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Yarvin seems allergic to making minor nuanced claims. Go big or go home is his approach. It makes his writing more interesting, but also wrong more often.
I wonder what the reasons are for the LA times owner saying don't endorse Kamala. It could be that the owner likes Trump, but it could also be a more mundane business decision, like "neither of them has spent money advertising with us, and we shouldn't be a free whore".
Yarvin is being a pretty good scientist here. He has a theory of history (one that actually holds up under scrutiny, unlike the Narrative Theory of History) that can actually lead him to making pretty accurate predictions about what kinds of things will happen— and he can do so making those predictions before the fact, something the Narrative Theory cannot do. Yes, he’s wrong more often, but it’s because he’s actually making a falsifiable prediction, not a prediction that can be nuanced into meaning whatever he needs it to mean. The “nuance” of the Narrative is exactly an attempt at avoiding falsifiable predictions. If they’re “wrong” it’s because they were misunderstood and if you just understood how complicated the system actually is, they were right, as always if only you understood the nuances.
The “Historian Predicted a bunch of Presidential Elections” bit is to me, exactly that. The keys are vague. Kamala can be an incumbent. Wars mean exactly what they need to mean. The economic indicators used can be anything. So even if he’s wrong, it’s actually right, but you missed the nuance.
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For what it's worth:
https://x.com/DrPatSoonShiong/status/1849217132183060705
His very online progressive daughter retweeted that as well, along with an excerpt about how he got arrested for participating in anti-apartheid activities.
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The LA Time is not a Trumpy paper. There's actually interesting family drama between the owner - an immigrant South African/Chinese surgeon and pharmaceutical inventor who is reputed to just want to get mainstream influence and respect, and his VERY limousine-liberal/progressive daughter Nika. Nika had initially taken a heavy hand in pushing news coverage at the LAT in a very progressive "abolish the police" direction, but there has been some backlash. Her dad does not share her ideological priors, it seems.
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The rumors I saw when this dropped were that the owner has some kind of family connection to Palestine, but I don't know whether those rumors have since been substantiated.
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Arguably, Kamala has been so noncommittal about policy that there is nothing there to endorse. She could walk up to the podium on Inauguration Day, pull off a lifelike rubber mask to reveal that she was actually Donald Trump in disguise all along, and she still wouldn’t technically be violating any of her stated campaign promises.
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FYI, gotta approve that one, it's showing as filtered for me. Get that mod hat on and let that post through!
(Or don't, I don't actually know what's in it.)
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The LA Times owner's daughter is a very vocal Palestine supporter and is closely involved with the paper.
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