EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
I know what you're here for. What's his bias? Politically I at least like to think of myself as a true moderate, maybe (in US context) slightly naturally right-leaning but currently politically left-leaning if I had to be more specific.
User ID: 1043
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
2mo ago
I think it wasn't nearly as bad as the Clinton campaign, that was the strongest of the vote-shaming, but it was there in part. I do disagree about the overall framing though. I don't think Harris tried that hard to put at the forefront any other argument beyond "Trump bad" and "Trump endangers democracy". Maybe "trust the status quo"? With a dash of "billionaires ruined your life"?
He's got zero percent of the first winner-take-all preference, yep. But his favorables are at +22 net, that's +39 and -17, with a whopping 45% "don't know" as I recently pointed out. So with actual polling data, it especially as VP it seems very tenuous based on the data to assume he'd be some kind of Black vote poison-pill, especially with a Black woman at the top of the ticket.
Edit: punctuation and clarifying:
That's favorables among Black voters specifically. The eventual nominee, Tim Walz? Among the same group of Black voters, +30 net, that's +49 and -19 with 36% DK. A little bit of daylight, but not an incredible amount - definitely not the kind of poison pill you describe. In fact, if my napkin math is right, assuming the same proportionality, if Pete had Walz's 36% "don't know", then his numbers would be +25 net, +45 and -20. That's only 1% worse (absolute) in negative viewpoints.
The numbers seem to clearly reject this idea, unless you make three very questionable assumptions: that massive numbers of Black voters didn't then know he was gay, and would also change their views unfavorably, and that this unfavorable swing would affect the entire Harris-Buttigieg ticket (in turnout or voting instead for Trump). Again, those seem very questionable assumptions.
Did Kamala have polling we didn't? Plausible. Seems unlikely.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
2mo ago
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Yes, although turnover among administrators, fetishization of the novel, and lack of patience dooms a lot. It's more a matter of over-ambition and good intentions burying fundamental principles of teaching and learning than apathetic leaders, in my opinion.
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I don't understand this question, did you forget a word or I'm missing too much context?
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Yes, but crime rate statistics in particular have notorious noob-trap concepts as well as in how the numbers interact with policy, so officials are all over the board. Nationally, I think yes. However, it's a little difficult as a federal politician because you're so far removed from the ground level reality.
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Normally yes, since businessmen in both parties are major donors and always complain when things are bad. Those constituencies and influences don't magically go away after election season, you can only temporarily ignore them.
I mean, it's a sliding scale obviously, no denying that. Trump just seems like an anomaly. Like 1 month goes by as president and oh, the economy is the best ever. 1 month goes by with Biden as president, oh no, total disaster, he ruined everything. 1 month goes by as president again and oh, the economy is magically the best ever again. Usually politicians are a little more measured. Like, here is Biden around this time in his term. Skim it. He's talking specific jobs numbers, he's saying things aren't all great yet and some people are still hurting, he says there are a few areas that he wants to do better on. There's spin, but it's not beyond the pale. I'm trying to find something similar for Trump. His official white house website has a "Remarks" section too, but all it has is Youtube videos without transcripts. He's saying stuff like:
So let me tell you a little story about a place called D.C., District of Columbia, right here where we are, it's now a safe zone. We have no crime. It's in such great shape you can go and actually walk with your children, your wife, your husband, you can walk right down the middle of the street, you're not going to be shot, Peter. You're safe. Everyone likes you anyway, they probably wouldn't do it.
Oh! DC is fixed. Magic.
Usually politicians at least wait a few weeks or months to declare a symbolic victory, but no, Trump doesn't just say it, he "declares" it, and right away, bugger the truth. I guess I had a similar discussion last week and maybe it boils down to this:
I typically expect, and think most people expect, presidents to tone down the campaign-trail type tactics while actually in charge. Less hyperbole, more adherence to facts, actual work. A candidate uses big and exaggerated and ambitious language because that's all they have, while an incumbent can, you know, do things and then talk about it. Natural, right? One compelling Trump thesis is he thinks he's found a cheat code where he doesn't even have to finish doing things. He can just start things, talk about what it's intended to do as if it's already done, and expects to reap the same benefits even if nothing actually happens at all like he describes as the policy takes place - or more likely, collapses under its own weight quickly. Say it loud and proud, and you temporarily gaslight people.
