@Rov_Scam's banner p

Rov_Scam


				

				

				

					1 follower  

					follows 0 users  

					

					
joined 2022 September 05 12:51:13 UTC
				

				

				

				

				

				

					
				

				

				
				
				

				
User ID: 554


				
				
				

			

		

	














	


		


			



	

		

			

			

				

					

						

							
						

						

							
							

								
Rov_Scam


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				

				
				
				

				

					1 follower  

					follows 0 users  

					joined 2022 September 05 12:51:13 UTC
				


				
					

					
No bio...

				

				

				

				

				

					

					

					
					
					

					
User ID: 554


					
					
					
				

			


					

						
					



		

	

 











			
			

			
			

			




	


		

			
‎

			

				
				

					Hour
					Day
					Week
					Month
					Year
					All
				

			


			
‎

			

	
	

	 Hot Bump Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
	



		

	






	

		
		

		
		
	

	

  







		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for November 8, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
A Moronically Detailed Explanation


Buckle up, because the answer is complicated. In the first half of the twentieth century, there was a clear delineation between performers and songwriters. There were obvious exceptions like Duke Ellington, but writing and performing were considered separate roles. When recording, record labels would pair performers up with A&R men. The primary job of the A&R man was to select material for the performer, based on the performer's strengths and what they thought would sell. The repertoire largely came from American musical theater, and popular songs would be recorded by numerous artists. "Covers", as such, weren't really a thing in those days, as the earliest recorded version often wasn't the most well-known. For example "The Song Is You" is most associated with Frank Sinatra and his time with Tommy Dorsey, but it was first recorded ten years earlier. No one, however, thinks of the Sinatra version as a "cover" of a song by Jack Denny and the Waldorf Astoria Orchestra. Another way to think about it is that if the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra releases a new recording of Beethoven's Fifth next week, it won't be described as a cover of the Berlin Philharmonic's "original" 1913 recording. It's also worth noting that the heyday of the Great American Songbook was also the period when jazz was effectively America's Popular Music, and the focus wasn't so much on songwriting as it was on individual style and interpretation.


A critical factor in all of this is royalties. Every time a song is included on an album, played in public, played on the radio, etc., the songwriter gets a flat fee that is set by the Copyright Royalty Board. For example, if you record a CD the rate per track is 12.4 cents or 2.39 cents per minute of playing time, whichever is greater. So if a songwriter has a song included on an album that sells 40,000 copies, they'd get $4,960 in royalties. With the development of the album following WWII, the industry limited albums to ten tracks to keep royalty costs down. This is why the American versions of Beatles albums are significantly different than the British versions—the UK industry allowed 14 tracks. The Beatles hated this practice (and rebelled against it with the infamous "Butcher Cover"), and by 1967 they had enough clout to ensure that the American albums would be the same as the British albums.


The more important legacy the Beatles would have on the music industry was that they mostly wrote their own material. From the beginning, rock and roll musicians like Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly had been writing their own material, but the Beatles were making the practice de rigeur. A&R men were now called producers and were beginning to take a more involved role in the recording process. Beginning in the 1950s, Frank Sinatra was turning the new album format into a concept of its own. While most albums were simply collections of songs, Frank Sinatra had the idea to select and program the songs thematically to give the albums a cohesive mood. He also made sure his fans got their money's worth, and didn't duplicate material from singles. For the most part, though, albums remained an "adult" format, with more youth-oriented acts focusing on singles. While albums did exist, they were often mishmashes of miscellaneous material. A band didn't go into the studio to record and album; they went into the studio to record, and the record label would decide how to release the resulting material. The best went to single a-sides. Albums were padded with everything else—b-sides, material that didn't quite work, and, of course, covers recorded for the sole purpose of filling out the album. These would often be of whatever hits were popular at the time, and maybe a rock version of an old classic.


The Beatles and other British acts took up the Sinatra mantle of recording cohesive albums, but other musicians, particularly in the US, didn't have that luxury. The strategy of American labels in the 1960s was to shamelessly flood the market with product to milk whatever fleeting success a band had to the fullest extent possible. My favorite example of this trend, and how it interacted with the changing trends, is the Beach Boys. They put out their first studio album in 1962, 3 in 1963, and 4 in 1964. These were mostly short and laden with filler, but by the time of All Summer Long Beatlemania had hit and they were upping their game. As rock music became more sophisticated in 1965, Brian Wilson began taking a greater interest in making good albums, but Capitol still required 3 albums from them that year. By this time they were deep into Pet Sounds and didn't have anything ready for the required Christmas release. So they got a few friends into the studio to stage a mock party and recorded an entire album of lazy covers, mostly just acoustic guitar, vocals, and some simple percussion. It's terrible; even the hit single (Barbara Ann) is probably the band's worst. Two years later ripoffs like this were going out of fashion, but, with the band in disarray and no new album forthcoming, Capitol wiped the vocals from some old hits and released it as Stack-o-Tracks, including a lyric sheet and marketing it as a sing-along record. They were truly shameless.


During this period, there was still a large contingent of professional songwriters who specifically wrote for pop artists. The Brill Building held Carole King/Gerry Goffin, Barry Mann/Cynthia Weill, Neil Diamond, and Bert Berns, among others. Motown had its own stable of songwriters to pen hits for its talent (and when they had to put together albums they covered other Motown artists' hits, Beatles songs, Broadway tunes, and whatever else was popular at the time). But times were changing. By the time Sgt. Pepper came out in 1967, rock bands were thinking of themselves as serious groups who played their own instruments, wrote their own material, and recorded albums as independent artistic statements. What criticism of rock existed was limited to industry publications like Billboard and teen magazines like Tiger Beat; the former focused on marketability and the latter on fawning adoration. Rolling Stone was launched in 1968 as an analog for what Down Beat was in jazz—a serious publication for serious criticism of music that deserved it. Major labels clung to the old paradigm for a while, but would soon yield to changing consumer taste. Even R&B, which largely remained aloof from this trend, saw people like Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, and Isaac Hayes emerge as album artists in the 1970s.


