Why would Israel choose the daughter of a known Mossad asset to play the leading role in what would be one of the most risky intelligence operations in Israeli history (risky because it becoming public could endanger the entire US-Israel relationship)?
Surely they could find someone less visibly connected to them to run point on such an operation.
And why would they choose a Jew, Epstein, to work with her in an operation that would involve that Jew in playing into anti-Jewish tropes like becoming fabulously rich in shady ways, abusing minors, etc.?
Goodguy
9hr ago
Voters lean older, thus on average more set in their ways. In the last few decades, American Jews have tended to be liberals in the American sense of the word. That takes time to change. The fact that the radical wing of the Democratic Party hates Israel (and a subset of them hates Jews) may frighten some Jews, but keep in mind that a large fraction of the radical wing of the Republican Party hates Jews. The radical wing of the Democratic Party probably has more political power in its party than Jew-haters have in the Republican party, but the Democratic Party mainstream is not antisemitic, so there is still limited reason for Democratic-voting Jews to flip to the Republicans. Israel is not enough for many, since many Democratic-voting Jews dislike Israel in its current form, they just don't think it should stop existing.
Goodguy
21hr ago
I intended the midterms thread to be a place where people could react off-the-cuff as the election was unfolding, and wouldn't have to feel obliged to do deep analyses. So I think it served its purpose, and it makes sense that discussion has now moved back to the culture war thread.
Goodguy
21hr ago
And is there a conservative equivalent to this, i.e. a meta role reversal where conservatives are the one being hypocrites?
Trump himself is an example. If there was a Democrat President who said that a veteran is not war hero because he got captured, had multiple sexual assault accusations against him, joked along the lines of "China, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find {trove of compromising information on his political opponent}", refused to accept losing an election and made phone calls to state politicians trying to get them to find more votes, had the speech and writing patterns of a 10 year old on methamphetamine, shilled a crypto coin named after himself while in office, etc... right-wingers would absolutely lose their shit.
Right-wingers lost their shit over Bill Clinton, as it was, over stuff like the sexual assault allegations and Whitewater, so this isn't hypothetical. A Democrat President who acted like Trump would cause an even bigger reaction.
Now, I know that some of Trump's actions can be defended by the argument of "well, he's just slinging mud back at the Democrats the way the Democrats have been slinging it at us". But then we'd have to go back in history and play "who started it", which isn't really possible to answer since the two sides have been seeing each other's Presidents in garishly negative terms for such a long time now.
Goodguy
1d ago
That's a wild, detailed tweet from Ted Cruz. I've seen leftists who didn't even go into as much detail about ways that the economy sucks.
Interesting thread. One part I find worthy of remarking on is this:
With their armor and high-end tech, US soldiers looked like aliens to ordinary Afghans, many of whom believed that US soldiers could see through walls with their sunglasses:
I've noticed this before, but have never heard anyone else bring it up. US soldiers in the Vietnam War looked like normal dudes. US soldiers in the 21st century look like weird aliens. I know it's because the technology has changed, the soldiers have more armor now, they have night vision scopes, and so on. But I feel like it creates a branding problem: modern US soldiers visually look like the bad guys in a movie, like cyborgs from an evil empire. I mean, I'd rather that they control my village than have the Taliban control it, but I'm a social liberal. I don't know how others see it.
Goodguy
1d ago
I don't know what Fuentes truly believes, but if I try to reconstruct his theory by reading into his public statements it would be something like this:
The problem is not the money or military aid to Israel, it's the split loyalties, lack of focus, and bad optics caused by Israel-sympathizers in the American right. This problem is not just theoretical, since it is evident that Trump himself, the leader of MAGA, is a huge Israel-supporter. It is impossible to build a successful right-wing populist movement in the US as long as every time it wins power, it immediately disappoints its supporters by using that power to help Israel while neglecting American issues. Even just the appearance that it does this, even if the appearance is inaccurate, is devastating. We see this manifest itself in the midterm election. It is better to have a unified and potent smaller movement than to have a broader movement that does not accomplish the goals. Focused vanguardism is more likely to deliver results than unfocused split-loyalties Trumpist MAGAism that spends its efforts on Israel and ballrooms.
They expect that the government can lower prices or give them a better job, a fictional power that the government doesn’t have.
Except we have examples of the US government doing massive mobilization efforts when it decides to. The Civil War. The New Deal. WW2.