He might be right that you can skip the "doing things" part and no one will notice, but I don't think so, and if he is, and everyone starts doing it, then I despair what the next 10 years will look like.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
2mo ago
I think I'd be a little more suspicious of the causality there if I were you. I can name a number of ancient societies that were quite harsh and proactive about punishment of crime, and prosperity doesn't always automatically follow. Unless you think the Taliban, Saudi Arabia, and Iranian theocracy are the up-and-comers on the world stage.
From a data optimization perspective I actually think some kind of three-strikes system is actually not half bad, but complex systems are complex so easy solutions don't always work as expected.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
2mo ago
Do you present as a lower-class white, assuming you're white?
There are far more indicators beyond race involved here. You even mentioned their attire, which is a big clue. I'm originally from Portland, and when visiting again I often run into deranged people on local transit. You can usually tell they are deranged or criminals by the following clues: talking abnormally loudly, excessive swearing, talking about unpleasant subjects, staring at people aggressively, poor personal hygiene, terrible teeth, ragged clothes, large backpacks or similar stuff. Race is virtually never the front-line, first alert kind of thing.
The true test is all other things being equal, how are people treated? I think there's a difference, but the big question is the magnitude, and that's hard to answer.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
2mo ago
Also it bears mentioning that for all the talk about US police brutality or discrimination, I'm pretty sure American police beat people up less on average than say an Eastern European cop. In other words, some other countries have police that directly participate in said honor culture directly, within the norms of such. Possibly, the normal expectation that American cops are more rule-abiding and lawful backfires in this kind of culture, where following rules is (mis)interpreted as weakness. Assuming your thesis is true, of course.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
2mo ago
Most deadly police encounters are men and boys, young adults and teenagers. You know, the demographic group least likely to use their prefrontal cortex, most concerned about appearances, and least concerned with potential benefits of police help. It's totally skewed. It's not like their mothers and (non-criminal) fathers are telling them to confront police, and hell they probably tell them the opposite regularly. I hesitate to call it a broader problem because the people most likely to constitute the problem are also the least likely to heed said beliefs.
For example you can notice a bump in preference for decreased police spending in the 18-49 demographic. Now, they don't break out a figure of "among Blacks, what percentage of the 15-25 demographic prefer lowered police spending" but I bet it's an even bigger bump.
The people talking the biggest game on police oppression game are largely white knights, and are certainly not the people directly producing violence directly, much less those who are most affected (middle aged to older adults and women)
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
2mo ago
What? A decent number of self-described feminists I know disliked the military primarily because they viewed most of them as potential or likely rapist douchebags. That's such a strange accusation to make. I'm sure feminist activists devoted less energy to enlisted women, but that's partly because there aren't many of them, it's not relatable, and a decent number were probably conservative anyways, so that's not really all that strange.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
2mo ago
One thing that caused me to have more sympathy for women in particular is getting punched in the face.
No, really. Some crazy and/or homeless person, in the middle of an otherwise decent suburb, punched me in the face as he walked past me in a crosswalk in the middle of a street between the bus stop and my student housing half a block away. No, they didn't find him. Yes, it hurt like hell, but didn't break my nose thankfully. No, I didn't do anything to provoke him, I was looking down at my phone reading, surprised me completely.
I knew that this happening again was realistically highly improbable and irrational. But I couldn't help but feel vaguely nervous and vulnerable at the bus stop for a month or two afterward. And so I thought, "do women feel this way all the time?" Maybe? I still don't know. I'm sure some do, though, and it sucks, so my sympathy-meter got a minor tune-up that day.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
2mo ago
I think the simple but effective filter for "is this the bad kind of victim blaming?" boils down to:
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Is victim blaming the only significant, or always first reaction? If so, it's at best tactless and at worst racist/sexist/callous/lowers freedom/etc.
