TheAntipopulist

TheAntipopulist Formerly Ben___Garrison 1d ago

What? Are you saying Russia's occupation of Ukraine has been substantially less brutal than the US occupation of Iraq?

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TheAntipopulist Formerly Ben___Garrison 1d ago

Because most people won't care that much no matter what happens, as long as the Russians don't do something completely crazy like bombing nuclear power plants or nuking cities.

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TheAntipopulist Formerly Ben___Garrison 1d ago

Russia cares about worldwide public opinion to some small degree, it's just at a much lower level than you seem to think. If you asked the median Ukrainian if they thought Russia was fighting with "several hands tied behind its back", they'd almost certainly laugh at you. With the electrical bombings trying to freeze civilians to double tap strikes, there's a reason why citizens of the former brother-state of Ukraine are now calling Russians "orcs".

Russia is supply-constrained in many of its munition types nowadays. It doesn't have infinite rockets to just level every building. It's used its stockpiles and has to wait to produce more, then launch them in salvos. Even artillery shells are getting somewhat scarce (relative to the typical Russian way of war) which is why they bothered to get a bunch from North Korea.

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TheAntipopulist Formerly Ben___Garrison 1d ago

Russia has been more than happy to bomb historic buildings and civilian targets like shopping malls, apartment complexes, and hospitals. It hasn't moved the needle. They've also been happy enough to bomb bridges and electrical infrastructure almost continuously. There was supposed to be a minor truce at one point I think where they wouldn't bomb some electrical infra, but it fell apart almost immediately. They have limited themselves in attacking civilian ships and nuclear power plants though, as the risk of a nuclear meltdown is just bad for everyone. And yeah, they can't bomb logistics in NATO countries like Poland due to diplomatic repercussions, but otherwise Russia is fighting pretty much as hard as it can. I don't know why you think Russia is fighting with "several hands tied behind its back", as its not true for the most part. Russia even blew up that dam a while back (although they tried to muddy the waters and make it look like Ukraine could have done it).

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TheAntipopulist Formerly Ben___Garrison 2d ago

I don't really think this peace offer is real. Both Zelenskyy and Putin have been doing a goofy game trying to pin the other one as "the one who doesn't want peace" in the eyes of Trump. Most of Trump's public ire has been directed at Zelenskyy so far since much of the US right has nothing but searing, red-hot hatred for him. But Trump wanted to get a "deal" of some sort within the first 100 days and Putin's wargoals are still quite maximalist, so it was inevitable that Russian attempts at can-kicking peace negotiations would get old at some point. This is probably just a play by Putin to keep pinning the blame on Zelenskyy by leaving out the crucial component of security guarantees.

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TheAntipopulist Formerly Ben___Garrison 9d ago

Most leftists agreed that they were in total turmoil just a few months ago, but that soul-searching is pretty much done now. This article doesn't present a lot of evidence that any of this is true, but it matches what I've seen anecdotally. If you think it's wrong and that MAGA is still feeling as triumphant as they did on election night and that leftists are still just as dejected, feel free to make the case.

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TheAntipopulist Formerly Ben___Garrison 9d ago

I added another blurb to the end, hopefully that's sufficient.

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TheAntipopulist Formerly Ben___Garrison 9d ago

From a certain perspective, nothing Musk is doing here is all that objectionable. If two consenting adults want to exchange money for privacy or childrearing, I don't see why that shouldn't be allowed.

From another perspective though, a lot of this reads as pretty rapey. Submit to Musk's impregnation ultimatum or he'll financially pummel you? Not a good look, and it'll probably be another attack vector that leftists will wield against him.

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TheAntipopulist Formerly Ben___Garrison 9d ago

I've never gotten a captcha from archive.is. Are you on a VPN?

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TheAntipopulist Formerly Ben___Garrison 9d ago

You're correct. 4chan was a huge originator of memes back in the 2000s to the early 2010s. Then there was a burst with Trump's 2017 election. But since that, there really hasn't been that much creativity on the site. /pol/ feels like a Facebook group for Boomers at this point. Last time I checked /b/ was like 90% porn instead of say 30-40% it once was.

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TheAntipopulist Formerly Ben___Garrison 9d ago · Edited 9d ago

The vibes are a shiftin'

MAGA experienced a wave of euphoria from Trump's election until about around the time of the trade disputes. They felt like they were on top of the world, and that nothing could stop them. They notched a few wins against wokeness, but their major victory was in the realm of vibes.