Does state control over the economy cause problems? Yes. Can it successfully help large masses of people? Also yes. The existence of many negative second-order effects don't mean that there are no first-order effects that help people. The USSR did actually successfully uplift millions of people from being peasant farmers. Would it have been better to uplift them in a more capitalist way? Probably. In a less bloody way? Definitely. But a lot of uplift did happen even doing it the bloody communist way.
The reality is that if the US government fully unleashed its monstrous powers, spurred by a strong enough motive, it could actually lower prices and give many people better jobs. There would be second-order effects, but a lot of uplift would actually happen. It's quite possible that the negative effects would be worse than the positive effects. And for some people, that would be completely fine. "Who cares if the economy as a whole deteriorates and we let the government be totally authoritarian, if I personally rise" is a self-centered but perfectly coherent approach. "Who cares if we let the government be totally authoritarian and the economy as a whole deteriorates ten years from now? I'm broke now, I need to pay bills now." is also a self-centered but perfectly coherent approach.
And that's before we even get into the possibility that at some point AI might actually make fully automated luxury communism possible for the first time in history.
Goodguy
2d ago
To be fair, most people here weren't advocating that Trump should get into a new Middle East war, constantly announce random tariffs and then cancel them, and spend what seems like months talking about some ballroom that nobody cares about.
This election does show how far the country is from deporting 100 million people like some here want. The right didn't even manage to go 2 years before blowing up.
Isn't the power to amend the Constitution unlimited? Theoretically, an Amendment could strike out the entire previous text of the Constitution and replace the whole thing with a sentence that says "The purpose of the government of these United States is to implement fully automated luxury gay space communism."
Edit: apparently I was wrong. It's almost unlimited, but not completely unlimited. You have to continue to allow states to have equal suffrage in the Senate unless they voluntarily give it up:
"The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate."
In all my time of paying attention to politics, I don't remember ever seeing a Vice President so boldly question one of the President's core policies (Iran war in this case). Maybe I'm forgetting some examples, but this seems quite unusual to me.
I don't know what Vance truly believes about Iran. My guess is that he genuinely has no interest in waging the war. I remember some news that Vance was skeptical of the war before Trump launched it. But this is definitely good politics one way or another, if Vance wants to stay a major player.
Wild to see Vance rushing to put forth the optics that he basically agrees with Nick Fuentes on major aspects of where the right should go from here. (And these are actually some of the main things that Fuentes has been excoriating him for.)
Goodguy
2d ago
I agree. Being rightly or wrongly perceived as the side that is more focused on bread and butter issues is huge. Republicans ceded it back to the Democrats through wrong focus and unforced errors at the same time as the Democrats partly realized that they should talk more about the economy and less about woke stuff. Luckily for the Republicans, I'm not sure that the Democrats will be able to resist the sort of smug wokeness and belief in having an "on the right side of history" mandate that got them in trouble in the past.
Goodguy
2d ago
Now let's see if Democrats learn the lesson of "we do well if we focus on the economy, we avoid turbo-woke stuff, and we take advantage of the other side's unforced errors".
Or if they instead decide "ahhhh, 2016-2026 was just a bad dream... the voters are telling us that what we really need to focus on is electing history's first black transwoman President".
What's actually going on with Abbott? I don't follow Texas politics at all so I have no idea, I thought Abbott had it on lock even though I expected Dems to probably take both the House and the Senate. Unlike the House/Senate map, in which prediction markets have had Dems doing well for a while now, the Hinojosa rise seems to just date back to... today.
Goodguy
3d ago
Oh, weird. Link currently works for me when I'm logged in but I see [Deleted by user] if I'm in incognito mode. Don't know why.
Now it works for me in incognito, too. Maybe temporary issue.
Goodguy
3d ago
Apologies for the short top-level post, but I just made a Midterms thread so that there can be a place for more off-the-cuff sort of midterms discussion without getting it scattered all over the culture war thread. Might be useful.
Goodguy
3d ago
The political problem with Iran for Trump is not just that the war affects the economy. It is also that Trump is perceived as devoting energy to waging the war rather than focusing on domestic issues such as the economy. This will tend to cause a reduction in Trump's popularity without being directly captured in polls that ask how important people think foreign policy is relative to other issues.
