listen rather than blame the messenger. We need to move away from conspiracy theory, misinformation and the misuse of social media.

Obama made one strategic error: going for healthcare first.  He then went cautious on everything else (perhaps, understandably so).  Unfortunately, that was the window that needed a leader with real teeth.  He had his army behind him, but picked the wrong issue to advance, then compromised on that.  He needed to do FDR's 100 days, and didn't.

If a do-over was possible, here's the strategy:

1. Pick easy wins and pass them
   
2. Promote those wins as a new dawn in America
   
3. Negotiate with the Senate Dems of the time, and kill the filibuster
   
4. Pass healthcare the way all but one or two Dems wanted it passed
   
5. Go for higher taxes on the rich and corporations and lower taxes on everyone else.
   

From that point on, the GOP would have been in full defense mode, and the attacks would have diminished because they would have been highly unpopular.  

But unfortunately, do-overs are impossible.

Obama could not have killed the filibuster; he had too many Manchins. In our house are many Manchins. If it were not so I would have told you.

Obama only went cautious because he knew how much he could pass. Pelosi passed his agenda; the Senate could not. He had zero margin for error, and even that only for 7 months. His army was not behind him. After that, young voters gave up on him, first in Massachusetts, and then in the midterms. He lost his congress, and so his administration was effectively over. That's just not enough time to do all the things you propose above, and I favored too. The nation is too divided to accomplish anything. The other side is implacable. This is the cold civil war and stalemate rules. But if his young voters who had elected him had stood with him, he could have kept his congress and become the next FDR. There is the do-over. It looks instead like we will do-over the error.

Did Biden pick the right issue with the Build Back Better agenda? And, even though Obama proved to be a big disappointment for true progressives, he still manage to win a second term. Or, was this because so many considered him to be the lesser of two evils? On the surface Biden would appear "safer" to the other side than was Obama, who was definite more of a firebrand than Biden or even Trump,  at least while campaigning.

Biden is certainly known for speaking with fiery passion, but less as an intellectual and more of a working man's spokesman.

Biden put many projects to answer the needs of the people and reduce inflation into the BBBBB. The climate change provisions are at least a start. Certainly he picked the right issues. The voters didn't pick the right senators.

I voted for Bernie, and was disappointed when he didn't win. After I revised the way I count the aspect scores in my horoscope scoring system, to take out the extra step of ranking the aspects and then using those numbers, and adjusting the raw numbers so that each category of evaluation had the needed input into the total scores, and also added in the aspects of the mostly-losing 2020 candidates plus Biden's winning aspects into the system, Bernie Sanders lost a positive point from 14-7 to 13-7. So he was indicated as less likely than Biden to beat Trump, since Biden's score rose from 14-7 to 16-6, while Trump's score stayed at 9-4.

Although I prefer candidates more on the left, I don't necessarily agree with David's apparent view that Democrats need candidates further to the left to get young people energized and voting and thus win the presidency over Republicans. I agree that the candidate needs some charisma and ability to inspire and connect with voters in order to win. But this does not necessarily equate to being further on the left, and I don't assume that "having the fire" equates to being "further left". If anything, being too far to the left often correlates with a lower score for such candidates, based on who wins historically. Some of them have what Elizabeth Warren has in their charts, a Mars to Neptune 120 or 60 degree angle, which equates to a "crusader" approach, and this aspect (which I have myself) has a very poor record of getting elected USA president. Republican candidates can also have high scores and connect well with Americans too, of course.

And to me today, although I vote left in primaries, I have rejoined the Democratic Party (since the 2020 CA primary to vote for Bernie, which he won), and I recognize now that the USA is too backward to easily elect a leftist candidate, and a more moderate one, though he may be more war-like or more accomodating to the oligarchy than someone further left, brings some progress in the USA, and that is better than none-- which is what we necessarily get (at best) from a Republican president; in fact, what we are likely to get from such a president today is regression and destruction of everything of value. So I voted for Hillary and for Joe in the general election, to register my fervent opposition to the Drumpster Fire. I did not vote for Obama, but I certainly rooted for him to beat the Republican.

http://philosopherswheel.com/presidentialelections.html