Sign in

David Rosen

@davidrosen12.bsky.social
374 followers 233 following 704 posts

Progressive strategy, political psychology, generational theory, and the dangers of gerontocracy. Not a work account.

PostsRepliesMedia
David Rosen @davidrosen12.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Cool study. I would not be surprised if the hindbrain turns out to be more closely linked with rapid, automatic, System 1 phenomena, while the forebrain and midbrain are more closely linked with the slower and more deliberative System 2.
000
David Rosen @davidrosen12.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
A close corollary to this is that if your narrative omits villains, you're the villain. At all times, you are facing an opposition that has convinced tens of millions of people that the archvillain in your story is actually you.
011
Reposted by David Rosen
Alisha Grauso (She/Her) @alishagrauso.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
I can't help but laugh when I see the "When this is all over, the national news media must have a reckoning with itself" argument. That's not going to happen. That's not ever going to happen. Period. The traditional media ecosystem is broken beyond repair and never coming back. Understand that.
25915
David Rosen @davidrosen12.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Senate Democrats had many opportunities to show Fetterman the door and to make clear that walking through it was not optional. Now they get to deal with the extremely foreseeable and increasingly damaging consequences -- FOR THEM -- of not doing that.
000
David Rosen @davidrosen12.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
None of these things are likely to happen while Republicans control the White House and the Senate. Meanwhile, things House Democrats could do that involve actual fight -- oversight, investigations, inherent contempt, and wielding the power of the purse -- are nowhere to be found.
02710
David Rosen @davidrosen12.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
When Republicans have a meltdown, it means you found their weak spot and struck a nerve. When this happens, never apologize, never back down, and never change the topic. Keep kicking them in the nuts as fast and as hard as you can until they can never stand up again. Show no mercy.
011
Reposted by David Rosen
dr. rich traditions, JD @helldude.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
the fact that john ossoff can kick off a two-day media cycle by saying that the president is uninterested in doing his job and is sleeping through meetings and traveling around with a young blonde, suggests that not enough of these guys are speaking plainly and effectively about these assholes
121126332126
David Rosen @davidrosen12.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
This is one of many ways a gerontocratic political culture perpetuates itself and retains its grip.
000
David Rosen @davidrosen12.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
But is accountability actually coming? We heard this same kind of rhetoric from Democrats in 2017 and 2018, and then upon winning a House majority, Pelosi put the kibosh on most oversight and investigations. I'm fighting to make sure this time is different, but do not expect that it will be.
020
David Rosen @davidrosen12.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
If the House can jail officials who defy their subpoenas, this OLC memo will matter as much as a sternly worded letter. This is why a Democratic majority needs to revitalize inherent contempt. Democrats CAN do this without the Senate or the White House. If they don't, that's on them.
000
David Rosen @davidrosen12.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
"Christmas is canceled" is one of my favorite lines, not because I want to cancel Christmas -- I don't! -- but because the line provokes such similar reactions across so many different kinds of people. "Thanksgiving is canceled" just doesn't get you there. This is my contribution to the discourse.
000
David Rosen @davidrosen12.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
Some of us argued for many years that the Democratic Party should invest far more in grassroots organizing. Establishment Democrats kept refusing, and now they can't stop losing. They earned this and deserve to get wiped out. www.nytimes.com/2026/08/10/u...
nytimes.com
The Campaign Tactics Helping Progressives Win Primaries Ahead of the 2026 Midterms
Progressives are being outspent and are receiving little support from the Democratic Party. Their tactics show a different way to succeed.
010
David Rosen @davidrosen12.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
This is much closer to the truth about 2024 than anything else I've seen.
1366
David Rosen @davidrosen12.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
Great story. I'm a regular e-scooter renter in DC. Lime allows most of their scooters to fall into dangerous levels of disrepair. Multiple times a week, I encounter Lime scooters with breaks that don't work, badly misaligned wheels, acceleration delays, filth all over them, and more.
000
David Rosen @davidrosen12.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
Politico didn't get the big election night they wanted. In related news, Dewey defeats Truman.
000
David Rosen @davidrosen12.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
Fully agree. Was just chiming in to bolster what you are saying.
