Twitter has become boring and I’m an addict who can’t stop touching the hot stove so here I am. Who knows maybe we can hold space for some real conversations. So much power in that.
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I do realize that trying to have a nuanced, thoughtful debate what's wrong with the Democratic Party online is rather insane, so on this week's Offline I chatted with @waleedshahid.bsky.social - someone I've disagreed with at times but very much respect. I'm so glad we talked.
I can't even talk to my actual friends about it without them getting angry and I'm not coming at them hard with anything more than like: I think people were angry and not enough was done to fix that or speak to that. The response is like: You're just attacking dems!
I will always wonder what else I could have done to get my former colleagues in the White House to understand that the *origin of public discontent* in our democracy is NOT primarily what they think it is. So frustrating. It's why I made this unheeded proposal four years ago:
Jon, thanks for the work that y’all have been putting in. I’ve been listening to PSA for a few years since a buddy of mine introduced it to me. We desperately need to carve out a swathe of the new media ecosystem and quickly, and y’all are very much the tip of the spear on that front. I know y’all..
…know this, so I won’t belabor the point, but it’s important that we do a serious reset after this election. Everybody felt it on election night and the following morning. But we can’t fall back into the same old habits. The electoral math between autocracy and democracy can’t rest on the knifes…
If you think resuscitating a dead party that opened the gates for Trump and his people you have no interest in doing good work, just continuing the legacy of the American people getting fucked. Think bigger than the empire that bought you out.
Appreciate the work you and the team are doing ... it's been eye-opening to think the election was going to go one way and to see it go the other (with all that it's now entailing), and it's been helpful to ponder what work comes next rather than Principal Skinnering ("It's the kids who are wrong!")
It's so disheartening watching the supposedly left party just dump trans people like a bag of trash and tell us to not come back until we beat Republican messaging demonizing us
Sure makes life easier for people whose lives are not impacted by the cruelty in any way. Wash your hands!
As a longtime listener and follower I'd be so happy if PSA was mostly highlighting what Dems do right, promoting the hell out of that AND trying to correct the things Dems do wrong (whichever wing of the party they are from).
I'd cut the commentary about crazy thing Trump or GOP do (wasted time)
What can the US learn from other healthy democracies? That they are healthy because trust in institutions is higher when the benefits are clear. Single player healthcare, mandated PTO, parental leave, free tuition are all staples and supported both sides of the aisle. So keep the progressive agenda!
Are you open to having a civil discussion with actual people impacted by comments like this? I often wonder 💭… have you talked to the people who are most impacted by these policies and asked their opinions? How do you formulate yours? Is it purely speculative or merely “what I think will win”.
I'm always willing to have civil discussions with anyone
I haven't spoken to anyone contemplating an unlawful border crossing, and I don't believe any undocumented inmates have petitioned for gender-affirming surgery (but the law has long required federal prisons to provide gender-affirming care)
My opinions on these issues are formulated by a decade of working in politics and policy as well as extensive research into public opinion, some of which I've conducted myself.
Have you considered talking to people who know what they're actually talking about instead of just forming opinions based on vibes and a finger in the wind.
Honestly wish he would have you, @erininthemorning.com , @transscribe.bsky.social, @aridrennen.bsky.social , @imarajones.bsky.social, @raquelwillis.com , @chasestrangio.bsky.social on .. take your pick!! We have such a rich and deep bench of people who “get” this moment because we’ve been in it!
Cis what man here living in NYC. I hate to ask cause people should be able to live where they want. Is there a way to migrate lgbtq+ people out of danger? At least for the next 4 years. I can't believe I am asking this.
"research into public opinion" needs to stop, the public is dumb, don't be that Napoleon who said "there go my people, I must go with them for I am their leader" (paraphrased and probably wrongly attributed)
I’ve been working in nonprofit & policy circles for a while now. I have learned to not make any recommendations until I’ve heard from at least a few people with lived experience and the people who serve them day-to-day. I work in areas of policy that deeply impact lives…data requires context.
