About that interview

by liberal japonicus

Unfortunately, not good tidings of great joy, just some talk about the latest internecine struggle. Oh well...

As promised, here's a discussion of AOC's interview, found here

I should also note that this is an edited transcript and I wonder if any reordering took place. With that caveat in mind

The interview starts off with AOC saying

We know that race is a problem, and avoiding it is not going to solve any electoral issues. We have to actively disarm the potent influence of racism at the polls.

Can I hear an amen? I don't think any honest observer can fail to note that racism is the horse Trump rode in on and he stayed on it the whole time. But the next bit is where things start to fray

But we also learned that progressive policies do not hurt candidates. Every single candidate that co-sponsored Medicare for All in a swing district kept their seat. We also know that co-sponsoring the Green New Deal was not a sinker. Mike Levin was an original co-sponsor of the legislation, and he kept his seat.

Not socialism, Medicare for All and Green New Deal. Admittedly, Biden edged away from those, but my feeling is something with national insurance and something linked to climate change has to get done. So I'm not sure about the vapors here.

I think it’s going to be really important how the party deals with this internally, and whether the party is going to be honest about doing a real post-mortem and actually digging into why they lost. Because before we even had any data yet in a lot of these races, there was already finger-pointing that this was progressives’ fault and that this was the fault of the Movement for Black Lives.

I'm hoping to see some reporting on this, but I don't think AOC is a fabulist. If she says there is finger-pointing, (and I've seen some articles, but with the whole shitshow election, it is hard to evaluate them clearly), I don't think she's making it up. Admittedly, it's not like being called a bitch on the Capitol steps, but I don't think her radar is busted

I have been defeating Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee-run campaigns for two years.

Ouch! But details?

Some of this is criminal. It’s malpractice. Conor Lamb spent $2,000 on Facebook the week before the election. I don’t think anybody who is not on the internet in a real way in the Year of our Lord 2020 and loses an election can blame anyone else when you’re not even really on the internet.

And I’ve looked through a lot of these campaigns that lost, and the fact of the matter is if you’re not spending $200,000 on Facebook with fund-raising, persuasion, volunteer recruitment, get-out-the-vote the week before the election, you are not firing on all cylinders. And not a single one of these campaigns were firing on all cylinders.

So this is precisely what Cleek was pointing out. I think she picks the example of Conor Lamb because he won. He is PA-17 encompassing Pittsburg. So I think, sub rosa, she is pointing out that better organization would have been able to totally erase the possibility of Trump claiming a win there. And it's not that she doesn't say Conor Lamb didn't support the right policies, she specifically says that he wasn't organized. There was no reason on earth that an incumbent in a swing state should _not_ be doing everything they can because every vote he brings out is another one in Biden's column. So I think that AOC has a lot more sophisticated understanding of what is happening than some are giving her credit for.

There’s a reason Barack Obama built an entire national campaign apparatus outside of the Democratic National Committee. And there’s a reason that when he didn’t activate or continue that, we lost House majorities. Because the party — in and of itself — does not have the core competencies, and no amount of money is going to fix that.

Again, it's easy to shut down conversation by asking if people if they have actually read the interview, but I'm wondering, did everyone read this? Sapient says that AOC is "not a freaking expert on the southeastern swing states", but in the article, she never says anything about particular states, she talks about the inability for the national party to lead. I admit, I didn't look at it too closely, so when cleek said 'socialism', it triggered me. But it isn't so what's the problem? If this is an issue of 'tone', well, haven't we had enough of those?

bobbyp chimes in with this post from Loomis at LGM, which is very related to these discussions. Exactly how does the National party move into these local elections in a meaningful way? That's an important conversation to have, but claiming that AOC is not addressing that is misreading this article. And if we get to Feb and not everyone knows where these potholes are, we'll just drive into them again.

We had Beto O'Rourke and Julian Castro were begging for more attention in Texas, in Mississippi, Mike Espy was trying to tell everyone that he had a chance, but the National Party only caught on in Oct. Whatever was the thought process, it was sub-optimal.

Again, maybe AOC is just telling porkies, but I shudder when I read this

Is there a universe in which they’re [institutional forces in the Democratic party] hostile enough that we’re talking about a Senate run in a couple years?

