MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
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User ID: 896
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
21hr ago
Trump is a 2nd-term President - he doesn't have any meaningful political rivals. I can see him wanting to punish DeSantis for disloyalty out of wounded ego, but I can also see him not bothering.
The political rivalry that now matters is the battle to succeed Trump - between Vance and DeSantis (and others, but as the sitting VP and the most popular conservative governor they are the best-positioned candidates for the 2028 primary).
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
21hr ago
And it is also obvious that replacing a Senator is a much higher-leverage move than replacing a house member, in general.
Also that replacing a House member requires a special election, which means that the Republicans are down a seat (with a single-figure majority) until the special election can be held, a period which will include a key budget battle. Johnson has already warned Trump not to appoint too many Republican House members - it isn't clear to me how much this is a joke and how much is a genuine worry about the size of his majority.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
1d ago
My impression is that GOPe political appointees were responsible for more obstruction and sabotage than the Deep State.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
1d ago
Government workers enjoy the opposite of that.
Depends on which part of the government, and which part of the country.
Looking at PMC-tier jobs, the military officer corps is more prestigious than comparably competitive private-sector careers in the red tribe, and comparably prestigious in the pro-establishment bits of the blue tribe. The career foreign policy bureaucracy is the other way round, of course. Teaching is almost always government work, and carries more social prestige than you would expect given the average SAT score of Ed school entrants. In my area (finance) government jobs are prestigious because quite junior people at a regulator or in the Treasury can make quite senior people at banks jump.
At the blue-collar level, law enforcement and various types of public safety work analogous to firefighting are pretty prestigious, as is the NCO corps (at least within the red tribe).
The point is that there are a lot of jobs that are "cool jobs" to a subset of the population that mostly can't be done outside the government, and very few of them come with the "government job" stigma. The "government job" stigma as I perceive it mostly relates to people doing and supervising routine office work (DMV staff being the paradigmatic example), who are assumed to be lazier and dumber than their private-sector counterparts.
There is also a set of jobs where the prestige doesn't change when you move between the private and public sectors because the job doesn't. A professor at a State university enjoys the same prestige as a professor at a comparably elite private university. A doctor or nurse doesn't gain or lose prestige if they take a job at a VA or municipally-owned hospital. If anything, a USPS (or Royal Mail in the UK) postman enjoys more prestige than a UPS/DHL/Amazon deliveryman.
The goal should be for people to react to someone saying they work for the feds with the same respect and fascination as say, a rocket engineer for SpaceX.
SpaceX is a small, elite firm, so the fair comparison is a small, elite part of the government. But I think in most bars in most of America, a Navy Seal is less likely to be buying his own drinks than a SpaceX rocket engineer.
In any case, the question isn't "How do you make a senior policy-making role in the Commerce department prestigious?" because those types of roles are already ultra-prestigious. The question is "How do you make the IT guy at the SSA who makes sure pensions are paid on time as prestigious as the IT guy at Google who keeps the site up?" - because those are comparably responsible jobs.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
1d ago
It seems to me that at some times and some places large-scale murder-suicide becomes a meme in a specific oppositional culture (see this Hanania essay for what an oppositional culture is). The best example is the cult of the "martyr" (i.e. suicide terrorist) among Salafi Jihadis in most places, but not in Saudi Arabia or Taliban-ruled Afghanistan where Salafism is not an oppositional culture. This started with the use of suicide terrorism as a not-obviously-insane tactic by Palestinians against Israel, but nowadays it is mostly copycats copycatting other copycats Four Lions style. As pointed out downthread, homegrown Islamic suicide terrorists in Europe were using cars for mass killings often enough that authorities are putting countermeasures in place and "diversity bollards" has become a meme.
Something similar has happened in US Red Tribe, with Columbine being the thing that the trails of copycats lead back to. If you are a disaffected Red Triber then shooting up your school or workplace is something the exists in the range of culturally conceivable options, in the same way that blowing yourself up on public transport or driving a van into a crowd is something that exists for a disaffected Muslim in western Europe.
Are we seeing the formation of an oppositional youth culture with a form of memetic murder-suicide in China? I don't know, but it wouldn't surprise me.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
1d ago
Does anyone have any ideas about what is going on with Marco Rubio as SecState?
Rubio's substantive political views are those of a swamp neocon on foreign policy and a conventional GOPe conservative on domestic policy. He isn't noted for his personal loyalty to Trump (to put things lightly). So what is Trump's motivation for appointing him? Rubio is a Ukraine war sceptic, but there are lots of Ukraine war sceptics with foreign policy experience who are closer to Trump. This looks like the same mistake Trump made appointing Tillerson in his first term.