Always!! People’s stories are what move the public - not policy ideas. People are moved by other people like them - stories they can connect with and resonate. Trans people / asylum seekers in the context of their hopes, dreams, and the struggles we all face = how we win imho.
There's something to be said about not letting campaign efficiency dictate policy.Policy then tactics. Of course it's always easiest if the candidate holds all the most popular positions! But morally correct positions aren't always popular. Ya gotta get elected of course, but to what end?
Maybe talk to real people, not politicians, instead of yapping into your neolib echo chamber. Maybe read some books by Black, Brown, disabled, LGBTQ+ authors.
In this quote you state pretty clearly that Dem candidates “shouldn’t let people believe they want…” The most powerful rebuttal to any attacks is to say “I’ve met with trans people in immigration detention, this is what they want - safety, healthcare, and a shot at a good life like all of us.”
I would be happy to put you in touch with trans women who have been in immigration detention - to hear about their experiences & how Dems can message about them first hand. Moving it from the theoretical to “I met an actual human” matters. That is what Dems have lost touch with imho.
Public opinion is shite. Maybe you SHOULD study the effects of policies instead of what ignorant incurious people think about things they don’t care to understand. Following public opinion instead of what’s ethical & good for the most vulnerable is how we ended up with Trump. Not complicated.
LOL Dems won the generic congressional vote in 2008 by 11% - ie 4% more than Obama's campaign won by - while Bush had a 20% approval rating and the economy was collapsing
and in 2012 like 75% of the Country told polls that everything wrong with the Country is Bush's fault; talk about Easy Mode
your politics don't produce anything but mass graves and trump presidencies. world would be drastically better if democrat strategists were treated the way democrats treat gazan children imo
Some day all the liberal "fund the police" enthusiasts will deeply, deeply regret that their reaction to "defund the police" was to throw even more money at the already bloated budgets of the militarized police force who endorsed trump
So, help me out, I’m not a wonk:
Drone-striking weddings in an undeclared war = popular?
Respecting the human rights of asylum seekers: unpopular?
Someone good at politics help me, my democracy is dying.
It seems to me that your decade of working in politics with/under the Obama admin is becoming less and less relevant to what Dems now need to do to win elections. Will you ever come to terms with this? I saw this Trump win coming because I listented to The Wilderness. 1/2
YOU literally taught me what happens when the Democratic Party tries to appease moderate voters while leaving progressives and the working class with feelings of abandonment. And yet here we are again. Here at hands of the your peers with yet another series of dishonest autopsies for the Dem party.
Would you mind talking to some trans folks to collect thoughts, opinions and facts? It seems like most of the time its cis folks just having convos about our rights without any of our input.
The care you are referring to is just medical care, would you deny prisoners insulin or surgery? The problem is you look at is as cosmetic and not medical
It's not "just" medical care. That's a highly motivated reframing of a highly emotional issue that has very scant scientific backing. You can pretend all you want to what degree this is equivalent to the treatment of diabetes but don't get outraged it the rest of us don't join your echo chamber.
There is more scientific backing for gender affirming care than 90% of chemotherapy meds. Your line is utter bullshit. Hormones have been used in humans for over 100 years. The vast majority of monoclonal antibodies haven’t been used for more than 20 years. Spare me this BS.
Exactly, people want to think medicine is so binary, it’s vast, it’s complicated, and it’s beyond the scoop of most people which is why we require should listen to doctors and not Joe Rogan
DHS and ICE were created in 2003 LMAO the Bush Admin and Rs in Congress didn't even want to create them! It was right wing Democrats like Biden and Joe Lieberman who publicly pushed for it!
