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Culture War Roundup for the week of August 21, 2023

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So far his debate performance is reinforcing my negative view of him. Great ideas but way too much slick, fast talking car salesman suspicious overeagerness.

Really? I find him pretty charismatic. Maybe my grifter alarms are less fine tuned than others here.

We always complain that are political leaders are in shambles but then try to pick politicians based on…how electric they are? Vivek has no record and therefore is per se an invalid candidate.

Let’s look at people who actually have records that can be judged and see if those records suggest they are strong candidates.

I don't think he's uncharismatic. Good grifters and great salesmen are charasmatic But he's a salesman not a showman (like trump) and he's clearly a pushy fast talking one at that.

He speaks like someone who did a lot of college/school debate and/or went to toastmasters or a similar thing. The problem is that advice or support for people who are bad at public speaking often involves essentially teaching them to adopt the mannerisms of a radio shock jock / car salesman and while the most charismatic people can pull it off some of the time, the less of a natural you are, the greasier it becomes.

I'll also add that being a good public speaker matters far less than you think it does socially. I've got the hyperlexic flavor of autism. I'm a decent writer and an excellent public speaker - probably top one percent or so if you're looking at a general population sample. In college, I moved my speech professor to tears with an impromptu speech on love, of all things. This buys me a tiny bit of social inclusion, but a 400lb deadlift would get me as much or more.

I think it matters but it’s very profession-dependent. The verbal IQ savant who is lazy and feckless but who has the ultimate gift of charisma can do well in a handful of professions, but certainly not most of them.

Is that how debate watcher or primary voter will read him, though? I think Vivek did a lot better than everyone else from that perspective. These voters are the kinds of people who listen to the radio and buy those cars, anyway.

Yeah he's smart and well spoken on podcasts, but his combative look is not good. Though maybe his early Trump impression is resonating. It's hard for me to say... In other news wtf is Pence or Christie's goal here?

I get that several on the stage are going for the 'hope everyone in front of them drops dead" strategy, but these two are basically just here to telegraph how out of touch they are with the party.

Drudge's post debate poll had Christie coming in second after Ramaswamy as the winner of the debate. So a far right news base, at least the over 50,000 of them that participated so far, seem to think Christie did a good job. Not as good as Ramaswamy, but a bit better than Haley and Desantis, and way better than anyone else.

https://poll.fm/12675305/results?msg=voted