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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   28212 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 14, 2024

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Shower thought: conditional on a Harris win in 2024, what are the odds that Trump runs again in 2028? I want a return to the dynamics of pre-Trump elections, where at least the candidates had the decency to act embarrassed at being shown to be corrupt, so the fewer times he gets at bat the better.

He'll have the existing huge demand for populist wrecker policies and style that most politicians can't supply, so the crowd will want him back. The crowd wants him back, so it seems like his narcissism would pull him back in, but his age might preclude it, and a loss might drive him away from Presidential elections via sour grapes.

I don't know much of his psychology, and of course there's four years of unknown unknown developments until then. What other factors can you all identify? How do we beat them all against each other to get a spread of probabilities?

where at least the candidates had the decency to act embarrassed at being shown to be corrupt

Hillary? Bill? Pelosi? Cheney? Obama's IRS investigated conservatives and smuggled guns and spied and I'm still hearing about how he was so pristine that he had to suffer attacks about a tan suit.

Trump already said that he doesn't see himself running again, and he seemed fairly emphatic. https://www.npr.org/2024/09/23/nx-s1-5123345/trump-wont-run-again-2028-election

Of course he could change his mind, but I haven't felt during this election that he has been as intensively engaged with the process, as he was the last two times. I think he is tired of running for President. And he almost died in Butler.

From what I recall of American history, no major candidate for President has ever gone through the election process more than three times, except for FDR. And FDR's smallest margin of victory was 7.5%, so he had it relatively "easy" compared to Trump. (FDR did also run for Vice President in 1920, and lost in a landslide.)

From what I recall of American history, no major candidate for President has ever gone through the election process more than three times, except for FDR

Henry Clay. He never quite grabbed the brass ring, but he was a major candidate for much of the first half of the 19th century.

1844 is the one that has to have hurt the most. So close, after so long, but not able to pull it out, once again.

Good one, I had forgotten about Clay!

I think that as an "outsider" candidate (yes he was president, but he's still very much outside normal political machinery), Trump benefited a lot from recent anti-incumbent trends. Covid, inflation, war, and general unhappiness has led to a lot of countries voting against their incumbents, which goes against normal trends where incumbents normally have an advantage. I doubt that will still be true in 2028, and even if it does the Republicans can probably find someone else by then who can harness it better than the guy who's been doing the same political schtick for 10+ years.

According to the SSA Actuarial Life Table, a seventy-eight-year-old American male has a twenty-five percent chance of dying in the next four years. However, the fact that Donald Trump has no chronic health conditions means his actual chance of dying may be lower than that.

Trump is an obese, elderly man - but that is confounded by the best healthcare money can buy. He's a teetotaler: he doesn't smoke, he doesn't drink, he doesn't use any hard drugs, as far as it is publicly known. He won't live to be 100 like Carter but he's got good odds of living another four years. He seems like the kind of man to be vigorous and active all his life, but one bad stroke or heart attack and he withers and dies in six months. Being politically active and campaigning is stemming the onslaught of dementia: retirement will kill him.

No Chronic health conditions and access to the best care available.

Jimmy Carter made it to 100 (for some values of 'made it') and I'd not be surprised if Trump is kicking at 90.

I upped by assessment of his health when I saw that recent video of him playing a round of golf.

Wow. He seems more aged/old than he comes across elsewhere but also somehow sharper and in better physical condition than I expected. A 50 minute Trump Biden golf trip video (alluding to their golf banter) would have actually been very cool and hunanzing for everyone I think.

Biden is not capable of playing golf unfortunately.

Whatever you think about their respective congnitive decline, Biden is physically frail in his old age in a way Trump is not.

I think they'd be pretty low. 82 is old, he'd be president til 86. After Biden that will be an impossible sell, Trump makes decisions emotionally but I think even he would see the futility in running in 2028. He also does listen to some of his closest advisors, family etc. and they'd certainly advise against it. I'd give it maybe 10% tops.

That said I'd give a return to pre-Trump election dynamics even lower odds than that. You'll have someone like Vivek or Vance running next. The neocons were jettisoned and joined the dems, Republicans are solidly the populist party for now and I don't see any changes in the political trends that caused the political realignment. If anything there will be long term effects of the recent mass migration that will fuel populism and racial spoils politics for decades to come.

