""''electability"""

'Electability' as a term is absolutely laden with dodgy class, race and gender signifiers, even if you leave the role of the media out of it.

Problem is that most of the country seems to genuinely believe this shit and react to it, consciously or otherwise, so it's kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy. The only requirement required to get the job is that enough people in the right places want you to do it, and if enough of those people look at you and go 'hmmm, he looks electable' then they become so.

Occasionally someone comes along and creates a new archetype of electability (Thatcher, Obama etc) but Starmer is straight off the production line.

The question of 'unelectability' is a different one, I used to think this was just about not looking like you'd be a total shambolic mess of a leader, but Johnson managed to make it work so hey.

Then there's the other election of whether the traditional concept of 'leadership' is even desirable, especially on the left, but people in this country seem very attached to it so it looks like we're stuck with it and have to make the best of it.

― Matt DC, Wed

Is 'electability' bad because it tends to be weaponized by the right or is it bad, full stop?

― romanesque architect (pomenitul), Wednesday, 12 February 2020 11:06 (fifty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

It seems a weasel word to me, carrying the implication that why you want to govern is less important than just governing

― Todd Phillips, party auteur (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, 12 February 2020 11:10 (forty-seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

'electability' is bad because its usually meaningless. Everyone thinks they have the most electabile wife, as someone once said. Although to be fair when questioned he said he didn't see the ballot

― anvil, Wednesday, 12 February 2020 11:12 (forty-five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

The left could use a Trojan horse at this point. Of course, this naïvely assumes the horse can be trusted…

― romanesque architect (pomenitul), Wednesday, 12 February 2020 11:13 (forty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I think this, and I'm fairly certain the rest of the country agrees with me, as they always do

― anvil, Wednesday, 12 February 2020 11:13 (forty-three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

xxp ty for saying the quiet part loud as you normally do

― hyds (gyac), Wednesday, 12 February 2020 11:19 (thirty-eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Is 'electability' bad because it tends to be weaponized by the right or is it bad, full stop?

It’s not intrinsically bad but in this context it tends to be a set of abstract interpretations that don’t really reflect policy, the candidate’s own positions or much of anything besides a set of dated aesthetics about how a candidate should look and speak. And lbr, he wouldn’t be considered so electable by this crowd if he was from the West Country or bald.
― hyds (gyac), Wednesday, 12 February 2020 11:21 (thirty-six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

'electability' is a nonsense old canard imo and often is shorthand for friends with Murdoch or has nice hair and isn't tainted by politics.

― calzino, Wedne

this is a good/important discussion and deserves a thread

I see my post completely omitted there, gj

fuck, which one? i was scrolling up from bottom on phone c/p which tbh is a nightmare at best times, sorry

quick check, open to correction, i copied and pasted up to my own posts today, and i made this thread as you posted the more recent one i think

is that a fair summary, and if so, is yours an unfair comment?

fully open to missing something here but not to just taking a whack for no reason.

electoral fuckability

It seems that

the meaning has changed

First thing I'd do if I was trying to run a campaign in the UK with actually socialist or redistributive programs (which I would be): say something along the lines of "while I don't think there's quite the justification for leaving the Geneva Convention and bringing back capital punishment, I'm personally in favour of decriminalising acts of vengeance in certain circumstances"

Second thing I'd do would be to play some charity football and show a bit of skill. A few backheels. Maybe a rabona.

It hardly matters what the policies are to a lot of people. I wouldn't really discuss them much. They'd be pretty similar to Corbyn's. But I'm a firm believer in electability, albeit that I don't think the Starmerites have the foggiest notion of what this actually is, or that Starmer particularly evinces it except for centrist dad types

cf a whiff of cordite!