It's increasingly seeming like those days are over. Scott Sumner's article details who's up and who's down over the past few weeks:

Who's Up:

-Neoliberals

-The experts

-TDSers

-The elite media

-Chinese and Canadian liberals

-Deficit hawks

-Principled conservative free speech advocates

-Integrity hawks

-Rules hawks

-Critics of bullying

Who's Down:

-Mercantilists

-The populists

-Anti-anti-trumpers

-Fox News

-Non-US nationalists

-Deficit doves

-Unprincipled conservative free speech advocates

-Issues people

-Autocracy advocates

-American exceptionalists

Edit for more opinions per moderator request: I agree with this article that the vibes have definitely shifted, as it's been clear in my (adversarial) conversations with MAGA that the mood has changed from combative (pre-election) to triumphalism (post election until a few weeks ago) and then back to combative with a hint of disillusionment (today). Any opposition movement is going to have principled believers and cynics, e.g. people who think we should have free speech as a general rule and people who only claim to like free speech but really want to censor their opponents when they come into power. Winning means these splits that could be swept under the rug get blown out into the open, and the pendulum starts swinging back the other direction. Hopefully we don't swing back to crazy wokeness, but I'd pretty much take any alternative at this point. A decade ago I would never have seen myself cheering for The Experts or The Media, but I've seen the alternative now, and it's just so much worse.

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TheAntipopulist Formerly Ben___Garrison 12d ago

The point is you should blame them for the response they had to the event, not the fact that the event happened under their watch. There's not much evidence to say that Biden instigated Russia to invade, and its obviously ludicrous to insinuate that Trump caused COVID.

Hunter was in Ukraine being corrupt. I've not seen any compelling evidence saying he was there to goad Russia to invade.

BLM riots breaking out during Trump's term isn't really Trump's fault. He might have instigated it to some small degree, but it was primarily caused by the high point of woke mania. I agree Trump didn't really respond to it (nor COVID more broadly) well, but that's a separate discussion

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TheAntipopulist Formerly Ben___Garrison 12d ago

Leftists have their own version of populism which is mostly focused on billionaire-bashing. The left hasn't been particularly interested in balancing the budget since Clinton, and he was basically forced to do that by a Republican Congress.

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TheAntipopulist Formerly Ben___Garrison 12d ago

I sincerely don't understand how you're coming to that conclusion based on what I wrote.

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TheAntipopulist Formerly Ben___Garrison 12d ago

Sure, there's always been a bit of dissent around the fringes (/pol/ has had similar debates). But these people are nowhere close to being in the driver's seat when it comes to MAGA. The tariffs debacle was really the ultimate test, as it was 1) a big policy that 2) affects something almost everyone cares about (the economy) and 3) had a pretty significant flip-flop in a very short timeframe. Basically everyone should have been pissed either when the tariffs were announced, or when the tariffs were significantly watered down.

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TheAntipopulist Formerly Ben___Garrison 13d ago

Yes, they've essentially captured the Republican party in its entirety by this point. Criticizing or even disagreeing with Dear Leader too consistently is seen as a crime worthy of (political) death, no matter the topic or how wrong Trump is.

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TheAntipopulist Formerly Ben___Garrison 13d ago

Your comment is excessively fatalistic. Countries undo their bad decisions all the time. Massive peacetime deficits were not a normal occurrence in this country for the first couple hundred years of its existence. Whether the US will cut its current deficits is up to the electorate. I'm not particularly hopeful about the prospect given that the current electorate is full of populist idiots that would punish politicians for making the correct long-term decisions vis-a-vis deficit reduction, but it's certainly theoretically achievable. Tariffs are not the way to get there, as the amount of money raised would be comparatively tiny relative to the damage done.

The US isn't printing "infinite money", as that would have resulted in hyperinflation (inflation of high single digits or low double digits doesn't count as hyperinflation).

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TheAntipopulist Formerly Ben___Garrison 13d ago

It's not the fact that it's the first term, it's that Russia's actions don't follow a predictable clock. Blaming Biden for Ukraine being invaded is almost as bad as blaming Trump for COVID happening under his watch. Russia is the primary determinant of how Russia acts. Maybe Biden withdrawing from Afghanistan slightly helped goad Russia to invade, and maybe Trump's threats might have had some small impact, but they were not the primary determinants by any means.

From a certain perspective all politics is can-kicking.

