matthodges.bsky.social
Trying to use computers to elect Democrats / Previously Joe Biden / Previously Hillary Clinton / Austin, TX / matthodges.com
99 posts
1,003 followers
261 following
Prolific Poster
Active Commenter
comment in response to
post
His comments about the brazen lying are just so shallow too. Are we just going to pretend Dick Cheney and Newt Gingrich didn’t happen? Just erase about 20 years there? The only difference now is the lying is dumber.
comment in response to
post
“I had JD Vance on my podcast before he went evil” is equivalent to all those Tesla bumper stickers “I bought this before we knew Elon was bad.” The immense mental gymnastics to avoid admitting you were wrong about someone.
comment in response to
post
on the other hand,
comment in response to
post
comment in response to
post
I will also say that this is where Dems being way behind our opponents in building c3/c4 permanent infrastructure really has taken a toll.
comment in response to
post
Yes, 100%. The Right literally has a c3/c4 apparatus entirely around creating a landing spot for campaign staff; not only to give them a place to go after a cycle, but also to *keep them around* and *develop them* between cycles.
comment in response to
post
And there are so many conflicting reactions one could have to all of it. Maybe the armies of field organizers aren't the right thing to do anymore. Or maybe some ad money needs to be withheld to retain those armies. Or maybe all this is optimal when E-Day is the most important milestone. Or or or or
comment in response to
post
Things like Terraform suddenly seem laughable with those incentives.
comment in response to
post
I told people “imagine how different decisions would be made at your company if everybody knew the date all employees would be fired and you had to use all the money right up to that day”
comment in response to
post
Charlie Munger once said, "Show me the incentives and I will show you the outcome."
Joe Biden once said, "Don't tell me what you value, show me your budget, and I'll tell you what you value."
comment in response to
post
Many of you have heard me say this before, but in 2019 and 2020 I told the Biden engineering team, "We're here to build bronze medal software."
Does this graph look like a compelling environment to build anything meant to endure?
comment in response to
post
There's also the back-of-house work that suffers in the boom and bust cycle. For example, the DNC builds and maintains a ton of tech and data infrastructure for the entire Party. When staff leave and money is all spent, where do you think tech innovation lands on the triage list?
comment in response to
post
Of course this is the consequences of choices. When you raise a billion dollars you make the choice to spend it all by Election Day. And then you're broke and you have to let everyone go. Maybe that's rational? But it's still a choice. You could hang on to a few hundred mil for work, yanno, after.
comment in response to
post
So what does this do to our ability to organize? Let's say Dems employ half (I think it's more). 13,000 down to 3,500 staff in the weeks after Election Day. That cuts 75% of our human power in a matter of weeks. Think about that when you're posting takes about a the efficacy of an opposition party.
comment in response to
post
Most people who work in politics end up aging out of it. Not because it's too hard (it is very hard) but because repeatedly sacrificing your earning potential and stability becomes untenable, especially once you have a family. So basically we have a built-in brain drain.
comment in response to
post
In 2020 I hired someone onto the Biden tech team who took a 90% pay cut to be there. NINETY PERCENT! With guaranteed unemployment just months later! I'm extremely grateful for that sacrifice he made; but even he would tell you he was extremely privileged to be able to make that choice.
comment in response to
post
We don't talk enough about who gets to do political work given the devastating employment cycle. It requires personal economic safety nets. Predictably losing your income, your health insurance, your retirement benefits (if you even get any) ends up excluding major populations we want to fight for.
comment in response to
post
The absolute whiplash of the political job market is mostly omitted from armchair analysis of why things are the way they are. Among the takes about organizing, advertising, and opposition, I'd like to see more about the by-design implosion of political work, and the budget decisions that beget it.
comment in response to
post
I was surprised to read those quotes. Off the top of my head, I can recall two different employers getting all the SWEs to catalog our time so that it could be classified as R&D.
comment in response to
post
It also throws a big wrench on the schadenfreude narrative that AI is cannibalizing the jobs of its creators.