I was actually fantasising earlier about running as a trojan horse candidate, saying all sorts of outrageous things with an implied wink, and pomenitul went and said it on ILX a few minutes later #teamtrojan #actuallyverysocialist

^^ electability we can believe in!

pls clam down deems, I was only being sarky and I know you’re phone posting!

if I were to be electable, I would simply win elections

now

i fuckin *know* we have a separate thread for yr fantasies lj

xp lol every time "clam" appears in any context im immensely cheered by the calling to mind of the classic cankles post

nb persona non grata these days and i cannot endorse any associated positions etc etc

only one man can stand athwart the political divide

I was actually fantasising earlier

Electability is what Many People support. Many People is the plural of Media Goon.

If Jamie Vardy can game the system so can I. Plus, I'll be calling Vardy up to my Council of Many Talents

it is insidious. If I ask my mother a question about something she will start off with her own opinion and shift mid sentence from 'I' to 'people'. I have to ask...where did your opinion go?

She recognizes it too, will laugh about it. Is able to separate out her own opinion from the opinion of many people once asked...but it returns nonetheless

Is it different from the mysterious yet ubiquitious They, who share all our opinions but prefer to outsource the expression of them to us. I think so, and I'm faily certain most of the country agrees with me

this is a good/important discussion and deserves a thread

― BSC Joan Baez (darraghmac), Wednesday, 12 February 2020 bookmarkflaglink

Depends on what's posted.

as always

entirely agree

Lol my dad’s most recent message in our politics group starts with
“I understand why the people...” and continues on with “the electorate believe”. He is not a FB person or anything but it’s definitely something I’ve seen with my parents too. Obviously I’m a fearless iconoclast and nobody tells me what to write think!

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/youll-never-know-which-candidate-is-electable/

538 article is my version of Bernie-meme twitter-embeds

When I was auditioning to go on the final C4 Big Brother season, one thing they told me was 'no matter who you are, at least a third of people will hate you'

I mean for me aged 22 it would have probably been more than a third lol but ykwim - electability is always a flawed science and nobody is electable for an overwhelming majority

Of late I have been really quite impressed that the electorate has managed to maintain such consistency of thought and message discipline, especially considering their number.

I dive for the off button whenever this noun or its variants are used

.....your off button opens a thread?.....

kidding, all welcome

Declarations of 'electability' are in keeping with the grand tradition of the Biblical prophets and Nostradamus and Paul the Octopus, and ultimately just a manifestation of humankind's need to assert control over a narrative that laughs in the face of our assertions.

When I was auditioning to go on the final C4 Big Brother season

My man.

that was not my reaction, which i did not post because kindness is always a healthy step

On the one hand, yes, transience reigns supreme, but… surely it isn't controversial to state that – for example – the Communist Party of Britain is, for all intents and purposes, unelectable in the foreseeable future? There are degrees is what I'm saying.

2xp

there's more than one Communist Party of GB - do you mean the one on Clapham High Street that doesn't have a leader or the other one lol

the first agenda item at every republican meeting in the seventies was the next split or somesuch quote i saw earlier

Hmmm it stands to reason that one must be more electable than the other but I don't know enough to say which one.

xp

Matt's initial post nails most of this and when I'm comfortable later I wanna think about the implications for the political process and the extent to which it has value or should be forgotten about and avoided for the sake of mental wellbeing.

imago I sincerely love you brother but the bits of your political fantasy football that aren't joeks are just utterly heinous, morally and pragmatically.

Either the Clapham High Street Communist Party of Great Britain or the Great Britain Communist Party of Clapham High Street? Or the Great Britain Peoples Popular Communist Party of Clapham High Street Latter Day Maoists. I don't think the last one has a chance. Splitters!

/When I was auditioning to go on the final C4 Big Brother season/

My man.

lol

I doubt it tbh.

:D

as always

― BSC Joan Baez (darraghmac), Wednesday, 12 February 2020 bookmarkflaglink

Not always.

oh no, as always

I'm not the one posting about Nate Silver and a failed career in reality TV, is all.

so

youre saying it does matter whats posted

or it doesnt

because im only agreeing with you that it does

as always

lol on one hand i could actually dive in and deliver on this provocative appeal to my insanely detailed knowledge of the recent history of far left UK sectarianism up to and including cornelius cardew AND the (only linked if yr spiteful) lambeth slavery case (aka I'LL GIVE YOU SPLITTISM)

but on the other hand i'm actually busy today with (inadequately) paid work sorting out something equally detailed and complex but (relatively) life-affirming (which also intermittently involves cardew lol)

so considered me ladsed and i'm out

kindness < threadban

< marks s posts about cardew

you will be missed, mark, but thread will be here when youre back all goin well

Please consider a night-shift mark

There are no less than Cornelius Cardew threads, people.