I genuinely don’t know. I don’t even know if I want to be in politics. (emph. mine) You know, for real, in the first six months of my term, I didn’t even know if I was going to run for re-election this year.

Really? Why?

It’s the incoming. It’s the stress. It’s the violence. It’s the lack of support from your own party. It’s your own party thinking you’re the enemy. When your own colleagues talk anonymously in the press and then turn around and say you’re bad because you actually append your name to your opinion.

I chose to run for re-election because I felt like I had to prove that this is real. That this movement was real. That I wasn’t a fluke. That people really want guaranteed health care and that people really want the Democratic Party to fight for them.

But I’m serious when I tell people the odds of me running for higher office and the odds of me just going off trying to start a homestead somewhere — they’re probably the same.

This twitter thread by Richard Cooke lays out the problem in detail

The comments @aoc is making about Democratic ground-game weakness are being dismissed. I have seen, up close, exactly what she is talking about.

Covering the 2018 election, I decided to report on key swing seats. FL-26 and FL-27 were at the top of my list. If Dems faltered, Miami-Dade would be written up as a missed opportunity.

After arriving in Miami, my first task was perfunctory: find out where and when candidates were speaking. For Republicans, this took around 15 minutes. For Democrats, it took five days.

That is not five days spent waiting for Facebook updates to be posted, or emails or calls to be returned. I drove all over Miami, visiting every Democratic campaign office I could get to in person.

What I found was a stunning level of disorganisation. No-one was in charge. No-one knew who was in charge. Even entry levels of enquiry like "who is your press contact" were unanswerable.

More senior staff (when people knew who they were) were AWOL, not on the trail but at home or on leave. I kept being told a particular individual "knew everything"; when I finally found him (it took several days), he was a backpacker volunteer who had been living in Spain.

(Needless to say, he didn't know anything). Meanwhile, GOP staff were sharing booth-by-booth early voting totals with me. Their granular understanding was impressive.

When I asked a Democratic staff member about this, she said (on the record!) that "Republicans are a lot more organised than we are".

There were almost no other press there, and no-one (apart from Republicans) with a sense that these seats could decide the election if it was close.

Driving around polling locations, the physical GOP presence at polling booth, in terms of signage, personnel and voter information, dramatically outweighed their opponents.

When I finally heard Debbie Mucarsel-Powell speak, I was contacted by someone from the Democratic campaign in Washington. They were unhappy about my questions to the local campaign (after days of being messed around, I was also letting my frustration show).

I asked them questions about what I had seen, and was surprised when they berated me. The campaign was excellent, they were going to win, lawn signs don't matter, etc. They would speak to me after the election, and I would see they would win FL-26 and FL-27.

And they were right - they did win those seats. Only Andrew Gillum, the Demoractic candidate for Florida governor who had been a polling favourite, lost a narrow election because of weak turnout in... Miami-Dade.

You can imagine that now, in 2020, the Democrats losing FL-26 and FL-27 is absolutely unsurprising to me. And the Democratic establishment response to those who impugn the ground game is the same thing I heard: you are wrong.

So, something to talk about. Have at it.

Comments

[liberal japonicus]

I think there is a lot of room to propose some guidelines/ steps. Election day moved to a weekend, made a national holiday, etc.

[Hartmut]

Especially those two ideas are absolute anathema. Bad enough that people get days off at all (the US are the only Western country that does not guarantee paid holidays for workers), an extra day would be poison for the economy. And anything that increases turnout is just a commie plot to steal elections from their right-ful winners. Remember: a republic, not a democracy.

[Michael Cain]

I think there is a lot of room to propose some guidelines/ steps. Election day moved to a weekend, made a national holiday, etc.

Police and fire are still going to work. Hospitals and urgent care will be open. It will be almost impossible to get retail and food to close completely. Whenever the experts rank state voting systems for security, accuracy, ease of voting, etc, the top ranked states are almost always the vote by mail (plus vote centers) states. On the order of 25% of Americans already vote by mail. This year, >90% of votes in the 13-state West were mail-distributed ballots. As far as I'm concerned, voting is a solved problem, some people just don't like it.

Registration is a much bigger issue. Inadequate resources to do ongoing maintenance. Massive voter purges. Bugs in software, eg, statewide polling book systems crash. Everyone talks about fraud in casting ballots, a problem that is vanishingly small. Too few people talk about fraud in the registration system, particularly fraud done by the election officials.

