FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
No bio...
User ID: 675
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
7d ago
Ah, Margaret Thatcher, universally loved and respected across the political spectrum. Not to mention a bizarre choice for a Trump supporter given her antipathy for the working class, out-of-touchness robotic character and neoliberalism.
And yet she was evidently damn good at her job, and it seems to me that it ain't the same working class, nor the same neoliberalism, nor the same world for that matter. She fought for liberty and against bureaucracy and communism.
Vance? Silicon valley, VC 1%er Vance who happens to have a convenient origin story and connections to an ecosystem of companies weaponizing AI to surveil our citizens?
He's the first politician I've listened to who could bring up interesting data-points I hadn't heard of before. I'm looking forward to his presidential bid. His "convenient origin story" happens to be his actual life, born to drug addicts and working his way up to the vice-presidency of the united states. Certainly his story looks considerably better than Kamala's.
8 years ago you were sitting here writing that Clinton was a historically unpopular candidate, manipulative, stupid, whatever.
I'm pretty sure I wasn't. I was planning to vote for Hillary until Trump cinched the nomination, because I wanted the neoconservative wing of the Republican party destroyed forever. She was quite unpopular in much the way Trump is, but 2016 was a very close election. I am pretty sure that I have never agreed with the moderate talking point that Hillary was a uniquely bad candidate and the only one the Dems could have picked that would have lost to Trump. I think if Trump could beat her he could likely beat most of the other Democrat contenders. I think she's a very bad, very corrupt politician, but that doesn't make her bad at securing power or an unserious candidate in the way Kamala was.
4 years ago you were sitting here writing how useless Biden is, he can't even leave his basement to campaign, dementia means he doesn't have two functional brain cells left to rub together.
And he was, in fact, actually suffering from dementia, a problem that only got worse throughout his term. And Progressives sticking their fingers in their ears about it is how he was allowed to vegetate in office, which is why they had to dump him at the eleventh hour, couldn't get their actual talent to sign on, and were left with running Kamala. His dementia actually was real, actually cost him the race, and after more than a decade of Progressive claims that Republican presidents were senile (a common accusation against both W and Trump), they collectively missed their own candidate actually going senile right in front of them. And sure, I claim Biden was a bad president, because I think the record pretty clearly shows that his policies had numerous woeful effects in the real world. The exception, of course, was the Afghanistan Pullout, which I think was a masterful achievement and which I will defend against all comers.
I'm not on your side. I'm opposed to your candidates, because I disagree strongly with their policies and values. But I, at least as an individual, am actually trying to speak honestly here: Progressives have suffered multiple, severe unforced errors due to believing their own bullshit. Their control of the consensus narrative has made them lazy, and now that this control is failing, they're stuck in a position where the main effect their spin is having is to compromise their own decision-making. Biden was in fact too old, as was RGB when she tried to hang on till Hillary. They should have picked a running mate who could actually run for his VP, but they were too busy playing identity bingo, and besides, it was an article of faith that he was sharp as a tack. They did this to themselves.
4 years from now you'll be sitting here writing that Pete Buttigieg was the worst candidate in history, who tries to nominate a goddamn secretary of transportation man, at least Kamala ticked some diversity boxes and had some funny coconut memes or something.
I am pretty sure it is in my direct interest for Progressives to see things the way you do.
Kamala was a candidate who, so far as anyone could tell, had a 50% chance of becoming president yesterday.
I predicted a Trump win, with weak confidence, based on a lot of factors that seemed to be leaning his way. This does not appear to have been a coin-flip election; pretty much every state in the country shifted right by significant margins, with Donald Trump as the candidate. As recently as two years ago, IIRC, Democrats were still directly funding Trumpian candidates in Republican primaries, hoping that public revulsion for him and his supporters would make them unelectable in the general. But as I said above, I am pretty sure that Progressives doubling down further is pure advantage for my side. By all means, don't let me dissuade you.
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
7d ago
Womens' sports leagues are an explicitly political creation, so their policies are a political issue.
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
7d ago
Trump's had two solid assassination attempts, and the Secret Service pretty clearly ain't what they used to be. Blues are all-in that this is a fascist takeover. In 175 million Americans, it would be pretty amazing if there weren't a few more willing to have a go to save the nation, capable of planning better, and coherent enough to make a go of it.
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
7d ago
I hope I'll be proven embarrassingly wrong, and y'all will get to shit on me for being a retard for all of eternity.
I hope you're wrong too, but eh, I think skepticism is healthy. We're at the point where con-men are all we've got left, and the forlorn hope that some of them have a heart of gold somewhere in there.
Can you name a woman worth running?
Anyone tried cloning Margaret Thatcher yet?
Hell, can you name a man worth running?
Vance is looking real, real good to me right now.
...But those aside, Harris was, legitimately, an absolutely terrible choice, and I am pretty sure she was chosen because the better candidates, male and female, saw the writing on the wall and didn't want to tank their future prospects trying to salvage an election that Joe Biden's dementia had already pretty clearly lost.
The legacy media gave her every possible advantage they could, at considerable cost to their own dwindling credibility. She couldn't do interviews. She couldn't field basic questions on policy or on her record. So they let her hide in a closet and spun their guts out trying to astroturf contentless, mean-girls-style social consensus ex nihlio, while claiming all possible policy positions to the point of obvious self-contradiction. She claimed she'd protect the Second Amendment from Trump, man.
