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   myrmepropagandist (futurebird@sauropods.win)'s status on Monday, 28-Aug-2023 02:34:34 JST myrmepropagandist

   A popular pastime with some political reporters is to compare the most recent post from Trump with the most recent tweet from Biden. This reliably produces an embarrassing contrast: Trump: always stewing, full of invective against his enemies or asking for money. Biden mostly touts his legislative achievements. Liberals call this a win, my instinct is to agree.

   But, there is another angle: a Trump fan said something like "Well, at least Trump is real. Biden isn't even talking to us." 1/

   • Paul Cantrell repeated this.
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     myrmepropagandist (futurebird@sauropods.win)'s status on Monday, 28-Aug-2023 02:34:32 JST myrmepropagandist

     in reply to

     The Trump fan is also correct, though what this means requires more examination.

     Everything Biden tweets is "vetted" and it's not really intended to be Biden giving you a little window into his day, or his thinking and reactions moment to moment. It's carefully thought out, manicured, positive... and unipersonal. Which is fine to me, but I think it bothers some people. Obama had a similar style and was called "aloof" --

     But no one is voting for Biden out of para-social attachment. 2/

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     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Monday, 28-Aug-2023 02:43:54 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     @futurebird
     I’d venture that this is what we •want•, and that voting for politicians out of parasocial attachment is one of the most pernicious and enduring traps in electoral politics. Politicians are tools and expressions of political power, not sports teams, not fan clubs, not best buddies.

     Given that, I’m torn between wanting to harness that trap for good and wanting to destroy it.

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     Peter Bautista (peterbautista@hachyderm.io)'s status on Monday, 28-Aug-2023 03:04:22 JST Peter Bautista

     in reply to

     > voting for politicians out of parasocial attachment is one of the most pernicious and enduring traps in electoral politics

     Would "cultivates parasocial attachments among their follows" serve as a definition of political populism? Our parties are not symmetrical, as I'd argue the left is too diverse to effectively create a parasocial base large enough to win national elections, whereas there's (barely) a large enough "white identity politics" base for the right to do so.

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     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Monday, 28-Aug-2023 03:45:03 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • Peter Bautista

     @peterbautista I think there’s •something• to that definition, but I’m leery of it. Smells like a false equivalence factory. (“FDR was just like Trump!”)

     I’m highly skeptical of the utility of “populism” as a unifying concept in general, but if we’re going to try to define it, I’d want it to be in terms of cultivating a sense of an us-vs-them battle between the “true” people (of which you are one, of course) and an powerful out-group.