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mightygodking's profile
MGKLab 2021
MGKLab 2021
MGKLab 2021
@mightygodking

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MGKLab 2021

@mightygodking

Lawyer, nerd, blogger, policy dork, writer of the comics AL'RASHAD and RA-BOKA. I cannot stress this enough: I am NOT MACHINE GUN KELLY. (he/him)

Toronto, Canada
mightygodking.com
Joined November 2008

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    1. MGKLab 2021‏ @mightygodking 16 Mar 2020

      DISCLAIMER BEFORE I GO ANY FURTHER: Bernie was my 2nd-favorite Democratic candidate (after Warren) and I personally think he would be a better general election candidate, both substantively and electorally, than Joe Biden, who I think is mediocre at best. So don't @ me about that

      1 reply 0 retweets 32 likes
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    2. MGKLab 2021‏ @mightygodking 16 Mar 2020

      Early on in the campaign, a lot of people - myself included! - mocked media types who were saying "Bernie's underperforming his vote share from 2016!" because there were more candidates in the race. But, in retrospect, I think we were wrong to do that.

      1 reply 0 retweets 25 likes
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    3. MGKLab 2021‏ @mightygodking 16 Mar 2020

      Because Bernie getting 30-50% in various states in 2016 and then getting 20-30% in those same states in 2020 did, in fact, mean something. It meant that the voteshare he was getting in 2016 wasn't as hardcore as many people thought.

      2 replies 3 retweets 30 likes
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    4. MGKLab 2021‏ @mightygodking 16 Mar 2020

      In 2016, a fair chunk of Bernie's support was from people who simply didn't want Hillary to be the candidate (even if most of them were willing to grudgingly vote for her in the general) as opposed to the diehard pro-Bernie crowd. No Hillary in 2020 = no anti-Hillary vote.

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    5. MGKLab 2021‏ @mightygodking 16 Mar 2020

      I don't think Bernie's campaign had any illusions about this and realized they couldn't count on the anti-Hillary vote remaining with Bernie, and they knew they needed a strategy to make up those votes.

      1 reply 0 retweets 21 likes
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    6. MGKLab 2021‏ @mightygodking 16 Mar 2020

      Their strategy was non-voter turnout and running against "the establishment" by trying to link the Democratic establishment with general Washington malaise and the GOP and everything else voters loathe.

      1 reply 0 retweets 19 likes
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    7. MGKLab 2021‏ @mightygodking 16 Mar 2020

      Most of this, it turns out, are bad strategies. We know they're bad because Bernie is losing. (This is generally the point where pro-Bernie folks get upset because they think the strategies *should* work. In a just universe they might well do. But they don't here.)

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    8. MGKLab 2021‏ @mightygodking 16 Mar 2020

      Relying on nonvoter turnout mostly didn't work for Bernie. This really isn't surprising because left-wing campaigns the world over have concentrated time and again on turning nonvoters into voters and it doesn't work very often.

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    9. MGKLab 2021‏ @mightygodking 16 Mar 2020

      Some of this is because a lot of nonvoters are nonvoters not because of systemic barriers to their electoral participation, but because democratic apathy is a thing that happens. Not all, by any means. But a lot of them.

      2 replies 0 retweets 29 likes
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    10. MGKLab 2021‏ @mightygodking 16 Mar 2020

      There's this general idea prevalent on the left that if the nonvoting masses were just presented with an option offering policies For Them then they'd turn out in droves to vote for said option. Again, it would be great if this were true. It conclusively is not true.

      1 reply 4 retweets 41 likes
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      MGKLab 2021‏ @mightygodking 16 Mar 2020

      (If you don't believe me, go look at countries with mandatory voting. Left-wing parties do not do substantially better in those countries, because most voters don't pay close attention to policy. Sad but true.)

      10:04 AM - 16 Mar 2020
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      • Zachary Wefel Supership79 BorniBorb John Harris Derek Moreland #BLM Dr. NerdLove Ray Radlein lizzie harbison jr Doc Bennie! 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️🔯
      2 replies 1 retweet 32 likes
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        2. MGKLab 2021‏ @mightygodking 16 Mar 2020

          So nonvoter turnout was a bad strategy. I wanna digress for a bit and talk about a *good* strategy Bernie's campaign utilized, which was pushing for the Latinx vote.