This is sufficiently hard to explain that I am finding the left-wing conspiracy theory plausible (that the point isn't to get Rubio into the Cabinet, it's to get him out of the Senate, and Trump has already agreed with DeSantis on who will be appointed to the vacant Senate seat, probably a Trump family member).
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
5d ago
The election wasn't a 50/50 or a dice-roll. It was one way or another.
Before it happened, it wasn't. Even if you had universal legilmency and knew the political views of every voter as well as the voter knew themselves, the result could differ from the legilmency-poll because of differential turnout (which can be affected by unpollable things like the weather on polling day) or late swing (some voters actually change their minds in the 3-4 days between the field work being done for the eve-of-poll polls and the actual election).
If the exit polls are correct, the Brexit referendum was decided by people who made their mind up day-of.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
5d ago
He should get credit for being well-calibrated. If he is always right with his confident predictions and mostly right with his hedged predictions, then he is doing the right thing.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
5d ago
His big brag in 2016 was ultimately that he had herded towards 50/50 harder than anybody else.
He wasn't herding. "Trump can win this" was a contrarian viewpoint among people who see themselves as nonpartisan observers of public opinion.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
6d ago
I haven't played any Vicky or HOI titles, unfortunately (and I haven't played enough EUIV). This thread began with a Glitterhoof post, so I assumed we were playing CK2.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
6d ago
One of my favorite half-joking proposals: Either the US should get 50 seats at the UN, or the EU should get one. They are both unions of sovereign states under the umbrella of a larger entity, after all.
The individual states of the US are prohibited by the Constitution from signing treaties, which means that they can't join treaty-governed international organisations. If UN voting power was weighted by some combination of population and budgetary contribution (as it should be) then this argument would be otiose.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
6d ago
K. of Bavaria: 9.4⋅1011 people⋅km2 K. of Austria: 7.6⋅1011 people⋅km2
Per ck2wiki, Austria is a de jure Duchy and the Kingdom of Bavaria covers a much larger area than modern Bavaria, including most of modern Austria. So those numbers are too low for a CK2 Kingdom. I don't have time to boot up a game right now, but will check when I do.
Come for the politics, stay for the Paradox nerdery. Brett Devereaux for antipope!
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
6d ago
people who won
The person who won is an elderly, lazy reality TV star with somewhat idiosyncratic political views with a long history across multiple careers of not honouring obligations to people who helped him out. He isn't seeking re-election and doesn't have a plausible dynastic successor (the Kushners don't want it, Don Jr and Eric aren't up to it, and Barron is a long way from 35) so he doesn't need you for anything.
The people who think they won will have exactly as much say as Trump (or whoever controls access to him if he becomes too senile to make decisions) wants them to. They can say they won't take no for an answer, but they say what they want and Trump does what he wants.
FWIW, my best guess is that both the upside and downside potential of the Trump administration will be limited by Trump's laziness and lack of attention to detail. This is what we saw in his first term, and also what we saw with Boris Johnson in the UK, who is a somewhat similar character.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
6d ago
Given that a Duchy can be meaningfully sovereign (they have their own laws, for example), I don't see why the US States and Canadian Provinces can't be Duchy-tier titles. The average present-day population of a US state is 6 million, and the median is 4.5 million. The typical present-day population of a CK2 de jure Duchy in Western Europe looks like 2-3 million (much higher in England because of industrial-era population growth) vs about 15 million for a Kingdom. Also, the nearest equivalent to US states in terms of their shared sovereignty are the Electorates of the HRE, which are Duchy-tier. I think the US was a Kingdom-tier title at the time of the founding (given that it was plausible for the British Empire to vassalize it) and became an Empire in the usual way once it de facto controlled 80% of its de jure territory.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
6d ago
The GOP has a clear path forward, Trump has seemingly reinstantiated the Reaganist "coalition of doers", the coalition of people who add value to the economy rather than extracting it.
Much more so on X than in reality. Apart from Texas, the places that pay net federal taxes are all solidly blue, and the people who actually build Musk's rockets appear to be (based on published stats about who corporate employees donate to) supermajority Democrats. The biggest Republican success story (De Santis' Florida) has an economy that is dependent on attracting retirees who come with large fiscal transfers attached. Remember that Trump's stated economic policy (which his normie supporters are strongly in favour of) is to repeal the CHIPS act, impose 10-20% tariffs on any ASML EUV machines that Intel (or TSMC US) tries to install in their next fab, and focus industrial policy on trying to bring toaster factories back to the Rustbelt.
