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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 6, 2024

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How's your prior on this now?

I've updated hard on a lot of things these past few weeks, but I don't think the expected payoff for a rational would-be assassin is one of them.

Last I heard, the Trump assassin was a crazy person without policy objectives (which came as a mild surprise to me) which makes an evaluation of the efficacy kind of meaningless.

Maybe a week ago, assuming the plausible claim that a Trump assassin would want Trump's policy objectives to fail, I would have assumed this episode was a stronger strike against Abe-level assassination effectiveness because of how much it clearly empowered Trump. But the way the media cycle has moved on to other things this week maybe it's a wash.

Overall, a weak update away from Abe and towards the sane baseline that assassination attempts are not rational.

I'm still confused about why the assassination of Abe was so effective towards the assassin's goals.