Matt Yglesias made a good point about Trump and authoritarianism:
But here’s what worries me. Nobody agrees with the presidential candidate that they prefer about everything. It is completely normal and appropriate to vote for someone with some reservations or points of criticism. If, all things considered, you preferred Trump to Harris, notwithstanding Trump’s election lies, encouragement of violence, and promises to let the perpetrators off the hook, then that’s your right. There were plenty of other issues in the mix in 2020 as well. What I see, though, from the billionaires who disavowed Trump only to come back to his side, isn’t people saying, “That really was an awful day and I hope he doesn’t follow through on the pardons, but I decided that taxes and energy are more important.” Instead, they’ve gone totally silent on the points of criticism.
And there’s an alarming doublethink about this.
If I were to say, “It’s irresponsible to back Trump regardless of your views on taxes and energy because he’s an authoritarian menace,” these people would say I’m being a hysterical lib.
But if I were to say, “It’s fine to vote for Trump while still strongly disagreeing with what he did around 1/6, I’d just like to hear you say that in public,” the response would be that everyone knows it’s best to avoid Trump’s bad side.
If you’re not willing to voice criticism of the president, even while generally supporting him, because you’re afraid of retaliation, that seems at least a little bit like Trump is an authoritarian menace. I have concerns! And what I would love more than anything is for Trump supporters in the business world or at conservative nonprofits to set my mind at ease, not by arguing with me about whether Trump is an authoritarian menace, but by showing me that they don’t fear him and can offer pointed, vocal criticism of his conduct and strong condemnation of these potential pardons.
That’s how pluralistic politics works: You agree with people when you agree with them, but you don’t shy away from disagreeing when you disagree. And to a considerable extent, the fate of the country hinges more on what right-of-center people choose to say and do if and when Trump abuses his powers than on what anyone in the opposition does.
The article starts with examples of conservatives criticizing Trump in the wake of the 2021 riot and says "...I also respect (or at least understand) the decision of those who’ve decided they care more about other things than about Trump’s low character and basic unfitness for office. But what disturbs me is the extent to which the entire conservative movement has retconned not just the events of four years ago, but their own reactions to those events, such that these days, to be disturbed by them is considered some form of lib hysteria." At what point are Trump's allies tacitly seconding accusations that Trump is an authoritarian and his "movement" a cult of personality, by treating him as though the accusations are true?
Edit: I think discussion of whether or not the 2021 riot should be a factor in the 2024 election is missing the point. Substitute whatever criticisms you think are warranted; Yglesias's observation of doublethink isn't dependent on people not making a specific criticism, it's that refusal to criticize someone for their history of at least failing to avoid the appearance of authoritarian or corrupt behavior can be a tacit admission of fear that the person is, in fact, authoritarian or corrupt. The question I asked is the bounds of when we should make that inference.
The War at Stanford - The Atlantic
A few interesting things about this article:
-
The author is a sophomore student-journalist, and it's really good writing, by any standard. It turns out his parents are both top journalists. Nature vs nurture (vs high-status parents faking achievements by their kids to make them look good) is ambiguous, yet again!
-
One observation he makes that I hadn't seen in other reporting on campus protests, is that college admissions select for people who are "really good at looking really good," which includes strategic political posturing. This reminded me of my own experience at a high school that hyper-optimized for college admission, where I quickly became jaded by classmates openly-performative "activism." Are the elite student protestors my former classmates' gen-z counterparts? If so, how do my elite "betters" actually go on to do good things? Or, if the elite students are genuinely better than me, why are the people who are the best at looking the best mounting their (electrically conductive material, as required by this deliberately mixed metaphor) flagpole to the third rail? Or, is the sophomore student-journalist's observation true, but irrelevant, making this is just a really well-written, yet redundant, article about campus protests?