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Is victim blaming accompanied by other sympathy, solutions, or blame? If so, it's at worst tactless and at best good advice.
That's probably oversimplifying a bit, but I don't think the idea that "victim blaming can be bad" is wrong per se, just misapplied.
"I'd like to go. Is that alright?" is probably better, maybe followed by "is there anything specific you need from me?" However, you must wait to deploy this until some "reasonable" (ill-defined but it is what it is) period of time has passed and the "basics" are fulfilled. For example, you must show ID in most states IIRC when asked, and usually are expected to reasonably comply with stuff. But if it's been, say, 10 minutes and questions are going in circles, or you're waiting on some abstract officer task, I think it's actually a great moment to either save a little time and be on your way because it was just trivial, or discern if there's a decent chance you're going to be in actual trouble, in which case you can and should adjust your behavior and compliance accordingly.
The reason I emphasize the waiting and basics is because there do exist some reasonable tasks that are mostly harmless but may take a little bit of time - in those cases asking too early risks a false positive alert on your part. And again it helps to be a little more conversational, while still figuring out what's going through the cop's head, which is the half of the point. (The other half is the cop is just fishing for stuff, realizes it's only fishing and won't become something more, and cuts their losses and ends the interaction)
Edit: My comment mostly assumes that you are in fact following the law, or at least not notably breaking it. If you're potentially in deep shit, and the cop has a decent chance of discovering such, there's less harm to immediately clamming up, because any marginal benefit in the off-chance the cop leaves ignorant is outweighed by the chance of you fucking up with a continued interaction or cooperation. Also, you generally should be polite, but you're not required to be super helpful.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
2mo ago
The reliability thing is actually pretty great/important. I'm hesitant to read too far into the readership of places like Ao3 or Royal Road or what have you, but I actually think web serials are something that will only grow more popular in the future. A nice drip drip of book which suits the avid readers (who just assemble large numbers to follow at once, or dig up finished ones) just as well as the causal ones (for whom more than a chapter or two at a time might be a heavy lift, and are used to things releasing on a cadence). So for Sanderson, producing eminently readable books at a steady pace is a genuine superpower, and readers like it. Waits between books are always rough, but for Sanderson fans you can just go to his website and see nice circles that slowly but surely tick upwards with progress towards the next two books.
Or you can be a GRRM fan and be waiting a decade for a book that he basically has written three times over but then threw in the trash can only to start over again. It's a bit insulting. (At least Rothfuss just out and said he got depressed and hasn't even really bothered to even give fans false hope)
Put another way, beyond a minimum level of talent, if you can churn out books reliably you can make a good living and grow popular as quantity as a quality of its own.
All of this discussion, though, misses one big part of the appeal of Sanderson. Well, maybe two. The maybe is the worldbuilding. For some people an interesting world can forgive a large number of writing errors (and not all of his books suffer as terribly from length issues! The Mistborn sequel quartet of books are actually about half the length of the average original trilogy book on an individual basis). The bigger one is twistiness. Let's give Sanderson some credit, here: the Mistborn trilogy, for example, has some excellent little twists at the end of each book that are quite fun, especially if you don't know they are coming.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
2mo ago
I would say it's partially accurate - maybe even mostly accurate - to say Trump doesn't care about the details. He's always been a bit that way, praise some underling for their incredible talent enough that they work hard to live up to it, let them carry the weight, and throw 'em under if they fail too badly (in reputation/image, not necessarily talent). The major caveat, though, is that Trump has a few hobby-horse policies and opinions where he has long resisted any and all attempts to convince him otherwise. Sometimes they are silly small things - Trump on multiple occasions has suggested nuking hurricanes to stop them from forming, or exploring buying Greenland - and sometimes they are bigger things, like tariffs or withdrawing troops from foreign postings (I remember reporting about numerous internal arguments about troop numbers in Afghanistan, Syria, etc. over the years). So I think that's important to keep in mind. It's usually not too hard to tell the difference about what he does and doesn't care about, but there are a few edge cases where it's pretty murky.
