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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 21, 2024

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It's not a good interview. Trump is a very boring person to listen to. It would be more interesting if someone who knew more about politics and economics would interview him and challenge more of his assertions, but that might just get hostile and he might refuse to answer. He used every opportunity to go off topic and avoid answering direct questions.

Here's Cenk Uyger's take, which seems pretty positive for someone who pretty clearly isn't suffering from pro-Trump derangement.

De gustibus nil est disputandum. shrug

It's a bit spooky how much he's being glazed up-thread.

Some of this is just ridiculous.

The thread you linked has people describing an inflection point where Red Tribe gets enough of a breach in the establishment firewall to actually have a go at producing good things outside the stranglehold of the present consensus. It's obviously quite optimistic; I think it's a reasonably open question whether optimism is inherently ridiculous at this late date.

The more probable outcome is that no matter who is declared the winner, trust declines precipitously, possibly to the point that credit cards stop working. I observe that there are multiple forms of doom converging rapidly on our present position, most of which even people here show no awareness of. Rockets and unrestrained Can-Do might thread the needle. It seems unlikely to me that your general prescriptions can. Or maybe I'm wrong; how does the future go in your view?

Some people will cling to the counterfactual no matter how aggressively the world beats them over the head.

Wishful thinkers tend to reinforce each other.

No idea whether it's the case though. I couldn't bring myself to watch that Interview.