HaroldWilson
4d ago
the movement
What movement? Trump heads no movement (no global one anyway), he has no ideology other than narcissism and vague sentimentalism about the past. He has no coherent ideal or theory about how the world system ought to work in the way that Wilson, FDR, H.W. Bush or Churchill did, certainly none that can be reconciled with his actions - or inaction - as President first time round.
Trump was a spent force
In a sense, is he not? Slim congressional majorities mean that, outside of the most conventional Republican priorities, he would seem to be limited to that which is exclusively within his competence. That would seem to largely restrict him to tariffs, which would be anathema to this very class of economic elites which find themselves reconciled at least in part to Trump, and foreign policy, which if it's anything like last time will consist of some vague populist signalling, and an occasional impulsive and out-of-range but ultimately minor decision like Soleimani or northern Syria, but no fundamental change. Maybe he pulls the rug from under Ukraine? But surely anything too drastic threatens to seriously damage Republican unity. It's all looking a bit like 2016 again - a major political triumph, but it's hard to see that, unless he really goes all in on tariffs (in which case his reputation will survive about as well as Messrs. Smoot, Hawley and Hoover) the country in 2028 looks any different than if, say, Marco Rubio had been in the White House.
HaroldWilson
23d ago
Universities went from being places where autists can engage in niche hobbies to being to taking most people and people who have no real interest in the subject. How many english majors really want to spend four years engaging in bizarre books? They are there to party, please their parents by getting a degree and get an office job.
I don't think this is really true, certainly not of elite institutions. Oxbridge used to take all sorts of dullards who had the right background but were of limited disposition towards academics - think Bertie Wooster. Hence the gentleman's third
HaroldWilson
23d ago
I'm pretty confident that if the average person met McBride they wouldn't think she was a trans woman, partly because there are so few of them that the thought just wouldn't cross most people's mind. They certainly wouldn't bat an eyelid if they saw her in the women's toilet.
is it mere grandstanding?
Yes. There is no way anyone in Congress actually feels threatened by McBride (and if they did that would be a sufficient display of neurosis as to be disqualifying for a legislator).
HaroldWilson
23d ago
The point is also to keep men out of women's shelters and prisons, men out of women's sports and dressing rooms, and men out of women's spaces in general.
Well that's patently not the point of a rule specifically addressing the toilets in Congress. It may be political signalling conducted with those issues in mind, but this rule obviously has no impact on prisons and sports.
HaroldWilson
23d ago
Perhaps so, but at those times there probably weren't cities of millions of people lying more or less at sea level.
HaroldWilson
25d ago
Because riot games was forced to pay 100 million for gender discrimination when it hired people on the basis of whether or not they even played riots games.
Ludicrously uncharitable reading of the lawsuit. While the complaints ranged much more widely than the dispute over the 'core gamer' criterion, even on that point this wasn't a disparate impact claim of the form 'women are less likely to be gamers therefore hiring on the basis of playing Riot games is discrimination', the argument was that 'core gamer' was a nebulous and fake term that was the fig leaf management used to avoid promoting women, rather than actually having anything to do with playing games. Now I'm sure you disagree with that reading, but that was the thrust of the case they made.
HaroldWilson
25d ago
(like maybe trans women shouldn't compete in women's sports, and it's just possible that some sex offenders with penises who want to be sent to women's prison are not sincere about their gender identity, and also they are like 0.5% of the population so maybe everything doesn't have to be about them!). Like, I can say this (and I do), but I know I am picking a fight when I do, so I have to decide if it's worth it, and which people I am going to alienate.
Isn't this just part of the 'no politics at work' taboo? Now I know you're complaining about the asymmetry that you're frowned upon for expressing your views but a certain kind of affirmation politics is permitted. But I don't think they're necessarily equivalents. I doubt even a DEI seminar would ever take an explicit position on policy questions like prison or sports legislation.
everything doesn't have to be about them
I don't think everything is...