000
David Rosen @davidrosen12.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
Gerontocrats are infamous for grooming successors who are unwilling or unable to reject their goals and methods -- making their younger successors into extensions of gerontocratic rule. This is a well documented phenomenon in political psychology. Pelosi and Jeffries are a textbook example of it.
120
David Rosen @davidrosen12.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
I predicted the rise of a new luddite-like movement to a close friend in the late 2000s, to clients in 2012, and again in front of a classroom in 2016. The data center backlash is just the beginning. Anti-big-tech movements are likely to become a major force in 21st century politics.
010
David Rosen @davidrosen12.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
Correction: Analyst Institute.
000
David Rosen @davidrosen12.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
One place to start is by incorporating social and situational influence techniques into our strategies, tactics, and policy proposals. The Analyst Group, for example, is already doing this with GOTV.
100
David Rosen @davidrosen12.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
Take it from a political psychology guru... Our side has nothing but contempt for non-rational approaches to influence. The science is clear that rational persuasion is the weakest, least effective tactic. With only a few exceptions, the entire left side of the spectrum does not want to hear it.
4295
David Rosen @davidrosen12.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
I sometimes handle comms advocating in favor of worker heat stress regulations. Let me tell you all about the "hot workers" pin-up calendar I've proposed every year for the last decade. Perhaps some day it will be a real thing. But not today.
132
David Rosen @davidrosen12.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
If you find it hard to imagine a president or party with poll numbers like these getting another term in the White House, that's understandable. But it's also a strategic failure of YOUR imagination. The right is hard at work imagining ways to stay in power matter how low the polls go.
000
David Rosen @davidrosen12.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
I'm open to many ways of achieving universal coverage. It's not always easy to distinguish what is politically very hard from what is genuinely impossible. The point here is that "there's never any opposition" falls unambiguously into the latter category.
000
David Rosen @davidrosen12.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
Regulating private health insurance to get to universal coverage can only work if there's never any political opposition. That's as unrealistic as Democrats' plan to defeat fascism by never losing an election. Medicare for All is a heavier lift, but it doesn't rest on impossible premises.
3428
David Rosen @davidrosen12.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
On many topics, all it takes is a little comms by someone with a national audience to move public opinion. The problem is that most Democrats in office, most of their staff, and most of their consultants do not believe such a thing is even possible -- and see this type of comms as beneath contempt.
000
David Rosen @davidrosen12.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
Political scientists, media consultants, and advertisers have known for several decades how to scientifically measure the persuasive effects of these appearances. If Buttigieg or any Democrat is great at communicating with Fox's audience, it should be very easy to prove. Where is that proof?
000
David Rosen @davidrosen12.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
You do not have to be a socialist to agree with these goals. You don't even have to be on the left side of the spectrum to want any or all of these things.
000
David Rosen @davidrosen12.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
A lot of partisans have a deep psychological need to believe that Democrats are the good guys, the heroes, or the saviors -- and they're just NOT. Democrats are many decades removed from being capable of any of that, much less actually being any of those things.
000
David Rosen @davidrosen12.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
I think it's far worse than this. Procedural reforms without rapid court expansion will entrench and normalize nearly all of the court's existing problems for several decades before those reforms start to change anything for the better.
051
Reposted by David Rosen
Brandon Friedman @brandonfriedman.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
This should be a lightbulb moment for Democrats: You are free to run on this platform because Republicans are going to accuse you of it whether you do or not!
15860591239
David Rosen @davidrosen12.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
Polls show 80-90% of voters in both parties want upper age limits for public office. Making this law would probably require amending the constitution. But there are lots of ways both major parties could institutionalize this in their internal rules. blog.fiftyplusone.news/p/janet-mill...
000
David Rosen @davidrosen12.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
When the individual who needs to be driven out is already an incumbent, Democratic lawmakers usually pretend it's not in their power to withhold support and funding. In fact, these options are always to them, among the lowest hanging fruit, and should be used a lot more frequently.
010
David Rosen @davidrosen12.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
Democrats have a recurring problem with candidate vetting and friendly/opposition research that goes back several cycles. This is not new, and it's probably going to keep happening, because no one in the party is taking steps to address it or even recognizes there's a problem.