-
The Stanford administration banned calls for genocide, in response to the House hearing, but acknowledged to the reporter that this is illegal, due to a California statute requiring all universities to adhere to the First Amendment, not just public universities. I'm curious what the PR and legal discussions leading to this "ban" were, and what may result from it.
I've forgotten the name of a writer, whom I think was introduced to via The Motte: The webpage that was linked to was a long piece on female physical attractiveness to men, with good examples of convergence in art (e.g., depictions of fertility goddesses) and less persuasive evidence from porn and sex dolls. The author also had an argument that almost no homes should be built with attached garages, and a zoning scheme that would purportedly accommodate everyone having a SFH with a detached garage. (He was much more persuasive that attached garages generally make facades ugly than that attached garages are a net negative. Part of the argument was that cars don't strictly need to be stored indoors, and other things could be stored in a shed. However, most of the things you would store in a garage are things that are designed to be used outdoors, but would benefit from being stored indoors, and cars are far and away both the most expensive of these things and the most likely to be resold to fund their replacement - if you can park in a garage, you should.) Anyone recognize this description?
-_-_-_-_-
5mo ago
Do you want drug resistant tuberculosis? Because that's how you get drug resistant tuberculosis.
-_-_-_-_-
5mo ago
-_-_-_-_-
5mo ago
Even if you were right, I would take drug resistant tuberculosis if it meant funding the government with tariffs instead of income taxes. You underestimate what I am willing to accept in order to end the unacceptable.
Why do you have so great a desire for the government to be funded by tariffs, instead of income taxes?
-_-_-_-_-
5mo ago
There is no evidence for negative ramifications of the pause.
The pause has just begun. What measurable outcomes or evidence of decreased institutional efficacy would you accept as "negative ramifications," when the effects of the pause are analyzed?
-_-_-_-_-
8mo ago
Pharma companies held back the release of their vaccines to not give any perceived benefit to Trump.
Citation? I thought the bottleneck was FDA approval, with mass production starting alongside Phase 2 success.
He didn't do much about global warming. I'm happy about that. Honestly worrying about something with consequences 20 years out feels a little silly at this point. It was nice when we had such long time horizons.
Do you smoke? (Or purposely do something else that can ruin your body on a roughly 20 year time scale.) I don't find this argument persuasive - even accepting "consequences 20 years out" at face value, "consequences 20 years out" isn't dispositive of "prevention best done now."
-_-_-_-_-
5mo ago
Status quo bias isn't lost on me, but I think the stakes are too high for "slash everything and then closely reevaluate which good stuff we should be spending cash on." (Ideally, essential programs wouldn't be dependent on federal grants, but, well, relevant xkcd.)
-_-_-_-_-
5mo ago
Can you copy and paste or screenshot the thread? Twitter is often unreadable if you don't have an account and/or use any effective browser privacy tools/settings.
I'm already satisfied by evidence of NGOs engaging in "open borders with extra steps" jiggery pokery, but pausing all federal grants because of immigration NGOs brings us back to:
This seems very... crude. The question is if it's purposefully crude, if there's some structural reason it can't be better implemented, or if the person in charge is incompetent.
-_-_-_-_-
5mo ago
I recently binge re-watched Mad Men. Two non-spoiler thoughts:
-
For those who haven't seen it, yes, it really is as good as people say. AMC chose it as their first original series with the brand strategy of starting with a show that would be widely recognized for its quality, even if it didn't immediately have widespread appeal. I think it's telling that the tvtropes page for anachronisms has only inconsequential examples, with many of them being arcane/minute details, things that might get fudged in contemporaneously-set fiction, or both. (E.G., one of the biggest mistakes is a character giving incorrect transit instructions: "In "Love Among the Ruins", set in 1963, Don mentions taking the New York Central and Broadway Limited from Ossining to Penn Station. At the time, Broadway Limited was run by Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR did not merge with New York Central until 1968). A commuter would not make such a mistake. Additionally, the Broadway Limited was a private all-room reserved train to Chicago, and did not allow coach passengers for intermediate stops." Close enough!)
