32 Comments
Mar 16, 2023Liked by Simon Rosenberg

Brilliant, Simon. I’m amazed by your calm and your laser abilities to *see* while I am blind with rage. Your data proves both my rage and your insistence that things are NOT as portrayed by the conventional wisdom gang. The filthy truth about Florida Man is getting through, and landing with the appropriate thud.

Reading this, I’m also damn angry that Elon fucking Musk is preventing me from seeing your tweets - which you’ve included herein. Further evidence that we have to subscribe and keep tabs by other means. Did you hear me... REPEAT: I saw none of the tweets you’ve reproduced here, even tho I follow you and I’m on Twitter all the time.

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Mar 16, 2023Liked by Simon Rosenberg

Excellent analysis. I follow you on Twitter as well, but never see your tweets when I am in the “following” tab. Twitter is now a propaganda tool for the extremist right with Musk heading the charge. Spoutible still has a couple of bugs to work out but it is a promising alternative.

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I stopped complaining about it months ago bc it is obviously a lost cause. But lately I’ve noticed things have gotten MUCH worse even on little accounts like mine. The amount of dumbasses and radical MAGA idiocy I’m being force fed is beyond belief. I had a carefully curated list of follows over 8 yrs., referred to them as my private panel of experts to consult on every major issue. Gone, practically overnight. Tells me a couple things. 1) Twitter is (or was) very effective in its niche target market. Sorry, but Twitter is a smarter, far more discerning crowd. So the New Right (Thiel & Co.) got the misfit kid on the playground who never had a friend (Elon) to buy the joint, which bought him the club key to their little cabal of Libertarian sociopaths. C’mon, just tinker & disrupt things a bit, Elon… just watch those elite smarty pants melt down and cry… it’ll be so much fun. 2) I realized I had to find my experts off-road, wherever they reside, shell out some extra cash, suck it up and deal with the reality on the ground. This is our new situation and we gotta go around the fuckers and find alt ways to make noise. Because they mean to destroy us. I think a bunch of us are just now waking up to the fact that we’re in the MIDDLE of a full blown information war that started years ago, and ain’t anywhere near its thrilling conclusion. STAY TUNED… and stay sassy.

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Twitter is dead. Go to Post and Threads.

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I have not seen Simon Rosenberg's tweets in 2 months. I've heard that Elon Musk is interfering. I don't understand algorithms relative to this but it seems true. SR is a top fave of mine too.

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1st amendment rights NEVER apply to Democrats !!! Nor, do the rights of freedom!

Musk is ‘ONE PATHETIC FUCK’

Shall we say, Scared?

All the more reason to antagonize MAGATs.

They’ll be cutting out our tongues next!

Time to get our pitchforks out and our little feathered hats 🤪

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Mar 16, 2023Liked by Simon Rosenberg

Simon, Thank you for highlighting the importance of having the resources ( and wisdom to spend those resources ) and push our narrative out there. This information is buried daily, until I read it on one of my newsletters/substack I follow. Evening news? No. Internet news headlines? No. Even the billboards I see driving around town push a gop message. If we cannot change this, we lose the momentum.

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Take a look at the NDRC (National Democratic Redistricting Committee). Sponsored by Eric Holder and Barack Obama they have, and continue, to do battle with Republicans' attempts to gerrymander themselves into office. The are many good and effective organizations towards free and fair elections.

This is so much more effective than cursing the opposition.

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But then why why why did he just get re-elected in a landslide? How could his current policies be so unpopular now when just 5 months ago they voted him back in overwhelmingly? They knew who we was then. I don’t get it.

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author

So my basic take is that in the fall the DeSantis team believed a national red wave was coming and they committed him to a more extreme course. It was put in motion, and his strong showing in Florida (tons of money, weak opponents) confirmed their decision. But they misread the room. The battlegrounds didn't go red, they went blue, rejecting MAGA. And his new extremism is too far even for Florida. Note that in the Politico piece the Rs raising concerns about him are in the battlegrounds where they know this politics isnt going to work.

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A lot has changed in FL in the last 5 months, as Simon points

out. I think there's going to be

backlash too from the insurance

scams; WaPo did a great report

on this.

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Voter suppression, intimidation, gerrymandering, weak candidate on Democratic side. He has election police which I refer to as his personal gestapo.

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All of this is helpful. Thanks all 3 of you!

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Desantis only wins where Gerrymandering reigns in Florida. & Voter suppression, by dropping registered democrats from Florida rolls. Reduced voting locations in cities= long hours waiting in lines.

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Mar 16, 2023Liked by Simon Rosenberg

Excellent harvesting and packaging of ammunition for our side.

Trump was something of an idiot savant, stumbling into some success (and luck) activating a portion of the electorate through pure gut instinct.

