Skibboleth
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User ID: 1226
Skibboleth
11d ago
That seems... unnecessary? If you're going to pull a Spartacus and turn yourself in for someone else's crime, you don't need to go to all this effort. Unless it's obvious bullshit, I'm pretty sure the police will gratefully accept your surrender.
The world needs more humans, and fewer bots who are governed by algorithms
The world has enough humans. We need more bots, or at least people who recognize some higher principle than blind tribal loyalty. Especially when you are president of the United States. Nepotism is for peasants.
This is precisely the sort of behavior I despite Trump for, and while I think there's a dramatic difference in scale, that's not going to make me say "actually Biden doing it is good."
Would TheMotte really be here condemning Trump if he pardoned Don Jr. in a tax fraud case?
We don't have to speculate. Trump pardoned his father-in-law for substantially more egregious conduct.
To be fair to both Trump and Biden, this is honestly not that unusual. The core function of the presidential pardon power is exonerating politically favored individuals. To be less fair, it's not clear to me why this is an essential piece of executive discretion. I'd rather have amnesty be a congressional function where it is not dependent on the whims of one man and where you're going to get fewer instances of blatantly political pardoning of friends and allies.
Skibboleth
1mo ago
A focus on reducing obesity and preventing sickness would be a welcome change.
Reducing obesity is a goal, not a policy. Obama focused on reducing obesity. Didn't achieve much. What is the Trump administration and the GOP going to do? What policies that are both effective and palatable to a) Republican voters b) Republican elites do you expect them to pursue
What changes would you propose?
Tax sugar (or Ozempic4All, if you're feeling pro-injection and like free healthcare). Invest in public transit and rework urban planning (15min cities are back, baby) so people drive less (fewer car accidents) and have more active lives (-obesity, +basically every other aspect of human health).
Of course, these are already ballot box poison (and that's before we even try to do anything about suicide, where massive social engineering might be more politically viable than restricting access to guns). Which points back to what I was originally saying: low American life expectancy is revealed preference re: lifestyle. Policies to address these issues have been floated repeatedly and outside of a few locations they've been shot down.
(Not a clue, re: drugs. There's some proximate interventions you can do to reduce OD deaths, but that's just nibbling around the edges of the problem)
Cities like Chicago and DC have done literally everything that establishment figures say is good, and look at the results.
Can you be more specific? Which establishment figures, which policies?
Sidebar: I would note that the stereotypically very liberal states like CA and NY have the highest life expectancy; the worst states are in the ultraconservative Deep South. Again, I don't think this is really about policy (cf. Idaho, which is also extremely conservative), except perhaps insofar as state governments could spend money on ameliorating the consequences of Southerners' unusually unhealthy lifestyles but don't (generally with the support of their electorate).
I am not aware. Here in Seattle open air drug markets are tolerated and people who have been arrested for dozens of crimes (including violent crimes) are frequently released onto the streets without trial. It's hard to imagine a more lenient system.
Well I'm pleased to inform you that the world did not start three years ago, nor did America's durable problems with drug use and violent crime, nor its unusually harsh sentencing practices. The US has mass incarceration. It, rather notoriously, has more prisoners per capita than almost anywhere on Earth, including actual totalitarian regimes. It doesn't seem to have had the desired effect. Unless you can do something about the processes that produce new criminals, the problem isn't going to go away just by throwing more and more people in prison.
Skibboleth
1mo ago
Can you to be more specific about what effective interventions you're thinking about? The main causes of the European-American life expectancy gap is not a mystery, and I promise you it's not tripotassium phosphate or excessive vaccinations.
Like, stricter regulations on microplastics or whatever would be great, but the effects on life expectancy are going to be completely swamped by obesity, drugs, car accidents, and suicides. (Not to mention, the GOP traditional stance on environmental and health issues makes me think there's not going to be much appetite for imposing additional standards on industry).
I agree that America should be more like Europe and Asia by harshly prosecuting violent crime and refusing to tolerate drugs.
The US prosecutes violent and drug crimes far more harshly than Europe, as I'm sure you are well aware. Tolerance is not the issue.
Skibboleth
1mo ago
We spend by far the most money in the world and get the life expectancy of (checks notes) Turkey, Ecuador, and Albania.