000
David Rosen @davidrosen12.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
You don't have to imagine or guess what House Democrats will do with a majority under Trump. They had one during Trump's first term in 2019 and 2020. Whatever you think of their performance, that history should anchor your expectations.
000
Reposted by David Rosen
Josh Marshall @joshtpm.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
What Would and Should Court Reform Look Like? talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/what-...
talkingpointsmemo.com
What Would and Should Court Reform Look Like?
I’ve been beating the drums for years about reforming the Supreme Court...
4818370
Reposted by David Rosen
Micah @rincewind.run · 03/07/2026
DC is, flatly, owed statehood after what they have been through under this man to make sure this shit never happens again
3172511372
David Rosen @davidrosen12.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
The Democratic establishment's lack of fight IS an ideology. It's the governing philosophy of the Silent Generation. These gerontocrats had 2.5 times longer than any previous generation to INSTITUTIONALIZE their generation's conflict-avoidant philosophy in the Democratic Party's political culture.
000
David Rosen @davidrosen12.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
Watch out, Republicans -- Democrats are coming after you with sternly worded letters!
000
Reposted by David Rosen
The New Republic @newrepublic.com · 01/07/2026
A conservative supermajority on the U.S. Supreme Court will be with us into at least the 2050s, if Republican justices strategically retire and allow Trump and a GOP Senate to name replacements. trib.al/dz1rhX6
trib.al
The Coming Census Time Bomb
As bad as things are, they’re going to get a lot worse in 2030, thanks in part to the Supreme Court’s Callais decision. Here’s how to fight back.
63315
David Rosen @davidrosen12.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
WARNING: Do not fall for this rhetorical sleight of hand. "Everything is on the table" is what Democrats say when they already know they don't have the votes for almost anything and greatly prefer to do nothing at all. This is an extremely reliable tell. It's one of the oldest plays in the book.
041
Reposted by David Rosen
Alexander Ross @hardpolitics.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
Again, we've endured years of legacy media reporters chasing after Donald Trump supporters to find out what they want, and somehow "They want an ethnic cleansing" was never the takeaway, even though it's literally the correct answer.
9521137
David Rosen @davidrosen12.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
Schumer and Jeffries are jet fuel for the long overdue anti-incumbent, anti-establishment rage sweeping the Democratic base. The two of them sticking around will be more than enough to take out a generation or two worth of incumbents.
010
Reposted by David Rosen
WalkingTaako but Spooky 🏴‍☠️🏳️🪣💩 @walkingtaako.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
Jefferies and Schumer making it very clear that they are very much not up to the challenge, as they view the birthright citizenship ruling as a big win rather than an ominous warning of the future
9844180
David Rosen @davidrosen12.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
There's no policy Democrats in Congress can pass or propose that can make a dent in their 2026 electoral fortunes. So that leaves personnel. Both the public and the Democratic base want Jeffries and especially Schumer gone. Do the popular thing, Democrats. Replace your incompetent leaders.
010
David Rosen @davidrosen12.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
Polls show that Schumer and Jeffries are the most toxic Democrats in the country. Voters would pick Trump over both of them -- Schumer is not even close. Replacing Schumer and Jeffries is easily the most popular thing Democrats in Congress can do to improve their election chances everywhere.
000
David Rosen @davidrosen12.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
The most popular thing Democrats could do right now is to get rid of Chuck Schumer. The second most popular thing would be to get rid of Hakeem Jeffries.
000
David Rosen @davidrosen12.bsky.social · 26/06/2026
Centrists and moderates are NOT fighters and NOT on our side. They've constantly enabled Republicans and the right for decades, and they're still at it right now. They strongly oppose most of the reforms needed to stop and reverse fascism. And they're as corrupt and sociopathic as Republicans.
062
David Rosen @davidrosen12.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
As noted, public support for court expansion has been steadily growing, along with support for a wide array of other court reforms. If voters are scared off by a little hostile press, as you appear to believe, they're telling pollsters the exact opposite.
000
David Rosen @davidrosen12.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
In case it wasn't clear, I was talking about low info voters in general. As for court expansion, polls show it's currently around 50-50 across the whole electorate, with support growing over time. There's still a lot of room to grow.
000