Not at all. If the debt explodes to 99% of bankruptcy during one leader's term, and the bankruptcy happens under his successor, would we say the first leader was great and only the second one was the issue? Obviously not. The first guy set the powder and lit the fuse, it doesn't really matter if the bomb only went off when he wasn't in charge.

While it's true to some degree that we can't know with perfect accuracy unless we had a time machine that let us rerun the presidency with the alt candidate, some actions are clearer than others, e.g. I doubt if Biden had another term that we'd have a tariff-induced market crash. Maybe Biden could have caused a crash in another way, but Trump owns his own stupid actions in this universe.

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TheAntipopulist Formerly Ben___Garrison 13d ago

I already give Trump credit for destroying wokeism or at least hastening it's demise. I also gave him credit for announcing a buildup of the military, which is a good idea. Hopefully he actually goes through with it and doesn't waffle.

I don't find balancing US trade deficits to be a priority. Something like reshoring (high tech) manufacturing though, sure.

Yes, it would be great if he could restore US shipbuilding.

Peace in Ukraine is highly contingent on what the peace looks like. If it's effectively "force Ukraine to surrender and give up huge swathes of land that they wouldn't need to if Biden were still around" is not a good peace. If it was "ceasefire at current lines, and Ukraine protected from future invasions by European guarantees", that'd be reasonable.

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TheAntipopulist Formerly Ben___Garrison 13d ago

No, I agree little green men were Russian. It's just a question of timing. Moldova was in the 90s, Georgia was 2008, Crimea was 2014. None of those happened under Obama's first term, nor Bush 2's first term.

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TheAntipopulist Formerly Ben___Garrison 13d ago

That's a stretch since Russia didn't invade any country during Obama's first term either. Even if you think Trump really did prevent a war during his first term he didn't do anything substantive to fix any underlying issues, so he just can-kicked.

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TheAntipopulist Formerly Ben___Garrison 13d ago

trump is "erratic", "stupid", "illiterate", and a "retard"

Erratic? Definitely. Stupid? In a sense. Illiterate? No. Retard? By the medical definition, of course not.

I prefer the term "buffoon" myself.

his supporters are all deep-throating cock-slobberes

I'm assuming that's supposed to be "cock-slobberers". I wouldn't call all his supporters that, but a decent chunk, roughly about 33-37% of the country certainly are. I'm confident enough in that assertion that I'd be willing to bet money on it, if such a market existed.

With these ideas in mind a lot of his allegedly "erratic" and "nonsensical" decisions regarding Tariffs, Zelenskyy, and Immigration start to look less "nonsensical" and more like deliberate tactical choices.

There's two big problems with the "4D Chess, Art Of The Deal, Trust The Plan" style of arguments.

It's deployed as yet another everything-proof shield for any of Trump's actions. Trump cultists desperately, desperately want any reason to love the man, so there's an extensive distributed search to come up with any reason to do so. This is just like how woke academics searched for any reason not to blame black people for their own problems, and ended up coming up with unfalsifiable ideas like "structural racism" as the cause for everything. When the motivated reasoning is this blatant, you should be suspicious of the purported results.
Where are the actual results? Trump has already had a full term where he was full of erratic actions. Where are his successes where the erratic behavior clearly led to a good outcome? Note that there are going to be happy accidents every once in a while, so we would expect at least a few good results even if we made an RNG simulator the President. Trump certainly had a few good results during his first term, but they were mostly just him acting like a conventional politician, e.g. Operation Warp Speed (which Trump later disavowed, because of course he did) or his SCOTUS nominations (more of McConnell's victory really, but Trump gets some credit for not buffoonishly sabotaging it in some way).

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TheAntipopulist Formerly Ben___Garrison 14d ago

Interesting video, thanks for sharing.

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TheAntipopulist Formerly Ben___Garrison 14d ago

I feel like you're not really disagreeing with me on the key argument. I'm sure there's thin slices of fat that could be cut across the USFG, but it's not going to be significant enough to meaningfully impact the deficit. So sure, cut the communist rap albums. Just don't pretend it's anything other than a performative victory.

And no, I want both parties to get serious about tackling the deficit. It'll likely require a compromise of both some tax increases and spending cuts, and by virtue of how the budget currently is, some of those cuts will almost certainly have to come from elder care. The best time to stop kicking that can was 30 years ago. The second best time to do so is right now.

If Trump attempted this, he'd probably screw it up in dozens of ways. But that's just Trump being Trump. Bears shit in the woods, and Trump is a buffoon.

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