-
The later seasons all start with a conspicuous change in supporting characters' personal styling and set decor, but a more jarring indication of the pace of cultural change and its resulting dissonance in the second half of the 1960s are the songs chosen to play over the each episode's end credits.
-_-_-_-_-
1yr ago
I (possibly mis-)remember an SSC post, in which Scott linked examples of social scientists stating that the purpose of social science was to prove a such-and-such belief, but I couldn't find it. Anyone know which post this is, or have their own examples of social scientists stating this?
(I know this is a suspicious comment by the standards of the Motte, but it can't be asked at all in /r/slatestarcodex)
-_-_-_-_-
5mo ago
"or" - what measurable outcomes of any kind would you accept as "negative ramifications," when the effects of the pause are analyzed?
-_-_-_-_-
6mo ago
"Juror #2," Clint Eastwood's new film, is excellent. Watching it at home just made me doubly disappointed that it didn't get a wide theatrical release. (Not a single screening in my top-n-by-population USA city, where n is a small number.) I unreservedly recommend it being the next heavy* drama film you watch.
*Plot elements include plea bargains, homicide, alcoholism, a high-risk pregnancy, spelling "voir dire" correctly, etc...
-_-_-_-_-
8mo ago
Multiple companies announced the completion of their vaccines immediately after the election.
Which ones? Weren't Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson all in Phase 3 by the time the election happened?
I'm also aware that we can basically do massive climate change on the cheap whenever we want. Sulfur dioxide seeding in the upper atmosphere or a massive sun shade in space are orders of magnitude cheaper than carbon emissions reduction.
And it'd be better to begin geoengineering now than to wait 20 years, wouldn't it?
-_-_-_-_-
5mo ago
And they're getting grants from the USDA? And the Departments of Commerce, Defense, Energy, Transportation, and VA, plus the FCC, Library of Congress, NASA, and Social Security Administration? Some of the programs listed, I could believe, but why would it be necessary to pause all of them?
-_-_-_-_-
5mo ago
"Research", and other forms of paper pushing is at the lowest risk of me caring about it getting cut, unless it gets in the way of people doing productive work (like longer waiting times for construction permits, or something? I dunno).
Here's 1,877 active and/or recruiting (hopefully...) clinical trials targeted at veterans' health problems. Do you consider this "paper pushing?" (Yes, many are the kinds of "community health" interventions that are easy to be cynical about, but there are also many potentially important RCTs and even basic science like "DNA Methylation Markers in Veterans Exposed to Open Burn Pits," just on the first page.)
-_-_-_-_-
5mo ago
What reason is there to believe that this is intended to be part of a plan to balance the budget? That's not the stated purpose, nor did Trump seem to care about deficits during his first term.
-_-_-_-_-
6mo ago
I have a question: I've read anecdotes (not all from H1B opponents) that Indians in tech have strong preferences for hiring other Indians - has this ever been formally studied? I know something happened in California that got a bill about caste discrimination through the legislature (albeit vetoed), but I don't care to guess what political pressures were behind that bill.
-_-_-_-_-
5mo ago
Phase out the supply chains in an orderly fashion. Right now, there are aid workers and paid-for drugs in foreign countries, but the aid workers are forbidden from distributing the drugs.
-_-_-_-_-
5mo ago
If these charities are so effective that $100 can save 1 life or whatever, than why hasn't someone like Bill Gates simply funded the entire project?
It's $3,000+ to prevent a statistical death from malaria, last I checked, and probably not as simple as $30B saving 10 million statistical lives.
Reuters:
Trump orders sweeping freeze for federal grants and loans
Trump order set to halt supply of HIV, malaria drugs to poor countries, sources say
Apparently based on this memo (pdf).
This seems very... crude. The question is if it's purposefully crude, if there's some structural reason it can't be better implemented, or if the person in charge is incompetent.
Also, impoundment? We'll see?
More options
Context Copy link