Neocons jettisoned... Vance

Using a strict definition of neoconservative, Vance isn't. But he's exactly the kind of person who would have been a neocon during their era. It's why I actually kind of like him on a personal level, even though hypothetically I'd still vote in walz over him for president. Don't confuse paternalism for populism.

Vivek or Vance

That GOP needs somebody who can unite the politically incorrect technocrats, the religious interests, and the populists. Vance gets the first two, Vivek gets only the first. Abbott probably gets all three, Desantis or Cruz could probably position himself there as well. Kari Lake hits the last only; Hawley gets the religious interests and the populists, but he needs to reposition himself to get the technocrats.

Words cannot overstate how much a significant chunk of the GOP base gets the ick over Ted Cruz. There's a reason he's running behind Trump and in a dogfight for re-election in Texas.

That GOP needs somebody who can unite the politically incorrect technocrats, the religious interests, and the populists.

Towards the end of Francis Ford Copella's Megalopolis there there is an interesting moment where the lynching of a cross-dressing Milo Yiannopoulos/David Fuentes analog by a bunch of very "Trump-coded" construction workers who are sick of his grift is juxtaposed with an elderly banker shooting his trophy wife when he realizes that she had been unfaithful and was only using him for his money.

I feel like there is discussion to be had about to what degree technocracy of any stripe (politically correct or otherwise) has a place in a populist party/system. And make no mistake, the GOP is a populist party and has been for close to a decade now.

David Fuentes

Who?

Did you mean Nick?

Yes, i had a wire crossed.

I don't understand. You consider Milo Yiannapoulos and Nick Fuentes (I assume that's who you mean, I can't find any relevant David Fuentes) to be politically incorrect technocrats?

You consider Milo Yiannapoulos and Nick Fuentes to be politically incorrect technocrats?

Of a sort, yes.

Or more pointedly i don't think they nor the people people they apeal to are looking to vote Republican as much as they are looking to vote against mainstream Democrats.

I disagree with this characterization. Nick Fuentes has always run a vibes based group, his main victory was telling Ben Shapiro he wasn't conservative enough. He's also been calling himself a Christian Nationalist for years. Milo used to be a politically incorrect technocrat back when Allum Bokhari was ghostwriting for him but after getting cancelled by the mainstream conservatives and joining Fuentes (and then leaving Fuentes) he's publicly renounced his gayness and can be seen walking around with a breviary.

Despite their faith being obviously fake and ignorant I would still consider them part of the religious conservatives, although distinct from the main religious conservatives on account of being younger, antisemitic instead of philosemitic and almost completely irrelevant.

A feel like you're splitting hairs and the distinctions you are trying to draw are largely irrelevant.

Be that as it may, Elon is clearly a technocrat and clearly in the GOP coalition.

Abbott

Abbott is a cripple and will never seriously be considered for a presidential ticket for that reason alone.

He’s also managed to position himself as a serious winner, and weak horse strong horse.

It's been known to happen.

Indeed but there was a massive effort to hide and obscure it that would never happen today.

There is no going back to pre-Trump, any more than there's going back to pre-FDR. The milk is spilled, the eggs are broken, the die is cast. Trump is not the driver of this sentiment, he is just the only one willing to harness the latent desires of the electorate.

If you care about corruption, Nancy Pelosi's career of insider trading is right there. What you want has nothing to do with corruption, or you'd mention the net worth of politicians on a congressional salary. You'd mention book deals that are explicitly excluded from bribery and ethics policies. What you want is something else.

I think what you want is to return to the migration consensus, because that's what I think is the only true difference between politicians and parties these days. You know this is true because of what happened in France, where, when push comes to shove, there's the remigration party and there's everybody else. This explains the Never-Trumpers and the likes of the Cheneys and Mitt Romney. This explains the hysteria over Trump, and the uniparty. Maybe I'm wrong, but I this isn't about corruption, and Trump is not particularly corrupt when compared to other politicians.