In her prime, I can't imagine Nancy Pelosi would have been this bad. Clinton wasn't anywhere near this bad. I'm pretty sure AOC wouldn't be this bad. I can't imagine Oprah or Michelle Obama being this bad if they threw their hats in. I would strongly oppose all of those women if they ran because I disagree with their values and their preferred policies. But Kamala is all that and a bag of rancid chips. Oprah is a billionaire businesswoman, an expert on public relations and communication. She boot-strapped herself into a commanding position as one of the richest and most influential women in America. Kamala sleazed her way into a position under one of the most corrupt politicians of the modern era, made a career for herself personifying the worst stereotypes of a "tough on crime" caricature, was massively unpopular as a presidential candidate, was tapped for VP explicitly on the basis of identity-politics checkboxes, and has now lost an election to Donald Trump. She outperformed Joe Biden in zero counties in the entire nation. [EDIT] - This is false; I missed the clarification on CNN last night. Apparently she outperformed Biden in by at least 3% in 58 of 3144 counties, and presumably by less than 3% in more.
Blues need to take the L and ask themselves some serious questions about the long sequence of bad decisions that brought them to this moment.
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
7d ago
People say stuff like this every election. They still have the support of half the country and all the institutions. I'm pretty sure the institutions will have to go before the party does.
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
7d ago
have you re-evaluated Elon, given these developments? Still confident he's a grifter?
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
7d ago
That just causes the leftist to stop listening to me.
Maybe you should try cutting a deal with the Right instead?
Progressivism lost its mind in 2014, and their excesses have done significant damage to our nation and its institutions. Maybe it's time to cut the crazier fringes loose, rather than bankrolling them at every turn. And if you can't do that, why should we on the Right consider you distinct from them?
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
7d ago
Maybe pick a woman worth running? Hillary was famously loathed by a large percentage of the country. Harris... an empty suit would have been an improvement.
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
7d ago
Hell, how much of this was made possible by Elon buying Twitter?
In my view, that's the big one. Without that, I'm pretty sure Trump doesn't win.
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
8d ago
"sure, sure, but if you use the middle letter of this book with this complex and arbitrary system of numerology, bam, you crack the whole thing wide open!"
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
8d ago
Show me a time when she's dug in, bared her teeth, and defied the odds to fight for something, even once, anywhere. It's possible she has and I'm simply unaware, but from what I've seen of her, I rather doubt it.
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
8d ago
What does a Harris loss look like?
She doesn't have the constitution, the character, or (going by reports) the personal charisma necessary to sustain a defiant stand. Blues do not have enough gas left in the tank to sustain a pivot to election denial at this late date. If Trump takes this, I think the reckoning might arrive in Blue-Land.
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
8d ago
Oh, certainly. Her poll was obviously motivated.
The obviousness escaped several posters here.
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
8d ago
Blacks declining to vote for Democrats in their usual percentages. An adaptation from "Brexit".
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
9d ago
I don't think anyone claims that 'men can be women' per se.
If I find examples of people who do appear to be claiming that men can be women per se, would you change your mind? For example, people who insist that someone who was universally regarded as a man ten years ago is in the present a woman, without qualifiers?
More generally, intellectual embroidery is, I think, how the transition from "kooky" to "consensus" is achieved. Reality contains infinite, fractal complexity; we emphasize or elide that infinite complexity as needed to conform what we see to what we think.
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
9d ago
Again, do you laugh at Simulation Theory? It used to be a reasonably high-status talking point in the rationalist community.
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
9d ago
Why are apparently cooky beliefs entertained by top influencers on the right?
Left-wing kooky beliefs aren't apparent, because it's the consensus narrative that supplies the "kooky" label, and they still maintain a nearly arbitrary degree of control over what the "consensus" is. "Men can be women" was an astonishingly kooky belief five minutes before you could get fired for disagreeing with it.
"Why is this thing I've been told I must laugh at so incredibly laughable?" Do you laugh at Simulation theory too?
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
9d ago
Militias? Sure, that’d count. Those are awfully few and far between.
If we define "militia" as "organized to the point that the people committing the violence have defined, articulatable responsibilities in managing how the violence is implemented", that doesn't seem rare to me over the last decade. "you three hit people, these two "intervene" once you've gotten a few licks in, these two are on medic duty, you guys run interference with anyone trying to record the action..." I've been observing something like that pattern since 2015/2016 at the latest.
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
9d ago
I think Trump will win. Weak confidence.
If Harris wins, I think we'll see a serious attempt at immigration amnesty within her first term. Moderate confidence.
If Harris wins, I think Trump will probably receive a prison sentence. Moderate confidence.
If Harris wins, I think Trump will make some attempt to challenge the legitimacy of the election. Moderate confidence.
Over the next year, polling will measure significant decreases in trust in the Federal government, the media, and Elite institutions generally. Extremely high confidence.
Posts I didn't get to prior to the election, in no particular order:
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Retrospective on whether Hunter Biden was selling access to Joe, and on whether Joe Biden was cooperating with the sale, how this was investigated by the authorities and the press, and how we talked about it here over time.
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Retrospective on Jan 6th, comparing the arguments we had on the day to the information that's come out since.
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Path-Dependence as an expression of institutional decay: Public Trust in elections and institutions, Democratic Party presidential candidate selection, hopefully other examples.
Like what? Do you have a specific policy in mind, or is it more of a vibes thing?
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