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Notes -
Hm, if it is coordinated, that's close to what I foresaw as the best Twitter-killing strategy two years ago:
But I don't think that's exactly what's going on here, nor do I think it would work so well at this point. For one, I doubt there's such an overt use of some Social Pressure Power Word as I was saying then ("AI" has negative valence but nowhere near the power of "racist.") For two, doing so in the aftermath of a lost election is making this push from a position of weakness rather than strength: the ability to dictate What's Popular has clearly had its limits shown a week ago. For three-
-That sort of social-pressure campaign (if I dare sound this optimistic) may be running out of juice, compared to before. In fact, looking at the election turnout, at how the shift from 2020 wasn't so much Trump gaining voters as the Democrats losing voters, I'd even say this sort of "appeal to shunning/banning" is past the point of diminishing returns.
The point of these exclusionary tactics - claims that it's just individuals "looking out for their own mental health" aside - is to get dissidents to conform by threatening their social lives/family ties/career prospects/etc. unless they do conform. After all, what's the worth of this one little issue [whatever it is that's at hand] compared to your relationship? But - one - if you make your first ultimatum, you're not offering the tradeoff you think you are: the choice isn't between their relationship with you versus the one little issue, it's their relationship with you versus the one little issue plus everything else an ultimatum-giver may threaten in the future. (Perhaps the hope is that they'll just give in every time due to sunk-cost thinking.) And - two - the more you actually shun people, the smaller you make your circle of friends and the larger you make your circle of enemies. Cutting off family members or banning social media posters doesn't actually stop them from voting; out of sight is not out of existence.
In short, I think that shunning is a tactic poorly-suited to building a bigger coalition or increasing turnout, which is what the Democrats seem to need. I could always be wrong, but oh boy I sure don't want to be this time.
Indeed, which is why I expect that some of these people, when they realize it doesn't stop people who disagree with them from voting, to start looking for mechanisms that will.
Hmm. I can believe (indeed, expect) random wackos to look to murdery solutions, as random wackos are wont to do, and I can believe that The Left as a whole may move in favor of things that The Right will call voter suppression, but I don't see the product of severity times popularity getting very high. I don't see it from here, at least.
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