Nancy Pelosi's stock market gains are not anything crazy. She just gambled on the tech market going up, and it did. The average congressperson's portfolio doesn't particularly outperform the market.

She gambled on the tech market going up, and also supported a lot of pro-tech-company legislation. I don't think pelosi is special, but that's definitely a conflict of interest. Politicians should be forced to put their assets in a trust like carter did, or better yet liquidate most of wha they own and dump all their money into an index fund.

Trump is not the driver of this sentiment, he is just the only one willing to harness the latent desires of the electorate.

But who else can? J.D. Vance? Seems kinda unlikely. Desantis? Tried once, failed... maybe he could succeed without Trump as opposition, but it seems doubtful. What the Democrats hope is not that the GOP goes back to pre-Trump, but that their base basically dries up and blows away, becoming an unaffiliated and impotently dissatisfied group who can be ignored electorally. The GOP keeps the neocon remnants that haven't gone over to the Democrats, plus a few paleocons and business republicans who aren't neocons, and as a result is so small that it never is able to mount a serious challenge again.

I mean it’s not necessarily going to be a Return To PreTrump. Somebody will take the crown simply because the sentiment precedes Trump and will be around without him. The MAGA crowd has now tasted real power, if you think they’re going to allow this moment to fade without any significant victories, you’re mistaken. And with that power available, someone (probably someone anointed by Trump himself) will take the cause and run with it.

I guess the question is how many MAGA presidents would have to lose in a row before they gave up?

But who else can?

Vance, DeSantis, Abbott, and Scott are the obvious candidates that spring to mind, and I wouldn't rule out Kushner or Don Jr. either. Unlike the Democrats, the Republicans also have a reasonably deep bench of young-ish state level officials of which i expect at least a couple to ready for promotion to the national stage within the next 4 years.

Recall that no one outside of Florida had even heard of DeSantis prior to 2016. (Sure he'd been a state rep. since 2012 but how many people know who thier own state rep. is much less who anyone else's is?)

Scott

Which Scott?

Alexander, of course. By 2028, his time in California will have tipped him over the edge.

He would never go into politics, lol. I'd eat my hat!

You can have your own views on the Republican bench, and I'll say as a Democrat, in theory, the GOP has plenty of possible statewide elected officials.

But just in the swing states, the Democrat's will have Rueben Gallego, Roy Cooper, Josh Shapiro, Gretchen Whitmer, Josh Stein and that's not getting into somebody like Wes Moore in Maryland. Now, I'm sure you likely don't like anybody I Just listed but those people are all statewide elected officials who have won or in the case of Gallego, will have won solidly in swing states.

Obama was a first term senator but he had unique magic. I’m not sure that Gallego is the same way. Cooper is a red state democrat who for that reason doesn’t have a progressive record to run on; this probably makes him a better national candidate, but seems likely to cause problems in a democrat primary. Shapiro and Whitmer are actual possibilities, although Whitmer is uniquely polarizing and Shapiro is likely to cause some issues with the Muslim vote.

I maintain that the top three Republican candidates by default going into 2028 are Abbott, Desantis, and Hawley. It’s possible Vance makes it onto the list, but it’d require a pretty good four years for him. I’d point to Cruz and Youngkin to round out my top five instead.

If Trump wins and there are a decent four years then it would seem that Vance is likely a shoe in for the nominee. He would be endorsed by a popular two term Republican president. I could see him making RDS the VP.

Out of your list, I think only Shapiro and Moore are actual national possibilities. The rest are some variation of Blue Scott Walkers or nobodies whose current media attention is pretty much an in-kind campaign contribution.

Shapiro makes sense but makes Michigan perhaps easily red.

The problem for the Republicans is what does the post-Trump era look like.

I love J.D. Vance. I think he's the smartest politician we've seen for a long time and he is clued in to the real problems we face in a way that the dinosaurs in both parties are not. He is probably one of the few politicians who has read Scott.

But let's be honest. He'd get slaughtered in the general. High IQ white guys like Vance don't win minority and blue collar voters.

Now that the Republicans have gone populist, they will need populism to win. It feels overly dramatic, but I am seriously worried that unless Trump wins we will have uniparty rule for a long time.

