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Posted
7 minutes ago, Captainant said:

BO&W and bozo are doing a weird "push all the Republican rhetoric as unimpeachable fact" bit. I have no doubt that the perception of using those terms was damaging, but I definitely didn't see it in regular use in my life and online time. 

I did see a whole shitload of republicans pushing that as a grievance to motivate their base though. So it's a bummer to see people so uncritically repeating the anecdote as if it's reflective of reality 

I wouldn't say they are doing the same thing. Not sure what BO&W is pushing but @Bozo_Casanova is coming correct and spot on.

BO&W and other centrists oughta just shut up while he's teaching class.

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Posted

I think bozo probably has some personal grievance with someone involved with one of “The Groups” in particular and is misdiagnosing a problem as The Problem.

Yes, it’s a problem if someone influential is convincing candidates to speak in off-putting ways. But on this issue, The Problem is that media convinces voters that anything random people say online is the official position of the Democratic Party. Right wing media, mainstream media, and social media all do this. Hell, even posters on message boards do.

This is just me working from memory here and not based on specific data, but I think actual Democratic candidates used a lot more identity-based messaging in 2018 and 2020 than they did in 2024. I don’t say that to suggest it actually helps electorally, only to illustrate that eliminating that shit doesn’t really help solve The Problem.

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Posted
19 minutes ago, Vegas64 said:

I wouldn't say they are doing the same thing. Not sure what BO&W is pushing but @Bozo_Casanova is coming correct and spot on.

BO&W and other centrists oughta just shut up while he's teaching class.

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Shit like this is why people think you are AnimalTobacco lmao

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Posted
15 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

I think bozo probably has some personal grievance with someone involved with one of “The Groups” in particular and is misdiagnosing a problem as The Problem.

Yes, it’s a problem if someone influential is convincing candidates to speak in off-putting ways. But on this issue, The Problem is that media convinces voters that anything random people say online is the official position of the Democratic Party. Right wing media, mainstream media, and social media all do this. Hell, even posters on message boards do.

This is just me working from memory here and not based on specific data, but I think actual Democratic candidates used a lot more identity-based messaging in 2018 and 2020 than they did in 2024. I don’t say that to suggest it actually helps electorally, only to illustrate that eliminating that shit doesn’t really help solve The Problem.

The Problem isn't that the media continues to do what it does. That's never going to change, so identyfing it as The Problem is only useful insofar as it informs and urges party reform and (lol) unity of message. An underlying cause of that problem is that The Groups, it seems, tend to put the need to justfy the existence of or grow their organization first, and not the primary need of the party, which is to win fucking elections.

Really this is just Exhibit eleventy-billion of this not being an organized political party.

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Posted
28 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

I think bozo probably has some personal grievance with someone involved with one of “The Groups” in particular and is misdiagnosing a problem as The Problem.

@Bozo_Casanova can speak for himself, but this is an area in which I disagree that your caricature is incorrect (that’s a little awkward so to put it more simply, “The Groups,” are, in fact, the problem or a big contributor).  

Let’s just get real basic on this-the Democratic Party has failed to provide sufficient benefit to enough voters to rebut GOP criticism (regardless of the validity of that criticism).  

The why is at least partially because the party isn’t reorienting around popular positions because specific portions within “The Groups” disagree with them.  

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Posted
14 minutes ago, Covri said:

Latinx hasn’t been a thing since 2018, why the fuck y’all rehashing old shit?

It lost the election for Kamala Harris, apparently.

Along with cancel culture, wokeness, CRT, trans athletes, pronouns, gay people, books, and Barack Obama (obviously).

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Posted
22 minutes ago, safe sex said:

Shit like this is why people think you are AnimalTobacco lmao

as if it were even remotely a question. 

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Posted
1 hour ago, Captainant said:

BO&W and bozo are doing a weird "push all the Republican rhetoric as unimpeachable fact" bit. I have no doubt that the perception of using those terms was damaging, but I definitely didn't see it in regular use in my life and online time. 