[wj]

The biggest problem with mail ballots? People not remembering what their signature on file looks like. I sure don't. Which can lead to perfectly valid ballots getting tossed.

Plus the fact that signature comparisons are seriously subjective.

[Michael Cain]

The biggest problem with mail ballots? People not remembering what their signature on file looks like. I sure don't.

How do you keep track of what things you've used which signatures for? Do you have a computer file somewhere with a collection of scanned signatures and lists? That's a serious question; the idea of having different versions of my signature for different things has never occurred to me.

A couple of months back I was doing some financial thing at the bank that required me showing an actual physical Social Security card. I fetched it from the safe deposit box. I probably got it after sixth or seventh grade for some part-time job. An expert might compare it to my current signature and reject them as not matching, but they were both "Michael E. Cain" and recognizably related.

I'm 66 now, so the two signatures are separated by something over a half century.

[wj]

That's a serious question; the idea of having different versions of my signature for different things has never occurred to me.

It's not about having different versions for different purposes. It's more about losing detail, depending on how fast and casually I'm signing. Sometimes, most or all of the letters are distinct. At the other extreme, you can make out my initials, but otherwise it's just a wavy line.

So, was I in a hurry at the DMV? Or was I being precise, because I remembered that the signature was going to the elections folks, too? It's been a while, and I don't recall.

P.S. My signature on my (ancient) Social Security card is likewise recognizably the same as my current (precise) signature. No change, . . . just less precision in many cases.

[GftNC]

Haven't got a whole lot of time, but thought those on ObWi who don't routinely read the Guardian might be interested in this, by Sarah Churchwell, an American academic working in the UK. The headline is Can American Democracy Survive Donald Trump?, the person who sent it to me said there are helpful suggestions in it, and the link is:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/nov/21/can-american-democracy-survive-donald-trump

“IWON THE ELECTION!” Donald Trump tweeted in the early hours of 16 November 2020, 10 days after he lost the election. At the same time, Atlantic magazine announced an interview with Barack Obama, in which he warns that the US is “entering into an epistemological crisis” – a crisis of knowing. “If we do not have the capacity to distinguish what’s true from what’s false,” Obama explains, “by definition our democracy doesn’t work.” I saw the two assertions juxtaposed on Twitter as I was finishing writing this essay, and together they demonstrate its proposition: that American democracy is facing not merely a crisis in trust, but in knowledge itself, largely because language has become increasingly untethered from reality, as we find ourselves in a swirling maelstrom of lies, disinformation, paranoia and conspiracy theories.

The problem is exemplified by Trump’s utterance, which bears only the most tenuous relation to reality: Trump participated in an election, giving his declaration some contextual force, but he had not won the election, rendering the claim farcical to those who reject it. The capital letters make it even funnier, a failed tyrant trying to exert mastery through typography. But it stops being funny when we acknowledge that millions of people accept this lie as a decree. Their sheer volume creates a crisis in knowing, because truth-claims largely depend on consensual agreement. This is why the debates about the US’s alarming political situation have orbited so magnetically around language itself. For months, American political and historical commentators have disputed whether the Trump administration can be properly called “fascist”, whether in refusing to concede he is trying to effect a “coup”. Are these the right words to use to describe reality? Not knowing reflects a crisis of knowledge, which derives in part from a crisis in authority.

However, the very fact that we need to ask this question helps answer it – for lying, paranoia and conspiracy are also defining features of the totalitarian societies to which American society’s resemblance is being so hotly contested. As Federico Finchelstein maintained in his recent A Brief History of Fascist Lies: “As facts are presented as ‘fake news’ and ideas originating among those who deny the facts become government policy, we must remember that current talk about ‘post-truth’ has a political and intellectual lineage: the history of fascist lying.”

[sapient]

Thanks, GftNC. That people happily embrace these blatant lies (and I say "embrace" because I don't accept that they all "believe" them) is among the most disturbing and telling things about all of this.

[liberal japonicus]

An expert might compare it to my current signature and reject them as not matching, but they were both "Michael E. Cain" and recognizably related.

