Joey Fishkin

There are a lot of left-populist policies that I would like to see and that I also think Americans would like and support if they could see them in action.

But sometimes it's centrist candidates who enact these—or provide the last votes (see Obamacare, the last halfway decent major program enacted)

At the 12 second mark, that camera operator called an audible and just said "fuck it, the lane is clear, no tripping hazards, I'm winning a Sports Emmy for cinematography right now"

“We found over 35 cases in which the judges have specifically said what the government is providing…false information. It might be intentionally false information, including false sworn declarations time and again," says Ryan Goodman, law professor at New York University.

Frankly if a multibillion dollar news company can't think of a next day story about a 7-million-person protest that ended with the president of the United States posting a video of himself shitting on America, everyone there should find a new line of work.

Just shows how the fecklessness of so many political journalists is a CHOICE.

Nothing, literally nothing, stops them from pushing like this. And in group Q&As, they COULD follow up on each other’s questions to make it impossible to weasel out.

To be fair, it’s in the subhead. But all you had to say was “No Kings protesters”…

Did you superstar headline writers consider contextualizing this in relation to The Mass Protest That Shall Not Be Mentioned On Page A1?

Anyway you're absolutely right that the environment is getting worse as right-wing oligarchs buy up ever more attention platforms and media properties.

There are ways to work against this that are super important, but mostly it's not *candidates* who will do that work.

Walz is an interesting example that Hayes invokes a lot in this column. Hayes (and Walz!) argue Walz was not deployed well by the Harris campaign—they muzzled him, making him less politically effective, to avoid the RW media dangers you are discussing.

You're still running uphill but you must run.

Anyway you're absolutely right that the environment is getting worse as right-wing oligarchs buy up ever more attention platforms and media properties.

There are ways to work against this that are super important, but mostly it's not *candidates* who will do that work.

Walz is an interesting example that Hayes invokes a lot in this column. Hayes (and Walz!) argue Walz was not deployed well by the Harris campaign—they muzzled him, making him less politically effective, to avoid the RW media dangers you are discussing.

You're still running uphill but you must run.

Yeah, I disagree with that. As much as I prefer a more progressive politics—even left-populist, anti-oligarchy politics—and have written a lot about this for many years now, when it comes to recruiting successful candidates I do not actually think this is the single most important ingredient.

I think his review of her message is that it was...not bad.

Which seems fair.

_Most_ more-charismatic candidates are probably more left-populist than Harris. But Barack Obama was pretty darn charismatic. He was significantly less left-populist than, say, I would ideally prefer, but he got it done.

Also, discussing this highly newsworthy message from the president, which is about the most basic responsibility of a journalist, would entail discussing what approximately 7 million Americans did yesterday, and that itself would be somewhat revolutionary for the Sunday shows.

It's weird to reflect on the fact that one of my many errors as a younger person enthusiastic about politics was to think too much like a (not-very-good) political consultant.

It would have been smarter to just focus on charisma & ability to get attention—even then. Even more now.

...and this actual photo.

There's just not a lot of gap between this artistic rendering...

I have many threads on this microblogging platform about this very topic (some w/comments from you I think?) and we agree, for all Americans, making the media environment less skewed is extremely important.

But this is not primarily the work of *candidates*.

Their job is to run uphill and win.

100% about the retail campaigning but Zohran's great strength was to attract the attention and interest and admiration of all these people.

This is one small but important insider-y part of how the change we need is going to happen: replacing one set of political operatives with another, better set of them.

Wesley Clark 2004 presidential campaign - Wikipedia

The above thread is dedicated to my friend Jacob and my younger self, who in early 2004 headed up to New Hampshire to organize for a candidate we thought other people might find really appealing.

(They didn’t.)

🤦‍♂️

Absolutely!

And they should get a lot of future work in the party!

It’s a gift link so you can read the column, not just the headline… : )

The propaganda machine is the water we swim/drown in. Like the malappotioned Senate, for example, and other factors, it means politics is slanted. To win requires more of what it takes. But WHAT does it take? That’s the topic of Hayes’ column and this thread.

BTW that was a NYT gift link at the top. 😉

That's why I appreciate @chrislhayes.bsky.social, becuase he's just about the only person who sees this point and has a big enough megaphone that the people who are paid to turn candidates into poll-tested robots with lots of TV $ are going to at least have to listen to him. He has their attention.

That 's fine, and it might mean that candidates with the charisma & ability to get attention are more often going to be found on the left (for Dems) and on the right (for Rs). Often but not always.

I think the political consultant class will likely be the last part of the party to figure this out.

The lesson is not "run up the left lane," it's "find the people with the charisma & ability to get attention and support those people."

The tricky part is: because of polarization, there's often more energy & excitement today around candidates who less centrist, b/c they seem less poll-tested.

No more lab-tested, uncharismatic candidates, whose supporters are all hoping someone else will like them.

This is a lesson *the electorate* needs to learn, not just the donor class and the bigwigs involved in candidate recruitment.

AOC and Zohran are teaching us all this lesson.

That is the way.

As Hayes suggests in passing, the neverending war between progressives and centrists in the Democratic Party is simply less important than who has the charisma & ability to get attention.