In defense of American democracy, if a lie, or 100 lies, or 1,000, would knock the Undecided and the Independents off the fences they're eternally straddling or smoke them out of their smug, hermetically sealed "Both Siderist" panic rooms, you're damn right I would.
Without hesitation, I would lie my ass off all week and twice on Sundays.
If you have a minute, let me explain why this is something Democrats need to start seriously considering. And just to make the point that, if called upon, some of us can hang with the Joe Rogan and the Barstool Sports crowd I'll do it in language they would understand.
This is about winning, and in the here and now, winning is ugly, because in the here and now, politics is not lofty or idealistic. We have our base of people who, broadly, care about the same things, and they have their base of reprogrammable meatbags who want to burn our democracy down and dance on its grave. And so "winning" is about getting the laziest, stupidest people in America to take your side, stop thinking of politics as a philosophy class or an ethics panel or a TED talk.
It's not. It's a bar. Specifically, a dive bar. And it’s getting near closing time and your goal is to get laid. Period.
There are belligerent assholes at the end of the bar shouting nonsense that you find really offensive. Do you engage? You do not. Why? Because your goal is to get laid. Period.
There’s a bored bartender, who is starting to wipe down the bar and close out tabs. Can he be of any help? No he cannot. He is the letter of the law. He is your ticking clock. When the clock strikes 2:00 AM, the lights go on and the patrons will be shown the door whether you’ve hooked up or not.
There are a few other patrons nursing their drinks, and one of them is an unaccompanied woman. She is the undecided or Centrist or independent voter. And at this moment, your goal is to get her to go home with you. To get electorally laid.
Not to get married. Not to start a family. Not to pick out adjoining plots in the cemetery. Just laid.
So how can this be accomplished?
Well, let's make a quick list of the advice that highly paid consultants and pundits are currently screaming at Democratic politicians.
Don’t talk about policy. Voters hate policy!
Don’t talk about facts. Facts confuse voters.
Be authentic, but not too authentic.
Be a fighter, but don’t be confrontational.
Never challenge anyone’s stupid, bigoted opinion. It doesn't matter if the economy is improving. If they, personally, are not feeling better then all of your charts and graphs won't mean shit.
Use plain, clear language, but don’t offend anyone. Conversely, you must never take offense at being called a corrupt, baby-killing commie.
And above all, remember that no matter how wrong they are, voters are never wrong because they have the final say. So you must respect the voters, no matter how stupid or bigoted they are, and how very clear they make it that they will never vote for you. Which is why you should be authentic, but also stick to vibes.
Vibes and sports and farts and tit jokes.
That’s what the consultants and pundits say.
I favor a different strategy. A bolder strategy. And to explain that strategy, let us turn now to “Better Call Saul”.
In the politics of here and now, be Kevin Costner.
Tell them what they want to hear.
Lie your ass off.
And before you start to feel bad about it, ask yourself this. Whatever beef you have with Democrats, is it true or not true that, on his worst day, Joe Biden is 100 times better, more decent and more focused on the problems of real Americans than Donald Trump? Is it true or not true that, on her worst day, Kamala Harris would have been 100 times better, more decent and more focused on the problems of real Americans than Donald Trump?
To any sane person, this is obvious, right? Blindingly obvious.
And yet…
And then we had that debate where Kamala Harris blew Trump out of the water. And what difference did that make?
From Reuters:
Kamala Harris was widely seen as dominating Tuesday's presidential debate against Republican former president Donald Trump, but a group of undecided voters remained unconvinced that the Democratic vice president was the better candidate.
Reuters interviewed 10 people who were still unsure how they were going to vote in the Nov. 5 election before they watched the debate. Six said afterward they would now either vote for Trump or were leaning toward backing him. Three said they would now back Harris and one was still unsure how he would vote.
The BBC checked in with some Undecided and Independent voters just before the election. Would you like to hear what they found?
Who did these undecided US voters finally pick?
