What do you hope to accomplish?

[Reader Rabbit]

I'm curious about the goals of those who post negative articles or opinions about candidates in the Democratic primary field whom they oppose. It seems highly unlikely that they will convince supporters of these candidates to abandon them. Brain science has shown that changing someone's strongly held political beliefs is nearly impossible.

The other possibility is that they are hoping to influence Undecided members against the candidate they themselves oppose. I can't speak for other Undecideds, but such posts incline me to:

1) feel less positive toward the negative poster's chosen candidate,
2) start avoiding DU entirely,
3) and feel an incredible amount of anxiety that Trump will win again, due to our infighting.

Is there some kind of logic behind these posts that I am missing? Or are they pure emotion?

[brooklynite]

1. I post articles that are newsworthy and ripe for discussion whether "positive" or "begative"

DU has little relationship to the real political world, so there's no value in trying to convince people here to support my candidate or drop their's But this is a political discussion blog, so I provide articles that people can discuss.

That said, articles that are address a candidate's policies, campaign strategies, speaking ability, political strength etc. would seem to be fair game.

[dweller]

2. some posts do border on the "begative"

that's a 3rd category

✌🏼

[question everything]

3. A "pundit" early on CNN commented that the candidates have to go after each other more

that one can ask: if they cannot go after each other, how would they be able to go after Trump?

I can say that I agree and yet, the ones who pounced during the debates did get a bump, at least temporarily.

Before Iowa, though, they had to play nice, we were told, to they would be considered as second choice..