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So during JFK times the candidates would shape their campaign around the voter's beliefs. These days they shape the voters beliefs around themselves. Reality is

So during JFK times the candidates would shape their campaign around the voter's beliefs. These days they shape the voters beliefs around themselves. Reality is more dystopian than fiction.

microcolonel 7y ago
> ...during JFK times... Not "during JFK times", but in the JFK campaign. Not so much shaping campaigns around beliefs, but assessing who matters to your campaign as a pure technical pursuit. As for your jab, if you think that the President has somehow foisted his campaign on the electorate, rather than the other way around, that is the sort of profound misapprehension that doomed his opponent. The fact that voters can be convinced to agree or disagree with the candidate is more or less orthogonal. Do you think that JFK never influenced a voter by speaking?
- seph-reed 7y ago
  I read somewhere that the percentage of conservatives who believe that Covid is a threat dropped from 70% in Feb to like 30% now. Not sure if that's true, but if it is, it would indicate their beliefs are vastly more dependent on his words, than his words on their beliefs.
  - moojd 7y ago
    Are you sure those numbers aren't reversed? I'm in a red state and while most people I know were in denial a month ago most now at least have moderate concern. It's pretty hard to deny that COVID-19 is a threat when our hospitals are full and the empty shelves in our grocery stores are a signal that people are panicking.
    - dhosek 7y ago
      There seems to be some whiplash effect. Also the geographic sorting of voters leads to a not insignificant number of people deciding that it's an urban/blue state problem.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
mcv 7y ago
Yeah, I'd say adapting your political agenda to what the people want, is vastly preferable to changing what the people want to fit your political agenda. Yet that's the reality of the US political system of today. Especially with the influence of media outlets like Fox and others.
- DonHopkins 7y ago
  I had a "discussion" with a Trump supporter who attacked Hillary Clinton because she used to be anti-gay-marriage, then "conveniently" changed her tune when it became popular, thus revealing her true nature as a flip-flopper, while at the same time defending Trump for his current anti-gay-marriage stance, which was simply excusable political expediency to appeal to Republicans, because he actually has a history of being pro-gay (if having an unhealthy obsession with Elton John (and Roy Cohen!) can be considered being pro-gay), and his true nature was pro-gay but he was just pretending to be anti-gay for convenience, to get the Republican nomination, and now to stay in power by bribing Republican Senators with red meat for their bigoted constituencies. As if his "actual beliefs" were what mattered (and he knew what they were for sure), and that superseded his actual behavior and its effect on the lives of actual gays. That was all just horse trading, you understand. https://consequenceofsound.net/2019/09/donald-trump-elton-john/ https://consequenceofsound.net/2019/09/donald-trump-elton-jo... https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/06/donald-trump-roy-cohn-relationship https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/06/donald-trump-roy-coh... It didn't matter to him that Hillary used to be "bad" then went "good" ("evolved"), while Trump use to be "good" then went "bad" ("devolved"). For him, it was both of their original positions that mattered, not their trajectory or where they ended up, or even the effects of their words and deeds. He wouldn't give her the room to improve, because improving was only "politics", but he gave him the benefit of the doubt that he didn't really mean the anti-gay things he said and did, or actually agree with the anti-gay people he chose as vice president, supreme court judges, cabinet members, etc, because selling out his actual beliefs to the right wing in exchange for power was only "politics". People know very their politicians are lying to them and everyone else, but they pick and choose which lies to believe and which not to believe, because they think the politicians are nodding and winking at them personally, because they're in on the game, and it's justifiable to lie for power because the ends justify the means, at least for their team. That's why dog whistles work so well.
nickbauman 7y ago
Never more than now do I feel we are in an actual dystopia with Trump.

So during JFK times the candidates would shape their campaign around the voter's beliefs. These days they shape the voters beliefs around themselves. Reality is more dystopian than fiction.

microcolonel 7y ago

> ...during JFK times... Not "during JFK times", but in the JFK campaign. Not so much shaping campaigns around beliefs, but assessing who matters to your campaign as a pure technical pursuit. As for your jab, if you think that the President has somehow foisted his campaign on the electorate, rather than the other way around, that is the sort of profound misapprehension that doomed his opponent. The fact that voters can be convinced to agree or disagree with the candidate is more or less orthogonal. Do you think that JFK never influenced a voter by speaking?

seph-reed 7y ago
I read somewhere that the percentage of conservatives who believe that Covid is a threat dropped from 70% in Feb to like 30% now. Not sure if that's true, but if it is, it would indicate their beliefs are vastly more dependent on his words, than his words on their beliefs.
- moojd 7y ago
  Are you sure those numbers aren't reversed? I'm in a red state and while most people I know were in denial a month ago most now at least have moderate concern. It's pretty hard to deny that COVID-19 is a threat when our hospitals are full and the empty shelves in our grocery stores are a signal that people are panicking.
  - dhosek 7y ago
    There seems to be some whiplash effect. Also the geographic sorting of voters leads to a not insignificant number of people deciding that it's an urban/blue state problem.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

mcv 7y ago

Yeah, I'd say adapting your political agenda to what the people want, is vastly preferable to changing what the people want to fit your political agenda. Yet that's the reality of the US political system of today. Especially with the influence of media outlets like Fox and others.

DonHopkins 7y ago
I had a "discussion" with a Trump supporter who attacked Hillary Clinton because she used to be anti-gay-marriage, then "conveniently" changed her tune when it became popular, thus revealing her true nature as a flip-flopper, while at the same time defending Trump for his current anti-gay-marriage stance, which was simply excusable political expediency to appeal to Republicans, because he actually has a history of being pro-gay (if having an unhealthy obsession with Elton John (and Roy Cohen!) can be considered being pro-gay), and his true nature was pro-gay but he was just pretending to be anti-gay for convenience, to get the Republican nomination, and now to stay in power by bribing Republican Senators with red meat for their bigoted constituencies. As if his "actual beliefs" were what mattered (and he knew what they were for sure), and that superseded his actual behavior and its effect on the lives of actual gays. That was all just horse trading, you understand. https://consequenceofsound.net/2019/09/donald-trump-elton-john/ https://consequenceofsound.net/2019/09/donald-trump-elton-jo... https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/06/donald-trump-roy-cohn-relationship https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/06/donald-trump-roy-coh... It didn't matter to him that Hillary used to be "bad" then went "good" ("evolved"), while Trump use to be "good" then went "bad" ("devolved"). For him, it was both of their original positions that mattered, not their trajectory or where they ended up, or even the effects of their words and deeds. He wouldn't give her the room to improve, because improving was only "politics", but he gave him the benefit of the doubt that he didn't really mean the anti-gay things he said and did, or actually agree with the anti-gay people he chose as vice president, supreme court judges, cabinet members, etc, because selling out his actual beliefs to the right wing in exchange for power was only "politics". People know very their politicians are lying to them and everyone else, but they pick and choose which lies to believe and which not to believe, because they think the politicians are nodding and winking at them personally, because they're in on the game, and it's justifiable to lie for power because the ends justify the means, at least for their team. That's why dog whistles work so well.

nickbauman 7y ago

Never more than now do I feel we are in an actual dystopia with Trump.