Important point about Biden's (misplaced) unpopularity

[LymphocyteLover]

Emptywheel:

"But one reason Biden is so unpopular is the same reason Hillary was in 2016: Republicans had led a sustained garbage investigation designed to do nothing but raise her negatives. Republicans tried to impeach Biden for, literally, nothing, and it captured the attention of both real and fake media for two years. And the effort to smear Biden was, as these campaigns always are, about projection. Republicans in Congress spent taxpayer dollars to create the illusion that Biden was the corrupt one, not Trump. (Trump’s unprecedented corruption, which will be one of several organizing principles of his Administration, got almost no attention during the campaign.)

Which is to say, it’s not just the election. It’s broader than that. It’s that a permanent propaganda campaign has been supercharged in the last two years, in ways that weren’t even true when Fox News relentlessly tried to take down Hillary and her spouse in the 1990s. And that propaganda campaign has played a key role in leading people to distrust and eschew “reality,” including the reality that Joe Biden was better for the economy and Trump is unashamedly corrupt."

https://www.emptywheel.net/2024/11/10/two-elections-the-rules-were-that-you-guys-werent-going-to-fact-check/

They suck at almost everything in terms of governing, but Republicans are masters of propaganda.

[elleng]

1. ' It's that a permanent propaganda campaign has been supercharged in the last two years'

'They' lie SO EASILY, and WE don't/can't.

[Raven123]

2. Yes.

[doc03]

4. All we heard for four years was "Crooked Joe Biden" "The Biden Crime Family"

"Hunter Biden" and "Shifty Schiff". Trump refused to concede the election and ran a
shadow government for 4 years.

[OldBaldy1701E]

5. They are not 'masters'...

They were just playing to an easily manipulated electorate. One that is so wishy washy that a simple ad can make them blind to reality.

It was like shooting fish in a barrel. People are more interested in 'Housewives' than they are with their own political representation.

It doesn't take a master manipulator to convince a child that Santa Claus is real.

[jfz9580m]

6. This!

Thanks OB1701E. You are correct. The GOP aren’t masters of anything. I am not the brightest tool in the shed. But I do pay enough attention to understand life better than the average Trump voter of any demographic (except billionaires).

No one but a billionaire could want to vote for the GOP at this point on account of it making their own lives better. Not even the fairly wealthy are insulated from the general stress, uncertainty and chaos they bring.

[CBHagman]

9. I am tired of the suggestions that Trump and/or Republicans are just so gosh darn good at this...

Between a for-profit media that (A) needs the horse race and (B) sustains a negative tone for almost every topic and the number of people who fall into the low-information voter category, the work of creating this tragedy was and is fairly straightforward. It doesn't help that social ties have been frayed and people are isolated in their technologically controlled bubbles.

[OldBaldy1701E]

18. Bingo! (n/t)

[Beartracks]

13. "a simple ad can make them blind to reality" -- People without critical thinking skills assume...

... that you can't say stuff in public forums like political ads unless it's true, or that all conspiracy theories "have a grain of truth." It's these assumptions that the liars and propogandists know the public will make, which frees them to lie completely and with impunity.

================

[OldBaldy1701E]

19. Which was why I used to tell every single student at my school...

"Never believe anything on the internet until you can confirm it six ways to Sunday!"

They rarely believed me. See where we are now?

[Beartracks]

25. "Don't believe everything you read on the Internet." -- Abraham Lincoln

[Bettie]

20. Add to that

they own the media.

Oligarchs own all of the major media and they choose the messaging.

[LymphocyteLover]

28. I suppose... but we need to get better at this on our side

[no_hypocrisy]

7. Hillary was right: A "vast rightwing conspiracy".

I'm surprised they didn't accuse Joe Biden of killing his first wife.

However, they DID try to make Tim Walz look like he jilted a Chinese woman before he married.

No low is too low.

[oldmanlynn]

10. It's all about misinformation and propaganda

The Republicans have been learning from Russia for years as they made frequent trips over to Russia and what do they learn there. They learn how to push misinformation and propaganda. That’s all incorrect. We need to learn how to fight against misinformation we need to be able to drown out all the lies by pushing truth propaganda. We probably won’t be able to destroy Fox News because of First Amendment protections so we have to learn to drown out all that misinformation

[lastlib]

12. Disinformation will always have a leg up.

As the old saying goes, a lie gets halfway around the world before truth gets its pants on. And the RWers have more ways to spread disinformation than we have to counter it. It almost seems like we need to launch our own disinformation against the RW to even have a chance to be competitive. Like "Tr*mp is helping Russia buy drugs from Mexico to sell to white Americans in the US." (Actually, I'm not sure that isn't true, but.....) Until we can build a network to speak truth on a massive scale, we can expect to be behind in the misinformation battle. And that's a recipe for losing, IMHO.

