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Sure.
If you are surprised, that would be indicative.
The continued and future viability of the Republican party in the mid-teens was so evident that Obama spend the later half of his time in office trying to reverse his down-ballot impacts on the Democratic party, including a multi-year court and supporting media-campaign trying to prevent Republican-drawn redistricting maps in states that saw Republican takeovers in the 2010 elections. Half a decade later, the Hillary campaign actively attempted a pied piper campaign to pump up what she thought would be the only candidate in American history to be even more unpopular than her.
A list of unlike things that can only collectively be equated in broadest boo terms is not a useful list.
It is a useful basis for judging the quality of the argument which presents the list as a serious supporting argument.
The argument that Trump purged the people who conduct "wargaming" does not understand that the political-appointee layer and the "wargaming" layers are different. This is an actor-to-role mismatch that suggests a misunderstanding of how the US government works.
It also neglects the role the 'loyalty,' or lack of it, plays in the ability of the executive branch to achieve a president's policy objectives. An analysis that condemns loyalists as incompetents without addressing the relative success or subversions by an ideologically opposed bureaucracy, particularly with examples from circa 2017-2020, is not a sound analysis.
To bring a historical metaphor: once upon a time, a Roman governor of egypt was advised that sheep were for shearing, not flaying. A province must be in a certain state to be productive. The inverse extreme is not better, though. A province in revolt is not a productive province either. A revolting province is also not led by capable administrators, no matter how fine their noble or academic pedigree or how loyal they were to another consul.
Framing the consequences of a breakdown in trust and credibility as juvenile retribution would be demonstrating the flaws that led to the vulnerability of credentialists.
You really, really did not.
I am not convinced you have any particular idea what he trying to do, or under what model he might be operating under, let alone how well specific actions do or do not move to that position.
I'll try to break the back-and-forth of condescending snark from cherry-picked lines, but you've at least matched my level so kudos.
My main issue with your interpretation of my post is that you're reducing my use of the word "wargaming" to a very literal activity that happens behind closed doors with a couple military brass at most. I could have chosen a better term that would not have evoked such a specific image in your mind, so mea culpa. What I mean by "wargaming" is broadly any strategic, adversarial simulations with starting conditions based on scenarios that are executed in order to relatively evaluate the outcomes of different actions.
Anyone claiming to know precisely what "wargaming"[1] is within the context of the USG either oversaw it, took part in it, or is talking out of their ass. Civilians are probably equally aware of how the USG executes "wargaming" as much as they are aware of the USG's intelligence on "UFOs": any knowledge is highly speculative at best. My personal definition of competent "wargaming" would bring in unconventional expertise, like experts from something like the Department of the Interior, to get accurate fact sheets on e.g. the likelihood that Yellowstone erupts and what the domestic and military response would have to be. My fear is that such information would be overlooked in the current administration, due to the arrogance and apathy referenced in my OP. It is not evidence-based decision making, it's vibes-based decision making.
But maybe that's at the core of our disagreement. You, and others who feel as passionately as you do, are done with "evidence-based decision making", at least since we've had since we elected a black man president. To continue with "evidence-based decision making" would be an existential error. The solution for you isn't necessarily the rejection of evidence, as that's irrational. Your solution is still rational, it's just that you will not actively seek that evidence as you fear that what you may find contradicts your conclusions.[2] Your cause is righteous and therefore correct.
No, that's what I understood you to mean. And that is why I find your analysis lacking as even a starting premise. Your claim that the people who do this were purged in favor of loyalists is more characteristic of a partisan narrative-level understanding than familiarity with what's happened in the US government over the last few months.
This is an initial-evaluation level issue. Call it a 'vibes-based analysis' if you will. It is consistent with your vibes-based understanding of history, both contemporary-american and broader leader issues. It is not consistent with accurate model-building of people or efforts outside your vibe, which so far you have not demonstrated.
The nature of being a vibes-based analyst is that contempt / condemnation of other people for being vibes-based decision-makers rings more than a little hollow. This is particularly true if you cannot model what other people outside your vibe are trying to achieve, or why they believe certain actions will advance that goal, without building in a back-handed basis of dismissal.
Genuinely: do you have a recommendation of who to read in order to gain a non-partisan narrative-level understanding of what has happened with the US government over the last few months? I'd like to get away from some of my regular sources of information and into ones that provide a higher signal-to-noise ratio.
For example, analyses of the actions of the executive branch here on the Motte contradict each-other on a week-to-week basis as more information comes out. I come here to find takes that would temper a "partisan narrative-level understanding", but often find most posts that analyze the actions of the executive branch as highly speculative ("5d chess")[1]. Should I just read Project 2025 and take it as gospel, despite the counter-hysteria during the campaign season? Is the executive executing reactionary revolution? What is the bar for competence-of-evaluation for an average citizen to judge the worthiness of their executive branch? Should no one protest the actions of their government because they're not qualified to evaluate the competence of those who took those actions?
Yes, but to an outside observer I'm just a shitposter[2] on a political forum, and they're the supposed leaders of the free world. Different standards, no? I do have models for the actions of those in the executive branch. I think they're mostly of disreputable character, as are many politicians and people in positions of power, but they're not irrational or stupid. It's their failure to disclose the honest motivations behind their actions that limits the effectiveness of my model for their behaviors.
There are no non-partisan sources. There are ways to get a balance of partisan readings over time. News aggregators that make a point of aligning different sources on the same general topics- such as the RealClear portal or Ground News
Yes.
No.
The hysteria over Project 2025 is precisely why you should read Project 2025, to understand what it says, what its detractors claim it says, and recognize the difference.
But you should also read it so that you can correlate what it says to what specific members of the Trump administration say, so that you can recognize differences between what the Project 2025 organizers want and what key policy makers in the administration want so that you can make an informed judgement as to how influential it actually is, as opposed to how influential it is accused of being.
There is no bar. However, the credence given to their judgement generally scales with their ability to demonstrate a general level of awareness of political history beyond their partisan media bubble, particularly on events in living memory of their audience.
You can protest the actions of government no matter how competent you are at characterizing them. The saving grace of democracy is that it protects the roles of the incompetents to contribute to policy debates, by forbidding would-be elitists from disqualifying the uncredentialed lacking elite recognition or support.
This is a good thing. There are many good reasons for considering the views of unwise masses. It would have been a perfectly fine defense to make that a challenge to your own competence was irrelevant.
However, doing so would have undermined your condemnations of other peoples' incompetence, unless you could defend your own.
Heavens no. If they posted their arguments on the motte inviting pushback, they would receive the same gentle handling.
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What's the moral/point of the fairy tale, to you? This has been a long question for me. Your mention right here is quite interesting, alluding to blowback at first glance.
Thou shall not attempt a managed opposition strategy in which the ruling party, or would-be ruling party, tries to interfere with internal-party processes of other parties.
Granted, it is telling indicator that a party-of-government may not feel a political party faction is actually a threat to democracy if it donates significant aid to boost that faction's political prospects. However, there's far more costs than just the 'oops, we succeeded too well' tradeoff.
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