[ExI] US Democrat Playbook

[Adrian Tymes]

On Sat, Jul 6, 2024 at 10:41 PM Kelly Anderson via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> On the democratic side, you had Hillary Clinton with
> YEARS of on the record experience, and a long voting record. People
> knew EXACTLY what they would be getting and apparently rejected her.
>

>From what I'm hearing, that wasn't the primary reason she was rejected.
The way she campaigned reeked of corruption: that it was "her turn", as if
this was something she was owed rather than something she still had to
earn.  This can be seen even in the book she wrote about why she thought
she lost: she displays a complete blindness to the possibility that this
style of messaging made a lot of people vote against her (and for Trump,
only as the most expedient means of voting against her).


> It seems perfectly safe at this point to predict that
> Biden (who is no longer an empty vessel, has caused a fair bit of
> inflation, and is widely thought to be possibly empty headed in a
> quite literal way) will be replaced before the election.


HAHAHA no.

1) Who specifically would they replace him with?  The only Democrat who
does better than Biden on most polls, Michelle Obama, is not running and
can not be made to run.  If they don't have a specific person to replace
him with, then there is no replacement; to say he will be replaced without
any idea of who to replace him with, is like the Republicans going on and
on and on and on about repealing the Affordable Care Act but having nothing
to replace it with.  (This is the main reason why, when it came to the
actual votes, no full repeal has yet made it all the way through.  It's the
same deal with replacing Biden.)

2) The advantages of incumbency outweigh the disadvantages (if any will
remain by the election) of his recent debate performance (which seems to
have been mostly wiped out by his subsequent rallies).

3) Let's not forget the impact on the chances of whoever would replace him,
of the Democratic party blowing off the will of its voters as expressed
through its primaries.  He has been elected the Democratic nominee.  There
does not seem to be a way to replace him, by the rules.  (This is a problem
that never-Trumpers in the Republicans face too, even if Trump were to be
thrown in the slammer from before their convention until after Inauguration
Day.)


> The question for this group of learned scholars is whether you think
> this "empty vessel" promoting projection theory has ANY basis in fact.
>

I believe you have some of the truth.  Not all, but there are some voters
who think that way.

I also believe that, if you wish to study this in more detail, you need to
stop monofocusing on the presidential campaigns.  In fact, I would suggest
that you COMPLETELY IGNORE the presidential races, precisely because they
are just so tempting to study in detail to the exclusion of all others.
Instead, analyze the Congressional and state (especially governor and
legislature) races.  This provides many thousands of data points, in the
span of history for which presidential races provide a mere handful.  One
of these is enough to draw statistically valid conclusions from, while the
other spawns anecdotes, speculation, and not much else.  As you well know,
statistically valid studies give far more reliable guidance than anecdotes
and speculation.

Yes, I know, anecdotes and speculation feel so much better.  They can be so
addicting!  This is the same phenomena behind disasterbation.  Force
yourself to look away from them if you seek the truth.

Assuming, of course, that you truly wish to understand how it works and
that you aren't just trying to throw political chaff.  Most of those who
have recently been saying that Biden will definitely be replaced have been
doing so in bad faith, in my experience.  Hopefully you are better than
them.
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