5 ms·

If the “state” wanted to listen to voters it would stop trying so hard to disenfranchise so many of us that live in Texas cities but might not vote Republican.

If the “state” wanted to listen to voters it would stop trying so hard to disenfranchise so many of us that live in Texas cities but might not vote Republican. So much of state politics is currently Republicans dog whistling made up issues to their base rather than any kind of evidence based policy.

asdnfaa 5y ago
rayiner 5y ago
Nope. It’s stuff people agree with and care about: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/18/opinion/biden-latino-vote-strategy.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/18/opinion/biden-latino-vote... > We began by asking eligible voters how “convincing” they found a dog-whistle message lifted from Republican talking points. Among other elements, the message condemned “illegal immigration from places overrun with drugs and criminal gangs” and called for “fully funding the police, so our communities are not threatened by people who refuse to follow our laws.” > Almost three out of five white respondents judged the message convincing. More surprising, exactly the same percentage of African-Americans agreed, as did an even higher percentage of Latinos. I guess it’s easy not to care about this stuff if you didn’t literally flee your homeland to get away from it.
- gowld 5y ago
  > Nope. Yes, you can get results from push-polling with heavily loaded wording and unsubstantiated, hyperbolic claims like "overrun with drugs and criminal gangs" and correlating police funding to public safety. Yes, that's different from evidence-based policy. Yes, the Texas state governement has enacted a program of disenfranchisement.
- magicalist 5y ago
  I feel like all I see you post now is political trolling, which is too bad. "Leading poll questions influence people's answers" isn't exactly hard hitting insight, and that opinion piece is literally about effective ways of reframing discussions to get popular support for different policies, bringing into question how much of this is really "listen[in] to its voters" at all.
  - rayiner 5y ago
    You’ve got it backwards. The poll asks simple direct questions that reveal voter preferences. The article is about how to reframe those questions to get voters to give the answers progressives want. I’m not “trolling.” In the last few years folks have become too comfortable calling policies “racist” or “dog whistling” without being confident that minorities actually perceive them that way. I think this is itself racist and manipulative—a way of fluffing apparent support for progressive policies by vaguely invoking minorities—and needs to be called out as such. Cross-border criminal activity is a real concern that affects real people. There’s a reason majority Hispanic communities along the border have flipped Republican in the last couple of years. Right now Abbott is leading Beto among Hispanics in reputable polls: https://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2022/01/29/abbott-running-comfortably-ahead-of-orourke-in-dmn-ut-tyler-poll-paxton-could-face-runoff https://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2022/01/29/abbott-r.... Waving your hands and calling these concerns racist “dog whistles” is not only lazy but disrespectful to a distinct community with its own interests and often nuanced positions.
- tptacek 5y ago
  Rayiner, 70% of respondents in the last Oak Park election voted against "defunding" the Oak Park police. Biden carried Oak Park with 90% of our vote. He ran on fully funding the police; his campaign literally rebuked the "defund" movement. This simply isn't a partisan issue; it's a Twitter Elite issue that you elevate to beat up on. Yes, it is exclusively Democratic elites pushing "defund", just like it is exclusively Republicans pushing Catholic Integralism. It would be dishonest of me to claim that Catholic Integralism defines the Republican party. You have a point with immigration! But you overplay your hand with the defund stuff. Democratic candidates who run on "defund" lose their primary elections everywhere except a tiny number of ultra-blue uncompetitive districts.
  - rayiner 5y ago
    I’d probably vote for defund, from the safety of my Larry Hogan +30 suburb. I’m harping about it because it exemplifies the practice of invoking minorities as involuntary political surrogates by calling policies—in that case policing or stopping riots—“racist dog whistles.” It’s not just the Twitter elite doing that—it’s a lot of folks who don’t necessarily want to defund the police, but just wanted an opportunity to call republicans racist. But the end result is that we went about a year invoking minorities to attack policies that the minorities themselves supported, which is gross. The underlying practice needs to stop.
    - tptacek 5y ago
      You'd be wildly out of step with the Democrats in your suburb, because "defund" is unpopular everywhere. It's a fringe idea.
      - JamesBarney 5y ago
        Granted the let's get rid of all police was fringe. But the let's have fewer police officers and more counselors and call that defunding the police was pretty popular. At least among my friend group in Houston, and it was especially popular among the more politically engaged of my friends, the ones more likely to volunteer or vote in a primary.