(of course we will never hear Democrats and dem pundits like Jon talk about what a horrible, horrible mistake it was for right wing Dems to push the Bush admin to create them; because that would implicate the type of people who they have devoted their entire careers to propping up)
I’m a trans first responder, month 1 “pod save” listener. Lately, you’ve expressed some views that have felt in opposition to your previously expressed morals. Maybe it’s the political math? Dems need to stand firm on their morals, not negotiate them away. That’s what cost this cycle IMO.
Jon, I love what you guys are doing with PSA, and I believe that you and many of us have the best intentions at heart. I'm beginning to understand that all of us must listen more than we make statements about others whose shoes we'll never walk in. Please interview @sarahsmarsh.bsky.social
I think your show would greatly benefit from expanding your circle of guests to beyond political insiders. You need to bring in people to your left and have those discussions on air.
The fact they could weaponize divisive issues (no matter how statistically small, nonexistent or just outright lies) proves his point.
We gotta hide our unwavering support for these things to win elections. That is, if we ever get elections again. To fool the stupid we gotta Trojan horse this shit!
Waleed made an important point. It's the activists job to win public sentiment and politicians jobs to follow the public sentiment. It feels like over the last decade activists targeted politicians and politicians tried to drag the public along. Sometimes that's necessary but not ALL the time.
As a representative democracy we should expect elected officials to mostly represent their constituents' views rather than their own, but we tend to get really upset when they do this!
So it is trans people's responsibility to win public sentiment against literally millions of dollars in attack ads on our existence and until we, an historically financially disadvantaged community, do that, the Dems can just ignore us? Very convenient for you
I don't share that observation (activists failing, politicians dragging) and I think it is part of the top-down-thinking that has led to a disconnect not only between political activists and paid politicians, but also between the latter and relevant parts of the constituency as a whole.
Big fan of the pod. But there only one reason trump won: fox news. If they turned against him or even just reported factually about him he would have lost. Do all the calculations you want but the right media system won this election
And the right gives their "news" away for free. So it gets spread everywhere. And then we don't understand why people are low information voters. It's because the only free media they consume is from fucking weird sites like"freedom eagle. com" or like imfowars
Jon, you made me laugh out loud when you used the word "tasteless" in regards to Mexico's AMLO weekly addresses. Didn't you notice who just won our election? There's NO ONE more "tasteless" than Trump! 😂
I had Threads until this morning. I was there since day 1. This am, it thought I was a bot and made me jump through so many hoops to prove I'm not. The last straw was, it said it sent me a SMS to my phone. Never arrived and then locked me out. Bye Threads. You were fun for over a year.
Here’s to hoping. Building a viable communications platform to bypass the sludge of the msm and combat the rw propaganda networks is essential to some day winning back our democracy
I would think with all the brain power on this app and all the rocks for brains in the other app, we can start to strategize our way out of this mess! Here’s hoping Jon!
I'm hopeful! 💙
I sincerely tried real conversation/debate over at the former place, but every conversation with maga ended with them slinging personal insults. 🙄
Then let’s start talking about the racism of “Latinx” and how the vast majority of we Latino voters hate that white liberals insist it’s who we are. Let’s start talking about the absurdity of trying to force others to recognize special pronouns. Let’s start talking about men invading women’s sports
I think this is worth talking about too, but I struggle bc I don’t see it in my offline life. No one has ever asked me my pronouns. I take my white kids to a Hispanic majority school and we don’t say Latinx. And there aren’t that many boys trying to play girls sports. I feel like all of this is
Overplayed on Twitter and right wing media. I really only ever hear any of this stuff from the MAGA side of my family. This is just not talked about in my liberal relationships and I never hear it from my politicians. I listen to Jon/PSA bc they are welcoming to all, but don’t focus on those things.
Purely anecdotal & ignores the reason many black & brown voters shifted toward trump (every demo except college educated whites). It will be the demise of Dems if they continue. Rational people in the center have been saying this for years. It appears Dems don’t want to listen. This is the result.
