1. ARE YOU NOT GOING TO EXPLAIN YOUR GRANDMA’S PAST CLOWN CAREER?
2. WHAT’S CLOWN CODE??????????????
I call a lot of y'all clowns but it turns out that’s too good for you since even they live by a code.
1. ARE YOU NOT GOING TO EXPLAIN YOUR GRANDMA’S PAST CLOWN CAREER?
2. WHAT’S CLOWN CODE??????????????
I call a lot of y'all clowns but it turns out that’s too good for you since even they live by a code.
also with all due respect the main reason the left loses so much is that y’all refuse to compromise on the language and messaging you use to speak to voters. i swear if you rebranded “defund the police” as “invest in community safety from the ground up” most white suburban moderates would be like “that sounds great” and i know that because that’s how i’ve literally reframed it to white suburban moderates who think “defund the police” means we’re going to live in a scary lawless mad max world
like maybe it comes across as mealy-mouthed and corny to people steeped in online cynicism but just to be clear, this is the country that wouldn’t eat french fries after 9/11 so we renamed them “freedom fries” and everyone was suddenly cool again. americans are not, by and large, super sophisticated about this stuff
okay, so, as a followup…. basically, i joined this “christians against trump” fb group for a work research project in 2017 and just ended up never leaving, bc it turned out to be such a great experiment in just… observing and listening and talking to people and figuring out the language that works! so like, as a basic glossary for talking to the well-meaning anti-trump moderate dems in your life about progressive policies:

the point is, as with all the rest of this, that there are a lot of people out there who are alienated by the language (because there has been a billion-dollar media propaganda machine working overtime to make the language as alienating as possible) but not by the content of the argument. the right is SO good at messaging to its base by speaking their language, dog whistles and all. but because the democratic party is a coalition of moderates and liberals and leftists, you really have to be strategic about your messaging in a way that the right doesn’t. frankly, that’s why joe biden won - he made those same broad appeals to morality and civility and unity and prosperity that people want to hear.
i realize that everyone feels that if you have the moral high ground, you shouldn’t have to put in work to persuade people because they should automatically grasp that you’re right, but like i said above, this is america, and it doesn’t work like that. we need to talk to people, not in buzzwords or in highly stigmatized language that risks turning them off immediately, but in language that already means something to them. if you want to persuade people you have to actually make things sound appealing to them, whether that means evoking warm and fuzzy mental images or appealing to their principles and moral convictions and religious beliefs or just doing your best to sound like the adults in the room. you gotta do this stuff to build a majority instead of just a plurality within this party, because that’s just what we need to win.
If you want to see this side of the argument in action: witness Dan Price on Fox News reframing Universal Basic Income as “taking money out of the government and putting it in the hands of everyday Americans,” which is just. *chef’s kiss* Speaking as someone raised by and around conservatives, they will eat that shit UP.
I think a big moral in all of this is that you can’t expect the VAST majority of Americans to be educated or knowledgeable about these kinds of issues. I don’t even mean that as a dig, just a reality. Most people, living their lives, working their jobs, do NOT use the internet for activism. They don’t read about these issues in detail. They don’t really understand WHAT those little phrases mean or WHY they should want them.
Which means IF you want to be an activist and you if you want to get those people on board- you gotta get on their level and EXPLAIN it to them without the slogans.
Which is work, and you are not obligated to spend your time doing it, or doing it all the time, or doing it with radicalized Trumpers who aren’t here in good faith; but it is THE work, ya know?
See also: Republicans have mastered this in the opposite direction. They take something Democrats or liberals want, reduce it to a Scary Soundbite, and done, now people hate it.
See: critical race theory
Critical race theory is actually a law school level class about how legal systems can disadvantage people of color in the United States. It’s been around for forty years.
Republicans have conflated it with “indoctrinating children to think being white is bad and hating America.” Moral panic ensues.
The Affordable Care Act becomes “Government takeover of Healthcare.” Etc etc etc
People need to be meet where they’re at with accessible language that understands the audience or else you’ll lose them
My mother is in favor of “universal healthcare” but against “socialized medicine.” The language used for these things really matters
You can do this but disregard any and all advice to soften any blows. People can tell when you’re bullshitting them. You have to say what you really fucking think in plainass language, which is, by the way, how AOC (who is right) got popular to begin with. Defund the Police was originally Abolish the Police, and that’s what we should’ve stuck with. The reason the Right is “winning” (which they’re not, they’re just loud and have a lot of money and guns) is because they take a hardline stance and force the other side to compromise. You see this now with the semi-regular threat to blow up the global economy if the president won’t give them exactly what they want.
The Illustrated Book of Manners: A Manual of Good Behavior and Polite Accomplishments, 1866
in 1866 folks so fucking miss me with all your ideas that this is some outlandishly modern idea
Tim Seeley went out of his way to queer code a character that DC will never allow to be canonically queer (thanks, seduction of the innocent!) and for this I respect him.
that one post with all the edgy anime boys in a therapy waiting room but it's lain, rei, madoka, anthy, etc.
Congrats to shinji for transitioning
It's my opinion that there's something Queer about writing outside your gender expression. You're engaging in an exercise, however imperfect, of empathy for a sexual and social experience outside the one you inhabit day to day. Joss says he wants to both sleep with and be Buffy, and a trans person: Yeah, it be like that sometimes. When I couldn't be out 24/7 that described all my characters. It doesn't have to be that extreme, but it's still Queer to me.
Never gets old seeing posts that so earnestly and genuinely explain something that is 100% obvious to anybody who doesn't spend their life hopelessly online
"You have to bring your own moral framework to adult stories"
"There's more to media than shipping"
"We NEED to get comfortable with disliking people without pretending they've done anything wrong"
"Sometimes people on the internet LIE so always check donation posts!!"
"Do NOT cosign a loan for someone on tumblr"

i'm genuinely curious after seeing a post about it so
I'm really glad I included the different degrees of certainty because there's something really interesting going on with the results which has remained pretty steady since I posted this, though there's obviously not enough votes to draw any sweeping conclusions yet