So here, Trump has a genuine aversion to foreign disrespect. I don't think he cares too much about particular countries, not inherently. He likes Putin because Putin gives him respect. He (partially) turned on Putin because Putin torpedoed some of his peace efforts a little too directly, which makes him look bad. I think that aversion to disrespect and bad impressions needs to be considered as its own thing on top of the desire for flashy stuff and compliments. It reflects Trump's own personal priorities, he's consistent that way: he likes things clean and golden-encrusted, he likes strong TV images and shows of power, he hates weaklings, dirty and run-down places, and has an especial hatred for things that look bad on TV. Anyone displaying traits of power, gold, cleanliness, and TV aptitude he automatically likes.
More to your point though, you're right. Trump as a rule doesn't mind minions fighting over the particulars of any given policy so long as it doesn't blow back onto him personally. He's a bit of a competition-breeds-strength type when it comes to leadership. He can get away with this because on a simple factual level, Trump doesn't care if his policies work. He only cares if he can take credit for them working, or portray them as working. If they actually do work? Neat. Someone is happy. And often his minions are at least mildly competent, which can get results. But they don't need to work. This is not the case for most leaders, but Trump is not most presidents.
So, Kamala Harris has her book tour with the election retrospective. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it blames other people for a few things. But what drew some attention is that apparently some of the digs at fellow Democrats were notable, actually giving some the impression that she must be retiring from politics, though she's since tried to unburn some bridges.
What's drawing possibly the most attention is her description of the VP selection process. She said Josh Shapiro was too ambitious and had started for asking details about the VP's residence. She said that Tim Walz was actually her second choice, which is a bit hurtful if you're Tim. Eyebrows have been raised at this, but even more so at her reason for not choosing her first choice, who was Pete Buttigieg - literally described as the "ideal partner", if not for this one flaw, she says.
He's gay.
"We were already asking a lot of America: to accept a woman, a Black woman, a Black woman married to a Jewish man. Part of me wanted to say, Screw it, let's just do it. But knowing what was at stake, it was too big of a risk. And I think Pete also knew that -- to our mutual sadness." (book excerpt per the Atlantic)
It did not really go over well. Buttigieg himself said he wished she had more faith in Americans. She was confronted about it by Maddow recently, here's a clip, asking her to elaborate, as it's "hard to hear."
"No, no, no, that's not what I said. That - that's that he couldn't be on the ticket because he is gay. My point is, as I write in the book, is that I was clear that in 107 days, in one of the most hotly contested elections for president of the United States against someone like Donald Trump, who knows no floor, to be a black woman running for president of the United States, and as a vice presidential running mate, a gay man. With the stakes being so high, it made me very sad, but I also realized it would be a real risk. No matter how - you know, I've been an advocate and an ally of of the LGBT community my entire life, so it wasn't about, it wasn't about - so it wasn't about any any prejudice on my part, but that we had such a short, we had such a short period of time. And the stakes were so high. I think Pete is a phenomenal, phenomenal public servant. And I think America is and would be ready for that. But when I had to make that decision with two weeks to go. You know, and maybe I was being too cautious, you know, I'll let our friends, we should all talk about that, maybe I was, but that's the decision I made - and I'm and I - as with everything else in the book and being very candid about that. Yeah. With a great deal of sadness about also the fact that it might have been a risk. (ed: Maddow's interjections removed. Maddow then just goes on and asks about running in 2028, response "that's not a focus right now")
I saw one twitter user summarize her answer as: "I didn’t not choose Pete because he was gay… I didn’t choose him because he is gay and I had 107 days."