I did see a whole shitload of republicans pushing that as a grievance to motivate their base though. So it's a bummer to see people so uncritically repeating the anecdote as if it's reflective of reality 

It's the Sydney Sweeney of yesteryear.

Posted
9 minutes ago, LCHorn said:

@Bozo_Casanova can speak for himself, but this is an area in which I disagree that your caricature is incorrect (that’s a little awkward so to put it more simply, “The Groups,” are, in fact, the problem or a big contributor).  

Let’s just get real basic on this-the Democratic Party has failed to provide sufficient benefit to enough voters to rebut GOP criticism (regardless of the validity of that criticism).  

The why is at least partially because the party isn’t reorienting around popular positions because specific portions within “The Groups” disagree with them.  

When issue polls are conducted, policies that Democratic officials and candidates support are pretty much always overwhelmingly popular. I'm talking 60%+ in favor. Meanwhile you look at polls of nearly every issue the GOP cares about and it's like 35% for or worse. If prioritizing or supporting unpopular policies was an electoral problem, the Republican party would be about as popular as the Green party.

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Posted (edited)
8 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

When issue polls are conducted, policies that Democratic officials and candidates support are pretty much always overwhelmingly popular. I'm talking 60%+ in favor. Meanwhile you look at polls of nearly every issue the GOP cares about and it's like 35% for or worse. If prioritizing or supporting unpopular policies was an electoral problem, the Republican party would be about as popular as the Green party.

It's because Republicans cheat and interfere with voters and voting. Full stop.

Edited by Vegas64
Posted
6 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

When issue polls are conducted, policies that Democratic officials and candidates support are pretty much always overwhelmingly popular. I'm talking 60%+ in favor.

@Bozo_Casanova is going to say that voters don’t vote for policies, they vote for candidates.  
 

That said, I agree with you in that the polls show that.  I do question the conventional wisdom that tends to follow (the Democrats just need to message better).  I think it’s hiding some weakness that those policies are actually less popular than they appear to be.  

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Posted (edited)
6 minutes ago, Vegas64 said:

It's because Republicans cheat and interfere with voters and voting. Full stop.

Well, that and Democrats campaign like they are trying to win a high school debate when they should be trying to win a popularity contest or sell a product.

Edited by Bozo_Casanova
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Posted
4 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

Well, that and Democrats campaign like they are trying to win a high school debate when they should be trying to win a popularity contest or sell a product.

This is where we agree. Obama did the latter.

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Posted
1 minute ago, LCHorn said:

@Bozo_Casanova is going to say that voters don’t vote for policies, they vote for candidates.  
 

That said, I agree with you in that the polls show that.  I do question the conventional wisdom that tends to follow (the Democrats just need to message better).  I think it’s hiding some weakness that those policies are actually less popular than they appear to be.  

It's complicated because issue polling is only so useful, given how many different ways questions can be framed, and "issues" themselves are poorly understood. "Universal health care" is popular. But when you get into the weeds of what that actually entails, Republican messaging is very effective at diminishing its support. 

We're all having different conversations here. I fully agree with bozo that voters don't vote for policies, they vote for candidates. Your post i was responding to was arguing that Dems aren't sufficiently reorienting around popular policies due to interference from "The Groups." I think The Groups interfere in harmful ways, but that the electoral impact of that interference is pretty minimal and that the biggest problem, The Problem as I've described it, would remain and things wouldn't look much difference in a week if all of The Groups disappeared completely from this plane of reality tomorrow.

What's frustrating is that the solution to The Problem is fairly simple (not easy and it will take an extended period of time to really show results, but it is simple).  Hell, we've seen the GOP do it already. Dems need to bully the media and begin standing up their own partisan media alternatives. We've seen it work, and I don't mean just on Republican base voters. It has worked incredibly well for the GOP on mainstream media editors and producers and the "centrist" voters and even center-left that listen to them. It works just the same way working the refs does in sports. Unfortunately, too many Democratic officials still feel constrained by shitty consultants, norms, collegiality, etc. to even consider working the refs. 