HaroldWilson
25d ago
Not in such basics as 'not loading', but qualitatively the twitter experience is now way worse, to the point I don't really use it anymore it's so bad. The prioritisation of blue check replies has made replies on any post that becomes popular totally worthless, since it's mostly bots/meaningless garbage. For You is totally worthless as it just serves up the worst kind of lowest common denominator internet slop, and while one can (and I usually did) just use the other tab for accounts you follow, twitter alongside mostly giving me my own follows' posts used to regularly suggest interesting and worthwhile smaller posts and accounts. Now the garbage rises to the top, the cream to the bottom. Checking back now having been away for a few weeks I've been followed by 50+ scam bots.
So while it still functions what made the app useful and good has basically been totally ruined. I think monetisation was a dreadful idea since it gives strong incentives to post slop in order to rise to the top, and the same goes for allowing people to pay to boost their nonsense. No doubt the slop existed before Elon, but I at least never really had it pushed to me by twitter before, it became relentless so no I don't bother. Elon's own account is really the embodiment of the kind of place twitter has become. It would probably be good again if they summarily IP banned anyone who had ever bought a blue check.
I have no idea whether any of this has anything to do with the staff that were sacked, but I think it's a cautionary tale against tech bro 'disruptors' and the 'move fast and break things' philosophy. For all people rightly say 'twitter isn't real life', it used to be a pretty important gathering place for influential and interesting people in the UK politics, policy and journalism sphere. Now it tends to be like scrolling a big subreddit in 2014.
HaroldWilson
25d ago
They have completely different standards from what constitutes "unfit" from the mainstream Republican voter. It's a two-party system, you vote for your guy and against the other
They should have different standards. They owe the voter their judgement, not their obedience. Also, Murkowski and Collins are not 'defecting' from anything because they were never part of the Trump coalition. 'Republicans' might have lost the presidency without Trump, but for Collins particularly he is a liability who will probably sink her in 2026. Tulsi is not 'their guy' for moderate or hawkish Republicans, they hold her views in total contempt - why would they ever vote for someone who is very nearly the last person they would ever choose to fill that role? Politics exists outside of the eternal horse race. They think she would be a disastrous DNI, so they won't vote for her. Simple as.
Calling cabinet appointments fundamentally random, as OP did, is an anti-explanation.
They are obviously not random in the most literal sense, what he likely meant is that appointments are being made without any cohesive overall strategy, on an ad-hoc basis. Individual picks have their rationales, but out-of-range disruptive picks like Tulsi and Gaetz destroy any chance of it being some sort of compromise, unity cabinet. I don't think this is an unreasonable perspective to take on Trump of all people, someone who managed to drift fairly in a fairly directionless manner through a whole four year Presidency. Perhaps if he did have strategies he might have achieved something other than tax cuts.
She has more experience in politics than Obama or Trump did when they assumed office.
She does, but roles like DNI require more experience than President, and I mean that very seriously. Since a President can by definition not be an expert on all of his briefs, it doesn't really matter if he's expert in none of them. Advisors and officials like the DNI however are there precisely to provide expert and experienced guidance from a like-minded political perspective. Even Trump's longest serving DNI last time round had been in politics since 1976, had a strong interest in foreign affairs throughout his time in Congress and was a former ambassador to Germany.
HaroldWilson
26d ago
I think the real lesson from 2012 is that pundits are wont to proclaim realignments, because they desperately want to live in interesting and historic times. But seldom is it really so. The last realignment happened slowly over the course of several decades and is still ongoing.
Something approximating the left-right divide has now been with us for approaching a century, and it's not going away easily. This is something I think the reality of another term of Trump governance will expose. Left-disposed 'outsiders' are mostly not going to like what they get, which will probably consist of the usual Republican fare with the exception of tariffs, which will probably be as haphazard and anti-climatic as his first effort, and a higher degree of meaningless culture war bluster. Maybe he does meaningfully roll back support for Ukraine, but plenty of 'outsiders' are actually pretty pro-Ukraine, including the vast majority of former Bernie supporters.