Felicity voted for Trump in 2020 but has yet to decide if she'll back the former president a second time.
I have no freaking clue man. It's so hard. When I voted for Trump, it came down to who would I trust with my kid alone and it wasn't [President Joe] Biden.
I'm still undecided.
All of my family is voting for Kamala and my friends are voting for Trump.
I'm going to vote for one of them. I've got no idea which one.
I'm still super-duper undecided. I think I'm leaning toward Kamala over Trump, if I think about who I would trust alone in a room with my daughter.
I'm going to make up my mind when I go into the ballot booth...
Jessi voted for Biden in 2020 but this year, she was leaning toward a third party candidate. She's now also going to vote for Jill Stein.
My mind would have been changed to maybe vote for Harris if I had heard more from her that was substantial.
Nothing she said, I felt, throughout the campaign really sounded like it had any substance, and there were some key issues I don't support her position on.
I would say the same for Trump, so I'm going to stick with third party.
If enough voters in swing states decided to go third party, Democrats and Republicans would have to realise they have to choose candidates who we can support....
In September, Mat told the BBC that Harris "very likely" had his vote. He's since left his ballot for president blank.
I ended up casting an empty ballot for president. It was tough but I felt like no candidate really offered any policy that resonated with me.
It didn't feel like any candidate offered anything that was very substantial. ...
Tracy was impressed with Harris after her TV debate with Trump, but remained undecided. Now, she's still not sure - so she's not voting for either Harris or Trump.
I have definite plans of who I'm going to vote for, but I can't tell you the candidate's name because I don't know the candidate's name. I'm voting for a third party.
Hopefully that [candidate] is an adult. I'm not happy with either of our [major] presidential candidates.
I know the third-party candidate doesn't stand a chance to get in. It's just to send a signal to Washington that I'm not playing their game and if they want me to vote Democratic or Republican, they better put somebody in there with brains.
One of them is a bully who wants to own the country and the other one wants to give the whole thing away...
Vanessa was impressed with Harris earlier in the campaign but is throwing her support behind Trump.
I believe Trump has surrounded himself with competent leaders such as Tulsi [Gabbard], RFK, and [JD] Vance...
Now, taking all of that into consideration – the overwhelming evidence that Trump was and is completely unfit to hold any political office anywhere, versus the basic decency and competence of both Biden and Harris – what is it that undecided and independent voters really want? (And remember, pundits and consultants are adamant that, however crazy or stupid the voter’s issues and priorities may be, you as a candidate are bound to respect them.)
What do undecided and independent voters really want? They want to be lied to. It's no more complicated than that.
By now, the undecideds who voted 3rd party or voted for Jill Stein or stayed home or filled out "None of the above" for president must have figured out that this kind of performative “sending a message” voting is ridiculous and never works, because the only message it sends is “I am ridiculous”. And it sends a message to all the third-party/Third Way/Forward Party/No Labels grifters out there that maybe they can hit you up for a donation. But they want to believe a lie, and Jill Stein gives them what they ask for.
At some level, the woman Jimmy McGill hooked up with for the night back in Chicago knew he wasn’t Kevin Costner, but she wanted him to be. She was willing to be lied to, and he was willing to provide.
As painful as it is, think about the two presidential campaigns in 2024. One was more than substantive and detailed enough for anyone who bothered to look. But undecideds are lazy. They’re always on the verge of “doing their own research” when the truth is, they don’t wanna do even the minimal amount of homework necessary to make an informed decision. Instead many of them soak up what little they think they know about politics from hanging around gamer sites and Joe Rogan and Barstool Sports.
Y’know, for the vibes and the farts and the tit jokes.
So, if the Democrats were offering boring substance and detail, what was Trump offering?
They are begging to be lied to. Demanding it.
Don’t insult them by refusing.
So, until the rest of the country sobers up and starts acting like adults, be Kevin Costner.
5 comments:
ART !
