• notabot@lemm.eeEnglish
    1·
    4 months ago

    You are right, money is required to spread rhetoric in the media, but the dominance of traditional large scale media seems to be waning somewhat as people consume more and more online the avenues to do so multiply, and the cost drops. Considering some of the weird advertising I see around the 'net the cost can’t be all that high now, which hopefully opens up space in people’s focus of attention to receive more diverse messages. This is what I mean by saying voters opinions are swayed in a lot of different ways. Voters, in general, may not entirely agree with you, but present a compelling enough case as to why one side is worth voting for, or the other side isn’t, you do see a swing in voting. Populists exploit this very effectively because it’s what they’re good at. The rest of the political spectrum needs to wake up to it and make their case in ways that actually resonate with voters.

    • TreadOnMe [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
      2·
      4 months ago

      Motherfucker, it is hard enough to work and go to school. I don’t have to build a fucking governing vision for people, as if Republicans or Democrats actually do that. All I ever ask for these days is some basic fucking stuff, like idk, stop giving weapons to aparthied governments to kill brown people? And you think you can combat the totalitarian privatized neoliberal system of government through votes?

      The net cost of running electoral campaigns at a national or even state level is absolutely staggering, costing hundreds of millions of dollars, even for online advertising space. For me 25000 dollars would be a game changer, hell even a thousand dollars would improve my life significantly, millions is out of the question. And this is besides the point that organic online viral campaigns do not have a real statistical affect on American electoral politics, because all the places that used to cater towards that have been astroturfed all to hell. Reddit is basically bot-farmed for foreign affairs. The biggest online organic movement is literally Palestine, and the government reaction has been to BAN TIKTOK. You are acting like it’s a level playing field. It is not. We are at a large, intentional, systemic disadvantage, and we don’t even have the money to get the ball rolling in the right direction. Mostly we just piss people off who can only hear rhetoric, which, while funny, doesn’t actually do anything.

      There are no ‘populists’ you utterly contemptible moron. There are liars for capital and that is it. Stop lecturing me on things you don’t even have a basic grasp on.

      • notabot@lemm.eeEnglish
        1·
        4 months ago

        OK, ignoring the ire in you post:

        All I ever ask for these days is some basic fucking stuff, like idk, stop giving weapons to aparthied governments to kill brown people?

        As we saw with the uncommitted protests, change can happen with enough pressure. It wasn’t much, but it was a noticeable change in tone. Now imagine that amount of targeted pressure had been, or is, kept up for an extended period of time. Changes would absolutely happen.

        I don’t have to build a fucking governing vision for people, as if Republicans or Democrats actually do that.

        The thing is, they do present that vision, even if all that amounts to is “more of the same, with some differences that may or may not matter to you”. Without a compelling alternative vision voters aren’t going to turn away from that, because it’s the only message they’re getting. I didn’t mean you personally when I talked about presenting such a case, but a cohesive enough group has to form to do so in order to give people that alternative. I’m not talking about running an electoral campaign, that is clearly out of reach, but finding ways of getting that vision out in other ways. As you say,places like reddit are bot-farmed, or they’re astroturfed, but still huge numbers of people go there and are exposed to the messaging published on those platforms. Again, none of this is about you doing it personally, but about getting people together to do it collectively.

        We are at a large, intentional, systemic disadvantage, and we don’t even have the money to get the ball rolling in the right direction.

        The more people who get to hear the message and align with it, the easier it is to collect that money, making it easier to get the message out further. As I said, it’s not about an election campaign, it’s about getting enough people to decide they will demand a specific change.

        Mostly we just piss people off who can only hear rhetoric, which, while funny, doesn’t actually do anything.

        Correct. It’s probably good stress relief, but it’s not achieving much in the way of getting more people to come together.

        There are no ‘populists’ you utterly contemptible moron. There are liars for capital and that is it.

        I’m not going to argue with you there, I was just using the more common word for it.