The problem for a coalition of doers on the right is that most of the doers sit in the libertarian quadrant of the political compass, whereas the easiest place to take votes off the Democrats is in the populist quadrant. In the UK, housing policy is sufficiently centralised that this problem blows up the Conservative Party about once every six months.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
6d ago
Agreed. The only practical benefit of sex-segregated toilets is that women don't have to walk past an operative urinal on the way to their stall.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
6d ago
The issue isn't just that she has to survive Trump - the issue is that the next Democratic president will probably face a Republican senate who may either be able to insist on a moderate pick, or simply hold the seat open for the next Republican president.
Given the overrepresentation of low-population red states, a Democratic Senate majority is an extremely unlikely outcome, and the one the Democrats just lost depended on Democrats who won in red states in the 2006 midterm landslide clinging on through a combination of incumbency advantage and strategic moderation. This makes the current situation a once-per-generation opportunity for Democrats to confirm judges.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
6d ago
Curse the job and family that stop me playing Paradox games properly.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
6d ago
None of the barracks emperors of the 3rd century (with the possible exception of Aurelian) are notable enough that the average classically educated liberal elite (ipse dixit) can remember their names, and even among the ones who can remember Philip the Arab, his foreign policy is more notable than his millennium celebration. 3rd century Roman history is sufficiently remote from the culture war that I would consider Wikipedia trustworthy, and it gives the celebrations one line in Philip's article.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
6d ago
It's a newer agency anyway and I think the actually useful parts can just go back to being standalone or parts of other agencies.
DHS is a department, not an agency. Apart from the TSA, none of its agencies (list) are new, or obviously surplus to requirements.
Abolishing TSA would obviously be a good idea - move the bits of aviation security that can't be privatised into the FAA, move the bits of port security that can't be privatised into the Coast Guard, and let ordinary law enforcement handle land transport security. But having the various border-policing agencies (CIS, CBP, ICE, Coast Guard) sitting in the same department is probably a good thing given how closely you want them working together.
[This may change if Trump is serious about using broad-based tariffs for revenue - in that case you probably have to unmerge immigration and customs and put customs into the Treasury so it focusses on its revenue collection mission.]
I continue to think the Secret Service should sit in the Treasury for coup-proofing reasons.
To troll the Deep State without handing too much power over to someone politically unreliable, Trump should make Tulsi Gabbard DHS inspector general.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
7d ago
Isn't this more of a Stellaris-playing administration, what with Musk and all?
In any case, I do not see Alina Habba as a future Pope.
It is worth pointing out that the Kingdom of Canada is still technically a vassal of the British Empire, so pressing the claim would mean with war with the top liege and all his vassals, which probably include nuclear Gandhi.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
7d ago
If we are making a distinction between dissident members of the establishment and actual anti-establishment candidates, any Kennedy clearly falls even more on the "establishment dissident" side than Trump does.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
7d ago
What do we think the odds are that a) Trump will try to nominate his horse for SCOTUS (not literally, but nominating a poorly qualified candidate who is personally tied to him the way Bush did with Harriet Miers)? b) The GOP senate majority will confirm her if he does?
First term Trump promised to nominate Fedsoc-aproved justices, and did. Second term Trump never needed to make that promise. My ill-informed guess is (a) 20% and (b) 60% but these are very much out-of-posterior probabilities. For purposes of settlement I would consider Aileen Cannon to be a horse, but not any other sitting federal judge. If Trump nominates Kacsmaryk, Pittman or O'Connor from the Northern District of Texas, he will be accused of nominating his horse, but these judges are right-wing judicial activists who are more loyal to the conservative movement than Trump personally.
MadMonzer
Temporarily embarrassed liberal elite
8d ago
The prediction markets obviously had a mild bias in favour of Trump in that:
- You needed crypto to use Polymarket, which means it has a more pro-Trump userbase who are vulnerable to wishcasting.
- There was an identified French whale who did not appear an entirely rational actor betting on Trump. So the "trust prediction markets" view is slightly more pro-Harris than the actual market prices.
The more I think about it, the more I think something like this is key. If Trump is self-aware, he knows that making nice to Mexico is a key part of a southern border policy that actually works. (Mexico doesn't want non-Mexican illegal migrants to the US to be stuck in Mexico, but they have a choice as to whether they keep them out of Mexico in the first place, or try to hurry them into the US.) And he knows that the person who is hands-on responsible for that needs to be not-him.
If the main job of the SecState in a Trump admin is to keep Mexico onside so they support rather than sabotaging US immigration policy, Rubio would be a good choice.
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