I guess it depends on who "we" are. "We" are very good at lying and lie our asses off each and every day in fundraising emails the likes of which I get fifty or so each day. "5X Match!" "$3 can stop Trump if you hurry!" Etc,, etc, et fucking c. It must work, or they wouldn't keep doing it all these years.
The real problem, as I see it, is getting the attention of the folks you write about. So far, the only reliable way to obtain their attention is to disrupt their daily existences past the point they can ignore. Fergus may do that for us, but counting on that to win elections is a weak strategy.
-Doug in Sugar Pine
It's unfortunately true that lying to manipulate the electorate is probably the best way to win elections at this point but I'm not a fan. Having said that I blame the Democrats for their inability to market and highlight their successes which there were many. Biden was the best president of my relatively long lifetime and he deserved far better treatment. Despite the numbers about the economy people felt like things were bad- inflation, egg price hikes, gas prices, high interest rates etc. Additionally I saw a poll not too long ago that said among non voters of the 2024 election, 28% didn't vote because Harris wouldn't change her Israeli position on Palestinians and Gaza from Biden's. To these numbskulls not voting Harris, who most likely would have been able to have been pushed politically on that issue, was some moral virtue. Now we have to deal with an amoral felon rapist with fascist tendencies that has no respect for rule of law or the constitution and that hasn't made any changes to the circumstances in the middle class. I recently watched a video discussing the Palestinian genocide and the comments section was filled with those non voters still delusional, filled with their righteous indignation still slamming Biden and Harris. Not a word about Trump. So I guess yes, lie. Whatever it takes to get the results we need.
This is one thing that Republicans do better than Democrats. They have entire teams of ratf... uh, rat copulaters on constant alert.
But the other side of that, is, liberals need truth tellers, too, and I think it's important to keep the truth-telling mostly clean, other than perhaps repeating something "lots of people are saying, though I've seen no evidence."
It's like, last year, I remember saying "hell, yes, you should fat-and-body-shame Trump! Do it from an anonymous account if you like, but by-golly *do it*."
The moment Trump dropped out of the race, I'd have taken down every fat-and-body-shaming post I made, but, while he was trying to become President, that danger dwarfed the possible damage of allowing one's self to call him a fat, weak, pathetic, toad being skull, uh, copulated, by a rabid, mutant, possum.
In My Humble Opinion and all.
I think this almost gets it right. However, it's not that these people want to be lied to, it's that they want to be charmed. They just don't give a shit whether or not the charmer is lying their ass off, even when it's incredibly obvious. Especially when "Both Sides Do It".
For at least as long as I've been alive, the presidential candidate with the higher Charisma has won. Of course, this can be easy to blow if you're not proficient or if your Charisma modifier isn't especially high. One might ask if George H.W. Bush really had more charisma than Dukakis, and I would argue yes. Bush I was kind of a dork, but was able to coast on Reagan's charisma, came from a moneyed political dynasty and had the military chops which conferred a respectable "manliness". However, Dukakis was a bigger dork, and he definitely blew it on that interview when he gave that dry-ass answer to the question about whether or not he'd want the death penalty for someone who raped his wife. He should have reamed the guy out for talking that way about his wife and demanded an apology. The policy question was totally immaterial, and nobody would've cared if he didn't answer it after that. Jesus dude, flip the damn table.
One may also ask about the persistent Republican procedural jiggery-pokery. So far, that stuff has cracked the door *just* enough to let them slither into power when it's very close. The only reason it's been that close in the first place is because the candidate who's obviously the best qualified and most serious about the job is perceived as a nerd. And this is very much a matter of Nerds vs. Jocks.
I think the takeaway here for the liberal navel-gazers should be that Charisma is not a fucking dump-stat; it's the only thing that matters to these shallow dipshits. Nothing that comes out of their mouths about what they want matters. They are bullshitting themselves as much as they are anyone else. If you want to get laid, you must charm the pants off of them.
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