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        3. MGKLab 2021‏ @mightygodking 16 Mar 2020

          This was Bernie practicing traditional politics and I don't think it's a coincidence that this was the biggest success of his campaign. Bernie targeted Latinx voters with promises specifically meant to appeal to them, and courted Latinx political leaders for assistance.

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        4. MGKLab 2021‏ @mightygodking 16 Mar 2020

          It worked splendidly! So why didn't Bernie try to duplicate that success with other major voting segments within the party? Because he *didn't do that* and during the campaign there was no shortage of comment from those segments about that.

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        5. MGKLab 2021‏ @mightygodking 16 Mar 2020

          This leads me to problem two with Bernie's campaign, which is: it's kind of dumb to run against the Democratic party when you are running to be in charge of the Democratic party.

          2 replies 3 retweets 60 likes
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        6. MGKLab 2021‏ @mightygodking 16 Mar 2020

          Most Democrats - and polling and study bears this out - *like the Democratic party.* They don't worship it in the way that the GOP base does, where it's a fanatic cult breeding back in on itself. It's a pretty grounded "it's not perfect, but it's all right" sort of like.

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        7. MGKLab 2021‏ @mightygodking 16 Mar 2020

          There are plenty of reasons for this and most of them aren't bad ones and it's not because Democrats are stupid or brainwashed. It's the view that incremental progress is still ultimately progress. You can disagree with this; I often do. But that's why Democrats like their party.

          2 replies 2 retweets 43 likes
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        8. MGKLab 2021‏ @mightygodking 16 Mar 2020

          Here is where I think we have to separate Bernie from his campaign staff, because I don't think Bernie loathes the Democratic party especially. But key members of his campaign absolutely do.

          1 reply 1 retweet 30 likes
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        9. MGKLab 2021‏ @mightygodking 16 Mar 2020

          David Sirota, for example, is a good left-wing journalist and activist. However, he is *absolutely one hundred percent not the person* you want in a senior position in a campaign to win the Democratic leadership.

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        10. MGKLab 2021‏ @mightygodking 16 Mar 2020

          All of the anti-party messaging exacerbated one of Bernie's key problems, which is: he is running to be the leader of the Democratic party while he is *not even a member of the party*. Do not think for one second that doesn't matter.

          1 reply 2 retweets 48 likes
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        11. MGKLab 2021‏ @mightygodking 16 Mar 2020

          There has been an open invitation for Bernie to join the party for years and he's never taken it. I can understand why: he values his independence, and he would certainly lose some of that as a party member. But these are the prices you pay for party acceptance.

          2 replies 1 retweet 27 likes
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        12. MGKLab 2021‏ @mightygodking 16 Mar 2020

          I mean, Bernie could have run for President as an independent! He didn't, because, well, he would definitely lose and almost certainly cause the victory of the candidate he did not want to win. Bernie's not stupid. So he runs for the Democratic nomination.

          2 replies 2 retweets 31 likes
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        13. MGKLab 2021‏ @mightygodking 16 Mar 2020

          But running for the nomination when you aren't a Democrat certainly inspires some "you don't even GO here" animus from party members. A bit of an aside for a moment about Democratic party members.

          1 reply 2 retweets 33 likes
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        14. MGKLab 2021‏ @mightygodking 16 Mar 2020

          Leftists really love to characterize Democratic insiders as corrupted by institutions - and it's true to a certain extent, definitely. But politicians are human beings, and I don't think any Democrat wakes up in the morning and says "welp time to make the world worse!"

          2 replies 2 retweets 35 likes
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        15. MGKLab 2021‏ @mightygodking 16 Mar 2020

          Republicans, sure. But Democrats? They look at the compromises they make as the price of getting anything good done.

          2 replies 1 retweet 37 likes
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        16. MGKLab 2021‏ @mightygodking 16 Mar 2020

          (Someone privacy locked just tweeted "Joe Manchin?" at me and yeah, okay, Joe Manchin probably wakes up in the morning looking to make the world worse. Fuck him.)