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Posted
6 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

What's frustrating is that the solution to The Problem is fairly simple (not easy and it will take an extended period of time to really show results, but it is simple). 

Your whole posts deserves a more lengthy and thoughtful response, but I wanted to single out one part that I can write on quickly.  
 

I actually think it’s simple, at least for 2026 and 2028 (and for the record, I’m stealing this idea but can’t recall the source).  
 

You just have to run against the party.  

Posted
1 hour ago, StassneyHorn said:

Jessica Cisneros is a specific answer all of you are looking for in regards to a politician who used it unsuccessfully.

She would have won a general election and has given a 2 decade incumbent the hardest primary challenges of his career even though he had every conceivable institutional advantage and on top of that was apparently corrupt enough to get raided by the feds. I don't remember seeing any "pushing LatinX" from her campaign either.

Posted
Just now, LCHorn said:

Your whole posts deserves a more lengthy and thoughtful response, but I wanted to single out one part that I can write on quickly.  
 

I actually think it’s simple, at least for 2026 and 2028 (and for the record, I’m stealing this idea but can’t recall the source).  
 

You just have to run against the party.  

There's good and bad ways of doing that. A ton of Texas Democratic candidates for statewide office have run against the party in bad ways over the past 30 years. Their message tends to essentially be "look everyone knows Democrats are communist monsters but I'm not like them, I'm a conservative Texan who happens to think the Republican party is a little mean for my liking." That doesn't work.

The best candidate we had (Beto) ran a far more progressive campaign than any of the others. He should've shut the fuck up about taking guns (there's always one or two issues you do in fact have to be careful with), but he was unapologetically progressive and the only thing that actually hurt him was the "hell yeah we're coming for your assault rifles."  Note that I'm not arguing that actually progressive issues are electoral winners; I don't think they matter much. It's the attitude. Running as a Republican-lite just tells voters that they have more in common with Republicans than Democrats, that Republicans are right about the issues that are important to them, and that Democrats either (i) don't really believe in anything (even the dumbest voters can smell focus-grouped, poll-tested bullshit) and/or (ii) are actively opposed to their interests. 

Running unapologetically as a Democrat is better than that. In this environment, I think that can and probably should include running specifically against New York Democratic leadership (but no AOC slander). They're feckless losers more focused on spats with other local candidates and officials than on their actual duties as elected officials and as leaders of the party. That can rally demoralized base voters AND appeal to dumb undecided "centrist" voters who hate Schumer/Pelosi/Jeffries, while recharacterizing part of the party's image problems as specifically about them and not as the party more generally. 

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Posted
3 hours ago, BurntOrange&White said:

The perception definitely is more welcoming. Which in 2025 is all you need. A welcoming perception to secure vote. Where as the other side degrades people with differing opinions and makes them feel inferior. 

the only way you can make this statement is if you state that the GOP is more welcoming to the single largest cohesive group - cisgender, straight, white people. any other way you describe it, that's simply not true. while numbers are trending poorly for Dems, the Republicans are not a majority minority party, they are making tremendous inroads in minority groups but those are not groups that as a whole lean right.

 

 

1 hour ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

Well, that and Democrats campaign like they are trying to win a high school debate when they should be trying to win a popularity contest or sell a product.

100% this.

1 hour ago, BurntOrange&White said:

Obama is rare where he could do both effectively. 

sigh, I miss that man.

Posted (edited)

re LatinX.... I'll use GASP ... pronouns as an analogy.

I FUCKING HATE PRONOUNS. 

There I said it.

And by the way what are my pronouns? Depends, I usually go by ...

WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK THEY ARE?

FUCK YOUR MOUTH WITH A DIRTY CUMSOCK!

And on a good day, ME, my gender is ME.

but yeah, I'm a she for those that require conformance to the group's demand...