The GOP’s 2028 nominee won’t be any Republican that people are talking about today. It won’t be a white man. Given the inexorable demographic trends, it will be an Hispanic populist outsider. Think Nick Fuentes but with greater respectability, and who has ties to the military. America will want a military leader to deal with challenges posed by China or Iran. Someone Trumpian and with a bio that could fill out a webpage like this.

Hispanics don’t particularly want a Hispanic candidate, they want a strong white male leader who gets what he wants and has a sufficient number of Hispanics in his inner circle to prove he’s going to bear their interests in mind.

But let's be honest. He'd get slaughtered in the general. High IQ white guys like Vance don't win minority and blue collar voters.

I feel like this is something the Pumpkin-Spice class tells itself to justify not even bothering to try. Reagan, Bush II, and to a lesser degree DeSantis, all being clear counter-examples.

Maybe I'm over updating. I'm a huge DeSantis fan who legit thought that he would win the Republican nomination. He is massively popular in Florida. But he couldn't even get off the starting block.

So here's my updated theory. In the current climate, 95% of the media is enemy territory. You need some sort of guerilla strategy to get airtime. Simply having a great track record and great ideas isn't enough. Look what the media did to Vance. If he gets coverage at all in the media, it's heavily negative. Meanwhile, a midwit like Walz gets tons of positive coverage despite having a terrible record and being a phony to boot. So Republicans need to hack the media to win, which is what Trump did in 2016.

The idea that a conventional candidate like Romney or Bush Sr. could thrive in 2024 just seems anachronistic. The elites wholesale abandoned the Republican Party for the Democrats starting around 2010. Without their support, you need something special.

I don't know. I hope I'm wrong.

As i touched upon downthread, I think DeSantis' problem was that he was running as the "Trump-Lite" candidate against Trump himself, and that there was no particular reason for anyone already inclined to vote for Trump (or an otherwise Trump-ish candidate) to pick him over the genuine article.

I wonder how much Twitter changes this. It really does feel like Musk’s takeover of the platform has had major benefits for non-leftist media and organisation, and perhaps suggests strategies for the right going forward — most crudely, getting RW billionaires to buy space in the public forum.

He's 78. He'll be 82 in 2028. He's already showing signs of fatigue and cognitive decline. I wouldn't put it past him to still think he can make a run (I don't think he's capable of admitting he was beaten), but I can't see it being a realistic possibility.

If Trump doesn't win he will go to jail (80% certainty). I think this might constrain his ability to run.

But I think he might run anyway. Contra the people who say he is senile (a sure sign of TDS by the way) he is still very energetic and funny as hell. Last night's speech at the Al Smith dinner was a banger. The guy had a crowd of New York democrats roaring in laughter.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=XI0MUoW28VE

I could write some of the jokes out but they wouldn't do it justice. It requires a feel for the crowd and comedic timing that only a really talented performer can deliver.

He was fine. If you disengage from your partisan inclinations and watch Obama, Bill Clinton, even Bush I and II speeches they’re all often very funny and have good jokes. That’s what happens when you hire professionals to write these things for you. Trump’s delivery is fine. He does the job. He’s not embarrassing or bad. He’s also not great or anything.

I’ll be honest, I found his speech at that dinner very grating. Yes, his speechwriters supplied him with a couple of mildly funny lines. The lead-up to those lines was 15-20 minutes of rambling, political self-promotion (I’m aware that politicians routinely attend these functions as part of campaigning, but the talented ones are able to be far more subtle about it than Trump was) and mean-spirited, unfunny jabs at Kamala Harris, Bill DeBlasio, and Chuck Schumer. Now, look, I hate all three of those people. I’ve said far meaner things about all three of them than what Trump said. However, that’s totally against the spirit of an event like this.

I’m not sure that Trump really grasps the purpose of a “roast”. It’s supposed to be compliments disguised as insults. Celebration disguised as denunciation. Love disguised as hate. And the disguise is supposed to be thin enough that anyone with a modicum of subtlety and tact can easily discern what’s really going on. Whereas Trump genuinely loathes the people he’s talking about (and to) so there is no warmth.

