Chattooga
12d ago
I don’t see how this makes him a republican. There’s plenty of issues that differentiate the two parties, and his point in this case is a set of changes/tweaks that the current party should make. It’s not an exhaustive list of what the democrats should be.
Chattooga
13d ago
He can say whatever he wants, but then he did a bad job last presidency, because they were fighting against him constantly. I’m imaging many more yes men this time around.
Chattooga
14d ago
But it’s exactly because Tulsi, RFK, and in a way Elon rebelled against the establishment that they need Trump. They have nowhere else to go!
I think Trump picks people for a lot of reasons, not just pure loyalty, I just think loyalty is much higher on his list of requirements than it used to be.
Chattooga
14d ago
I don’t think you can draw a conclusion that Trump is intentionally doing this. Last presidency he was burned by a lot of his establishment picks when they weren’t loyal enough to him. Now he’s selecting for more loyalists, and that tends to include those who want power but have been kicked out or left behind by the establishment.
Maybe you like the end result of this, but I think it’s largely coincidental. It also means he’s less likely to pick competent people, since competent people are smart enough to stay close to existing power.
Chattooga
14d ago
Oh yeah, I think he’s quite different than Trump, specifically that he’s actually smart and (seems like) competent. I think he presents a clear vision for America, it’s just one I don’t like.
I think democrats could come up with something that competes with that, but not if they let basic pro-family, pro-health, and pro-community messages become further right-coded.
Chattooga
14d ago
I think a lot of these are pretty reasonable guesses. What I want to see is a renewed focus on presenting some kind of narrative alternative in opposition to MAGA, particularly Vance who seem like the future of the Republicans.
Right now the Democrats’ vision for America feels like continued management of the existing system, and not only is that boring, it’s incredibly weak against an opponent that has a clear message for what the country should look like. Pointing to specific causes of specific problems beats hand-wavy answers and technocratic tax-credit solutions. (Even if sometimes the hand-wavy answers are correct!)
Bernie style populist policies are definitely a component of that, but I don’t want to flip to the naive “just tax the rich until things are fixed”. I really want to see them push policies that are useful for building secular shared norms and openly present them as such.
Chattooga
1mo ago
What specifically is making you think that FEMA is bungling the response? I see it repeatedly taken as fact in this thread, and that we should trust to random tiktok videos, but very little actual documentation of the situation.
I’m not claiming everything is perfect. I just think that rumors always swirl in the aftermath, and the insane political polarization in this case is making it worse. I expect clearer information to come out in the next few weeks.
Chattooga
1mo ago
It’s because this isn’t a money problem, it’s a logistics problem. Israel and Ukraine are already managing their responses, so it’s easy to give them aid. With the hurricane you have to figure out what goes where, and how to get it there, which is a difficult problem.
Also, I believe the majority of the value of the aid given to Ukraine in particularly is not cash, but arms, ammo, and loans.
Chattooga
1mo ago
If I’m reading it correctly, there’s not really anything wrong? FEMA has access to the funds it needs, and if your issue is with the money being spent on immigration related issues, that’s a directive from Congress.
Chattooga
1mo ago
Well, I don’t think trump’s thinking was influenced by it because I don’t think Trump has coherent thoughts on policy. The less catchy version would be that the people staffing a future Trump administration would be influenced by the agenda outlined in project 2025. I don’t think that’s far off from what’s being said, is it?
Chattooga
2mo ago
I think this is pretty rational, isn’t it? Stability and security are extremely valuable things, especially for people with a lot to lose.
Chattooga
2mo ago
I grew up in a Christian family, not fundamentalist, but I went to church every week and was active in youth programs. I fairly quickly stopped believing around 15, and to be honest I have never looked back.
I’m curious what drew you back to it?
Chattooga
2mo ago
Assuming that there are in fact not reports of Haitian immigrants eating cats, then I think it’s pretty fair to say Vance was lying.
Whether “people who shouldn’t be in this country” was intended to imply illegal immigrants or just immigrants generally is unclear, but it’s also secondary to the eating cats thing. That’s the main thrust of what Vance said and it doesn’t seem to be true.
Chattooga
2mo ago
While I wish public health was actually a large issue, for either party, I don’t see any evidence that Kamala or democrats broadly are celebrating people getting fat.
While ‘body positivity’ is generally supported, ‘Fat acceptance’ is still extremely online. At least, I’m assuming, couldn’t find polling at a glance.
Chattooga
3mo ago
I find it extremely unlikely Walz honestly believes the couch thing. It’s well known that it’s fake, it’s just become a meme.
Chattooga
3mo ago
I haven’t seen anybody notable arguing that Khalif is a trans icon; she’s not trans.
I think ‘Team A’ broadly assumes she has a DSD, but is considering social identity over genetics. And it’s mostly speculation from both sides since nothing is confirmed about her genetics or hormones.
Chattooga
3mo ago
I don’t think you can just say that there’s something wrong with ‘axe’ over ‘ask’. It’s an arbitrary change, and aren’t most changes in language like that?
There are obviously cultural/educational assumptions about person who says axe, and that influences whether or not it’s beneficial to say it, but if tomorrow every English speaker switched and only ever said ‘axe,’ then what’s wrong with that?
If the rules of language change or dialects form, then there will always be intermediate points where people say a mix of things
Chattooga
6mo ago
The sexual revolution is basically a prolonged experiment in what happens when you take away the personal incentive not to be shitty to girls that you want to fuck but don't want to wife.