This raises a number of questions. Was it right to be tactical like that? Was she correct about the tactics? Was it particularly absurd to say it out loud? Was this just an excuse, and there was some other reason? Is it hypocrisy by Harris? Is her point about having less time to run a campaign cope, or on some level a legitimate objection that such a short campaign must by nature adhere to different rules and strategies?
On the one hand I can see it. It was a short campaign, and the overarching philosophy was to play it safe. In retrospect, probably wrong. (And also an I told you so moment for me). In that light Harris is being perfectly consistent. On the other hand Kamala herself acknowledges that her own identity was potentially a barrier, is the concept of 'too much diversity to handle' a real thing, much less from those on the left? It is true that even Obama had his doubters about whether his campaign was doomed because of racism. Personally I don't buy that, I don't think it made much of a difference, but some people do think about it and still do think along the same lines. The flipside of that is also true, however: say she names Pete, would any alleged homophobia backfire onto Trump and his team, would it supercharge identity politics within the base, or is it a non-issue altogether?
My honest opinion? Again, like Obama: I don't think him being gay would matter. He's a great communicator, and would have been an asset. Although, he would need something of substance to explain, so it's not a full slam dunk, and I don't think it swings the election unless Pete gets to tack on his own new policies.
(There's other stuff to say about the memoir but I'll leave that for a different top-level post if people want to get into it.)
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
2mo ago
Actually the response by the company behind Tylenol handled the murder spree so well it's taught in public relations textbooks to this day as a great example of what to do in cases like that. The aftermath was what resulted in the no-tamper foil covers becoming common, for example, and fewer powder-filled capsules. They pulled it from the market for a while, cooperated with a detailed investigation, and then returned it with the new packaging and lots of marketing and they were back up top in market share pretty quickly. I'm sure some people kept grudges, though, because they always do.
Anecdotally some people I know respond more to Tylenol than others. For several members of my family it's kinda so-so in effectiveness compared to ibuprofen.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
2mo ago
Yeah, that's fair, those are also common avenues of influence. There's also indirect real estate stuff. I just wanted to point out that personal outright bribes strongly imply that personal enrichment is a major and primary goal of lawmakers. I want to challenge that assumption. Many lawmakers are already independently wealthy and being e.g. a congressman often actually slows opportunities to gain more money. Furthermore, evidence suggests that although eye-popping sums do get thrown around in elections, those sums are usually the exception rather than the rule, and many of those sums are in fact intended to win the election and not cover for personal enrichment, at least not on the scale many people imagine. Thus, I take the opinion that personal enrichment is usually a secondary and more minor life goal, given that one is a lawmaker or government official.
With that background understanding, when I see the occasional congressperson get caught with smaller sums in bribery allegations, that makes perfect sense to me. After all, bribery was essentially a side-gig stemming from poor personal judgement, not their primary occupation. So of course the sums will be small, and the methods amateurish.
To understand a small population, you need to understand the pipelines to it. Most early-stage political jobs, that lead to later more powerful ones, don't have the same immediate potential pay-off and definitely don't have a guarantee of advancement. The major exception, of course, is when you enter the field due to notable nepotism, backstabbing, or personal connections leapfrog you up the ladder faster. Those are more suspicious and susceptible to bribery, at least it seems to me.
I was grouping/aggregating general left-leaning sentiment into a few distinct buckets. Obviously each point would have details. My dad, for example, can almost certainly instantly name 4-5 examples of each the first 3 points. Sorry if I misinterpreted what you were saying there, I guess you were looking for examples. I thought you were saying that everything boils down to pure vibes. I think each of those buckets I brought up has factual basis, they are not really invented and are not linguistic sleight of hand. Now you and others might weight certain facts differently, or make different assumptions of intent of various politicians, but believing that doesn't make those factual points disappear.
