Dannagal G. Young

Paul Rosenberg @paulrosenberg.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 06, 2024 at 01:27 UTC

Good 🧵 for orienting Dem self-reflection:

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Dannagal G. Young @dannagal.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 06, 2024 at 00:53 UTC

He’s not losing his way, wandering or going down the toilet but it’s not nearly as sharp as he was just 3 years ago.

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Dannagal G. Young @dannagal.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 06, 2024 at 00:11 UTC

As you watch Biden’s interview on ABC tonight, remember that just 4 years ago this was how he performed in an interview on 60 minutes:

youtu.be/kSAo_1mJg0g?...

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Dannagal G. Young @dannagal.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 23:29 UTC

I think it's helpful to step back and consider what is motivating our own attitudes and beliefs; to consider what may be shaping the conclusions we are drawing from our observations. Because not only are observations theory-laden; they are also identity-laden.

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Dannagal G. Young @dannagal.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 23:22 UTC

And on top of it all is - i think - a sense of sadness that most Dems don't want to grapple with: Over the fact that Biden's people may have hid him from us to postpone this reckoning. That conservative conspiracy-fueled media may have been correct when they questions Biden's mental fitness.

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Dannagal G. Young @dannagal.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 23:19 UTC

And both of these camps are working to cloak themselves in the values/spirit of the party as they make this case. Trying to prove their team credentials as they call for one path or the other.

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Dannagal G. Young @dannagal.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 23:17 UTC

And Community? This is where the really fascinating stuff is happening - as elites are jockeying to establish what is the dominant "correct" Democratic group norm. Is it to see Biden as competent and unfairly attacked? or to call for him to step aside?

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Dannagal G. Young @dannagal.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 23:15 UTC

These are ways of trying to feel some control or agency over Biden's apparent cognitive challenges. Dems want to feel that Biden is fine and that what we saw last Tuesday... wasn't real. If feels better to believe that calling attention to it is part of a secret plot to get Trump in the WH.

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Dannagal G. Young @dannagal.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 23:12 UTC

I read a sound engineer claiming that he believed CNN tampered with Biden's audio to make him sound raspy, and people claiming that the New York Times' call for Biden to leave the race illustrates an orchestrated bias within the paper against the Democratic Party and in favor of Trump.

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Dannagal G. Young @dannagal.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 23:09 UTC

I've seen people claiming that Biden's bad debate performance was the result of "not enough sleep," or "a headcold" or "cold meds." These are ways of comprehending his inability to formulate cogent responses that still made us feel good about "our team.

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Dannagal G. Young @dannagal.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 23:06 UTC

...and made worse by SCOTUS' decision to allow presidents to operate with impunity. SO: Outgroup threat. High identity salience. Increased motivation to: Comprehend the world in ways that are good for Dems, Control the world in ways that are good for Dems, Enact Community the way good Dems are.

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Dannagal G. Young @dannagal.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 23:03 UTC

For the last week I've watched respected friends and colleagues fall into this trap of "identity-driven wrongness." The possibility of a Trump presidency poses an existential threat to liberalism and to a pluralistic vision of democracy. For democrats, outgroup threat is palpably high...

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Dannagal G. Young @dannagal.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 23:00 UTC

And if a falsehood satisfies all THREE of those Cs... we will be attracted to it even if it is demonstrably false or not supported by available evidence.

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Dannagal G. Young @dannagal.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 22:58 UTC

And, when a social identity is salient in our minds (because we have good group fit and/or perceive outgroup threat), we will increasingly seek to Comprehend the world in a way that best serves our team, Control the world in a way that's good for our team, and enact Community the way our team does.

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Dannagal G. Young @dannagal.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 22:56 UTC

Social identity also becomes salient when we perceive our team to be under threat. When we feel an outgroup poses a threat to our team, we become stronger supporters of our team identity. PS: This explains why Cable News looks like it does: constant drumbeats of outgroup threat.

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Dannagal G. Young @dannagal.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 22:52 UTC

When we fit well into a social category (when we look like most members of our team, worship like they do, and live like they do), that team identity becomes salient. Hence, I argue that THIS dynamic is what drives the shared identity-based perceptions of (un)reality among Republicans today.

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Dannagal G. Young @dannagal.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 22:50 UTC

Because social identity shapes perceptions of reality when that identity is salient in our minds. I understand the world the same way my team does when I am thinking of myself as a member of my team. And social identity becomes salient in our minds under certain conditions...

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Dannagal G. Young @dannagal.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 22:48 UTC

In the book, I explain how the social sorting of our political parties has led to Republican party that is more homogeneous in terms of whiteness, Christianity, geography, & culture. While this is important for reasons related to democratic health, I focus on it because it shapes sense-making.

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Dannagal G. Young @dannagal.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 22:45 UTC

Because social identity (our sense that we are a member of a community or team) plays such a huge role in shaping these epistemological motivations, it's useful to think about the conditions under which certain social identities become salient.

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Dannagal G. Young @dannagal.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 22:43 UTC

And that last one does a lot of work. Our need to feel like we are a part of a community shapes the other two needs indirectly: We want to *Comprehend* the world in ways that make us feel good about our community. We want to feel like our community - our team - has *Control* and power.

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Dannagal G. Young @dannagal.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 22:40 UTC

Thoughts on why Dems can't see straight: In "Wrong," I explain how we humans don't really want to see the world as it really is. Instead, we're motivated by the 3 Cs: we want to feel like we Comprehend the world, like we have some Control over it, and like we are part of a Community. 🧵

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Dannagal G. Young @dannagal.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 19:54 UTC

Kanye to SCOTUS: No one man should have all that power

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Dannagal G. Young @dannagal.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 12:21 UTC

In retrospect maybe decades of saturation in American cowboy and superhero fiction - in which solo vigilantes (fed up with incompetence and malice of public servants) work outside of government or the law to single handedly restore order - weren’t such a good idea…

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