Why do I FUCKING HATE PRONOUNS?

Because bitch, if you look at me, or see my name in an email and you think for one minute and you can't either (1) make an educated guess as to my gender, (2) tell from looking at me that I'm a woman, or (3) at least assume that's the thing I'm going for, then I'm going to relegate you into the to be ignored, ridiculed, scoffed at and scolded pile. why? because fuck you for being a stupid ass.

Why else?

Because I have bigger concerns than fucking pronouns.

But wait, what about respect?

You know what, I demand respect because of my human dignity and where I've been and what I've been through. And I do appreciate those who toss around their pronouns on email signature pages... Talking to YOU Jennifer, Angela, Kristi and all you other cisgender, heterosexual white women! I see you, thank you for the solidarity, sticking your necks out there! REALLY going out there on a limb. Couldn't do it without ya!

Yeah, pronouns matter and I do see signature lines with pronouns as a signal of allyship, but pronouns aren't hard and it's irrelevant for what matters.  Take that pronoun shit to twitter and SJW the fuck out of the ether, I'm all for it. But politics? Fuck that noise. There are WAY BIGGER issues than fucking pronouns.

...

I assume LatinX has it's own backlash culture, but I bet there are some similarities.

 

but no @BurntOrange&White you're wrong. Dems like me, we do love white women with big boobs, even if their solidarity is only found in a signature line with designated pronouns.

 

 

Edited by troph
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Posted (edited)

I don't know of anyone on surly or in actual real life that cares at all about pronouns. Yes, some folks had it in their email signature but I've not once ever in my real life - professionally or personally - seen pronouns come up. Much less as a point of conflict in an actual interpersonal relationship of any type

And yeah, you definitely see faceless anonymous accounts getting BIG MAD about it online, but that's just looking for a reason to construct a grievance.

 

Hell, what policy has been advanced around pronouns? Is it anywhere near the breadth and depth of actual REAL legislation that is passing into law? Show me evidence of the feelz == realz

....

....

So why do boomers and baby-boomer genX'ers that LOVE to bring it up as the leading indicator the Democrats have gone too far, and nurse it as a grievance?? Lemme know when y'all solve litterboxes in classrooms and eating cats and dogs. Since ya know, every grievance is real and deserves attention.

Edited by Captainant
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Posted (edited)
56 minutes ago, Captainant said:

I don't know of anyone on surly or in actual real life that cares at all about pronouns. Yes, some folks had it in their email signature but I've not once ever in my real life - professionally or personally - seen pronouns come up. Much less as a point of conflict in an actual interpersonal relationship of any type

And yeah, you definitely see faceless anonymous accounts getting BIG MAD about it online, but that's just looking for a reason to construct a grievance.

 

Hell, what policy has been advanced around pronouns? Is it anywhere near the breadth and depth of actual REAL legislation that is passing into law? Show me evidence of the feelz == realz

....

....

So why do boomers and baby-boomer genX'ers that LOVE to bring it up as the leading indicator the Democrats have gone too far, and nurse it as a grievance?? Lemme know when y'all solve litterboxes in classrooms and eating cats and dogs. Since ya know, every grievance is real and deserves attention.

The whole point is that SJW, cishet white women, “those groups” and others do focus on pronouns.

To some extent they matter but for all practical intents and purposes they mean the square root of jack shit and actually get in the way. 
 

Venn diagrams are the Dems friends. Find the center that contains the most overlap and go after that identity group. 

fuck pronouns, fuck Latinx, fuck all of it. If you raise the quality of life in tangible and meaningful ways for the working class and middle class you will improve the lives of the pronoun kings and queens and the Latinx mommas and daddies and the rest of us.

the true political intersectionality is helping the working and middle classes, and that’s about as queer as you can get in today’s political climate (multiple layers of meaning intended). Full stop.

 

Edited by troph
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Posted
1 hour ago, troph said:

re LatinX.... I'll use GASP ... pronouns as an analogy.

