Jordan Finkelstein

One lesson of the last few days of commentary is that, in some key ways, politicians are just much smarter than posters. One eg: Left of center twitter is so factionalized that many commentators are better at seeing how independent voters can be pastiches of different ideologies than they are at seeing that Democratic politicians can also be pastiches. So when Talarico talks about inequality like Bernie, about housing like abundance, and about energy/gender/immigration like someone deliberately moderating previous statements to win the Dallas suburbs, each faction claims total victory by isolating one part of his message to say “see, he’s with MY team, not YOUR team, you LOSE.” In the end it’s maybe kind of harmless. Factions gonna faction, etc. But, the politicians clearly understand something many of the posters don’t: factions are like ingredients, and smart political campaigns combine ingredients to fit the local political consumer.