This was the status quo that continued until the early 2000s. Pop music meant rock music, rock music meant albums, and albums meant cohesive, individual statements. Covers still existed throughout this period, but the underlying ethos had changed. If a serious rock band records a cover, there's a reason behind it. The decision to record the cover is an artistic one in and of itself, unlike in the 1940s, when you recorded covers because you had no other choice, or in the 1960s, when you recorded covers because the record company needed you to fill out an album. At this time, the industry itself was in a golden age, as far as making money was concerned. The introduction of the CD in the 1980s eliminated a lot of the fidelity problems inherent to analog formats. When they were first introduced, CDs were significantly more expensive to manufacture than records. But by the 1990s, the price of the disc and packaging had shrunk to pennies per unit. The cost of the disc itself was no longer a substantial part of the equation. And the increased fidelity led to increased catalog sales, as people, Baby Boomers especially, began repurchasing their old albums. These were heady times indeed.


And then Napster came along and ended the party. The industry spent the next decade flailing, going before congress, sued software developers, sued their own potential customers, and implemented bad DRM schemes, all in a vain attempt to stop the tidal wave. Music was no longer something you bought, but something you expected to get for free. After a decade of this nonsense, the industry finally did what it should have done all along and began offering access to a broad library for a reasonable monthly price. For once, it looked like there would be some degree of stability; profits went up, and piracy went down. Which brings us back to those royalties.


Earlier I gave an example where a songwriter gets paid a statutory fee for inclusion of a song on physical media. This doesn't work for streaming; if I buy a CD I pay the 12 cents but I have unlimited access to the song. Streaming works different because I technically have access to millions of songs, but the artist only gets paid for the ones I play. Paying them 12 cents a song doesn't make sense. So instead, streaming relies on a complicated formula involving percentage of streams compared with total revenue blah blah blah. The thing about royalties is, they come off the top. If a label releases an album with 12 songs by 12 different songwriters, none of whom have any relation to the label, that's $1.44 right there. But if the songwriter is also the performer under contract to the label, then the label can negotiate a lower songwriting royalty (these are called Controlled Compositions). But it gets better. Songwriting royalties don't go entirely to the songwriter, but are split between the songwriter and the publishing company. An artist signed to a label is probably required to use a publishing company owned by the label, so there's a 50% discount right there. A typical record contract grants a 25% discount on controlled compositions, so that $1.44 the label owes in royalties is down to 54 cents if the artist writes all his own songs.


In the world of streaming, where the royalties are paid every time a song gets paid, this can add up quick. There's no real downside to releasing a few covers for streaming as album tracks or as part of a miscellaneous release because the streaming totals aren't going to be that high. The problem comes when the recording becomes a hit; when there's a lot of money at stake, being able to recoup 62.5% of the songwriting royalties you'd otherwise have to pay means a lot of money. To be fair, most labels use outside songwriters to pen hits for their pop artists. But these songwriters are almost always affiliated with the publishers owned by the labels, and are thus cheaper on the whole than going out into the universe of available songs and picking one you like. The Great American Songbook existed in an entirely different world, where paying these royalties was an accepted fact of the industry. After the Rock Revolution, this was no longer the case, but the culture still existed, and the industry was making so much money that it didn't care. After 2000, extreme cost cutting became the norm, and songwriting royalties were an easy target in a world that had largely moved away from outside songwriters.


BTW I thought that "Fast Car" cover sucked. First, the song wasn't that good to begin with, and Tracy Chapman is possibly the most overrated singer-songwriter in history (aside from her two hits her material is the definition of generic). Second, a cover should try to reinvent the song in the performer's image. Here, it sounded like Luke was singing karaoke.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				U.S. Election (Day?) 2024 Megathread
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
What gives you the impression that Willie Brown was responsible for starting her political career? She dated him for about a year in 1994/1995, and she wasn't running for anything until 2003. She got a couple of apointments, but I don't think the Medical Assistance Commission and Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board are exactly known as incubators for top political talent. In any event, she hadn't served on either within five years of beginning her political career. It's also worth keeping in mind the actual dynamics of California politics at the time. By 2003 Willie Brown was viewed as corrupt, and any association with him was toxic. Her prior association with him was seen more as a liability than an asset. Take Willie Brown out of the equation, and there's nothing unusual about someone who's worked as a prosecutor for 13 years winning an election for District Attorney. There's nothing unusual about a District Attorney getting elected Attorney General.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 4, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
If it were as simple as just ending the Ukraine War then he would have done it already. Every peace proposal I've seen ends with Ukraine ceding massive amounts of territory and agreeing to never engage in any kind of security agreement. In other words, give up a bunch of shit now, and leave the door open for another invasion when Russia gets around to it. These terms wouldn't be acceptable to Ukraine, wouldn't be acceptable to Biden, and wouldn't be acceptable to Trump. If Biden tried to end the war on these terms Trump would immediately excoriate him for being weak, and he'd be right. I think Trump has deluded himself into thinking he can sweet talk Putin into a deal that would be acceptable to Ukraine, or at lease so reasonable that Ukraine would lose international support if they didn't take it. It would be great if it were true, but I think the end result of any peace talks would be Trump coming home in disgust and urging congress to send more military aid to Ukraine, possible including the kind of offensive weapons that Biden has been reluctant to give.


As for the National Parks, all of the ones that have been designated since Clinton have been scraping the bottom of the barrel. Take New River Gorge for example. I go there at least once a year, but there isn't a ton to do unless you're running the river. the park only owns up to the top of the hill in most places, which means that most of the park is a steep mountainside that isn't really suitable for any kind of development. There's an overlook at the main visitor's center, a short hike along the rim, and a couple old mining sites with varying degrees of accessibility and preservation (e.g. Thurmond is accessible by car and has a well-done museum, while Lower Kaymoor requires descending 800 steps to the bottom of the gorge on foot, and is just old mine structures). There's some climbing, and probably a few more things I'm not familiar with, but that's it. It works as a National River or Recreation Area but not so much a park.