I FUCKING HATE PRONOUNS. 

There I said it.

I understand your point (and I think you get mine) but: if people have preferred pronouns I want to know and will use them. I also don’t want to misgender people, or deadname them, or for that matter even mispronounce people’s names. Or call people by a married name if they either didn’t take it or got rid of it. It’s important that we don’t disrespect people by assigning them an identity they don’t accept. 

It’s not the same as gender, clearly, but the problem with “LatinX” is that it disrespected many Hispanics who didn’t and don’t see themselves as LatinX. At best, it presented progressives and Democrats as hopelessly out of touch, but for some it is offensive. 

Posted
16 minutes ago, Brian Fantana said:

Nobody gives a fuck about pronouns other than a very small cadre of "SJWs" and a shit ton of weird conservatives and they're all terminally online

Are you saying that it’s fine to call a trans woman “he” or “him?”  

 

1 hour ago, troph said:

Dems like me, we do love white women with big boobs

Everybody loves big titty white women

Posted
3 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

Are you saying that it’s fine to call a trans woman “he” or “him?”  

I simply call people what they want to be called and don't give it a second thought beyond that like a normal person

Posted
5 minutes ago, Brian Fantana said:

I simply call people what they want to be called and don't give it a second thought beyond that like a normal person

Good. Do you then understand why it might be a problem to call people LatinX if they don’t like that term?

Posted
3 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

Good. Do you then understand why it might be a problem to call people LatinX if they don’t like that term?

Yeah, my point is I've literally never seen or heard anyone say that outside of terminally online circles circa like 2018 or whatever. It's so niche and irrelevant I had literally pushed it out of my brain entirely until you brought it up.

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Posted
5 hours ago, Vegas64 said:

I wouldn't say they are doing the same thing. Not sure what BO&W is pushing but @Bozo_Casanova is coming correct and spot on.

he's not. bozo routinely exaggerates his "insight" on brown politicians and communities -- rgv latinos in this case -- and misses the mark. latinx wasn't a serious push down there.

Posted
17 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

Good. Do you then understand why it might be a problem to call people LatinX if they don’t like that term?

Has anyone ever been called a latinx? I thought it was just a blanket term to cover both men and women.

Posted (edited)
10 minutes ago, The Hot Dog Buffet said:

Has anyone ever been called a latinx? I thought it was just a blanket term to cover both men and women.

About a year ago at some kind of community forum in Austin I saw a (white) TravCo Democrat put a question to a woman like this: “as a member of the east side LatinX community, what do you think of this proposal?” 
 

And this lady looks confused and says “as a member of what?”

Edited by Bozo_Casanova
Posted
3 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

About a year ago at some kind of community forum in Austin I saw a (white) TravCo Democrat put a question to a woman like this: “as a member of the east side LatinX community, what do you think of this proposal?” 
 

And this lady looks confused and says “as a member of what?”

How did the questioner pronounce that? Like latin x or like latinks? It's beyond stupid, either way. Just say "Hispanic."

Posted
1 minute ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

About a year ago at some kind of community forum in Austin I saw a (white) TravCo Democrat put a question to a woman like this: “as a member of the east side LatinX community, what do you think of this proposal?” 
 

And this lady looks confused and says “as a member of what?”

Quote

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Posted

The point is there are groups - sorry I was slow to understand the line of discussion - that make certain concepts material that are immaterial. Lantix and the performative pronoun shit are two examples. 

being inclusive matters, doing cringy pronouns shit and calling people Latinx because someone said it’s inclusive is not helpful. 

focus on the material, figure out the concerns that most people are worried about and you’ve got your goddamned inclusivity. 

and why does it make me ragey, because the path to my rights goes through the working class and middle class and this performative bullshit help elect Trump. 
 

troph

she/her/hers 

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Posted (edited)
2 hours ago, Captainant said:

So why do boomers and baby-boomer genX'ers that LOVE to bring it (pronouns) up as the leading indicator the Democrats have gone too far, and nurse it as a grievance?? Lemme know when y'all solve litterboxes in classrooms and eating cats and dogs. Since ya know, every grievance is real and deserves attention.