asdnfaa 5y ago

rayiner 5y ago

Nope. It’s stuff people agree with and care about: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/18/opinion/biden-latino-vote-strategy.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/18/opinion/biden-latino-vote... > We began by asking eligible voters how “convincing” they found a dog-whistle message lifted from Republican talking points. Among other elements, the message condemned “illegal immigration from places overrun with drugs and criminal gangs” and called for “fully funding the police, so our communities are not threatened by people who refuse to follow our laws.” > Almost three out of five white respondents judged the message convincing. More surprising, exactly the same percentage of African-Americans agreed, as did an even higher percentage of Latinos. I guess it’s easy not to care about this stuff if you didn’t literally flee your homeland to get away from it.

gowld 5y ago
> Nope. Yes, you can get results from push-polling with heavily loaded wording and unsubstantiated, hyperbolic claims like "overrun with drugs and criminal gangs" and correlating police funding to public safety. Yes, that's different from evidence-based policy. Yes, the Texas state governement has enacted a program of disenfranchisement.
magicalist 5y ago
I feel like all I see you post now is political trolling, which is too bad. "Leading poll questions influence people's answers" isn't exactly hard hitting insight, and that opinion piece is literally about effective ways of reframing discussions to get popular support for different policies, bringing into question how much of this is really "listen[in] to its voters" at all.
- rayiner 5y ago
  You’ve got it backwards. The poll asks simple direct questions that reveal voter preferences. The article is about how to reframe those questions to get voters to give the answers progressives want. I’m not “trolling.” In the last few years folks have become too comfortable calling policies “racist” or “dog whistling” without being confident that minorities actually perceive them that way. I think this is itself racist and manipulative—a way of fluffing apparent support for progressive policies by vaguely invoking minorities—and needs to be called out as such. Cross-border criminal activity is a real concern that affects real people. There’s a reason majority Hispanic communities along the border have flipped Republican in the last couple of years. Right now Abbott is leading Beto among Hispanics in reputable polls: https://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2022/01/29/abbott-running-comfortably-ahead-of-orourke-in-dmn-ut-tyler-poll-paxton-could-face-runoff https://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2022/01/29/abbott-r.... Waving your hands and calling these concerns racist “dog whistles” is not only lazy but disrespectful to a distinct community with its own interests and often nuanced positions.
tptacek 5y ago
Rayiner, 70% of respondents in the last Oak Park election voted against "defunding" the Oak Park police. Biden carried Oak Park with 90% of our vote. He ran on fully funding the police; his campaign literally rebuked the "defund" movement. This simply isn't a partisan issue; it's a Twitter Elite issue that you elevate to beat up on. Yes, it is exclusively Democratic elites pushing "defund", just like it is exclusively Republicans pushing Catholic Integralism. It would be dishonest of me to claim that Catholic Integralism defines the Republican party. You have a point with immigration! But you overplay your hand with the defund stuff. Democratic candidates who run on "defund" lose their primary elections everywhere except a tiny number of ultra-blue uncompetitive districts.
- rayiner 5y ago
  I’d probably vote for defund, from the safety of my Larry Hogan +30 suburb. I’m harping about it because it exemplifies the practice of invoking minorities as involuntary political surrogates by calling policies—in that case policing or stopping riots—“racist dog whistles.” It’s not just the Twitter elite doing that—it’s a lot of folks who don’t necessarily want to defund the police, but just wanted an opportunity to call republicans racist. But the end result is that we went about a year invoking minorities to attack policies that the minorities themselves supported, which is gross. The underlying practice needs to stop.
  - tptacek 5y ago
    You'd be wildly out of step with the Democrats in your suburb, because "defund" is unpopular everywhere. It's a fringe idea.
    - JamesBarney 5y ago
      Granted the let's get rid of all police was fringe. But the let's have fewer police officers and more counselors and call that defunding the police was pretty popular. At least among my friend group in Houston, and it was especially popular among the more politically engaged of my friends, the ones more likely to volunteer or vote in a primary.