The only large tract of Federal land that's an obvious location for a National Park is the White Mountains in New Hampshire. The problem is that this is owned by the Forest Service, and transferring it to the Department of the Interior would result in a bitch fight over timber rights, mining rights, and all the other mixed-use things that aren't allowed in National Parks. Even in New River Gorge, they limited the park to a minority of the available acreage so that hunting would be able to continue. Hence, it's technically New River Gorge National Park and Preserve, with the park itself only being about 8% of the total unit. National Park designations also require the approval of congress, which isn't going to happen. See the ongoing fight over Bears Ears and Grand Staircase/Escalante National Monuments, which can be created by executive order. They keep getting expanded and pared back, but neither area has anywhere near the facilities for congress to just designate a new park and be done with it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				U.S. Election (Day?) 2024 Megathread
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I don't get it. I can't reconcile "she ran a pretty good campaign" and then several paragraphs later read that her doing interviews was essentially a liability with nothing to gain.




I don't mean for her in particular but in general, though she was definitely bad at interviews. I just don't think that these sit-down interviews are that important when it comes to a presidential general election campaign. When one thinks of iconic campaign moments one thinks of iconic speeches, debate moments, commercials, etc. I am unaware of any iconic interview. Clinton had one in 1992, but that was during the primary, when exposure trumps everything else, especially for a dark horse like Clinton. In the general the only one I can think of was when Sarah Palin famously told Katie Couric that she reads all the newspapers and that she has foreign policy experience because Alaska is close to Russia. Not exactly what you're looking to get from an interview, though in fairness to the McCain campaign, Palin needed to do one because she was virtually unknown at the time she was tapped. There was also Jimmy Carter's famous Playboy interview, which is widely credited with tanking his support among Evangelicals. The rest of these, as voluminous as they are, seem to be forgotten. If you can think of an exception, I'd love to hear about it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				U.S. Election (Day?) 2024 Megathread
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


She’s abrasive, transparently insincere, and has had consistent staff turnover issues for her entire political career. What about any of this is “likeable” to you?




You may not like her personally, but some politicians (Hillary Clinton, Liz Warren, Ted Cruz, Ron DeSantis, etc.) have articles written about whether they're likeable enough to be president. People weren't writing articles about Harris's likeability problems.




Willie Brown




How was this exactly a skeleton. She dated the guy 30 years ago. He may have been technically married, but he'd been separated from his wife for a dozen years by that point; the relationship wasn't exactly a secret affair. Her "sleeping her way to the top" consisted of a couple appointments to state commissions nobody's heard of a decade before she ever ran for public office. In any event, it wasn't a big enough deal for the Trump campaign to make an issue of.




When asked on The View - the most friendly and favorable environment imaginable - whether there was anything she would do differently from (massively unpopular incumbent) Joe Biden, she said that “Nothing comes to mind.” How is this not a catastrophic gaffe? It was the easiest softball question in the world and she couldn’t handle it.




This is one of those things that could have gone either way. She could have distanced herself from her boss and repudiated his policies, saying that if she had been in charge she'd have done things differently. However, for her to suggest that Biden was a bad president would have been incredibly disloyal to the man who was more responsible than anyone for putting her in the position she's in. It would make the current administration look more dysfunctional than it already does. That's not a good look when you're running as an incumbent member of that administration. Furthermore, Biden isn't exactly Jimmy Carter. Inflation is down from where it was. The market is up. Unemployment is low. Illegal border crossings are comparable to Trump-era levels. To the outside observer it should look like the Biden administration faced significant challenges and met all of them. If there was any gaffe here, it was the failure to compare this to the Trump administration, which spent three years on easy mode and fell flat on its face as soon as it hit a major crisis (his response to which was largely to deny that a crisis even existed).


The argument here isn't that the Biden administration didn't make mistakes; it most certainly made several big ones. But while honesty may be the best policy when it comes to personal relationships, it's lethal in politics. If you want an example of an actual campaign gaffe, Mondale in 1984 said "Both of us are going to raise your taxes. The difference is that I'll admit it, he won't." Regan didn't end up raising taxes, but four years later Bush famously promised not to raise taxes, but raised them anyway. Bush won his election; Mondale didn't. I'm unaware of any politician in American history who has won reelection after owning the mistakes of his first term. I'm not saying it didn't happen, but if it did it's extraordinarily rare. I have seen plenty of politicians justify obvious mistakes and get rewarded for it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				U.S. Election (Day?) 2024 Megathread
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Though I wouldn't let the Republicans off the hook here either. Do they even have any nationally well-known politicians with a positive net approval rating?




It's an interesting question, especially insofar as any politicians have positive net approval ratings. Part of the problem is that a lot of well-liked politicians aren't that well-known (even if they're nationally known to people who pay any attention at all to politics). So, if by positive you mean that a majority of Americans have a favorable view of them, there is exactly one: Arnold Schwartzanegger, who has universal renown and a 59% approval rating, though a lot of this may have to do with his acting career. Number two is Trump, at 42%, also with universal recognition. If you adjust for recognition rate (and assume that those who have heard of the guy are representative of the country as a whole), Tim Scott is around 50% and Adam Kinzinger is at 65%. That's it for Republicans who have at least 50% recognition. While Scott may have a future in the party, Kinzinger's political career is pretty much over.