          2 replies 1 retweet 40 likes
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        17. MGKLab 2021‏ @mightygodking 16 Mar 2020

          Anyway, one of the Bernie campaign's go-to things this past year has been "Bernie voted against [X]." A big one is military appropriations bills. Vote for Bernie, because he's not a warmonger voting for more war and so forth!

          1 reply 1 retweet 17 likes
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        18. MGKLab 2021‏ @mightygodking 16 Mar 2020

          But if you talk to an establishment Democrat, they'll tell you: military appropriations bills are what keep about two percent of the entire country employed. It is *not easy to turn the country on a dime* unless you want to disrupt and hurt people.

          1 reply 4 retweets 31 likes
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        19. MGKLab 2021‏ @mightygodking 16 Mar 2020

          And yeah, Bernie voting against these bills and then campaigning on it probably rankles establishment Democrats a bit, because "Bernie gets to vote his conscience while the rest of us have to do the real work." I'm not saying that's *right.* But that's how they probably feel.

          2 replies 3 retweets 40 likes
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        20. MGKLab 2021‏ @mightygodking 16 Mar 2020

          And how people feel about you matters, because, um, that's a lot of what politics is. Which brings me to point C: Bernie and his campaign are genuinely bad at this.

          2 replies 3 retweets 34 likes
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        21. MGKLab 2021‏ @mightygodking 16 Mar 2020

          The "Bernie Bros" thing is overblown to an extent, because all campaigns have toxic elements to them; Bernie's were just more visible because they were Extremely Online to an extent not as great for other candidates. So I get saying it wasn't fair for people to focus on the Bros.

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        22. MGKLab 2021‏ @mightygodking 16 Mar 2020

          But people *did* focus on them, and the campaign's strategy for dealing with this perception problem was the same one they always employ for everything: do nothing and double down on their core message.

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        23. MGKLab 2021‏ @mightygodking 16 Mar 2020

          I honestly think the Bros non-issue could have been disposed with simply, just by having Bernie say publicly in a prominent speech "I don't like it when people make personal attacks on other Democratic candidates, whether they're my supporters or other candidates'. Cut it out."

          2 replies 0 retweets 32 likes
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        24. MGKLab 2021‏ @mightygodking 16 Mar 2020

          Or words to that effect, anyway. Remember how much credit John McCain got in 2008 for confronting that racist lady at that one rally? And John McCain sucked.

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        25. MGKLab 2021‏ @mightygodking 16 Mar 2020

          Another thing: Bernie going on right-wing media, like Joe Rogan and Fox News. This was a lousy idea, and the argument of "he's going after more voters" was plainly stupid at the time, and it just angered people who actually *might* have considered voting for Bernie.

          4 replies 1 retweet 39 likes
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        26. MGKLab 2021‏ @mightygodking 16 Mar 2020

          There weren't any significant mass of Rogan/Fox voters who were going to turn out for Bernie. People at the time said "this is a bad idea" and Bernie supporters were all "it's MASS POLITICS." In the end, it turned out to be a shitty idea that probably cost them votes.

          2 replies 2 retweets 35 likes
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        27. MGKLab 2021‏ @mightygodking 16 Mar 2020

          And, again, criticism of these tactics got derailed by the campaign re-concentrating on M4A and other (good) policies. Most voters don't vote on policy. They just... don't. I don't know how to explain this further. They don't.

          2 replies 3 retweets 36 likes
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        28. MGKLab 2021‏ @mightygodking 16 Mar 2020

          If voters voted on good policy we'd all have much better societies in which we live! The fact that we don't probably shows that voters don't vote on obviously superior policies!

          1 reply 5 retweets 29 likes
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        29. MGKLab 2021‏ @mightygodking 16 Mar 2020

          As I've said before: I've been voting for a socialist party for most of my adult life (in every election but one I've voted for the leftmost viable candidate, and that one time was because the Liberal Party candidate had more left-leaning enviromental policy).

          1 reply 0 retweets 19 likes
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        30. MGKLab 2021‏ @mightygodking 16 Mar 2020

          And voters don't vote on policy, no matter how much you want them to do so.

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        31. MGKLab 2021‏ @mightygodking 16 Mar 2020

          The campaign's failure to engage with this reality cost them so, so much, but even moreso it cost them support within the party and their approach only made it worse.

          1 reply 0 retweets 25 likes
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