I’m speaking anecdotally because I’m not a political expert by any means. And while the data I’ve read shows economic factors being the number one reason for the shift, I don’t disagree that a lot of the activist rhetoric is not relatable to the majority of voters and can be a turn off.
My point was that I feel that the Right has branded Dems on these issues by making it seem as though the activist class represents the Dem party as a whole. And that the right is always politicizing vulnerable groups of people, forcing Dems to defend because we defend equality as a freedom.
No, I just don’t think femininity should be policed. Which is what the anti-trans movement is really about. Women, including cis, who don’t meet the Far Right’s ideal of feminine appearance will be be the ones persecuted. Ex: the cis-gender female Olympic boxers who were inaccurately targeted.
Cis-gender woman of color here & I agree. The reality is that most cis-women have probably shared public restrooms with trans women without being aware. Which means it isn’t a problem. Women’s bathrooms have stalls & we’re not spending a lot of time in there.
I agree, white people shouldn't force nonwhite people to call themselves something. Good intentions, white guilt, wrongly applied. I don't think transwomen should compete in sports against women. But, when did men become concerned about protecting women's sports? To help women, they voted DJT?
The anger and resentment, the incessant search for outrage, the seeming need to be offended and reply offensively, the insistence on having the last word (usually a slur) just killed that service for me. Not to mention the bots, the obvious Russian propaganda, and the thirst porn. Lot better here.
I still check back on Twitter to see if there’s good stuff there. I still find some good posts but on a daily basis it’s less and less interesting. Now I mainly use it to remind myself of individuals I like to follow and then go find them on Blue Sky.
Welcome aboard. This is worth reading why so many of us (normal non-famous posters) moved over here. “They don't post because they're trying to sell a product, or solely to advance their career. They don't post to advertise themselves or their company. They post because they must.” #Xodus #PMCs
Thank you Jon and the rest of the crew at Pod Save America. I have learned so much from you guys about politics and it has incentivized me to get involved. I look forward to seeing your posts on here.
Honestly, while I am hopeful, I don’t know how we as a society can begin to have productive conversations anymore with those with differing political viewpoints. It’s something we’ll have to figure out sooner rather than later imo.
Not so bad here Jon! Follow folks you care about, hide the ones you don’t. I have appreciated you guys for many years, even though you are heinous devils of the establishment (hope the cancer treatments go well 😉).
Love your pod… I think an important thing to focus on is how to get young men back on board the Dem party
I wasn’t a Bernie bro .. but I think some of that rebel class-war rhetoric - fighting corporate control of our government- the plutocracy - would be meaningful.
I got addicted to twitter too, I decided to stay to support things that are important to me. I knew I'd eventually join Blue Sky, but elon forced me to do it. For the past 2 days I haven't been able to get on. So here I am. You're my 1st post!
Top talent from Twitter migrating to Bsky is *making* this platform. I'm excited to see you (and I hope the rest of the Crooked crew) making the jump and helping make this a place where we can rally ❤️❤️❤️
(humming let’s talk about X baby, let’s talk about anything…) Oh well, I did like that time on offline about the left Joe Rogan. Or maybe you should do an ask me anything thing. Bsky’s the limit baby.
Wow you really are telling on yourself and the folks that have twitter "conversations". Not much power in convos where people debate other people's right to exist cause they are "bored".
Your pod with Scott was great. There’s going to be a Senate contest in Florida in 2026. What needs to be done to draft @profgalloway.bsky.social because I think he wins.
I hope you’re right - even if he’s breaks through to just a few. But he might have to move back from London soon to reestablish residency? Not sure that’s going to happen.
I am a fan since Rudy. Loved Elf and Rocket Man. But please, sir, step away from Disney (especially Star Wars) and move to other things.
Walt would be appalled at how unoriginal THEY are now. It’s like watching a child play in their sandbox until all the cat poo sticks on him.
For now, I'm keeping a foot in both platforms: Twitter is for throwing elbows, Bluesky is for more serious discourse. Staying in the fight, but with an exit plan already established.
