FlashMobOfOne comments on You’re Being Lied to About Graham Platner

[–] FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 33 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (12 children)

I am shocked to hear that so-called 'centrists' would lie about a progressive candidate in order to score political points.

Did they give him a #BernieBro-adjacent hashtag yet?

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[–] PhilipTheBucket@piefed.social 14 points 1 year ago (11 children)

Not yet but I'm sure that's coming

To me, just dealing with the Lemmy reaction to Platner, by far the most telling indication that the obedient Lemmy freakout about him was fake news was how focus-group-driven it seemed. There actually are reasons to criticize him that I could see a Lemmy-minded person seizing on. He was in the US military, for fuck's sake, he almost certainly shot a whole bunch of people in service of the American empire. Why the fuck weren't they screaming about that? And I'm sure there are things you could cherry-pick out of his Reddit history that would be sure problematic (the Jacobin article lists some of them, as well as some Reddit posts that partially exonerate him for having been in the US military at least in my opinion).

But anyway, it is none of that. Nothing along the lines of what the average Lemmy user seems to me like they would have as a reaction if you just surprised them on the street, described Graham Platner in 100 words, and then asked what his pros and cons were. It's all this focus group driven "Did you hear he had a SECRET NAZI TATTOO? Yeah I'm sure he just never noticed in all the years, just another lying politician pretending to be progressive like all the rest, he's as bad as Bernie, etc etc blah blah." It's the "tan suit" "invented the internet" "Bernie didn't call it a genocide" type of picking one objectively accurate fact that looks pretty bad if you light it from one very specific angle, and then banging it like a fucking snare drum relentlessly from that exact angle to try to attach it to whoever it is indelibly.

To me it is incredibly notable that it's all that second thing and none of that first thing.

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[–] DaMummy@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago (10 children)

Which instances are you on? I've seen plenty of talk about his Blackwater days, and the tattoo he got while a marine stationed in Croatia.

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[–] PhilipTheBucket@piefed.social 8 points 1 year ago (6 children)

I am talking about comments threads like this one: https://lemmy.zip/post/51555751

Search for "Blackwater". There's ONE guy (with an argument which, while I don't agree with it, at least seems like a coherent thing that an average Lemmy person would come up with logically to me, exactly what I was talking about in my scenario one). Then, look around at the comments and the absolutely screaming tide of people running up and down wanting to talk about the tattoo and also casually using a wide variety of logical fallacies while they are doing so. It's weird.

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[–] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago (4 children)

I mean one thing I've seen missing is, at least by the knee jerker/ cancel him crowd, is the source of the oppo. Its clear that this oppo was meant to work on that particular group, and the timing with Schumer/ Mills also make the source of the oppo more clear.

THAT BEING SAID.. current polling shows that Mainers don't give a shit. That could change, but we're a few weeks into this and the polling moved more in Platners already significant favor. Which is a story in and of its self. Platner is holding 30 points over the governed who won by 12. From the perspective of "I only have access to polling data" perspective, Platner is clearly the front runner in a way we almost never see from upstarts/ outsiders. My read is that this coincides with Democrats/ Democratic leadership polling at historic lows: People really, really, really fucking hate the ABWD/ Blue MAGA/ Corporate Dem contingent. If they see the oppo as coming from that direction, it has the opposite impact as intended.

So we'll see. The polling is very much half baked right now. Its only a few days/ week out from the release. Its usually about 2 weeks for this kind of stuff to saturate, but as a news story, its already blowing over/ has been relegated to 3rd tier YT'ers.

Not clear to me that the oppo is going to penetrate but we shall see.

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[–] PhilipTheBucket@piefed.social -1 points 1 year ago (3 children)

You think Schumer is clever enough to spread this kind of narrative? I think he thinks that giving Mills a ringing endorsement and a few million dollars is pretty much all he needs to do, job done, on to the next wild success in Washington!

See my comment elsewhere about "the bad people." I don't think singling out the Democrats as the source of this is particularly accurate. I think the people who corrupt American politics and are actually skillful at this kind of thing don't much care whether it is establishment Democrats or Republicans who get elected, because they do fine either way, but they hate progressives and will try hard to defeat them when they come along. In general, I see no particular reason to think it is Democrats who are spreading this narrative. I don't think the people who are actually capable at this kind of fake news are foolish enough to get tangled up in partisanship in that way.

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[–] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

You think Schumer is clever enough to spread this kind of narrative? I think he thinks that giving Mills a ringing endorsement and a few million dollars is pretty much all he needs to do, job done, on to the next wild success in Washington!

Yeah. He picked Mills, she announced, and a day later this dropped. Reliance on tearing down opponents is perfectly on brand for Schumer. Its exactly how they've put weight on races for decades. Its pretty obvious.

I don’t think singling out the Democrats as the source of this is particularly accurate

It is and it is.

In general, I see no particular reason to think it is Democrats who are spreading this narrative.

Its AIPAC funded corporate Dems. This is AIPAC's sticking their oar in.

I don’t think the people who are actually capable at this kind of fake news are foolish enough to get tangled up in partisanship in that way.

Well, that's not really relevant because this kind of stuff happens literally ALL the time. Its Politics 101.

I mean look, Mamdani survived this, a photo he took with an 9-11 unindicted co-conspirator:

As a brown, Muslim man, in a the city which suffered the attack. Oppo is real. It usually comes from the establishment to try and pick winner and losers. And sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. We need more polling in Maine to know what impact this is really happening.

Losing the terminally online contingent doesn't really hurt Platner. What matters if Mainers care.

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[–] PhilipTheBucket@piefed.social -2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

You need to talk to the people who are yelling about how this is clearly confirmation that Platner is a Nazi, and tell them they're spreading Schumer talking points.

(To be clear: I'm not saying Schumer and co wouldn't do something like this if they were clever and well-connected-in-media enough. I'm just saying that I see very little indication that they are either of those things, which is why they keep fucking up elections.)

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[–] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

You need to talk to the people who are yelling about how this is clearly confirmation that Platner is a Nazi

And why am I obligated to do that? I don't think people who have already knee jerked can be moved, nor do I think they are a relevant contingent.

Like, if you've already decided that Platner is a secret nazi, I'm not going to be convince you otherwise. The primary point of the article is that the attack line is a lie. So if you've made the above conclusion without evidence, there isn't any evidence I can present to someone that will will convince them, because it wasn't evidence that convinced them. I dont think there is any value in trying to work on those people. All it does is elevate a point which doesn't deserve redress.

Who we can work on is the silent majority, which are reading the comments and sitting back and evaluating. And the point I'm making to that contingent is that this entire thing looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and is about as much of a duck as ducks get. You have it either be very unfamiliar with how political campaigns and strategies like oppo research work, or you have to be incredibly naive. Schumer aggressively recruits Mills, Mills announces, and 24 hours later the oppo research drops. Like, if you need it made more obvious for you, please don't take a position advising a political campaign.

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