HaroldWilson
26d ago
It's loser establishment Republicans who continue to defect!
They aren't 'defecting', they simply consider the 'outsider' picks like Tulsi and Gaetz fundamentally unfit to hold office, and it would be a dereliction of duty to not oppose them if they believe so.
Yeah, it's a big cabinet, there are lots of things going on, coalitions need to be managed
Literally any combination of picks could be rationalised in this way. Tulsi especially seems like a ludicrously ill-thought through choice. She won't pass the Senate, her position on Ukraine is way off the reservation even by Trump/isolationist Republican standards, she's proven herself to be politically unreliable and unpredictable etc. etc. If the response to this is that, as you say, she has a 'grudge' against the institutions and will disrupt/destroy (parts of) them, she doesn't have the political chops for that. Her only political experience is as a backbencher and later twitter poster - not really the sort of person to 'take on' any deeply embedded institution.
HaroldWilson
26d ago
I'm not denying he was sacked because of the things he said in the memo, but rather that the thing that got him sacked was very specifically his statements on women's biological disposition to neurotic behaviour, less drive to succeed etc. Which it's hard to blame them for - it would seem less than conducive to a healthy working environment to know that your colleagues consider you naturally predisposed to neurotic behaviour, by virtue of being a woman.
He could easily have made the case against any of the specific policies without that element.
HaroldWilson
27d ago
Do I really care about rainbow flags everywhere and trans activists in the workplace sending out multiple emails every month about the importance of PRIDE!!!! and allyship and diversity?
Maybe I just can't see the forest from the trees because I myself am very left-liberal and agree with the implied politics of 'pride', but this description is pretty alien to the workplaces/institutions I've been in, but as I say perhaps I just don't notice it.
"Why do we need yet another Pride event? Nobody is harassing you here, of all places. (And why do we need entire full-time positions just to support and affirm you?)"
I think this would meet with a negative reaction partly because people who rock the boat in this way are perceived, rightly or wrongly, as tiresome and trouble-making, in a way that doesn't really have anything to do with LGBT issues specifically. People don't like people who won't go along to get along. I appreciate it's easier to say this when what I'm going along with aligns with my politics anyway, but the politics of workplace pride is usually pretty banal. 'Unnecessary' is one thing, but I don't think a rainbow lanyard implies support for a particular regime of gender identity law, more just an interpersonal respect thing.
I think a good analogy would be some scheme or event or whatever for veterans. A lot of Western workplaces (esp. the US federal government) do have some such schemes, which I have nothing against, but even if you are virulently isolationist/anti-Western in your foreign policy views, anyone who objected to such schemes would probably find themselves written off as a tiresome bore, not because anyone cares that much about veterans but because it would make that person seem self-righteous and self-important. Such pontification implies you think other people care what you think, which probably isn't the case.
like say, a James Damore
I think this illustrates the point - Damore really wasn't being personally imposed upon in any meaningful way. His objections were to firm-level hiring practices in relation to diversity. Obviously he's entitled to think they're unfair or whatever (and the mere fact of that objection doesn't seem to be why he was sacked), but on a personal level there was nothing he himself was being asked to do that might have run contrary to his beliefs. Not to say I agreed with all the backlash, much of which was a bit hysterical, but he certainly wasn't being asked to 'celebrate' anything.
"Why yet another Pride event?"
All of which it to say, I don't think saying this occasions objection or even outrage just because of the literal message of the words but because one wonders why you would bother to say something like that. The social rule you'd break wouldn't be anything to do with progressive orthodoxy, but rather the general rule of 'if you have nothing nice to say, say nothing'. Clearly some people like it and find it meaningful/valuable, so good for them and anyone who doesn't can ignore it and move on with their lives. Don't people have better things to do than complain?