I really hope you and the other folks at Crooked go ahead and let Xitter go for good. You give it a lot of airtime on your podcasts, and I understand why. But it's truly not the only relevant platform for online political discourse.
Shortly after Twitter got X'd, I stopped reading comments to posts. Instead of adding insight or a smart observation, the comments got ugly. While it's wise to be aware of the potential for darkness & rage in all of us, there's no need to marinate in it. It's corrosive. So now I'm here. It's better.
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Progressives and Anti-Trump voters:
OUR FIRST AUDIO EPISODE IS OUT!
Subscribe to Reinventing The Wheel to listen to “Rise of The Soy Right” with @s-avery.bsky.social
https://reinventhewheel.substack.com/p/rise-of-the-planet-of-the-soy-right?r=4p9ldb&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=audio-player
Sure makes life easier for people whose lives are not impacted by the cruelty in any way. Wash your hands!
I'd cut the commentary about crazy thing Trump or GOP do (wasted time)
I haven't spoken to anyone contemplating an unlawful border crossing, and I don't believe any undocumented inmates have petitioned for gender-affirming surgery (but the law has long required federal prisons to provide gender-affirming care)
A better method would be to rely upon the voices of marginalized people, rather than the voices of their oppressors.
There are many other pods that explore how to fix problems in our society like inequality and climate change. This one is to explain politics.
and in 2012 like 75% of the Country told polls that everything wrong with the Country is Bush's fault; talk about Easy Mode
Drone-striking weddings in an undeclared war = popular?
Respecting the human rights of asylum seekers: unpopular?
Someone good at politics help me, my democracy is dying.
Conceding ground on issues because it's unpopular only reinforces that a) Dems stand up to nothing and b) the GOP is right
jus’ sayin’ 🤞🏼
You're about a half step away from being a Republican
go back to twitter
We gotta hide our unwavering support for these things to win elections. That is, if we ever get elections again. To fool the stupid we gotta Trojan horse this shit!
As a representative democracy we should expect elected officials to mostly represent their constituents' views rather than their own, but we tend to get really upset when they do this!
Seems backwards.
I sincerely tried real conversation/debate over at the former place, but every conversation with maga ended with them slinging personal insults. 🙄
I just read a post about you large account white guys...especially twitter famous guys like yourself...
I have no real point... but keep up the good work...
Humility and kindness a plus.
Hope Tommy, Ben, and Dan show up here soon!
It’s disorienting at first.
Hard to remember there is space for a place wherever isn’t directing pure hate at everyone else on the platform.
They still exist -
They just aren’t tolerated here.
👍🙌🇺🇸❤️💙
They are called skeets and there is nothing that you can do about that
If you try to be too dignified in this house, you will get clowned on
Cheers
Best wishes from Germany.
That's quite a 180.
Plus it will be fun to watch it implode from the outside.
Bury The Bird Day
November 28, 2024
1. Change Twitter profile picture to Bluesky logo.
2. Update Twitter bio to “Elon killed Twitter. Now We Bury The Bird @___.bsky.social”
3. Move the Bluesky app to your phone home screen.
4. Bury the Twitter app in that folder you hate.
You’re not alone.
I wasn’t a Bernie bro .. but I think some of that rebel class-war rhetoric - fighting corporate control of our government- the plutocracy - would be meaningful.
I think that's the biggest difference here. All the news and good conversation of old Twitter, and I always feel a bit uplifted...
Your pod didn't save America.
I recommend speed, you get so much done!
Walt would be appalled at how unoriginal THEY are now. It’s like watching a child play in their sandbox until all the cat poo sticks on him.
Trump kinda killed the listen, debate, learn style politicking though…
for now at least.
I mean it’s just mud slinging for your favorite football team.
Which is just not good.
Maybe get back to leaning into Civics course for people haha
I have no idea
"We'll have it fixed so good, you're not gonna have to vote."
- Donald J. Trump