Just for comparison, I looked at Democrats, too. Jimmy Carter is the most popular at 61% with near-universal recognition. Others in the same boat are Obama at 59% and Harris at 54%. For those with less than Universal recognition we have Bernie Sanders (53% favorability), Liz Warren (52%), AOC (51%), Mayor Pete (54%), Cory Booker (53%), Tim Walz (55%), Gretchen Whitmer (53%), Hakeem Jeffries (56%), Mark Kelly (54%), Beto (51%), Amy Klobuchar (51%), Raphael Warnock (53%), Katie Porter (63%), Tammy Duckworth (55%), Jon Ossoff (58%), Jamie Raskin (55%), Claire McCaskill (55%), Jim Clyburn (51%), Sherrod Brown (52%), and Wes Moore (54%), plus a few others who are irrelevant. Some notable exceptions are Josh Shapiro and John Fetterman, who are all below 50%.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				U.S. Election (Day?) 2024 Megathread
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
On Kamala the candidate: She was likeable, i.e. she didn't have the Hilary Clinton problem of coming off as a bitch. She didn't have any major skeletons in her closet. She had a good resume. The downsides were that she had a reputation for being indecisive and carried the burden of a stillborn presidential primary campaign in which she said some things she would end up regretting. These aren't huge, though. All candidates have weaknesses, and she had fewer than most. I'm counting her invisibility during most of her vice-presidential tenure as neutral, because visibility can be a double-edged sword. Had she taken up some initiatives that were important to her but largely uncontroversial, it would have helped, but I don't think she intended on running for president again, so I don't fault her for not doing this.


On the campaign: She had a good ground game. She campaigned relentlessly in places where she needed to, and she didn't take any votes for granted. She didn't lean into unpopular rhetoric. There were no huge gaffes. She iced Trump in the debate, making him look like an incoherent old man. Most of the campaign criticisms she got are understandable, but ultimately unconvincing. She was certainly light on policy, but so was Trump, and it was pretty clear that the election wasn't going to be about policy. There was no reason to throw out bold proposals that might go over like a lead balloon. She didn't do many interviews, but I wrote about this before — the risks of her doing them outweighed the benefits. It's unlikely that anything she says on 60 Minutes is going to move the needle very far in her direction. If she does a good job it's just another boring political interview. If she does a bad job then it's news. No reason to risk it. Rogan's even worse because it's going to go 3 hours, probably veer far off-topic, and will be released unedited. There are a lot of things like this that you can argue she should have done differently, but they all would have been risky and with no certain payoff. She could have done a better job explaining the positions she took in the past and why she repudiated them.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 4, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
If we're talking the COVID vaccine, that ship has sailed. Bringing up 2021 policy concerns in 2026 isn't going to cost anyone their office. If you're talking vaccines in general, I doubt the antivax Republicans are large enough to primary anyone for any reason, let alone lack of a confirmation vote. And keep in mind that they only need a few Republican votes, and 13 GOP Senators won't be facing reelection until 2030. Ultimately, though, it won't matter, because Trump isn't even going to nominate the guy.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				U.S. Election (Day?) 2024 Megathread
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
In addition to prognostications, I'd like to voice my disdain for these postmortems. You can't expect to win every election. Kamala Harris was a good candidate who ran a good campaign. She wasn't a great candidate who ran a great campaign, but that's an unrealistic expectation. She won the states she was supposed to win and lost the battlegrounds by a few points each. Obviously not an ideal outcome, but far from cause to hit the panic button and start realigning your policies. The most annoying thing about these postmortems is that the inevitable conclusion is that the losing party needs to adopt more of the policies of the winning party. The second most annoying thing is that they act like one election is a real crisis point for the Democrats/Republicans and that the party is screwed long-term unless they make the necessary changes.


To the first point, I can offer an easy, lazy counterargument. Most of Biden's 2020 votes didn't go to Trump; Democratic turnout was down in general. The problem wasn't that they lost voters to Trump, but that they lost voters, period. Maybe part of the problem was that she didn't give her base enough reason to turn out? Maybe going full woke would have stirred the far lefties to action? Maybe the problem with black turnout could have been remedied by embracing BLM more? There was some discussion here yesterday about how blacks continued to vote 90% Democrat, despite claims that Trump was winning black men, and there was a post on Reddit today suggesting that the Democrats had a problem in that pandering to black voters turns off Latinos. The problem theories like this is that you don't want to alienate your base. Look at NASCAR. In the early 2000s it was gaining popularity at a breakneck pace. Bill France's though he could stoke this emerging market by introducing rule changes that would make it more palatable to the masses. The strategy massively backfired, as these changes didn't particularly appeal to the public, and most long-time fans hated them. The response was to dick with the rules even more. At this point, America's fastest growing sport has become a confusing mess that only total fanboys like my dad can follow. I'm not trying to suggest that making some changes toward moderation isn't a bad idea, but that there's an argument to be made to the contrary.


To the second point, there's no suggestion that the Democrats are screwed long-term because of one election. They ran an unpopular incumbent and were forced to change horses mid stream. Something could easily happen in the first half of the new administration that leads to a Democratic midterm blowout. Trump's stated economic policies put us at serious risk for inflation, and if that happens, people are going to want a change. Any number of things are possible. Following the 2006 midterms and 2008 Obama landslide, pundits were saying that without major changes, the Republican Party was doomed long-term. Two years later they did exactly nothing and got one of the biggest legislative reversals in history. But then they lost the presidency in 2012, and we were told that they were becoming the party of old white men and they needed to appeal more to minorities to have any chance. Then Trump came along and was massively more anti-immigration than any Republican in recent memory and won the presidency. Maybe if the Democrats had done things a little differently this time they would have won, but maybe not. If they keep losing elections by increasing margins I'll concede that it's time for a change, but we're nowhere near that point.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 4, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I doubt any of these, with the possible exception of Massie, plays any significant role in a Trump administration, to wit:


    

  • 

    RFK isn't going to be the next FDA Commissioner. His opinions might be popular among a certain portion of Trump's base, but they aren't popular among the GOP senators who have to confirm him. His complete lack of qualifications for the position give cover to any Republican looking to vote against his confirmation, and it's hard for me to see a vaccine hawk like Jim Justice voting for him in any event. If he gets anything, it's likely to be some made-up position that doesn't require Senate confirmation where he's given a title but no power, no budget, and no staff. He'll do this for 6 months or a year until he realizes it's pointless and resigns. Then he does the usual song and dance about how Trump doesn't really believe in his cause and cast him aside after making grand promises.
    

