Comment by jdpedrie | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jdpedrie | Hacker News Reader

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In the wake of Obama's 2008 and 2012 elections, there was a ton of angst in Republican circles as they woke up to the seemingly insurmountable gap between the innovation of the Obama campaign and the pre-internet tactics of the GOP. Added to the early rumblings against the perceived unfriendliness of the large social networks, this resulted in a huge scattershot investment in a lot of poorly conceived and equally poorly executed projects run by PACs and by the party organization. Romney's election-day tech disasters come to mind as an obvious example. Some sort of oral history from the people involved at the time would be really fascinating.

Anyways, the shoe seems to be on the other foot today, as the Democrats appear to have convinced themselves that they're behind the eight ball on tech matters (a position I find silly, considering the massive advantage they have in potential recruits and sympathetic developers).

Despite all the changes wrought by technology, politics is still played more or less as it has always been. Charismatic politicians (Obama, Trump) carry their party, hiding its weaknesses and exposing the weaknesses of their opponents. "Social networking" is an extremely poor avenue for political organizing (as distinguished perhaps from political rabble-rousing). Politics is still a game of people and personality, and investments in internet technology can only perhaps have an impact at the margins.

Instead of tech maybe they should have a real message that appeals not only to upper middle class or tech millionaires. The 2016 campaign showed to me how out of touch the Democrats are with most of the country. Silicon Valley has even less of an idea what's going on outside their bubble. As long as they have such disdain for the working class they will keep losing. At least Obama had a message. That's something I don't see today.

A “disdain for the working class”? What, pray tell, might that be?

If the Democrats can gain 20+ seats in congress without a “message” I’ll count that as a success.

>disdain for the working class”? What, pray tell, might that be?

Implicit support for corporate globalization which vastly diminishes the bargaining power of the working class.

Disdain might come in a more subtle form, for example disdain for candidates like Bernie.

A “disdain for the working class”? What, pray tell, might that be?

Calling people racist and bigots?

There are lots of working class people that aren’t racists and bigots (and in terms of bigotry against people of color, many working class people are people of color) and everyone accepts that there are many elites that are racist and bigoted. I’m not sure where the “working class” comes into the equation here.

I know plenty of liberal white collar people who immediately call someone who thinks about gun rights, has doubts about immigration or same sex marriage a racist and bigot. Independently of the merit of these opinions writing these people off is not a good idea.

Remember when Obama said that thing about clinging to guns and religion? He ended up winning Pennsylvania by 10 points! Don’t pretend this is a new phenomenon or that anybody actually cares that much about it.

> or that anybody actually cares that much about it.

I assure you, those of us for whom gun rights are a central issue - an issue of basic civil rights - care.

As it is, I have no particular love for the Republican Party, but I simply cannot see myself voting for a Democrat for state or national office given their history of voting as a bloc against gun rights.

Objectively, I have no idea if gun control is a net positive for the Democrats at a national level - but I'm confident that by branding themselves as the party of gun control they are driving away a large number of people who would otherwise be reachable.

I don't even disagree with you - but given that Obama won ~53% and 51% of the vote (a higher vote share than anybody since HW Bush in '88) it's not as important as some would think.

Well, consider common terms like “flyover state” and “rust belt”. What do you suppose a person who talks like that really thinks about the people who live there?

Those phrases have been used for decades. In the intervening years a Democrat has won the popular vote 6 times and the electoral vote 4 times.

Coastal disdain for the middle has long been a thing yes. I suppose the modern difference is that when manufacturing was still onshore, no one cared what the coastal elites thought.

Manufacturing has been going offshore since the ‘80s. Springsteen wrote albums about it! This isn’t a new phenomenon at all.

At least Obama had a message. That's something I don't see today.

My man Bernie had a simple message: free healthcare and college education. And love him or loathe him so did Trump: build the wall. Clear, to the point, and instantly everyone knew what they were promising.

> Anyways, the shoe seems to be on the other foot today, as the Democrats appear to have convinced themselves that they're behind the eight ball on tech matters (a position I find silly, considering the massive advantage they have in potential recruits and sympathetic developers).

Democrats are not convinced Republicans have an advantage in technical skill or available domestic technical workforce, they are convinced that there is an assymetry between parties in the willingness to partner with hostile foreign powers and engage in criminal methods of cyberwarfare in pursuit of electoral victory, which mitigates the advantage Democrats believe they retain in lawful use of technology.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/19/climate/koch-brothers-pub...

Reading this made it seem to me that this tech can be extremely effective. By pinpointing exactly who was worth their time talking to (i.e. if husband of target answers the door you ask for target otherwise politely leave) the Koch brother's were able to overturn an initially very popular public transit bill.

I think tech can be effective when its used to make on the ground activism better. It's a truism in political science that face to face politicking and door knocking wins elections. If you can improve the effectiveness of that sort of activism through technology, I don't see why it wouldn't be useful. Of course, that introduces risks as well; it would be simple to end up only talking to people who were probably going to swing towards you anyways, and ending up in yet another echo chamber.

I didn't mean in my original comment that technology is entirely useless. More that it's a distant second to the things that have always worked in politics, and that "our tech is worse than theirs" is the refuge of a losing party looking to cast blame for their losses.

Ah, I misunderstood you. I definitely agree that message and charisma are far more important than tech. Even in the case I cited, the tech just identified who to speak to, but that does no good if you don't have a friendly volunteer to convey a resonating message.

In the suburban liberal utopia I live, we get lots of door knockers/canvassing.

Republicans are usually a middle aged male female team. They are very polite and will discuss the election in general before admitting who they represent. They will also try to sway with fiscal voting histories and moderate policy choices.

Democrats will usually be a group of twenty year olds or middle aged teachers. They are pleasant, but immediately hand you the flyer and start to discuss 'stopping' this or that. They usually don't talk about their candidate, but discuss negatively the competition and Republican national level platform concepts and of course recently Trump. The majority of flyers they send out are negative campaigns.

There is one campaign this year and the only ads running on TV right now is a negative ad against the Republican because he voted against funding bills that claimed to support some senior citizen project and schools. I honestly think this is a smooth play on the Republican party to keep quiet.

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