For example, the first point about stupidity: it's pretty clear in interviews and from sources near him that Trump basically doesn't read books, like at all. For meanness you can just look at Trump's recent remarks at Kirk's funeral where he outright says that he hates his enemies with a passion, and of course he regularly makes fun of people. Although the president doesn't control stuff like gas prices, and only kinda immigration, there's a cogent case to be made that tariff uncertainty has gummed up the free trade works and made things more expensive, that's more than vibes. So too is the financial market unrest about presidential undue influence of the Fed, which bears very, very directly on global financial health. Some people consider vote by mail a right, free speech is a right that is arguably threatened, the free press is a right which Trump has arguably suppressed, the right to protest is a right that Trump has discouraged (I think that one's pretty tenuous though personally), equal protection and due process are rights that he has threatened (e.g. for immigrants - yes, certain constitutional protections DO apply to them, even if not all of them), weakened environmental protections can threaten to violate rights to safety, among those who consider healthcare a fundamental right major Medicare/Medicaid cuts above a certain threshold could violate that right, the list goes on.
You can disagree with all of these! That's fine. But you can't just say these arguments don't even exist. That seems a step to far for me. And yes, I think that at least half of Democratic voters would be able to name at least 2-3 specific examples of their chosen pet-issue bucket. In that sense, Trump Derangement Syndrome is a media phenomenon, insofar as it exists, not an individualized one, at least not broadly speaking. I'm sure some smaller segments are in "irrational hatred" territory, but that's nothing new, is it? I'm old enough to remember people thinking Obama was the literal anti-Christ, and few of them were able to articulate specific reasons why this was the case. Yet we wouldn't claim on that basis that virtually all Republicans hated Obama on "vibes at best", that's absurd.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
2mo ago
And yet I'm here arguing with people who seem to think that the administration hasn't started any major wars yet, so its relationship with the truth is actually better than previous presidents, don't you get it?
Sort of like when driving, it's often more important to be predictable than anything else, big democratic economies like ours work best when there's some general stability and transparency. Bad communication leads to inefficiency and I believe it's partly why the economy is doing so poorly.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
2mo ago
Across the board most Americans, even smart ones, regularly misestimate the sums involved in politics. For example, many are under the impression that even everyday candidates are getting giant payouts from massive corporations left and right, who lean on them hard to buy their votes. This is very frequently not the case. I challenge you to look up your local US House rep on opensecrets. Don't just look at top donors, click it and look at all donors. I don't particularly care about doxxing myself, so here is mine, a safe republican seat, which IMO is a classic angle for officially laundered bribery (little accountability if races aren't close). A bunch of PACs giving 10k apiece, but not even that many. Only 7. The rest is a lot of individuals. Far cry from the millions that people seem to get the impression about. No, a lot of these races are more small-dollar than you'd expect.
I've disagreed with people about this before, but in my eyes this suggests bribery isn't actually nearly as common as the median American believes it to be. If corporations have outsized influence, it's through lobbyists. And lobbyists are effective partly because they are effective persuaders and salespeople, quite loud and persistent and charming, and armed with industry facts and inside knowledge and expertise that cows the inexperienced. In short, they present themselves as subject matter experts, and congresspeople find themselves in little mini-bubbles of partisan opinion. Yes, congresspeople read the same news you and I do, and they probably get fired up about partisan issues more than you or I do, at least most of them. The median American thinks of them as pure egotists, ambitious people without morals. I think this is fiction. Most congresspeople are incredibly ambitious, but they also - many of them - at least to some degree initially entered politics because they were fired up about something, and had a big social network of wealthy peers (or their own money) who they could ask for money to make the first leap, not because they felt it was a good career to obtain bribes.
