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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   32893 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 5, 2024

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In elections, achievements do not matter in and of themselves. Only optics matter. Achievements only matter insofar as they help the optics. Trump had pretty much zero political achievements when he ran in 2016, but he ended up completely clobbering the rest of the Republicans and then beating Clinton.

Harris might not have Trump's high levels of charisma, and she might have no achievements to speak of, but that won't matter if the Harris campaign succeeds in framing the election as a fight between "fresh young hip Kamala and her cool cats" vs. "old stale criminal Trump and his gang of weirdoes". The facts don't matter, the reality doesn't matter. Only the optics matter.

Trump had pretty much zero political achievements when he ran in 2016,

And virtually everyone he ran against had a ton of political failures that he could pin them with because holy cow the years leading up to Trump were dismal in terms of anything good coming from the political process.

People don't remember that pretty much nobody on the debate stage could make a case for their great leadership or successful policy goal they'd helped push through. They all came across as feckless, useless grifters in the sense that they were asking for support when their records showed that they'd not done anything to earn it.

At this point, Trump AT LEAST can say he helped bring about the most conservative Supreme Court in decades, and can continue that trend if he gets elected and has support from the Senate.

The facts don't matter, the reality doesn't matter. Only the optics matter.

Yeah but the optics didn't used to be COMPLETELY illusory.

If we're through the looking glass at this point then literally nothing matters. Run whatever candidate you want and voters will accept just about any narrative about them.

If we're through the looking glass at this point then literally nothing matters. Run whatever candidate you want and voters will accept just about any narrative about them.

Yeah we are in a post post truth world. Whoever writes the best story wins.

And the optics are decided on by the media, who are a wholly owned subsidiary of the DNC. Game, set, and match.

And the optics are decided on by the media, who are a wholly owned subsidiary of the DNC. Game, set, and match.

And social media, which is more of a mixed bag.

And yet Democrats sometimes lose elections. Kamala might well lose, her chances are worse than Hillary Clinton's.

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