It would probably help if Americans drove less, exercised more, were less fat, did fewer drugs, and stopped shooting each other and themselves. However, the public health interventions needed to address these cultural and lifestyle issues are fairly unpopular.
Skibboleth
2mo ago
Mark me down for reaction two.
Political coordinators are necessary in any political system. Otherwise, incumbent authorities exercise power by default. Political conflict has a cost, but so does a lack of political conflict. It's not just allowing motivated people to exercise more influence in politics; it's making it possible for people to concentrate their political power in a way that allows them to achieve goals. Think tanks are just one example of this, of course. Political parties serve similar role in different contexts, as do community organizers, church leaders, etc...
I'd also concur with Gillitrut re: think tanks in particular having a major role in operationalizing political beliefs.
Skibboleth
2mo ago
(1) other people's behavior is irrelevant to your own
It's highly relevant, because I am trying to figure out what the actual infraction is, and one of the ways I'm going to do that is by comparing what I did to seemingly similar behavior from others. Right now it looks to me like it is somehow less provocative to say "Trump supporters are so stupid they can't help believing in conspiracy theories" than it is to point out that someone has said this. (The former, while directionally atypical for this forum, is within normal parameters of discussion as far as content goes, but it nevertheless seems to be a more controversial claim than the latter).
You perhaps understand my confusion.
First off, "to me" and "seem" do some work here: reporting on your own perception in a very clear way does not excuse flagrantly bad behavior, but in the interest of encouraging honesty of self-report, it does provide some cover. Second, "supporters of those theories" is a reasonably specific group in this context, in a way that "conservatives" simply is not.
So you're saying that if I'd sprinkled in a few hedging words, there wouldn't be a problem? Or if I'd specified "Republicans" and "Democrats"? Forgive me if I am skeptical.
Now to what you said:
That is me characterizing the pattern of thinking I am talking about, as exemplified in the excerpt I quoted. I really don't know what you want here. If I actually thought that Trump supporters were dumb animals, I wouldn't be objecting to a double standard, I would be enthusiastically affirming it.
Skibboleth
2mo ago
Male decision making often tries to figure out what he thinks is true whereas female decision making tries to figure out what belief is most popular
Can you substantiate this? Because this really doesn't match my experience. Differences between men and women in terms of decision-making strike me as more about performing different virtues for different audiences. A "good" man is tough and decisive, so men making decisions try to look tough and decisive. A "good" woman is supportive and non-confrontational, so women making decisions try to seek consensus (or at least look like they have). Truth is a tertiary concern, or people already think they know what is true.
Skibboleth
2mo ago
You can be both an insurance salesman and a hunter. I knew quite a lot of people like this growing up (admittedly, in the upper Midwest, not Dallas). It was entirely normal for white-collar suburbanites to put on an orange vest, get a little drunk, and sit in a tree during deer season. Significantly, this is a sporting hobby. They may eat the deer meat, but they're doing it for some combination of social reasons, trophy hunting, and just liking hunting. Also significantly: this does not make you a rugged outdoorsman. If you were to make these people to survive in the woods, they would die.
I think it is probably true that the average homesteader is pretty conservative. The average conservative, however, is a suburbanite, and their nods towards that sort of lifestyle are affectation. (And again, lest it seem like I am beating up on conservatives, I think these affectations are mostly harmless and liberals certainly have their own set of silly affectations). They are not cultivating mannerbund or heroic virtue, or even trying to. They are grilling and shitposting on the Hawkeye Report forums.
Skibboleth
2mo ago
But when you additionally frame all that in a broad swipe at your outgroup
I don't think you understood what I wrote. I don't think conservatives are particularly low agency. I think there is a general tendency for everyone to act as if they are low agency. For example, the excerpt I quote from from @Goodguy's post, where he literally says they're too stupid to help themselves. So I'm a little unclear as to what the dividing line here is. You can say conservatives are too stupid to be held accountable, but you can't note that people do this?
Skibboleth
2mo ago
They certainly don't conduct themselves as if they know they're being lied to. The hard core of Trump supporters are far too celebratory and uncritical for me to believe that he is popular because they view him as honestly dishonest.