    • 

  • 

    The chances of Tulsi getting a cabinet position like Secretary of State or Defense or National Security Advisor are even lower than those of RFK being FDA Commissioner. The Republican PArty, Trump's base included, is still dominated by people who supported Bush's foreign policy. Trump's stated pacifism is attractive to a growing number of people, but the average Republican is still more Bellicose than the average Democrat. A lot of older Republicans I talk to still criticize Obama's Iraq pullout. I've had countless arguments about why invading Iran isn't a good idea. Tulsi's a known Assad apologist, yet just prior to Trump's ascension Republicans were criticizing Obama for not taking action in Syria. Combine that with Trump's fixation on "looking tough", and someone like Tulsi is a nonstarter. I'd be surprised if she gets any position at all.
    

    • 

  • 

    Like I said, this one has a decent chance of happening. That being said it only has a chance of happening because Massie is at least a sitting Republican congressman, and it's a position where he can't do much damage. Raw milk availability is largely a state-level issue, it doesn't break along partisan lines, and removing Federal regulations would only have a small effect on a market that's already tiny (most of the raw milk consumers I know buy it specifically because it's local).
    

    • 

  • 

    I'm going to lump Ron Paul together with Elon Musk, whom you didn't mention, because it's pretty clear that the only role either of these guys would have would be in reducing government waste. It's also clear that neither of them would have a full-time position. Paul is 89 an retired, and Musk has to run something like 50 companies. My guess is they'll co-chair a bipartisan blue-ribbond panel on government waste and inefficiency which produces a pretty report showing that we could reduce the deficit by 0.3% if we cut these 9,000 programs, which report is presented to congress and promptly filed circularly after each legislator finds something in there that benefits his district.
    

    • 



The problem with a lot of this speculation is that it involves fringe figures who are hoping that profile will substitute for actual influence. People like John Barrasso and Thom Tillis don't want to see people who are further to the left than most Democrats placed in positions of power because they flattered Trump's sense of appealing to a broad coalition. In 2016 there was a lot of talk about Trump appointing Giuliani Secretary of State, and giving people like Steve Bannon and Sarah Palin prominent roles. Giuliani, loyal past the point of any logical sense, had to settle for Trump's personal attorney, and that was before he tanked his reputation. Bannon's career in the White House lasted approximately 20 minute, and Palin was never under serious consideration. Trump has a pattern of bringing people into his fold and making promises (or at least suggestions) that he conveniently forgets when it's time to actually pick someone.


There's some speculation that he might act differently this time because in 2016 he was too reliant on establishment advisors whose choices ended up burning him, and that he may choose to chart his own course this time. I don't think this is possible for two reasons. First, everyone listed above has locked horns with Trump in the past, and three of them are former Democrats whose stated views are still more liberal than the median Republican. There's no reason to believe that either Kennedy, Gabbard, or Musk would be any more of a Trump sycophant than Rex Tillerson or Mark Esper. Second, any position that comes with real power needs Senate confirmation, which makes most of these people total nonstarters.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				U.S. Election (Day?) 2024 Megathread
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Well, I guess it would explain their hesitancy for admitting they were voting period, for Trump or otherwise. I would find it hilarious if the election were somehow overturned based on illegal Latino voting in Texas and Arizona.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				U.S. Election (Day?) 2024 Megathread
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The idea is to optimize voting to favor the preferences of the voters who do research on the candidates and make informed decisions, as opposed to voters who turn out for Harris or Trump and then either vote their preferred party the rest of the way down the ticket, arbitrarily pick candidates, or leave the rest of the ballot blank. If you're only voting for one elector per district plus two at-large, it's easy for the parties to narrow in on their preferred candidates and run TV ads reminding you that a vote for Gene is a vote for Trump or whatever, and the uninformed electorate will have an idea of who to vote for. This would still be the case in the smallest states, but as you increase the total number of electors the less oxygen any individual candidate can get. By the time you get to 10 EV states it would be pretty much impossible for anyone to remember all the names based on osmosis alone, and the opportunity for osmosis is limited by the dearth of advertising. Ideally, the number of votes allowed would be based not on available seats but on percentage of the total slate, so that even small states would still have to potentially contend with large numbers of votes. The point is to maximize the amount of noise so the remaining signal comes from people who actually did their homework and are familiar with all of the candidates.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				U.S. Election (Day?) 2024 Megathread
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It would actually be degenerate, two-bit proprietress.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				U.S. Election (Day?) 2024 Megathread
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
To actually answer your question:


I think 1 had a lot to do with it, though this is only partially attributable to Biden, and there's no indication that Trump would have done things differently. I think 2 definitely exacerbated the problem, but more importantly, it prevented the Biden Administration from taking early action to get it under control. The initial price spikes were in oddly specific sectors of the economy that were easily explainable as supply chain disruptions, and the administration wasn't about to treat inflation as a systemic problem and risk triggering a recession. I don't think 3 had much of an effect other than a temporary spike in gas prices, and I don't think 4 really applies since COVID caused so much disruption.


Three factors you didn't mention are first, that COIVD suppressed consumer spending somewhat, which let to a release of bottled-up demand once the pandemic ended. Second, COVID caused temporary job losses in the service industry. This also happened at a time when a lot of boomers were approaching retirement age, and the disruptions caused the retirements to come in a huge wave rather than being spread out over several years. these positions were largely filled by laid-off service employees, causing a labor shortage that was felt most acutely at the bottom of the labor market. $15/hour went from something people were advocating legislation for to something that places like Sheetz had to offer just to get applicants in the door. Finally, the Federal Funds rate was at zero for two years. While aggressive cuts were probably necessary at the beginning of the pandemic, once "the new normal" had set in there was no reason to keep them at zero. Once vaccines became widely available in the Spring of 2021 and concern over COVID was waning fast, the Fed should have begun gradual rate increases with the goal of eventually bringing them back to pre-COVID levels, assuming the signals remained good. Instead, they let things ride until inflation became apparent.