Cornelius Cardew - Visionary or Twat? being the first and best.

(xp) four that is!

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/12/these-three-post-brexit-bills-bulldoze-a-hole-through-environmental-protections

'electability'

im sure theres a thread for a givt doing bad things tbh but ok

givt

a given govt

The next hapless random at the Big brother house:

"Parents struggling to get their breathless children to A&E every time there is a pollution spike might take the view that the World Health Organization, the EU and academic studies around the world have already answered the questions over what constitutes breathable air. Why do they have to wait more than two years without legal safeguards before even being allowed to know what the new limits will be?"

xp

“givt”

imperative

a typical culchie pronunciation of “give it” the moment a thread is derailed by tedious feuding

there are the many threads for that!

oh shit it's metastasized

i honestly don't view "electability" the way posters to this thread seem to... my poster child for "unelectable" is hillary clinton. which is to say i agree that the word is used as a euphemism for female and/or non-white, however as a wedge against radicalism i'm not sure it's effective.

i was talking to my brother that in 2016 the american election was a choice between the most hated man in america and the most hated woman in america and the most hated man in america "won". now that doesn't necessarily prove anything because it wasn't, fundamentally, a free and fair election (ah! there's another interesting problem when one talks about "electability"), but i think ultimately "electability" is one of those liberal/moderate canards people talk a big game on but there's never any actual follow-through.

i'm not closely following the primaries because again america doesn't really have free and fair elections but enough seeps through that i see the narrative on the internet about bernie, and the narrative is fundamentally a narrative of both personal identification and of conspiracy. the belief is that They are conspiring to keep Bernie down because he is a real threat to Them. well, it's a no-lose situation psychologically, we got some super big When Prophecy Fails shit going on here. if he wins, it's because of his and his followers' moral superiority and hard work, and if he doesn't it's because They pulled Dirty Tricks and you either say "we'll get 'em next time" or you escalate.

next time trump supporters lose i suspect a lot of them will escalate.

anyway that turned into a slightly tangential rant but to my mind what with elections being a popularity contest that have no bearing on one's ability to actually govern, and what with most western democracies (including the uk as well as america) being fundamentally democratically ungovernable anyway, on some level i do think "electability", which i interpret as superficial charm, is more important to me than policy proposals which are unlikely to be successfully implemented.

now that doesn't necessarily prove anything because it wasn't, fundamentally, a free and fair election

I suspect that I'm expanding rather than contradicting, but I'll never not remind people that Hillary Clinton got more votes than any white man ever.

despite the fact that she was incredibly unpopular and a lot of the people who voted for her were ultimately just like, "eh, she's fine I guess"

whoever the Dem nominee is will automatically get 62,000,000 votes

I suspect that I'm expanding rather than contradicting, but I'll never not remind people that Hillary Clinton got more votes than any white man ever.

Smashed Lincoln and Washington's combined totals, thats why I'm #stillwithher

lmao

Wasn’t Hillary working with a bigger electorate than everyone else

yes and still she lost

really a unique skill set if ya ask me

You may even be under-rating her by limiting her to just white men, you think Bolsanaro can live with her numbers? You really have to pull out a heavyweight like Modi before its even a conversation

Modi has bare numbers!

think he wins on superdelegates tbfttd

superdelegates for some, ethnic cleansing for others

You look at the UK and they had this one white guy and this other white guy (and someone from HR) and they couldn't touch her numbers combined. Not even in her weight class, she could take all 3 with one hand tied behind her back. And now they got relegated to the conference

superrelegated, after the national conference