One frustrating side to Elections Twitter is how quickly people condemn groups for voting differently.

Especially minority groups.

This thread is primarily about Latinos in Florida but it applies to the UK too, because the same is happening with British Indians.

I had a feeling Joe Biden was toast in FL when I read this piece on how misinformation, shared on WhatsApp groups, was going wild among Latinos there.

Feels like Biden team were complacent due to the polls.

Ring a bell, anyone? https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/14/florida-latinos-disinformation-413923

If you remember, I extensively wrote about how British Hindus were being targeted by similar misinformation during the UK's Dec 2019 election.

It's the same playbook. https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/campaigns-trying-turn-british-indians-against-each-other/

Now, I'm aware that Latinos in FL aren't a homogenous group and Cubans have long trended Republican.

Similarly, British Hindus aren't a homogenous group either, and many stuck with the Labour Party despite the misinformation.

But all this misses the point.

The point is specific communities of people - Cubans in FL, Hindus in Britain, WWC in Iowa / PA, Welsh people during Brexit - are only susceptible to misinformation **if your side is not engaged with them**

That happened in every single case here. We took them for granted.

If a political party takes a community of people for granted as supporters - (UK Labour with minorities and WWC or Dems with Latinos and WWC) - then those communities will be open to persuasion.

And they will be open to misinformation. This isn't complicated.

Communities are open to misinformation when they're open to persuasion. It's that simple.

And they're open to persuasion when we stop properly engaging with them. It happens every time. Instead of condemning, we should listen instead. And maybe next time they'll come back.

Instead, what we get from a lot of Left Twitter is condemnation.

'Oh those Hindus won't vote Labour because they were always racist (or middle class) anyway'

'Ah those Cubans - well of course they voted for Trump - they're mad'

This isn't intelligent. And it drives people away

It just means our coalitions become smaller and more people end up voting for the party that lets the planet burn.

I'm not asking anyone to sign up to racism / sexism / homophobia / pandering.

I'm saying we need to connect /engage with people more, condemn less.