Politicians are people too, and vulnerable to similar psychology.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
2mo ago
There's media spin, and then there are direct quotes from the President. That's my whole point. Trump's out there lying about trivial stuff, not just the big stuff, and directly rather than let a media machine handle the lifting. It may seem like a distinction without a difference to you, but it is important. (And as I noted, it's quite possible that Trump is or has lied about some big scandal that isn't yet known, we as always must wait for history to take its course before the judgements can start to come out with certainty on that front)
Candidates promise stuff they want to do. I take it in the spirit they are said. If Trump says he wants to end the Ukraine war, and has a plan to do so... does he make an effort to do so? I do happen to think he made an effort, even if it was a stupid and doomed one. So, not a lie! I do think he was exaggerating about doing so on Day 1 - that's obviously almost literally impossible for a president to do, so maybe it falls under the deception umbrella but I wouldn't call it a lie as such. More generally I don't consider the 100-day traditional promises to be binding, only that an attempt is made. That's the whole point of being a candidate, to outline where you want the country to go, and what you hope to deliver. Everyone in the process knows that it's better to overpromise and underdeliver than underpromising and overdelivering, right? Voters even expect it. In that sense, though I absolutely hate to be in the shoes defending PolitiFact, a 2008-era assessment of truth is more about whether a claim accurately reflects or summarizes the policy as portrayed by the source (so "true" is broadly correct), not about whether it is practical or not - though this limitation, as we both know, was flagrantly ignored by various fact-checking sites increasingly often as time has gone on. Of which I've always disapproved.
Once you're president, things change. In Obama's case, much of the first year of his presidency he spent talking about how he really wanted the health care bill to be bipartisan, to get some Republican support, and so on which he was very loud about. He ended up being wrong about that, but it frames his entire effort! Self-evidently a health care effort that is hoped to be bipartisan will involve compromises short of the partisan ideal. I think it's reasonable to expect that main pillars would stay the same and not be subject to compromise, but even that doesn't always tend to be the case when it comes to the nuts and bolts of legislation-making. Also, Obama didn't exactly hide that he approved, in terms of general strategy, of taking the 'best' ideas and combining them regardless of provenance (that's a classically technocratic view), though for PR reasons this is usually not smart to emphasize.
When Trump lies in a debate about immigrants eating the pets of their neighbors, yeah it's bad, but it doesn't do structural damage because he's communicating a vibe and not actually responsible for policy and enforcement. When Trump as president says the BLS commissioner is rigging data, we assume he has some kind of internal line of proof to suggest such; when it turns out he doesn't even have a scrap, it does structural damage. Again, the presidential asymmetry of information access - and control! - obligates the president to a higher degree of truthfulness. Usually, for example, more banal attempts at lower-grade deception would take the form of carefully worded non-answers by the press secretary. The press secretary is, in most cases, being narrowly truthful, but selective with such. Yet Trump's press secretaries and himself both seem to tell bald-faced lies with very little compunction. What I'm trying to get you to see is that my point is about the direct wording, it matters. What happens in the spin between a press conference and the news reporting on it can be worrisome, but it's of a different scale and degree than the press conference stuff itself.
Not to harp on the BLS example too much, but it's just such a clear-cut case, you can watch the conference I'm talking about here. Miller is saying how the last decade has seen massive overall aggregate errors, and as he's about to clarify that he doesn't mean to insinuate anything... At 1:35 Trump jumps in and states directly: "if it was an error that would be one thing, but I don't think it was an error, I think they did it purposefully". Miller, who has a more traditional respect for the truth when in positions of power, immediately does damage control and hedges "whether that - you may well be right - but even if it wasn't purposefully, it's incompetent". MILLER is doing things structurally safe - oh look, she was in charge during so many errors, she should have been better, that's why we're firing her. TRUMP is doing the structural damage. He tweeted that she rigged stuff, and he's digging in. He's in constant campaign mode with the ethics to match. He's not being an adult and not being responsible, and it's bad for everyone, even future Republican presidents.
In terms of Obama specifics, I'd be interested in details, yeah. I googled a little bit, one top result was this clip where an Obama speechwriter almost exactly says what I just said - that in retrospect the claim wasn't examined closely enough... but it was never, he emphasizes, viewed as being untrue by the team. This is at odds with your claim. Are you confusing it with his 2009 speech to the AMA, when he was already president? Maybe my google-fu is just failing me, but I can't find corroboration of your claim, despite its specificity.
