[henryfjordan]

Youtube really wants to send me down the alt-right pipeline. I watch a few WW2 history videos and suddenly I must identify with "Mr Mustache" as the kids say. TikTok wants to radicalize me the other way, and shows me every video of a cop abusing their power that they can find. It cuts both ways.

I think what's killing Dems is that they don't understand the medium. Mamdani did really well by making good social media posts. Him and Trump had a grand old time at the whitehouse because they have a competent grasp on social media in common. Newsom has been trolling lately and his approval ratings are only going up.

Dems being a million years old is killing the dems.

[Octoth0rpe]

> I think what's killing Dems is that they don't understand the medium.

Generally agree, but

> Him and Trump had a grand old time at the whitehouse

Yeah, but that wasn't entirely positively received, despite his earlier social media success. Him buddying up with Trump was a huuuuge turn off for me.

> Newsom has been trolling lately and his approval ratings are only going up.

Newsom's content is also a huge turn off for me, and I am not convinced that his supposed approval ratings are not simply more CTR type machinations from the DNC. Maybe there's some segment of the population that genuinely wants whatever the hell Newsom is pushing content-wise, I certainly don't have #s on my side. Mamdani's efforts - Trump buddying aside - were much better.

> Dems being a million years old is killing the dems.

Yes, but I think age is simply a proxy for a number of other highly correlated behaviors and positions. Most progressives can name a couple of >70yo dems for whom these complaints do not apply.

[roguecoder]

And there are 31 year old Dems who sound like James Carville reincarnate.

Unfortunately, the young Dems with the biggest fundraising rolodexes are usually the ones supported by the fundraising apparatus that already exists.

[whimsicalism]

Mandani did really well in NYC which is entirely consistent with the social media helping the left in urban cores but hurting elsewhere.

I think it is structural about the medium because it elevates the profile of relatively rare things like crime or ‘wokeness gone amok’ that dems are losing on. Similarly, with regards to ICE, it is helping dems by also raising the profile of rare incidents. But on net I think this sort of coverage hurts dems more than it helps.

[roguecoder]

Do you have evidence that it hurts elsewhere?

It isn't like the left was doing well in rural America before social media: people in the urban cores just didn't know what was going on there, and they didn't know what was going on the urban cores. But when I was growing up, people thought Bill Clinton was a communist in league with Castro.