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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 21, 2024

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How did Trump's Rogan appearance hash out? I don't have the heart to listen to it; I used to really like Joe, but he's picked up too many conspiracy bugs. The parasite load is starting to show, and I'm kinda tired of hearing about vaccines and the possible dangers thereof.

To the degree I'm angry at vaccines, I'm angry that the covid vaccines DIDN'T end the pandemic.

I turned it off after about 20 minutes. Just couldn't stand Trump rambling and repeating himself. Oddly, I find those traits of his to be kind of endearing in his big public speeches, but in the context of a 1-on-1 conversation I found them to be very grating.

I don't think the interview will hurt Trump, but I also doubt it will help him. He looked and sounded like an old tired grandpa, his makeup looked weird under the lighting conditions, and he didn't say anything particularly interesting to me, at least not in those first 20 minutes. He didn't seem like the bellicose, charming, unpredictable Trump that made him famous as a politician, he seemed really tired and out of it. Maybe he should have gotten more sleep before the interview or something.

Overall, I'd say that the interview is a disappointment compared to all the hype. Basically a nothingburger. You'll probably like it if you can imagine that it would be fun to hang out 1-on-1 with a tired Trump while he freely associates about random things. Otherwise you'll likely think that it's boring.

From what I saw, Joe Rogan did fine though.

I think the interview slightly helps Trump in that it does make him seem human, not like some kind of uber-Hitler. Unfortunately for Trump, it also hurts him by making him seem really really old and unfocused. One almost wants to put him to bed and give him some nice warm tea to soothe him to sleep when one watches it. I didn't see any signs of the fiery, snarky Trump who makes people think he'll do big things if elected.

I really have no interest in hearing trump speak at length. It's a personality/communication style thing. I don't even like listening to Rogan anymore, the sorts of guests he has on have drifted away from my interests.

I'm increasingly disappointed with the state of the Republican party and the discourse around the election in general. Everyone already shoted their shoots years ago and are running on leftover fumes.

At this point, my only dog in the race is that trump winning will probably make crypto go up.

I found the Rogan interview to be pretty boring, although trumps speech to the Chicago economic club was actually pretty interesting.

I don't think I have the patience to listen to it.

I saw a 2 minute video where Rogan and Trump were talking about voter ID. Rogan was making the point that there's no good reason not to require voter ID. You need ID to buy alcohol, you need ID to drive, nearly every other country has voter ID etc... Common sense stuff. Trump should have just let him talk.

Instead, Trump kept interrupting every other word. It was painful.

It's a great interview as a long-form conversation. Rogan and Trump go down many interesting paths, and both talk uninterrupted at length at various times. If you're still living in soundbite culture, I think that reflects worse on you than the interview. People are going to be talking about this for years.

Trump has a certain impatience to him. He sees where Joe is going and then interrupts to give Trump’s view. I think that is a mistake.

I'm about halfway through -- quite a lot of just shooting the shit, some MMA, some of Trump's usual talking points. Joe is being a very sympathetic interviewer, but he did sort of push back slightly on tarriffs/taxes/environmental issues.

Pretty bland honestly -- hard for anyone to claim that Trump is mentally incompetent when he can hold down such a widely ranging three hour conversation off the cuff though.

Yeah it isn’t so far must watch interview but at the same time Trump comes across like a decent guy and clearly not mentally incompetent. My guess is this doesn’t have much of an impact but if anything it is a very small boost for Trump (eg maybe 5-10k votes). But if that small boost is in the right area it could be consequential.

The thing about the way trump talks is that, in addition to talking about what he wants to, he opens a lot of nested parentheticals within a thought. When he has room in long form like this, he will usually close most of the parentheticals back up to the main point eventually.

I still think this is frustrating and tedious, and his parentheticals are usually just free association, rather than in service to the thesis.

But it’s clearly not word salad or mental incompetence.

It’s very very far from Kamala’s inability to put together a coherent point of view on the spot

It is funny. They talk about that. Trump called it the “weave.”

It’s very very far from Kamala’s inability to put together a coherent point of view on the spot

I don't really think this is because Kamala can't form or express coherent thoughts. I think it's more that she doesn't have the experience/particular aptitude of combining her own opinion and with what's most politically savvy into an elegant response. I think her less good moments are when she's trying to come up with the perfect politician's answer, and that's not an easy skill.