The problem with signatures is that they are so amenable to bad faith arguments and they need to provide a paper trail. What is happening in Wisconsin, while not directly related to questions of signature matching, just demonstrate how things that can be taken as a reasonable measure in normal times, can be weaponized

https://madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/wisconsin-officials-trump-observers-obstructing-recount/article_8bc1128a-2682-5e64-ac46-c71ed4396072.html

At one recount table, a Trump observer objected to every ballot that tabulators pulled from a bag simply because they were folded, election officials told the panel.

Posnanski called it “prima facie evidence of bad faith by the Trump campaign.”

[Michael Cain]

The problem with signatures is that they are so amenable to bad faith arguments and they need to provide a paper trail. What is happening in Wisconsin, while not directly related to questions of signature matching, just demonstrate how things that can be taken as a reasonable measure in normal times, can be weaponized

Yes. States "making it up as they go along" to do much larger VBM volumes like Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New York, and Georgia this year, are potentially subject to a bunch of signature problems. States who plan it out in advance, build infrastructure, and train their people -- Oregon, Colorado, Washington, Hawaii, Utah -- run tens of millions of ballots through and signatures are not a problem.

One of the reasons the VBM states get put at the top of the security evaluations is that the systems are designed so that signatures can't be weaponized.

I have been pleasantly surprised this month and admit I was wrong two months ago. I figured that at least one of GA, NY, PA or MI was going to have an absolute disaster with their increased mail ballot efforts.

[wj]

I have been pleasantly surprised this month and admit I was wrong two months ago. I figured that at least one of GA, NY, PA or MI was going to have an absolute disaster with their increased mail ballot efforts.

Happily, they generally had their disasters in the primaries. And they used the six months until the general election to fix the problems and get ready. The "deep state" at its best: focus on getting the job done, rather than exclusively on partisan advantage.

[Girl from the North Country]

Newsnight just said that the GSA has just confirmed that the transition can now begin. Trump tweeted that it was at his behest, but Emily Murphy tweeted that she came to her decision "independently".

[liberal japonicus]

The guy lies like he breathes...

[Michael Cain]

Things reached the point where the head of the GSA just looks stupid if she continues to drag her feet. GA and MI have certified. Among the remaining states, Trump would somehow have to get the EC votes in enough of AZ, NV, PA, and WI to win. The Trump campaign has never had their heart in the court fight in AZ. The SCOTUS signaled today that they're not going to overturn the PA voters. NV's state government is solidly blue.

[Girl from the North Country]

Minor correction: Emily Murphy does not, I believe, tweet. She touted her independent judgement in her letter to Biden. Anyway, I thank any God loitering in the vicinity.

[Michael Cain]

Off topic of almost anything, the new place felt like home: cooking supper, every pan and utensil was in the first place I looked, Alexa was playing Eagles' tunes, nothing was undercooked or burnt.

[nous]

Welcome to Fort Fun, Michael. I miss it, sometimes.

[cleek]

and Trump is still pretending he has a chance. and his idiot followers are still following him.

it's amazing how he never does anything without turning it into a howling shitstorm, guaranteeing that he always looks worse after its passed.

but at least he isn't a Democrat!

[Girl from the North Country]

Completely off topic, but I have always been curious to know where "also, too" (as often used by Snarki) comes from, but never asked. Today, I see that hilzoy tweets:

I am the sort of person who still uses Sarah Palin's "also, too", which for some unfathomable reason I find very funny.

Aha!

[liberal japonicus]

but at least he isn't a Democrat!

I thought it was at least he's not a Marxist...

[wj]

it's amazing how he never does anything without turning it into a howling shitstorm, guaranteeing that he always looks worse after its passed.

But it gets him looked at, which is all he really cares about.

[Ugh]

The GOP delenda est.

That's it, that's the comment

[cleek]

I thought it was at least he's not a Marxist...

oh lie there's a difference.

[1200 words]

harrumph.

[cleek]

s/lie/like/FFS

[hairshirthedonist]

If nothing else, they’ve made shorthand more useful.

[Michael Cain]

Okay, nitpicking, but none of the editors/languages that have regular expressions for manipulating strings that I've tried will accept "FFS" as a qualifier. That I plugged it into a number of them probably says something about me. As I understand the distinctions, I am both a wonk and a nerd, but only borderline on geek.