[LymphocyteLover]

29. Good point-- hadn't thought about how their trips to Russia may have been about going to propaganda school

[southmost]

11. the 1% are winning

because of the dissemination of their propaganda through mass media including internet

[Bettie]

21. The .001% are winning

there are a lot of rich people who are going to be upset when they find that they don't have enough to buy in to the oligarchy.

[UniqueUserName]

23. So True. The merely rich are going to find out what. . .

. . .it's like to be screwed over by the insanely, criminally, untouchable, exponentially wealthy.

At least the masses can enjoy that schadenfreude.

I'm sort of enjoying that Trump's rambling about "the old woman and the snake" and "the scorpion and the frog" were addressed to his supporters. There are many bad things about Trump that are all probably true ---dementia, narcissism, sadism---- I think he relished in telling his supporters that he was the snake and scorpion. ----Sort of "You knew I was a snake when you voted for me."

He and his spokespeople weren't even quiet about the fact that they plan on America going through hard times. His voters thought he was talking about us going through hard times not them.

[EnergizedLib]

14. Bingo

We’re better at governing.

They’re better at politics.

[gab13by13]

15. President Biden was the very first president to take on Reaganomics

He took on neoliberalism, he took on trickle down economics.

President Biden actually taxed the rich, a 15% minimum tax.

President Biden got legislation passed that helped the poor and working class.
President Biden backed unions, the first president to walk a picket line.
President Biden forgave student loan debt.

President Biden was undoing Reaganomics, he had to be attacked by the greedy right.

[Wicked Blue]

16. Keep in mind that the Russians are also masters of propaganda

and have tirelessly worked to smear both Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden.

[surfered]

17. I agree with the premise as they did the same to Hillary and had longer to do it. But here's an interesting fact....

...According to Matthew Dowd (and yes, he predicted a Harris win) a Presidential candidate is saddled with the approval rating of their party's incumbent President. This was correlated since Reagan. Each Presidential candidate received the same percentage of the popular vote as the percentage of favorability of the current President (of the same party) until Harris.. Biden's favorability prior to the election was around 40%, but Harris got 48% of the popular voter. Based upon this historical connection, she actually over performed.

It seems there are three categories of voters in our country: the sane, the insane, and the insanely stupid.

[Erda]

22. It is also true that, for decades

We have been engaged in and have allowed, the dumbing down of the American mind.

Our school systems (not all, but generally speaking), no longer recognize the importance of cursive writing, civics, music, art, critical thinking or even speaking proper English in terms of grammar. (Without language skills, how can we communicate nuance? Even professionals on television make mistakes that should have been corrected in elementary school.) Or practical skills like how to cook, how to survive without modern day conveniences or without a cellphone.

Our culture celebrates crassness, obscene wealth and how many followers someone has on social media. Video games, a form of mental programming, keep many of our young people occupied in an alternate world. A lot of them can't change a tire or cook a meal.

We have become shallow. We have become delusional.

We have a lot of work to do. We also have the opportunity and the tools to change where we are headed IF we have the tenacity and the will to start where we are and do what lies within our ability, to first value and then reclaim our power.

[D23MIURG23]

24. The Fox News/Joe Rogan information complex is destroying our country.

I read an article recently that made the same point. Biden did a good job governing, but the mainstream media didn't dispel the massive slander operation being propagated by right wing TV and internet content.

If we can't start challenging the right on the internet, they will bury us under an avalanche of "alternative facts".

[epreic01]

26. All true but

We also had no sales pitch to the American people. And honestly Biden did his job. He delivered time and again.
Where was the DNC??? When Howard Dean ran it he was not only doing work behind the scenes he was constantly on every media platform he could get on making the pitch and he was someone people wanted to listen to.

[LymphocyteLover]

30. My understanding is the DNC is just a fundraising and disbursement agency and doesn't have many other powers

We definitely need a better way to get our message out, no doubt.

[GreenWave]

27. Fox Noise spoke nothing but shit about Biden from Day 1

and their reporters were assholes during Q & A.

[Dem4life1234]

31. The post election articles do not nothing but gaslight

It all falls on the mass media controlled by the oligarchs to spin the narrative.

Biden was a wonder president but it was lost in the media, spewing their lies on him.

That's why this country is so fucked up.

[LymphocyteLover]

32. I do wish Dems would learn the lesson of maintaining a real movement and permanent opposition to the GOP

Right now all they seem to do is react and try to to jump in when Repubs fail, as Repubs always do.