And perhaps that’s inevitable, when you invite powerful and controversial individuals (like Chuck Schumer, or Bill DeBlasio, or Donald Trump) to such an event. Maybe the “roast” style is just fundamentally unsuited to accommodate differences of opinion and interests this divergent. Certainly I’m not gonna weep for Chuck Schumer’s hurt feelings, or Kamala Harris’ tarnished dignity. As someone with a lot of genuine love for roasts as a comedic/social art form (and someone who has participated in a few of them myself) the whole thing came of as very unseemly and inappropriate to me.

Oh man I read this the exact opposite of you.

I thought Trump was extremely, savant level charming. It honestly made me sad that most of our politicians are so terrible.

Him pointing out that he wrote Schumer his first check, or getting in the jabs and stuff against Eric Adams (even if they were all pre written, which I doubt since it sounded very much like trumps “voice”) made it feel like there is hope that we can all actually get along.

Maybe this is just crack to me since I’m an upper-class-adjacent (friends and I are now scheming to buy a table at this event) Catholic, straight, cisgendered white male with a wife and children.

I loved this event last night. I am legitimately in afterglow this morning from it text back and forth with the aforementioned friends.

Yeah, he's a bit of dick.

One interesting thing about this situation is that, supposedly, Trump decided to run for President when he himself was the victim of a mean-spirited roast by Obama at the Press Correspondent's Dinner in 2011. This whole thing could have been avoided if Obama had just resisted the urge. But it was too tempting.

Like Trump, Obama has great comedic timing. I laughed back then at Trump's expense much like I laughed at Schumer's this time. Being actually funny (a rare trait in politicians) excuses a lot in my book.

I totally forget my chain of evidence now, but I remember once seeing compelling proof that this isn't really true and is just a fun myth. Maybe it's because Trump ran for president several times before, maybe it was some leak from some insider who said it didn't make a difference. I guess it basically doesn't matter because the story that Trump ran to get back at Obama is so good that everyone in the future will believe it.

a rare trait in politicians

It's pretty common in Presidents for the obvious reason that you have to be top 1% in several aspects of politics to get the office. The only modern President I can think of (say, post 1980) who doesn't have a reputation for being personally funny and charming was HW (and, maybe, Biden, although he supposedly had his charms before decline set in).

The Zapruer Film of the 21st century. Obama had just given the order to kill Bin Laden. Seal Team Six was making final preparations as he spoke. The newly-released long-form birth certificate listed the time as 7:24PM, but on history's clock it was sunset, and the sun of the old world was setting in a dying blaze of splendor never to be seen again.

Contra the people who say he is senile (a sure sign of TDS by the way)

I don't think he's senile. I think he's showing signs of decline. Clearly not as bad as Biden, but come on. It's not TDS to recognize the man is old and shows it.

TSD has always cut both ways. People literally think Trump was sent by god to stop pedophiles and prevent the obvious communist takeover of America or something. Of course he has all the normal age related cognitive decline for a 78 year old. Honestly, I think he's beating the median.

I thought the same as you but today I heard a recording of him talking in 2014. I think his vocal pattern is just like that, regardless of cognitive decline.

All I can see is what I see. When I watch events like the Al Smith dinner I see a person far more present and capable than Harris (who appears absolutely haggard to me in her rare unscripted appearances).

Let’s not forget that age 60 is not exactly a spring chicken either.

I do agree that the odds of Trump falling off a cliff in the next 4 years are non-zero. You can't cheat father time. But, no, it hasn't happened yet.

I've seen Trump look sharp and alert, and I've seen him ramble and spew word salad. Maybe, like Biden, he has good days and bad days.

Harris, after watching her Fox interview, I think really is just dumb as a post. And yes, it's ridiculous that she's the "young" candidate.

But I remain of the opinion that Trump at 82 will not be in any shape to run for president, let alone to perform.

It truly is amazing how relatively dumb the two dem candidates are. I’d peg both of them as having around 100-110 IQ points.

Are you suggesting Trump is unique in his shamelessness?

Placeholder reply: I have thoughts on this, but I don't want to divert the evolution of the discussion yet.

Maybe I'm not evolving the discussion much but I think he is unique or at least extraordinarily unusual in his shamelessness.

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