If that's the case, does Trump deserve to be the one people turn to for relief? Or did he cause it to begin with during his last year as president? Is he actually going to make anything better now?




Trump may have played some part in this but given the situation, I'm not going to allocate blame among politicians. The problem with making this an electoral issue is that the problem has largely been solved; inflation is back down to within a point of the Fed's target rate. If people are expecting prices to return to 2020 levels then they're effectively asking for a serious recession. Inflation near 10% is annoying but it's something we can deal with, provided it doesn't last too long. 10% deflation would require something akin to the Great Depression; not just a recession, but a recession that we don't even try to mitigate. Trump's actual policy proposals and general tendencies show him making inflation worse. Tax cuts are inflationary, and we can expect some of those. Tariffs are inflationary, though probably not as much as critics suggest. He has a tendency to push for lower interest rates whether they're called for or not. And he's unlikely to balance these with corresponding spending cuts; in 2019 he pressured the Fed to cut rates during an economic expansion and has repeatedly suggested that the president have more control over monetary policy.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				U.S. Election (Day?) 2024 Megathread
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Following a discussion with friends about the electoral college last night, I came up with an idea that would select for higher agency / lower time preference voters without venturing into dangerous waters. Basically, if we're not going to have direct election of the president then we should do away with any pretense that we have direct election. My ballot shouldn't say Harris or Trump if I'm really just voting for a predetermined slate of electors to cast the real ballots on my behalf, especially since these real voters are political muckety-mucks whose names aren't even widely publicized. We should get to vote for these people directly, and they should all be selected at-large. If California has 54 electoral votes, then California voters select up to 54 names.


To take things a step further, political parties won't be listed for any of the candidates. You just get names. Running for elector is just like running for any other position; have a certain signature requirement and fee and adjust things enough so the ballot has a reasonable number of names. So when people go to vote they're presented with a ballot on which they have to select numerous candidates from a slate of names without any party identifier. There's already precedence for this; if you vote in off-year elections in Pennsylvania you'll occasionally have to vote in some nonpartisan election for the board of a special district where you have to pick something like 5 names from a list of 20, and unless you really care about the makeup of this board there's a good chance you haven't heard of any of them unless you happen to know them personally. To my knowledge no one has ever complained about this.


Furthermore, the Founding Fathers hated the idea of political parties and would be appalled to discover that they've become a semi-official part of our system of governance. I'm not advocating the abolition of parties, but I don't know why our electoral apparatus needs to provide what is essentially free advertising to people who haven't otherwise paid attention to the election. In my system, electors can advertise who they plan on voting for, and newspapers, the League of Women Voters, and other groups can publish voter guides, and everyone gets full media access. But you have to do a modicum of preparation beyond selecting one of two names that have been pushed on you ad nauseum for the past six months. Some people just won't vote, and others will arbitrarily select names, like many do in the elections I described above. But a sufficient number of actually motivated people will do their research and fill out their ballots, and these are the people who will likely decide the election.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 4, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Good write up. Most IRL Trump supporters I talk to, especially younger ones, seem to be of the opinion that we shouldn't be sending any aid to Ukraine because it's not our war, etc., etc., and I think that general sentiment on the Right has seeped into discourse about Trump since he's been ambiguous on the issue. Trump's actual statements, though, lead me to believe that he still thinks of himself as a master negotiator and that he has the kind of influence with Putin that the Democrats don't, and accordingly he will be able to hammer out a settlement that both sides can live with.


Kudos to Trump if he can pull this off, but I'm pessimistic about the chances. The biggest problem is that any settlement would likely involve freezing the front lines where they are now, and it isn't in Russia's interest to do that. Problem number one is that they're currently making progress — slow progress, but progress — and any pause gives the Ukrainians the opportunity to further entrench their front lines. Problem number two is that the Ukrainians control part of Kursk, and while the area controlled isn't huge, I doubt Putin would be willing to put any of his own territory under semi-permanent Ukrainian control. He can dilly-dally when it comes to retaking it, but publicly acceding to its continued occupation would have negative political consequences.


As far as Kursk is concerned, there could theoretically be some horse trading involved, but it's unlikely that Zelensky would be willing to give up his greatest strategic asset in exchange for a comparably sized piece of the Donbas. Trump could certainly use the threat of withdrawing aid to force a deal down Zelensky's throat, but he'd probably only do this if the deal objectively made sense, i.e., if Zelensky was turning down obviously favorable terms because he wanted to continue the war. As much flack as Trump has gotten for cozying up to Putin, I highly doubt that he'd be willing to give up the store in Ukraine. Add in the probable necessity of some kind of security guarantee for Ukraine, and you have a recipe for failure.