If you want to accuse Obama of a campaign lie, the better one might be his initial rejection of an individual mandate, only for it to eventually make it into the bill. Although, if my memory is correct, Obama was pretty reluctant to do so. For example here is one reference to this process - partly forced by CBO policy, and partly by being confronted by the raw economics. How much credit do we allow for mind-changing? Reasonable people may disagree there. But if Obama portrayed himself as a mind-changing president who is open to ideas from across the aisle and from many sources, it seems in character. I'm on record here as opining that we should, as voters, more heavily weight the character and judgement of candidates, and put less on particular pet policies. Policies can reflect character, but the reality is we vote for a person, not a party, at the end of the day, who we trust implicitly to handle diverse situations as they may arise.
(With all that said, I was late in high school when Obama was elected, and only paid medium attention to the Obama-Romney campaign, so while I believe I'm correct in this portrayal I may be wrong in some particulars)
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
2mo ago
All I will say is that if you're biking exclusively on roads, then you should look exclusively at road bikes. They are, I will concede, slightly less comfortable than road-ish or hybrid bikes, but much more fun to ride, and you can both go faster and do so at greater efficiency.
One thing you can also do is to stop by a bike shop, don't buy anything necessarily, but ask them to walk you through how to evaluate bike size and where to adjust the seat. A lot of people end up for example putting the seat at the wrong height and it does make a difference.
If it's not road biking, I have no idea.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
2mo ago
Then we disagree on that. Notice, you appended a previous accusation of a crime ("if you accuse someone of a crime [first], and [then] I say '...'") in order to obtain that interpretation. Lots of people out in the world accuse lots of other people of things all the time. You're heavily relying on a contextual basis: that people know that a blame game is going on, that it's happening on both sides, and who the recipients are exactly.
I think to call something an accusation, it needs to be both affirmative in language, as well as prominently featured.
Example: "You weren't at the show last night" isn't an accusation! It's a statement of fact. Contextually, if you know that your friend promised to be there beforehand to support you, it's still not an accusation (at least to me). Does it imply that your friend maybe bailed on you? Does it imply that you may be thinking it was intentional, or that your feelings were hurt even? Of course it does, that's a logical conclusion, but the whole point of comments like that is precisely that they aren't direct, and thus not actually accusations. Similarly, Kimmel implies that he's a MAGA, but since it has very little to do with his actual point (the upcoming joke), he doesn't make it affirmative and direct. (Also, to be an accusation, you don't bury it in some sidebar, you give it more prominence as its own statement - though that criteria I think is more a matter of opinion)
That's how language works, it's not torture.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
2mo ago
I don't buy that your upbringing forever defines your politics, that's obviously bunk anyways, but it bears noting that the guy is 22 and had attended all of half a semester of college. Of course transitions in political worldview can sometimes happen quickly, but most of the time it really, really doesn't happen very quickly. How long has he lived away from home? Not more than 4 years, but probably much less, and even when he moved away he didn't even move that far! So I think in such a case it's absolutely plausible that even if we assume he's drifting left fast, there could still be plenty of MAGA in him (famously many of these people tend to be hardcore fiscal conservatives even after "conversion", this is doubly true if social issues caused the leftward drift)
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
2mo ago
His show was suspended indefinitely by ABC. Not canceled, actually, though in practice probably. As such he could argue for "constructive dismissal" or similar, but I do think it's worth mentioning this nit because theoretically there's nothing stopping ABC from bringing the show back to a smaller subset of distributors. But yeah, since the NY post is basically stalking Kimmel, we do know that he's been meeting with his lawyer recently.
I attribute it to not drinking alcohol or smoking. Though it's still a bit abnormal. Still, capable elderly politicians aren't actually super uncommon, with some heavy selection effects. Example: does this guy look 78 to you?
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