DeSantis is the opposite - the absent-minded professor. Book smart, maybe, but no skill, no instinct, no natural political talent. Let's exploit that. Thank you for helping with this post!

Observations on our side: Clinton and Obama were both book smart AND street smart, with natural reads on the electorate. Biden leans more into the street smart category, but has surrounded himself with brilliant strategists and legislative/policy hands. Hillary was, I'm afraid, too deeply in the book smart category like DeSantis, and had trouble seeing and responding to the environment.

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DeSantis a a dorky demagogue.

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100% dork. 110% demagogue. He wears both so uncomfortably. He traded for cabinet position for dropping out.

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Mar 16, 2023Liked by Simon Rosenberg

Another brilliant piece which I have forwarded to many. Silly Ron is flaming out.

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I’m thinking: what if it was Ron and not Mile Pence Jan 6th? What would Ron have done in Pence’s place? Why doesn’t any journalist ask him or each R candidate that question?

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Mar 17, 2023Liked by Simon Rosenberg

More great information here, Simon.

As good as this is, I'm shaking my head that more people are worried by "woke" than they are about climate change or childcare costs. Right-wing media has unfortunately been effective at brainwashing a lot of people, but I continue to be relieved that they are [thankfully] a minority.

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Simon: You don't live in Florida, to which I retired 22 years ago. The place is not comprehensible to someone not here, who doesn't get to talk to these people on a daily basis. Enough of the people down here let their buried prejudices be awakened (sort of 'woke' in reverse) by what DeSantis says and does, and that's why they support him but only to the point where doing so begins to conflict with their loyalty to the defeated former president. They are there now, and they don't know what to do. I think both of them are 'toast' in 2024, but any G.O.P. nominee still will carry Florida. I'm discouraged from paying for more access to 'Hopium Chronicles' because you mention the time required for some of your reads. There are only so many hours in a day.

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Trump has turned MAGA from a Trump brand into a toxic label for losers and extremists. The more exposure Trump and DeSantis get heading into 2024, the more toxic the brand becomes. The Republican Party needs to give serious thought to how and when to begin to separate its own brand from MAGA extremism, or it may be seriously damaged, if not permanently, at least for perhaps a decade or more.

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The 2024 caucus/primary campaign is over. DeSantis just dropped out and endorsed Trump. Haley has tanked but will still get some votes. Prepare for six months of fevered speculation about Trump's VP pick.

There were plenty of wise men and women who thought that the Republican Party was more than the MAGA crowd. They were wrong. More so than in the times of Lincoln, Grant, McKinley, TR, Ike, Nixon or Reagan the GOP is now completely controlled by one man. Trump's hold on the party is historic. At the height of his political power, not even FDR had as firm a hand over the Democratic Party as Trump now has over the Republicans. The party is over, ready or not the election is on!

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Thank you so much, as always, Simon, for your even-handed, encouraging Data Analysis.

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It was just a matter of time before another domino dropped. It was always going to be a Biden/Trump ticket no matter how those who can spin the story. Trump is getting weaker each day and we can't take anything for granted.

Just saw this today from Tom Bonier regarding the latest of NH mail in ballots. Interesting to see the % of Undeclared voters.

https://twitter.com/tbonier/status/1749100318871212122

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Sort of incredible that the otherwise bilious Ann Coulter believes Biden will romp and stomp Trump in a 1964-style landslide. While I'm less bullish, the GOP's embrace of MAGA -- brilliantly outlined above -- is catastrophic to their brand. Trump's behavior and buffoonery are unique to his personal brand, which is why he gets away with it -- nobody else can, and when they try, they sink. But even Trump has tested all of us -- and himself -- with his cartoonish brand. He's been cratering in polls again just as people realize that yes, holy hell, we're going to have to deal with him yet again.

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Yikes, did not know Coulter had that view. Wonder if MAGA in Chief realizes.

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Am I wrong (and I hope I am) ... but did i hear Rick Wilson a week ago, say that they were thinking of running Casey DeSantis for governor ? After his term ends.

It wouldn’t surprise me.

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Most people assume all DeSantis' support will go to Trump, but it seems like there is a good portion of people who were supporting DeSantis because they absolutely cannot stand/support Trump. Maybe the results in NH will help shed some light on how big that group is.

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As I parttime Florida resident, I (and many, many other FL residents) were horrified at the prospect of DeSantis replacing Trump.

Now we've passed 2024 MAGA TEST 1: America does not want a Prison Warden for President!

And on 2024 MAGA TEST 2: America will not choose a brain addled, orange looney, "Redeemer" for President.

MAGA TEST 3: We will vote in Dem majorities in both houses of Congress!

I so agree with Simon, "It's much better to be us than them"!!

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