Read on Twitter
Big picture 
https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="🔥" title="Feuer" aria-label="Emoji: Feuer">take: Donald Trump is uniquely toxic among upscale GOP voters in cosmopolitan suburbs, & also uniquely successful in getting would-be GOP voters to the polls in less affluent & less engaged places. Hence contrasting down ballot results 2018 vs 2020 https://twitter.com/RyanDeto/status/1324167602437083143">https://twitter.com/RyanDeto/...
The full picture, much less granular data, is still to come. But consistently disappointing results for Dem candidates of widely varied ideology across the country should I hope inspire rethinking that goes beyond usual "moderate" vs "Left" or mobilization vs persuasion sniping
The kitchen sink was thrown at this election, and in a context of extremely narrow victories of course anything & everything mattered: "the 10,000 votes due to [x] were crucial!" is a defensible take for any single x people tried, in a world where key states are won by 20,000
So [caveat caveat]. But fwiw: an idiosyncratic list of things I& #39;m downgrading in my mental list of how to impact elections: Phonebanking; textbanking; postcards to voters; distributed digital organzng in general, incl relational apps; short-term candidate-specific paid advertisng
In contrast things I think matter alot, & where GOP/rw advantage has persisted/intensified: longterm communication infrastructure; control of information space esp virtual; intentional shaping of info flows w/in it; longterm party branding; synergy of all this w/informal f2f ties
(timely example of some of the preceding:https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="👇" title="Rückhand Zeigefinger nach unten" aria-label="Emoji: Rückhand Zeigefinger nach unten">) w https://twitter.com/alibrelan...
Broad engagement in politics matters: this is a hill I will die on. But we need to see serious soul-searching about how vast engagementhttps://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="👇" title="Rückhand Zeigefinger nach unten" aria-label="Emoji: Rückhand Zeigefinger nach unten">is channeled: incl where the missing communications layers are that prevent local action fr gearing & gaining traction https://join.mobilize.us/blog/2020-election-volunteer-mobilization-by-the-numbers">https://join.mobilize.us/blog/2020...
What on the Dem side did work? Sustained place-based political organizing that is both directed & executed by local people organicly connected to the would-be voters they seek to mobilize or persuade. That& #39;s the story of the upscale Philly suburbs AND Lucha in AZ AND La Culinaria
So on the one hand everyone should be re-reading @hahriehan on the lessons of LUCHA & similar orgs https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/16/opinion/activism-power-victories.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/1...
... and also reading @eitanhersh on doing the work close to home rather than cheering from afar: even when it feels like that battle over there is more clear & urgent (maybe if you were closer it would look more complicated, too) https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Politics-Is-for-Power/Eitan-Hersh/9781982116781">https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Pol...
But after an election in which there was genuine, impassioned local activism across the center-to-Left spectrum in place after place that fell far short, I& #39;m not going to claim that just doing a better job of patient local building w/in our current political terrain is the answer
The terrain itself is a problem. In ways that so hamper local electoral organizing on the Dem side in many places that it undercuts the incentives to do it at all.
@JosephONeillx describes some of the dynamics here https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2020/05/28/brand-new-democrats/">https://www.nybooks.com/articles/...
@JosephONeillx describes some of the dynamics here https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2020/05/28/brand-new-democrats/">https://www.nybooks.com/articles/...
(Ooh—must-read thread just in from @hahriehan toohttps://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="👇" title="Rückhand Zeigefinger nach unten" aria-label="Emoji: Rückhand Zeigefinger nach unten">) https://twitter.com/hahriehan/status/1324175985571438592">https://twitter.com/hahriehan...
So locally-run local organizing is critical. But the angry recriminations being flung by national https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="👇" title="Rückhand Zeigefinger nach unten" aria-label="Emoji: Rückhand Zeigefinger nach unten">& local [not linking] candidates—arguing that some people& #39;s community-engaging activism generated media hooks that cost others winnable seats—shows problem https://twitter.com/ericawerner/status/1324439295847968768">https://twitter.com/ericawern...
You might think about this problemhttps://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="👇" title="Rückhand Zeigefinger nach unten" aria-label="Emoji: Rückhand Zeigefinger nach unten">as reflecting moral or strategic failures by Individual leaders. But you can also see it as a result of GOP dominance of last-mile communication structures, which make it so easy to generate & exploit context-collapse https://twitter.com/tbonier/status/1324685336270823425">https://twitter.com/tbonier/s...
Expecting local organizing to counter massive infrastructural failures & resultant disinformation flows https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="👇" title="Rückhand Zeigefinger nach unten" aria-label="Emoji: Rückhand Zeigefinger nach unten">is like asking parents to become chemists & set up neighborhood labs to combat lead in the drinking water https://twitter.com/ErinNinehouser/status/1324725700792885249">https://twitter.com/ErinNineh...
Similar diagnosis herehttps://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="👇" title="Rückhand Zeigefinger nach unten" aria-label="Emoji: Rückhand Zeigefinger nach unten">, in a smart piece that should encourage people to step away from the intra-Dem Your Message Screwed My Message flame wars currently underway (but probably won& #39;thttps://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="☹️" title="Stirnrunzelndes Gesicht" aria-label="Emoji: Stirnrunzelndes Gesicht">) https://newrepublic.com/article/160094/democrats-message-just-doesnt-matter">https://newrepublic.com/article/1...
, in a smart piece that should encourage people to step away from the intra-Dem Your Message Screwed My Message flame wars currently underway (but probably won& #39;thttps://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="☹️" title="Stirnrunzelndes Gesicht" aria-label="Emoji: Stirnrunzelndes Gesicht">) https://newrepublic.com/article/1..." title="Similar diagnosis herehttps://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="👇" title="Rückhand Zeigefinger nach unten" aria-label="Emoji: Rückhand Zeigefinger nach unten">, in a smart piece that should encourage people to step away from the intra-Dem Your Message Screwed My Message flame wars currently underway (but probably won& #39;thttps://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="☹️" title="Stirnrunzelndes Gesicht" aria-label="Emoji: Stirnrunzelndes Gesicht">) https://newrepublic.com/article/1..." class="img-responsive" style="max-width:100%;"/>
I wrote a long thread recentlyhttps://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="👇" title="Rückhand Zeigefinger nach unten" aria-label="Emoji: Rückhand Zeigefinger nach unten">about how reintermediation is remaking the information ecosystem & changing incentives/rewards in ways that suggest the distrust/disinfo cycle will only get worse. That seems very relevant today https://twitter.com/lara_putnam/status/1320363915025522688">https://twitter.com/lara_putn...
*Both* Donald Trump *&* Democratic canddates of widely varied ideology proved to be more unpopular than one might have thought, across a wider array of people & places than one might have thought.
Mass spending+shallow-touch voter outreach proved either unimpactful or inadequate
Mass spending+shallow-touch voter outreach proved either unimpactful or inadequate
