They don't want to win badly enough, their respect for imagined norms around civility kills them, which is easy to read as paid to lose.
But defending it in its original form
The argument is around the media atmosphere which these campaigns rely on for feedback. They benefit from Trump mongering and do make more money when democrats lose.
Way too many examples of failed consultants from the Hilary campaign being offered key roles (in the Kamala & Warren campaign). This can also be read as failure to attribute blame to the campaigns when they lose to Republicans (it was the racist gerrymandering!!!)
They don’t want to win badly enough, their respect for imagined norms around civility kills them
Agree 100% with all of this.
the media atmosphere which these campaigns rely on for feedback. They benefit from Trump mongering and do make more money when democrats lose.
This is spot-on, too. I can buy that the media functions as if it's paid to lose. I just don't see that extending to actual Democratic campaigns (despite the personnel overlap), because the same incentive structure doesn't apply. The Washington Post might sell more subscriptions if Trump is president, but how's Hillary's career doing right now? If your campaign loses you're either done or you have to find some safety net job for a couple of years; if you win you're in a much better position.
failed consultants from the Hilary campaign being offered key roles (in the Kamala & Warren campaign)
I see this as analogous to pro sports teams constantly recycling failed head coaches, and I think it's a lot harder to make the case that pro sports teams are paid to lose (although at least at the ownership level there's a good argument that winning is a secondary concern to profitability, but that's still pretty different from intending to lose from the outset). I think two things explain this:
Blame deflection. If a candidate hires a 30-something with a limited track record to run their campaign and they lose, it's easy to blame the candidate for gambling on someone unproven. If you hire an experienced campaign manager, even if they flamed out four years ago, who takes the blame if you lose? They take a lot of it, as they've now tanked multiple campaigns. As for the candidate, who else were they going to hire? A no-name 30-something with limited experience? Even if you blame the candidate for a bad hire, that blame is tempered by the lack of obviously better options.
Zero-sum outcomes. Just like in a football or basketball game, you can only have one winner in an election. So you can argue -- plausibly -- that a coach or campaign manager who loses is still highly competent and the best person for the next job, because when you have a zero-sum outcome you can lose even when you do a great job. Is a coach who loses the Super Bowl fired? No, because in context losing =/= incompetence, or even average competence.
Of course, recycling personnel from the Hillary campaign is a shitty idea for dozens of other reasons. My point is only that there are reasons for those hires that don't suggest campaigns are trying to lose, or that they're operating as if they are.
I think if we stay with the pro sports team analogies, think of it as commitment to failed tactical strategies. Like football (⚽) managers who want to play possession heavy football with players who just do not have the technical/physical skill to play such a game against skilled opponents. So they're paid to lose because they're paid to play out failed politics.
So they’re paid to lose because they’re paid to play out failed politics.
I get what you're saying -- that paying someone to execute a bad strategy will produce losses, so you're paying them to lose -- I just think that really strains the plain meaning of "paid to lose." When I hear "paid to lose" I think of a boxer (fuck it, let's keep going with sports analogies) getting a stack of cash to take a dive, or your earlier example of the Washington Generals. "Paid to lose" sounds like the outcome is explicitly determined right from the start, and you're paying the loser to go along in producing that outcome.
I don't think that reading of "paid to lose" fits Democrats. I think the "paid to execute a bad strategy" definition fits, but that's more "paid to try and win within narrow ideological constraints" rather than "paid to lose." It's like hiring a basketball coach to run an offense based almost entirely on mid-range jump shots because you think that's a fun style of basketball. You're hamstringing yourself from the start, but you still want to win -- you just want to win on your terms. You don't want to win at any cost.
Yeah, like I agree with you in the end. I've met way too many liberals and democrat organisers who are genuinely well meaning.
I think that leftists feel that way when these parties sabotage popular, succesful leftists inside them, like Pelosi's attacks on AOC, or the all of Labour on Corbyn and feels very much like they're trying to lose. It's more of a sentiment that is experienced subjectively than is applicable to their intentions.
They don't want to win badly enough, their respect for imagined norms around civility kills them, which is easy to read as paid to lose.
But defending it in its original form
The argument is around the media atmosphere which these campaigns rely on for feedback. They benefit from Trump mongering and do make more money when democrats lose.
Way too many examples of failed consultants from the Hilary campaign being offered key roles (in the Kamala & Warren campaign). This can also be read as failure to attribute blame to the campaigns when they lose to Republicans (it was the racist gerrymandering!!!)
Agree 100% with all of this.
This is spot-on, too. I can buy that the media functions as if it's paid to lose. I just don't see that extending to actual Democratic campaigns (despite the personnel overlap), because the same incentive structure doesn't apply. The Washington Post might sell more subscriptions if Trump is president, but how's Hillary's career doing right now? If your campaign loses you're either done or you have to find some safety net job for a couple of years; if you win you're in a much better position.
I see this as analogous to pro sports teams constantly recycling failed head coaches, and I think it's a lot harder to make the case that pro sports teams are paid to lose (although at least at the ownership level there's a good argument that winning is a secondary concern to profitability, but that's still pretty different from intending to lose from the outset). I think two things explain this:
Of course, recycling personnel from the Hillary campaign is a shitty idea for dozens of other reasons. My point is only that there are reasons for those hires that don't suggest campaigns are trying to lose, or that they're operating as if they are.
I think if we stay with the pro sports team analogies, think of it as commitment to failed tactical strategies. Like football (⚽) managers who want to play possession heavy football with players who just do not have the technical/physical skill to play such a game against skilled opponents. So they're paid to lose because they're paid to play out failed politics.
I get what you're saying -- that paying someone to execute a bad strategy will produce losses, so you're paying them to lose -- I just think that really strains the plain meaning of "paid to lose." When I hear "paid to lose" I think of a boxer (fuck it, let's keep going with sports analogies) getting a stack of cash to take a dive, or your earlier example of the Washington Generals. "Paid to lose" sounds like the outcome is explicitly determined right from the start, and you're paying the loser to go along in producing that outcome.
I don't think that reading of "paid to lose" fits Democrats. I think the "paid to execute a bad strategy" definition fits, but that's more "paid to try and win within narrow ideological constraints" rather than "paid to lose." It's like hiring a basketball coach to run an offense based almost entirely on mid-range jump shots because you think that's a fun style of basketball. You're hamstringing yourself from the start, but you still want to win -- you just want to win on your terms. You don't want to win at any cost.
Yeah, like I agree with you in the end. I've met way too many liberals and democrat organisers who are genuinely well meaning.
I think that leftists feel that way when these parties sabotage popular, succesful leftists inside them, like Pelosi's attacks on AOC, or the all of Labour on Corbyn and feels very much like they're trying to lose. It's more of a sentiment that is experienced subjectively than is applicable to their intentions.