HaroldWilson
27d ago
Why are you looking around the room to see who stops clapping first?
harassing and abusing other people for being insufficiently affirming is appropriate.
I would imagine this kind of behaviour, to the extent that it exists at all, is displayed by a vanishingly small proportion of the overall population to the point it's not worth thinking about. I live in an pretty left-liberal bubble, but unless you sought it out you would literally never be called upon to 'celebrate', or indeed make any comment at all, upon these kinds of issues.
HaroldWilson
27d ago
totally arbitrary foppsical and whim
How else does one account for nominating someone with a known scandal, then pulling the plug when people inevitably started talking about said scandal. How did he not see that coming?
grudges against the bureaucracies they will lead, or who plan to destroy those institutions
How does this square with Rubio, Burgum, Turner, Chavez-DeRemer and any number of other picks which seem basically ordinary Republican picks - Chavez-DeRemer even has decent/sympathetic relations with trade unions, especially by Republican standards!
HaroldWilson
1mo ago
Find four mainstream television shows that show intact, loving, and competent families
Well good television (and possibly all storytelling) thrives on conflict and problems - there are a zillion films and television shows set in wars, whether real or fictional, but that doesn't mean we all love war and want more of it, it's just a compelling backdrop for engaging media. Troubled families are simply more interesting than 'intact, loving and competent' ones.
HaroldWilson
1mo ago
https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1182/vote_118_2_00048.htm
Is Trump stupid enough to give them a chance once more?
I think Trump has lost a lot of leverage. In 2026 there's probably going to be a lot more mileage for Republicans in distancing themselves from Trump, not sticking to him.
HaroldWilson
1mo ago
I mean the last two charismatic nominees the Democrats put up won two terms and by pretty handy margins in all four cases.
HaroldWilson
1mo ago
A much worse echo chamber than I remember
An odd criticism to make on here of all places. Pots, kettles etc. Not that there isn't lots of disagreement on here, but you'll find that on places like /r/neoliberal too - but in both places it tends to occur within pretty narrow confines.
HaroldWilson
1mo ago
If we're going down that road of calling things stolen you can call any election stolen if you were so inclined. 2016 was stolen by Comey reopening the emails investigation, 2004 was stolen by the swiftboat lies (ok that one probably didn't tip the balance but probably neither did the Hunter Biden laptop), 1856 was stolen by Democrats claiming Fremont was a Catholic and would a lead a slave rebellion, etc. etc. 'Stolen' is a pretty extreme word that I think in common parlance would only apply if you thought there was something nefarious about the election/voting process itself.
HaroldWilson
1mo ago
Not because of that, just that she is pretty far off the reservation as far as apologia for Putin, Assad etc. goes, even relative to Trump, having blamed America for the invasion of Ukraine. Seems unlikely the more hawkish Republicans are willing to swallow this one.
HaroldWilson
1mo ago
Seems a bit of a moot point as there is surely no way she gets through the Senate.
HaroldWilson
1mo ago
There’s nothing inconsistent in thinking that those laws exist for a reason, and seeing the Trump case as a good example of why those laws exist, noting that they clearly aren’t having the desired deterrent effect, and then saying we need to do something about that.
Fine, that's a legitimate point (which I completely disagree with but let's leave that for one second), but it's still probably a bad idea to have a sitting President be the one to make that case. If there is one person with reference to whom we probably ought to err on the side of freedom of speech as regards libel, it is the President. If libel laws really should be broader, it should be very easy to make that case without having to centre it around a politician who dislikes what his media opponents say.
What accusations/lies against Trump from mainstream media figures do you think Trump is currently prevented from taking libel actions against that he ought to be able to if and when an 'opened' libel regime took effect (and that represents some higher/more sinister plane of lying that any previous President did not have to deal with)?
If the change is over the last five years, surely race can be of only marginal relevance in explaining that change?
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