From what I have personally seen, the conservatives who are the most pissed off and have a real, personal experience in the matter are those whose kids come up to them one day, state they are trans and start asking to be called by different pronouns.  These parents blow a gasket and look for someone to blame.  The conservative info-sphere is right there ready to provide them with targets.  These families talk to their friends, their pastor, etc... about the experience.  The conservative narrative is reinforced by experiences conservatives have with their own kids, or with friend's families that they know.

Are these kids legitimately trans?  In my opinion, knowing these kids, and knowing full well it's not my place to make such judgements, the answer is, pretty exclusively, no.   So where are they getting the idea they are?  Again, just from what I have personally seen, these kids are getting it from a combination of YouTube, teen gamer culture, discord, Minecraft servers, etc...  They get it from their online hangouts, especially during lockdowns when everything else was shut down and kids were spending a lot more time than normal online.  Places where it's "cool" to be trans and internet anonymity and disconnection provides a sense of safety.

You can get as tinfoil hat as you want after that.  Is this just the 2020's equivalent of a teen coming home with a tattoo in 1990 much to their parent's chagrin?  Or is there a strategic effort to influence kids online and engineer these feelings within them and the resulting rifts in U.S. families as a means to weaken American societal cohesion?

I dunno.  The only thing I am certain of is that these kids sure as shit weren't groomed by the poor public school teacher just trying to not be an asshole when a kid came up to them after class questioning their gender because they know they could never talk to their conservative parents about it.  They either go to private religious schools or are home schooled.

If a kid's ultimate life's happiness as an adult lies in being trans, then I want them to be trans as fuck and not have that right be imposed on.  This is just what I have seen from conservative families with kids experiencing gender dysphoria over the last few years.  YMMV.

Edited by Goredho
Posted
6 minutes ago, Goredho said:

You can get as tinfoil hat as you want after that.  Is this just the 2020's equivalent of a teen coming home with a tattoo in 1990 much to their parent's chagrin?  Or is there a strategic effort to influence kids online and engineer these feelings within them and the resulting rifts in U.S. families as a means to weaken American societal cohesion?

I think it's the new flavor of satanic panic. At least that particular "they're doing sex changes in schools" line of idiotic conspiracy 

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Posted
2 minutes ago, Captainant said:

I think it's the new flavor of satanic panic. At least that particular "they're doing sex changes in schools" line of idiotic conspiracy 

Yeah, maybe.  I mean, if you wanted to introduce rifts in conservative families between parents and kids to get the parent's riled up enough to support the overthrow of the established order, this would be a good way to do it.  I don't doubt that there are people in power for whom the end justifies any means.  The real question to me is are the tools available through online targeting, influencing, etc... to where they would have the means.

Posted
3 minutes ago, Goredho said:

Yeah, maybe.  I mean, if you wanted to introduce rifts in conservative families between parents and kids to get the parent's riled up enough to support the overthrow of the established order, this would be a good way to do it.  I don't doubt that there are people in power for whom the end justifies any means.  The real question to me is are the tools available through online targeting, influencing, etc... to where they would have the means.

So you're speculating there's an entity using micro targeting like how Facebook did to drive outrage, only driving homosexuality with the express intent of targeting conservative families? Or that division efforts are and always have been ongoing online, and this is just the new button being pressed to get that outcome?

Posted

Maybe Dems should workshop "vermin," "invaders" and "wetbacks" into their outreach. Seems to have worked wonders during '24 cycle for GOP 

Posted
38 minutes ago, Goredho said:

Or is there a strategic effort to influence kids online and engineer these feelings within them and the resulting rifts in U.S. families as a means to weaken American societal cohesion?

I dunno.  

Confused Tom Hanks GIF



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