In short, I think the end result of all of this is that Trump tries to hammer out a deal, Putin makes demands that are obviously preposterous, the talks fail, Trump comes back and claims he made progress, and the current levels of military aid continue unabated.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				U.S. Election (Day?) 2024 Megathread
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
McCormick's problem is that he basically hitched his wagon to a Trump win without actually jumping on the Trump Train. Notice that none of his TV ads are actually about him. Or Casey for that matter. They're about Biden and Harris, and only about Casey insofar as he supported Biden's policies. They do nothing to appeal to the kind of voter who would split his ticket. Maybe this is a good strategy, because we've become so polarized that no one who votes for Harris will trust a Republican senator to not vote in lockstep with the MAGA nonsense du jour. But the guy is basically Romney, and going full MAGA is probably both a bad strategic move and one that goes against his principles. So all he could really do was dunk on Kamala and hope that the R next to his name was enough to win. It might be, but man, was his campaign depressing to watch.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				U.S. Election (Day?) 2024 Megathread
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
For simplicity's sake, we'll assume that Harris won the same states Biden won in 2020. In your scenario, neither Harris nor Walz will have been formally elected, since that doesn't happen until the Electoral College meets on December 17. So, as far as Federal law is concerned, no election has even taken place yet, and the electoral vote will determine the presidency. The party has plenty of time to find new candidates and convince everyone that the Shapiro–Whitmer ticket doesn't represent a significant change. A problem arises, though, in that some state laws require the electors to vote for the candidates whose name appeared on the ballot.We don't have to worry about Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Georgia, or Illinois, since those states allow electors to vote for anyone. We don't have to worry about Wisconsin, Oregon, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland, Delaware, or Virginia either, because although those states technically prohibit faithless electors, the votes are still counted.


As for the others, it would depend on whether the state legislatures could enact emergency legislation that either created a one-time exception or implemented an alternative system in the event that a candidate was deceased. If that couldn't be done, then things get goofy. The enforcement mechanism for most of these laws is that the faithless elector is replaced with one who will cast a ballot for the winning candidate. This presents us with two scenarios. In the first, the Secretary of State certifying the election accepts the faithless ballots, and is then sued by Trump for contravening state law. the state Supreme Court then issues a ruling affirming that since the intent of the law was to ensure that the will of the people is recognized by the electors, given the extraordinary circumstances, allowing the faithless ballots satisfies that will better than simply invalidating the majority of the votes.


In the second scenario (which would only happen if it was clear that the other way wasn't going to work), the electors simply elect Harris/Walz and treat it as though they both died simultaneously after becoming president. If the Democrats have won the House in this scenario, then Hakeem Jeffries becomes president. If the Republicans win, then a huge argument erupts over how the next speaker is going to nominate Trump for vice president and immediately resign so that Trump can become president. Unfortunately, there's no one believed to be sufficiently loyal as to give up the presidency in what is likely their only shot at it. So we spend the first few weeks of January in a huge floor fight where most of the Republicans nominate Mike Johnson again under the premise that he'd just be the president and could go from there, while the hardcore MAGA wing takes turns with a bunch of sacrificial lambs who nobody trusts to actually resign when the time comes and who would then face the added hassle of having to re-win their House seats if they actually did resign.


In the meantime, Inauguration Day is approaching and we don't have a speaker. This scenario only works if the Republicans also have the Senate (otherwise Trump would never get confirmed as vice anyway), so Chuck Grassley would become president. Since Grassley is approximately 10,000 years old there would be more credible calls for his resignation, but he'd surprise everyone and either stay on or nominate someone other than Trump. But these are pretty murky waters so that's just a theory.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 3, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
From what I can gather, Alabama only recognizes the Democratic and Republican parties for state and Federal races. the Libertarian candidates on the ballot are all for local races.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 3, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I guess the remaining 1 percent prefer something else entirely.




As a first-born son who has spent a good part of his career untangling complex heirships involving people who died with 9 kids, who each had 7 kids of their own, etc. for a hundred years, I am strongly in favor of primogeniture.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				U.S. Election (Day?) 2024 Megathread
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


...more anti-democratic and blatant than anointing Kamala the Democratic nominee without a primary process?




I don't understand this complaint. The nominee is formally selected by convention, and has been since the 1830s. Primaries played no role in the selection of delegates prior to 1972; prior to then most states didn't even have them, and the ones that existed were mere "beauty contests" to demonstrate voter preference to the actual delegates. There was a brief period when Democratic delegates were bound to the candidate they had been selected for unless the candidate formally released them, but that hasn't been the case since 1984. When Biden dropped out of the race, the same delegates who were selected in the primaries were the ones who participated in the convention. They could have voted for anybody, but nobody besides Kamala made any serious play for the nomination.


If Donald Trump's assassination attempt the Saturday before the convention had been successful, do you seriously think that the Republicans would have postponed the convention so they could hold anything remotely resembling new primaries in all 50 states? As presumptive vice-presidential nominee and with Biden's endorsement, at least Kamala was an obvious choice. The GOP didn't have this luxury, and Nikki Haley, Ron Desantis, and anyone Trump had talked to about possibly being vice president would have all been jockeying for position. You're also talking about a party that's still hanging on to a caucus system that nobody outside of the relevant states seems to understand.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				U.S. Election (Day?) 2024 Megathread
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Pinging @FiveHourMarathon and any other fellow Pennsylvanians for thoughts on some of the downballot races that nobody else on here cares about (and that very few Pennsylvanians actually care about.) Obviously, who you vote for is your own business, but I always find the dynamics of these races interesting.


First, is there something about the AG race that manages to filter out major party bozos? I'm sure the requirement to be admitted to the PA Bar has something to do with it, but there are plenty of bozo attorneys in the state. This is honestly the one race where I have zero preference on who wins. I get the impression that DePasquale is trying to use the office as a stepping stone for a gubernatorial run once Shapiro goes on to bigger and better things, and Dave Sunday comes across like one of the brass-balls types whom you hope isn't the father of your high school girlfriend, but other than that, they both seem qualified and reasonable, especially given that their platforms are so similar. I got the same impression last cycle, where I voted for Heather Heidelbaugh over Shapiro. She represented the kind of old-style Pittsburgh Republican (like Bill Green or Jim Roddy) who would go on public affairs programs nobody and have serious policy discussions with their Democrad friends. This is a dying breed, as was evidenced by Melissa Hart's utter failure in the GOP primaries, where she dropped out a day before the party nominated Doug fucking Mastriano.


