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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   28003 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 7, 2024

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Nobody's perfect, but Vance has been absolutely slaying hostile journalists the last few weeks.

Let's be real here. The other people in this race (Trump, Harris, and Walz) are dumb as bricks. On the other hand, Vance is everything the modal person on this forum would say they want. He's incredibly smart and also clued into the current meta.

But that's the thing about live interviews with hostile journalists. They are difficult. My guess is that a similar media tour would have the average Mottizen tying themselves in knots in a mush of self-contradiction. I know that for my own sake, I would not be able to maintain composure when faced by these prosecutors. But Vance does it effortlessly.

IMO, finding an example like this is kinda like criticizing Lebron for missing a shot in a game where he scored 50 points. Vance's ability to give off-the-cuff answers in these interviews is among the best I've ever seen for a politician. The guy can play. We'd be lucky to have him as President some day.

Trump, Harris, and Walz are all quite smart, as one would expect from people who've managed to get some of the most coveted positions in American politics. They're not particle physicists, but it's a strong selection effect. They sound dumb in public, just like Vance did in the OP, because the score they're optimizing for is the one from voters, and voters aren't smart and aren't noticing the things you are.

Vance is at least 1 standard deviation smarter than the others, probably more.

Kamala I'll concede does seem to be noticeably dumber than average, but Walz seems aggressively average and Trump clearly at least was smart-ish at one point, and he still doesn't come off as dumb.

Vance is smart, but he's also tied to Trump's jumble of inconsistencies and the 2020 election has been his weakpoint because of this- it was in the debate.

That is fair. He's certainly smarter than the other 3 by a whole league, which is why I found this error to be particularly galling.

It's more akin to Lebron missing a wide-open layup by tripping himself over his own feet.

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