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This is pretty similar to Ross Perot splitting the republican vote in the U.S. '92 election except that Perot and Bush should have been political allies and ins
by smoyer 5y ago
This is pretty similar to Ross Perot splitting the republican vote in the U.S. '92 election except that Perot and Bush should have been political allies and instead split the vote in favor of Clinton. I can't think of an example of using this against an opponent as described in the article could certainly be used here (though I suspect using duplicate names) would be harder to hide).
- phpnode 5y agoI'm sure you didn't intend this, but your comment is strongly reminiscent of this classic Russian political tactic for dealing with criticism from the west: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
- smoyer 5y agoI didn't intend it ... and it looks like I probably shouldn't have gone reminiscing in an HN comment!
- morganvachon 5y agoHN tends to have waves of (for lack of a better term) "troll hunters" who come here with an attitude that everyone here is commenting in bad faith and must be called out for it. They will do it to commenters from all sides of an argument, even in cases like this where it was clear your comment was simply remembering a past event and not intended to be anything else. I haven't figured out if they mean well and are just sorely misguided, or are actually trolls themselves here from places like Reddit where such bad faith activity actually happens in every single post.
- smoyer 5y agoI'm not in it for the karma and don't worry about being down-voted when I'm writing a thoughtful but perhaps contrary comment. Sometimes (like now) it teaches me that I'm out of step with the "mood" of the commons. That's fine too.
- morganvachon 5y agoRecognizing a somewhat similar incident from one's own country's history is not at all "whataboutism", especially when there was no obvious intent to diminish the impact of the original subject or otherwise distract from it. Not every comment on a web forum is an attempt to argue or act in bad faith.
- phpnode 5y agoYou're right of course, at the time of writing there were only 2 comments in this thread, and both were along the same lines which made the effect seem more pronounced.
- twalla 5y ago> using this against an opponent as described in the article could certainly be used here It's called a "spoiler" and they don't necessarily have to have the same or similar names to be effective, in fact, a similar tactic was used here less than a year ago: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/19/us/florida-senate-race-fraud.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/19/us/florida-senate-race-fr...
- ytdytvhxgydvhh 5y agoThis tactic was used in Florida in 2020: https://www.tampabay.com/opinion/2020/12/02/the-name-is-the-same-but-theyre-different-florida-candidates-column/ https://www.tampabay.com/opinion/2020/12/02/the-name-is-the-...
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- int_19h 5y agoHow is it similar? Perot was clearly a separate candidate, and people who voted for him all knew that.