Skibboleth
2mo ago
What you live in a world where corruption is already rampant and the norm? One where you are going to have to bribe your way through no matter what. Consider yourself in that situation.
What if you don't live in that world, but want an excuse to act like a bandit, so you claim that you do?
Skibboleth
2mo ago
The parts of WV without West Virginians are objectively non-shitholes and actually pretty incredible. The inhabited parts, on the other hand, not so much. Rural squalor is truly an underappreciated part of America, especially in the South. I would say it's tragic, but they mostly seem to prefer it and who am I to tell people how to live? So godspeed and all, but don't try and tout its superiority.
I could just as easily ask where you see that. This sounds like a fantasy version of conservatism peddled by 4channers who haven't seen the sun in weeks. Mannerbund? I have never heard any normiecon talk about this. If you were to ask the average Midwestern conservative what that was, they'd assume it was a niche beer.
It is true that conservatives often fancy themselves rugged outdoors types, and nevermind the fact that they're an insurance salesman who lives in a Dallas suburb. This has about as much credence as the pseudo-intellectual pretensions you get from a lot of college-educated liberals, i.e. none.
It is also true that conservative political narratives tend to play up reactive grievance - Trump was/is present as a natural reaction to disdain from 'coastal elites' - while playing dumb about the phenomenal amounts of bile spewed towards others. And this is what I mean. Conservatives have this bizarre tendency to posture as if they had no choice, as if the unbearable rudeness and condescension of liberals forced them into their positions. And we're expected to take them seriously for some reason.
What are you looking at/seeing which leads you to draw the opposite conclusion?
For example: the quote I quoted. Other things in this genre: McCarthy blaming Democrats for Speakership chaos, as if it were the Dems responsibility to sort out GOP coalition woes. The endless Diner Safaris are another prime example. Or, for that matter, the fact that large swathes of rugged, independent Deep Red America are basically collective welfare cases that would've died out long ago if not for Federal transfers and spending.
The left sees itself as the upper class ruling elites and the conservatives are seen as lower class.
The left sees itself as a mix of hard-working urban middle class + discriminated minorities, while they see conservatives as a bunch of bigoted country club members.
I know of no one anywhere who believes that the Jews have space lasers
I know an unfortunate number of people who think Obama is a secret Muslim, that the government is trying put them into camps or controls the weather, that the 2020 election was stolen with millions of fake votes. Let me be blunt: both parties have more than their share of cranky stupid people, but the major difference is that the Dems have (correctly) corralled their idiots and generally have more of a problem with the galaxy-brained wing of the party. The GOP, meanwhile, has been taken over by the morons and wishes they had enough smart people to have a galaxy-brained wing. Saying it's just an act is cope.
Skibboleth
2mo ago
That might sound weird, given the murderous pedophile thing, but to me supporters of those theories generally just seem like they are stupid and prone to weird fantasies and LARPs but have always been that way, whereas people who are existentially shattered by Trump seem like they might have been different at one point, but then suddenly Trump appeared in the corner of their reality and traumatically inverted it into some new configuration of dimensions.
This epitomizes general differential expectations of conservatives and liberals. Conservatives are regarded (and to a shocking degree, regard themselves) as lacking in agency to the point of being almost animalistic. When a conservative raves about cities are shitholes full of degenerates and criminals, that's just how they are. FEMA death camps, Birtherism, Jewish Space Lasers, etc... They're dumb, they're ignorant, they can't help themselves and we shouldn't expect anything of them. We practically talk about Trump supporters in anthropological terms with all these fucking Ohio diner ethnographies. It's on the rest of us to manage them.
Liberals, though. They're supposed to be better, smarter, more accountable. Apparently. When they think a guy who says he wants to be a dictator wants to be a dictator, they're supposed to exercise some critical thinking and realize he's not serious, that's just him being bold and masculine. They're not supposed to say West Virginia's a shithole full of drug addicts even though it objectively is. They're supposed to be adults in the room.
Is it just that there is a large number of people in this country who fail to agree with me that Trump's chances of becoming a dictator are extremely small, that a man who has most key institutions against him, has the top military brass against him, and lives in a country where the military rank and file are probably not about to try to overthrow civilian authority, has very little chance of ending American democracy?
Yes.