I'm not a Christian of any sort, but I will say this... the idea that a good god is trying to free us from an evil god makes more sense to me than the idea that there is only one god, this god is good, and this god also gives infants horrible diseases on a regular basis cause of muh free will or something.
At the end of the day though, the good god / evil god dichotomy doesn't make much sense to me either. It feels emotionally resonant in a way that is deep but still somehow superficial compared to true depth. It too is a bit brittle like the rantings of a crazy homeless man. Like Revelations.
The truth, I think, is something deeper than any of those Christian ideas... Christianity has nice symbolism and it points to some important true things, however.
Goodguy
4d ago
I think the optics are good for Trump when it comes to immigration and when it comes to helping beat back leftist excesses like trans in women's bathrooms and defund the police. But the optics are bad for him on bringing back manufacturing, improving the economy for the average person, avoiding pointless wars, and AI.
Note: I am not making a judgment here about whether Trump lived up to his actual promises or not. I'm just talking about how his promises are widely seen. For example, Trump never promised to not attack Iran, indeed he has a long history of anti-Iran statements. However, many people assumed that he wouldn't attack Iran, and attacking Iran has hurt his popularity I think.
The Democrats, on the optics level, do have an agenda that can attract many people. Their economic agenda is more wealth redistribution from the wealthy to the not wealthy. Their foreign policy agenda is to do what Biden was doing. Their negative view of the AI revolution is likely to be popular. Their social agenda is one of their weak points, but they have learned a bit from what happened a few years ago and now seem more aware that peak woke is unpopular with the general electorate and that it might be a good idea to run a white man even if you really really think that a black woman deserves to be President, or whatever.
Again, I'm not making claims about what the Democrat agenda actually is or how well it would work in practice. Just what the optics are like.
Goodguy
4d ago
I think most innovators will stay in the US even if there is more wealth redistribution, as long as there is not so much wealth redistribution that being based in the US becomes less attractive than being based in some place like Dubai or Singapore.
There is a lot of political terrain in between what the US is now and what Europe is now.
Housing is young people's biggest expense, so if I acquired FDR-like power I'd probably try to use Federal force to push through construction of more housing in cultural hubs. That already would go a long way. There would be second order effects, but I think the sense of optimism and dynamism that would result might make them worth it.
the arc of history bends towards communism
I don't think that's set in stone. In any case, the current bending towards socialism becoming a viable force in American politics again could be stopped by another New Deal-like compromise in which the wealthy make things better for the poor and the middles. I do not know if today's wealthy have the insight to do it, the will, or even the necessary political levers to make sweeping changes instead of getting bogged down in bureaucracy and regulations.
Now if by communism you mean social leftism, as the trooning example seems to indicate... I also wouldn't be so sure. I think that wokism is too authoritarian to ever be popular for long in a modern psychological climate... which is why it reached its high water mark a few years ago and has since receded a bit.
Goodguy
4d ago
That would be a significant escalation of degrading norms.
I'm not so sure. Republicans tried to do it to Bill Clinton when he was President in 1998. They had plausible legal grounds to do it, but it's not like it would be hard for Democrats to find plausible legal grounds to do it to Trump.
Goodguy
4d ago
The Internet isn't closed. The censorship of Reddit just made people go elsewhere or make their own sites. Even at the peak of woke censorship, the Internet never came close to actually being closed.
There were and are instances of payment providers refusing to work with people, but they are so rare that calling the Internet closed because of them would be like saying that schoolkids in the US are constantly being terrorized by mass shooters.
The far-left has Reddit and other places, but the far right is not left out. In some ways the Internet is more friendly to the far-right now than it was even 15-20 years ago. The far-right didn't have anything with the size and algorithmic subtlety of Twitter back then, now it does. When I say that, I'm not saying that Twitter is a far-right site, cause it's not. I'm just saying that you can go there and be pretty much as far-right as you want if you don't explicitly call for violence (but that's easy to work around).
The Internet is not closed, but it is heavily surveilled. One can assume that anything one does online goes into a government computer somewhere, whether or not a human ever ends up looking at it (and with AI, that doesn't matter). Thanks, Bush. Thanks, Clinton. Thanks, Bush 2. Thanks, Obama. Thanks, Biden. Thanks, Trump.
I'm not a fan of Israeli influence over America, but there's a huge difference in optics between turning an American TV channel into a pro-Israel propaganda outlet and running an intelligence operation that uses sex with underage women. Doing the latter is much more risky.
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