But isn’t the increased social atomization caused by changes in technology? I don’t think the sexual revolution is what broke down regular social connection
Chattooga
6mo ago
Because it prevents you from having a normal social connection. That type of thing is best mediated through interpersonal contact, because that’s how we evolved to deal with it.
It’s one of the reasons people behave radically differently online than they would in person.
Chattooga
6mo ago
What’s different in this instance is the systemization of it. Sure, everybody knows men find women varying levels of attractive, but I think keeping a logbook of all the women you know and their rating would generally be considered ‘freak behavior’. (Think of Don Giovanni.)
There are many things that are not inherently bad, but signal some maladaption, and they often involve specifically codifying vague norms. If you found out a friend keeps a ranked spreadsheet of everybody he knows, and writes down his judgements of all their actions, that would be understandably off putting. Sure, it’s something we all do unconsciously, but the very act of making it explicit causes problems.
The connection to sexual violence likely comes from the ‘unrapable’ label. It’s clearly implying that the boys are contemplating the ‘rape-ability’ of their classmates. Even if it is an edgy joke, it’s absolutely unacceptable from a school’s (and likely parents’) perspective. The same spreadsheet ranking them from 1-10 would still warrant action by the school, but likely wouldn’t reach national news levels.
Chattooga
9mo ago
Remind me not to get into a factual argument with a lawyer.
Overall I found the argument that Epps is a federal informant extremely unconvincing. It seems like what was presented in the podcast wasn’t so much evidence that Epps was an informant as it was presenting a narrative that is congruent with Epps being an informant.
If you want to say that Epps got a uniquely easy deal compared to others on the FBI seeking information list, then like… show me. Are those records not public? Couldn’t somebody go through and theoretically demonstrate that he got a light treatment compared to others on the list?
If you want to tell me that Epps being removed from the list is suspicious timing, then I would want to see a timelines of names being removed, of when the FBI talked to Epps, of what the media was saying about him. Based on what I heard it seems just as likely that the FBI didn’t bother updating their list until he became a public figure.
A few random thoughts-
While I don’t see any evidence of govt. efforts making J6 worse, I do concede the idea that just a few individuals can whip up a crowd. I think crowd dynamics are somewhat conformity based- At a given protest every member of the crowd has a particular proclivity to jump a police barrier, for example. As soon as one or two people with little restraint do that, it makes it much more acceptable, leading to more people doing it, compounding the effect. Thats why police fight so hard at these barriers initially. They don’t need to stop the entire crowd from jumping the barrier, just the first few people.
Obviously you still need people willing to do it, I’m not saying this is an excuse. But as it becomes more normal, it makes the actual action less notable. There were plenty of people who ‘trespassed’ on J6 by crossing the police barrier, but aren’t worth prosecuting since at that point the barrier had been basically erased. (I have an aspiring journalist cousin who even climbed the scaffolding to take better pictures. As far as I know he’s never been contacted about that.)
I don’t particularly buy the idea that Epps ‘thought the capital was open’. That does sound like covering his ass after the fact. I think a reasonable guess is that he was simply talking a big talk, and when confronted with actually fighting police, he wises up/chickens out/realizes people will get hurt.
Chattooga
11mo ago
I hear a lot of people talk like this and I genuinely wonder what ‘experts’ means here.
If it’s the statements of scientists as filtered through news or politics, then I don’t really think of that as ‘expert’ since it’s mixed with other idealogical frames. I don’t actually know what the expert is saying in that case, or if they even represent a qualified authority.
In general, when a headline references ‘Experts’ or ‘Researchers’, I replace it mentally with ‘Some guy’. Not because I don’t trust experts or researchers, but because broadly the media has a bad record of science communication.
Chattooga
11mo ago
Generally, complaints over grammar or language use are held up as examples or causes of society degrading. Pointing out that language changes isn’t so much about is/ought, as it is to say that this change isn’t new.
I agree that grasp of the rules is an indication of conscientiousness, but you also have to acknowledge that those rules are arbitrary. I would dress nice when showing up for a date to signal my competence as a mate, but I also know that the specific character of my clothes is arbitrary. Chances are my grandparents would find jeans and a henley vastly too casual, but it works today.
If I had to be held to a standard, I would say that the only way a language could get worse is if it somehow lost the ability to express certain ideas or concepts. But as far as I can tell any idea can be expressed in every language, so that seems unlikely to happen.
Chattooga
1yr ago
This seems to be a very charitable read of what Johnson is saying here. The broad evangelical position is not a nuanced conception of sexual behavior and how it can be influenced, it is a belief that homosexuality is morally wrong, disgusting, and dangerous to society. Johnson is not expressing that sexuality is malleable, he is saying that sufficient religious prayer will remove wickedness from a sinner.
I’m sure sexual behavior and desire can be changed in all kinds of ways, (I doubt that there were Mesopotamians with a latex fetish) but I think giving Johnson credit on this is misunderstanding his position.
I’m sure if Trump actually had a legally compelling case he would have already filed, but he hasn’t. That implies to me that he wants to reduce libel protections. (I don’t think he wants that for idealogical reasons, or even has strong convictions about it. I think he’s just personally upset.)
Plus, ‘undermining the public’ goes both ways. Should news organizations reporting on ‘Haitians are eating the cats’ be shut down?
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