The idea of Trump being the curtain call on American democracy is certainly one of the main things behind his psychological impact on people, but I have seen plenty of people who seem existentially horrified by him for completely different reasons. Some people seem to be driven out of their wits' ends just by the very fact that Trump is crude and vulgar rather than sounding like an intellectual.
A strong indicator that this ain't it is that the vast majority of national politician don't sound like intellectuals.
Skibboleth
2mo ago
I mean, that's arguably circumstantial evidence for @Ben___Garrison 's thesis that the 2020 stolen election narrative was a cynical ploy by an unscrupulous sore loser, because Trump was definitely saying the election was concretely stolen back then. He may not have believed it personally but it was useful for him to have followers who believed it. If nothing else, he needed to at least partially legitimize his attempt at a procedural coup - you can't concede that you lost and then try to subvert the outcome. And, as noted in OP, a stolen election narrative protects Trump's status in the party and in the eyes of his followers.
Skibboleth
2mo ago
People have been blaming their political opponents for bad weather since we've have political opponents and bad weather
Skibboleth
2mo ago
If you're trying to explain why Congress won't adequately fund Federal disaster relief it's not. Especially when you're trying to compare a supplemental that took half a year to negotiate with additional funds for a disaster that happened last week.
Stop spraying my tax dollars on other countries.
The socially optimal amount of American tax dollars given to other countries is non-zero :V
Skibboleth
2mo ago
The US is phenomenally wealthy - more so than peer developed nations. Despite this, it spend proportionally less, even after you factor out the large gap in military spending. This is a policy choice. We're not out of money. We're not brushing up against some hard upper limit of what a government can spend without wrecking the economy. We've chosen an arrangement where we get lower taxes and more consumer spending over higher taxes and more government services. This has consequences. Some of them are positive, but sometimes it's going to mean you underinvested in public services relative to the ideal case.
As I said in my other comment, it's not like Congress was forced to choose between $100b to UA and $100b to FEMA.
Skibboleth
2mo ago
And this “it’s only 1%-2% responses infuriates me.
This is why I mentioned that the same people who complain about foreign aid also don't want to spend money on disaster readiness and are just grinding an axe. What point is trying to be made? That we can't afford to fund FEMA because the Feds are giving all our money to foreigners? Objectively false (and I have uncharitable opinions about its roots). Is that we should spend less in general? If so, by all means say that, but it's pretty much the diametric opposite of "there's no money for our own citizens". It's saying we need to help people less. Maybe that's a more optimal outcome, but it's a very different point than what Stellula was bringing up.
But if you cut foreign side and ten other similar size useless programs, then you’ve made a real difference
Again, if you want to slash welfare, just say that. It's not like Congress was forced to choose between $100b to UA and $100b to FEMA.
Skibboleth
2mo ago
what are the odds his administration actually gets some new reactors built
Very low. On top of various regulatory burdens, nuclear has a major NIMBY problem where even people who like nuclear power often don't want it near them. Nuclear waste disposal facilities are even more contentious.
how do you feel about nuclear energy?
I think we should continue researching nuclear technology and keep active plants running. I have unreasonable hopes for the future of SMRs as well, but I think old school nuclear power's moment has passed and owes more present support to aesthetic preferences for mega-engineering and hippy-punching rather than practicality. We should have been building these plants 30 years ago, but as of right now solar + grid batteries is a vastly more fruitful line of investment (and that would remain true even if we magically slashed all the superfluous red tape (which we won't) and got a wizard to cast Protection from NIMBYs - a properly built nuke plant is still very expensive).
I've met people who have that energy, except 90% of them go around wrecking shit and making a mess while effete, low-agency people have to clean up after them. They're also usually incorrigible because they rarely have to deal with the consequences of "helping".
The relative cost of this goes down the more nakedly transactional the US gets in US-European relations. If your choices are to get bent over a barrel now by the US or maybe get bent over by a barrel later by China, cutting a deal with China is going to start looking a great deal more appealing.
A large part of US power is that it doesn't demand very much of its allies (occasional Article 5 moment aside); the more the US tries to treat its allies like vassals or tributaries, the weaker that soft power grows. And if you're stuck dealing with a transactional superpower, you might as well go with the one offering money instead of demanding it.
Give me your scenario for a US-EU war.
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