Hardkill

So, what I am getting from some of you here is that even with certain people who don't follow the right-wing media regularly will eventually hear about from some other way, like the ways you mentioned above such as word-of-mouth and social networks, local and regional media, cultural resonance, demographic targeting, etc. Also, I will say that right-wing talking points and framing often get picked up by mainstream media, amplifying their reach and legitimizing their views. Moreover, in some areas or communities, conservative voices may dominate the discourse, leaving little room for alternative perspectives.

FWIW for now:

Why would a significant number of decided voters change their minds about who to vote for, especially in this day and age when the political climate has become more polarized and calcified than ever before since the antebellum of the Civil War.

I hope you're right. However, it's still mind blowing how many undecided people who watched that debate were still undecided. As pessimistic as this may sound, my dad says that he think thats those people who watched the debate and are still having trouble deciding between a psychotic evil old bastard and an inspiring colored woman in her prime who is so eminently qualified for the job of the presidency, means that they probably are still too racist, too sexist, and too backwards to vote for her. I hope my dad is proven wrong.

If it doesn't move a significant amount of likely voters, then I wouldn't be surprised. Debates have very, very rarely made any difference in the outcome of any presidential election. Biden dropping out after his poor debate performance was an anomaly in US History.

That’s also what I was alluding to.

That’s valid point. Harris did fantastic last night, but I am somewhat disappointed that she didn’t get way more than 63% of people who watched it to think that she won the debate according to the CNN poll. When Hillary Clinton won her first debate against Trump in 2016, she also convinced about 63% of voters who watched it to think that she won that debate according to a CNN poll back then. Trump back then wasn’t nearly as bad at debating as he has been this time around.

Even though I've been finding TYT to be more and more obnoxious Cenk did make a very important point here in this vid about how conservative media for decades has been working the referee by accusing mainstream media of liberal bias. Moreover, this strategy has successfully led to mainstream outlets giving undue attention to misinformation and conspiracy theories: The Majority Report did a job of pointing out how much Megyn Kelly gaslit her viewers on why Trump lost the Trump debate:

May he rest in peace. He was a uniquely talented actor.

A (former) prosecutor vs a criminal

Can you imagine how much worse he would've done without a muted microphone?

Harris destroyed Trump in that debate!

The Fairness Doctrine used to enforce diverse views point on every news channel and on every political outlet before it got repealed in the late 1980s. It also prevented the emergence of political media echo chambers or epistemic bubbles. I wish the government could somehow bring some version of that back.

Well, this is very depressing. One of my greatest fears is that the people and the government may not be able to stop the rich and big corporations from taking over our entire country before it's too late. I mean I don't think that's going to happen, but the possibility of that happening just went up a lot in my mind now.

Campaign finance reform has been a mainstream issue for decades, with various efforts and proposals aimed at addressing the influence of money in politics. Yet, I don't see any real progress having been made on this issue at all, even after Bernie Sanders and the progressive movement began to rise to prominence in 2016. Also, what happened to Wolf-PAC?

So, then what has been the point of Wolf-Pac and all of this big talk about how we need to get money out politics?

To be clear, he didn't say back then that Biden would absolutely win. He said that a lot would have to go wrong for Biden to lose if he stayed in the race and that Biden staying in the race would've guaranteed Democrats both party unity advantage and incumbency advantage. He also was very worried that Democrats would end up making the same mistake they made in 2016, whereby they had no incumbency advantage and lost the no-contest key because of how Bernie Sanders bloody fight with Hillary Clinton weakened and divided the Democratic party. Luckily, the Democrats learned from that mistake by uniting strongly behind Harris. Also, what about the fact that Cenk wrongly predicted in 2020 that Bernie would win the Democratic nomination? What about the fact that he and Ana also wrongly predicted that the Democrats would be annihilated in the 2022 midterms just a few weeks out? Here is Cenk going off on Election Day for the 2022 midterm, yelling about how the Dems totally blew it and ruined their chances in the midterms:

The 2000 presidential election was widely disputed. Lichtman, in fact, proved to the US Commission on Civil Rights in his report that racial voter suppression in Florida, notably by officials such as Governor Jeb Bush at the time, impacted the outcome. Additionally, it's important to remember that the controversial decision by the Supreme Court prevented a complete recount, which would have shown Al Gore winning Florida by a thin margin. https://www.usccr.gov/files/pubs/vote2000/report/appendix/app10.htm You know, Lichtman has been frequently asked by international observers whether his system's applicability extends beyond the US. Unfortunately, he says that his system is not readily applicable in other representative democracies. This is due to differences in election systems and each country's unique political history, which diverge significantly from that of the US. I mean, It's definitely possible to tweak Lichtman's 13 keys system to work for other Western countries. For example, if you want it to work in the UK, you could get some top UK history and political science experts to modify it in a way that would accurately predict the outcomes of every UK parliamentary general election.

A lot of undecided voters these days seem to be very disappointed by the fact that candidates these days talk less about policy and substance than they used to.

What do you think about members of the squad like Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush having lost their seats in Congress to more moderate Democrats? You think this is a sign that progressivism has been losing some of its steam?

Okay, got it. Thanks!

Yeah, I kinda thought that. So, what you’be been saying throughout this entire thread is that there are many degrees of progressivism or leftism. On a scale from least to most left-wing/progressive and from most pragmatic to most idealistic: Pod Save America, BTC, More perfect Union, Meidas Touch, Destiny, IRI, PoliticsGirl, and others like them are the least left-wing or the most pragmatic group of progressives. TYT, Secular Talk, Majority Report, the Humanist Report, Krystal Ball, Vaush, Michael Moore, and others like them are more left-wing and less pragmatic than the above first group. Hasan, Jill Stein, Cornel West, Rashida Tlaib, that InfraHaz guy, communists/socialists, and others like them are the most left-wing and the least pragmatic group of left-wingers.

Alright, well I hope so. I just wish that they were less hyperbolic, sounded more hopeful, and were more pragmatic, like Pod Save America, BTC, More Perfect Union, or Meidas Touch.

Well, do you think that TYT has been helping progressives/liberals and Democrats win the messaging war against MAGA, the corrupt conservatives, and corrupt neoliberal Democrats?

Yeah, I do believe that Cenk's political stances aren't far left. Marxism is indeed too far to the left. But does Cenk have to come off as a blowhard who sounds so extreme a lot of times?