Next, is there something about the Auditor General race that attracts Democratic perennial candidates from Philadelphia? In 2020 the party nominated Nina Ahmed, whose lone credential was serving on Philadelphia City Council and who didn't seem to even know what the Auditor General actually did. Even the Libertarian candidate was a CPA who chaired his township's audit committee. This year, we have Malcolm Kenyatta, another non-accountant politician who previously got a lot of the early endorsements in the 2022 Senate primary before being a total non-entity in the primary. What qualifies him for the position is beyond me. At least DeFoor is an actual accountant.


For the Treasurer race, there's Stacy Garrity, who seems to be doing a competent job but who I can't vote for on principle because I refuse to vote for anyone who makes military service the centerpiece of a campaign for an irrelevant row office. She also seems to be flirting with election denialism and comes across as uncomfortably Trumpy. I can't vote for the Erin McClelland, either, because, in addition to being unqualified, she's out and out said that she plans on using the state spending power for political ends and won't sign checks if she doesn't agree with the purpose. I ended up going with the Forward Party candidate, who is somehow even less qualified than the two major party candidates (he's a career tennis instructor), but this is a race where I can confidently throw my vote away.


Now for some quick hits: The Libertarian AG candidate went to Point Park College University and a Law School I've never heard of. He evidently works at firm in Downtown Pittsburgh that's notorious for requiring their attorneys to be in-office 9 hours a day and pays like 50k/year. PCN interviewed him from his office via Zoom and he spent more time explaining libertarianism than he did explaining what he would actually do in office or why anyone should vote for him.


The Constitution Party candidate for Senate has a series of self-produced YouTube ads where he says you should vote for him for Senate and Trump for president. It seems like poor party discipline for him not to be endorsing Randall Allan Terry for president, though to be fair, Mr. Terry is not on the ballot in Pennsylvania.


I base my downballot election decisions on voter's guides published by various outlets including The League of Women Voters, the local NPR station, and major newspapers throughout the state. Regardless of my opinions on his politics and the fact that he lives in Connecticut, Dave McCormick is automatically disqualified for not responding to any of these questionnaires. He's the only major candidate for any office who apparently thinks that this is beneath him. At least with his advertising budget it's understandable. What's not understandable is the third-party candidates who don't fill these out. When you have no money to advertise, and no one who is going to vote for you based on party affiliation alone, the least you can do is respond to one of these. Every candidate on the ballot gets one and participating is completely free. It's probably the only chance you're going to get to tell most people about yourself. This is literally the least you can do to mount a campaign, so if you don't do it I can't vote for you, unless there's some super-compelling reason to.


I also want to comment on State rep Leslie Rossi, who is my least favorite rep in the state house and who is emblematic of what is wrong with Republican party in general. In 2021 the rep in the district where she resided died unexpectedly. Her qualification for office: She owned the Trump House. During the 2020 election she painted a farmhouse she owned (but did not live in) as a massive Trump advertisement. What's surprising isn't that a bunch of morons elected her in a primary (morons from both parties get nominated all the time), but that she was specifically chosen by the party over the widow of the late representative. House GOP leaders in Harrisburg seemed pretty incredulous when they were asked about it. There was some discussion also about her being an "entrepreneur" but a friend who lives in her district told me that her husband actually runs the business and mentioned something about an extramarital affair that I can't remember.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 4, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Just to give you my own story: I still don't have a Real ID. In PA DLs are good for 4 years. I renewed mine in 2017, but PA wasn't Real ID compliant until 2018. Nonetheless, family members were telling me I sould upgrade anyway because I'd need it to fly come 2020. Now, in addition to the paperwork, a Real ID costs double what a regular DL costs, so there's that. And I don't fly often so using my passport isn't too much of a hassle anyway, since that's always acceptable ID. Then COVID delayed the full implementation, and when my DL came up for renewal in 2021, the DL Centers were closed and they were doing everything by mail (my license still has a 2017 picture which looks nothing like me, for various reasons). I'm sure if I really needed it there would have been some way to get one but it wasn't exactly a pressing concern. Then I lost my wallet this past summer and had to get a new license and my parents told me I should do the Real ID then but I wasn't wasting a Saturday in the summer getting a driver's license and had to go on my lunch break and getting a reprint takes long enough as it is that I wasn't about to overcomplicate things by getting a Real ID at the same time. So maybe when my license expires again next year I'll get one, but I don't really see any compelling reason to.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 4, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Let's suppose the GOP controls both houses and the presidency.




Traditionally, GOP opposition to mandatory ID has been a bigger hurdle than anything else. I say bigger because there hasn't exactly been a ton of enthusiasm from the left for this idea either, and it's never been a huge issue.




How hard can it be to issue an ID card to every American citizen?




If our experience with Real ID is any indication, pretty hard. The law requiring it was passed in 2005 and was supposed to go into effect in 2008. No states were even compliant until 2012, and the full implementation date — when you'll actually need a Real ID to board a domestic flight — has been pushed back repeatedly, currently scheduled for sometime next year. But even then it won't actually be required until 2027; you'll be informed of the noncompliance but allowed to board anyway. This, of course, assumes that the deadline doesn't get pushed back again, and while I won't speculate on the chances of that, only something like half of the people even have Real ID compliant identification.


To give you a sense of what's involved, I helped a woman do this a couple years ago. She had been married twice, and used the last name of her second husband. So while she had her birth certificate, it didn't show her legal name. I had to go to the marriage license department and pull two marriage licenses, both from the 1980s, and then go to the prothonotary to pull the divorce from the first marriage. This is why I roll my eyes when people like JD Vance talk about going door-to-door looking for people to deport. I'd imagine the number of native-born citizens who can immediately produce proof of citizenship upon request is a lot lower than some seem to think it is. I know where my birth certificate is right now, but a lot of people don't. And I'd imagine that the number of married women who have certified copies of their marriage license with their personal papers is vanishingly small (no, the certificate they give you doesn't count).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 4, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
To be clear, I'm not trying to suggest that polling is useless, or that it shouldn't be done. I just don't think we should put to much stock into polls insofar as they concern the average voter.