Mewis
1d ago
A point could be made that the enormous, vast level of wealth that Americans possess hasn't made them happier (though I feel like Americans are happier and less neurotic than Europeans), but I don't think Trump is making that point or really has solid ideas to change that.
Mewis
1d ago
There's a difference between something being known and something being known. There is no reason to believe that Kamala knew anything that wasn't published in the New York Times. And when I say "know", I don't mean in the smug way that people online apparently know everything, usually after it happens and rarely before. So what actually, should Kamala have said or done? Given a press conference to say that he stopped calling her? To say that he's old? To say that China should invade now while Biden's napping?
You do understand, I hope, the difference here? That actually, every level of government and business in the universe is built upon a certain expectation of loyalty and trust, and that is infinitely more true when we're talking about POTUS? It's not the job of the Vice President to brief the media against the President. If it's believed he's truly incapable, invoke the 25th. Otherwise, what exactly would be gained by gossipping to journalists who have no power?
There's no reason, either, that Kamala would, or should, see undermining the President and her party's Presidential candidate as good for the country.
As far as I know, there are no tangible consequences to the revelation that Biden is losing it, aside from him stepping aside as candidate, which is not even a tangible consequence yet (it might be in six months if Kamala becomes President instead of Trump). If there was some aspect of his responsibilities that was neglected, you'd say so. The real shocking part is not that the President is a vegetable, but that nobody really noticed any material difference in the operation of the country.
Mewis
1d ago
I don't think Kamala should be judged for being in on it. I think a lot of people overestimate how plugged in VPs are. The President has no responsibility, none at all, to keep the VP in the loop on anything. So we don't know if Kamala knew anything.
Secondly, she's responsible and accountable to Biden, not the media. A VP that undermines the government she is in is acting irresponsibly. That loyalty isn't infinite, but it doesn't extend to making a judgement call that Biden isn't competent and then revealing it publicly. That's not just undermining Biden, it's undermining the position of the US Government.
Thirdly, had Kamala said something, you would as sure as sunshine be carping about what a disloyal, ambitious snake she was for doing so.
I don't think her actions were terribly unusual. It is very typical of politicians (or businessmen) to say that Mr X has their full confidence a day before firing him, or rebelling against him, or whatever. It is dishonest, sure. But such dishonesty is in some ways, necessary to keep organisations running. Certainly the alternative - for people to immediately blurt out every doubt and negative thought they have about each other - is unthinkable.
Mewis
2d ago
Republicans are hating on the switch because they see it as a potential weakness, and the reason it doesn't seem to be getting traction is that Democrats are so totally shameless about having spent the better part of a year trying to gaslight everyone about Biden's age.
Mewis
2d ago
Yes, the whole Biden/Harris thing reminds me of the bit in 1984 where Oceania goes from being at war with Eastasia to being at war with Eurasia in the middle of a speech, and everyone just turns on a dime (even as Winston and his colleagues at Minitrue have to go into crunch to rewrite their entire history.)
Mewis
2d ago
Mewis
4d ago
Because it doesn't work in Europe, which is just as well because yes man culture is a terrible basis for effective organisations. "Most of the world" got steamrolled by northern Europeans!
Mewis
4d ago
I dunno,I follow some spicy people on twitter and the most risable things I've heard is that she's an Affirmative Action VP or that she slept her way into politics neither of which are new.
Mewis
4d ago
You're right that it's irrational, but it's not unthinkable coming from a severely dysfunctional organisation where there are very strong incentives to lie.
Mewis
5d ago
It's certainly a bad situation to be in. If a Veep speaks up, they can be accused of being disloyal, ambitious, two faced, a snake. And they have nearly no official authority in the WH. The show Veep got it right - it's a terrible position to have.
Mewis
5d ago
I suspect otherwise. Kamala is not a very popular or effective politician. Her only election win was in deep blue California and it was very narrow. She did terribly in the primaries, where being Black And A Woman counts for much more than in the country as a whole. Though she does have a certain charm, she can also come off as off-putting. She neither has strong credibility as a progressive champion or as a moderate. Her record of executive experience or of campaign experience is also thin.
Kamala does have upside, she could surprise us all. But it would be a surprise if she turns out to be another Obama or Clinton (the first).
Mewis
5d ago
Google and Reddit killed forums. Now, all Google search gives you is clickbait slop, quora, Reddit, wikipedia and shopping.
Mewis
6d ago
I have to wonder...
My stereotype of a cancelled person is a heterodox liberal in a blue state or sphere. Your James Damores, JK Rowlings or whatever. But your average policy maker is usually someone who has spent their whole life being surrounded by people who think just like them. In that sense, DJT is very unusual, he's right wing but spent much of his life surrounded by New York Democrats. That's why he comes off as so defensive, instead of the complacency (a common defect among conservative politicians) of Utah raised Romney.
That's why I suspect that we might get the opposite - law that for example, makes it easier to fire public sector employees for their comments on social media. Your average red state legislator is going to be less interested in the travails of SF programmers or Chicago academics, and more interested in putting the fear of God in the public school teachers in his state.
But, for the object level discussion, I think it's natural that it's going to be tough for conservatives to embrace cancel culture. Knowledge producing conservatives, meaning journalists, academics, whatever, still exist and operate in blue controlled regions and spheres. They are highly motivated to try and lower the temperature, not raise it. And liberals still have the share of institutional power in the US, even if the right has clawed a little bit back. I agree with the other post here that the historical reason that conservatives have gotten the brunt of cancellation is not because of how principled they were (a joke, to be sure), but because they lost institutional power.
I also don't know if this even works as a sell. Can you sell "end cancel culture" to America even as you freely engage in it? Probably not.
Mewis
7d ago
Well, this sounds way better to me but doesn't really make a lot of sense. So you want liberals to lose their jobs but also for that to be illegal? I thought that the point was to attack and not relent or "roll over"?
In addition this is a Step One that has already occurred in many cases. This might be news to you but people on the left get cancelled all the time. At some points more often because there are more of them in spaces controlled by leftists. This hasn't really led to a change of heart. I think it's plausible that the left might allow changes like the one suggested, but not because of this specific event - but because they're losing their grip over social media. But that's an ongoing change, something that's been happening slowly now for a few years.
Mewis
7d ago
You yourself admitted that you don't think you will ever have parity, that you are relying on Blue Tribe organisations to keep their members in line, that you are personally doing absolutely nothing to further this. So, even if you're absolutely right in your principles and in your belief that maybe the left need to have the fear of god put in them (which I agree with), you are doing absolutely nothing to realise that, and not even talking about things that might realise that (like say, a change to the law). If this is you being mean, what can I say - I don't think the left has cause to panic, though they might do so anyway.
Mewis
7d ago
I don't think it was normal, even two weeks ago, to actually call for Trump to be assassinated, and yeah, you might have faced consequences for it (or not, depending on how your boss feels). That's why this celebration of victory is premature, nothing has really changed. Many individuals on the left have overreached and gotten burned, but nobody is going to get fired merely for supporting Biden, let alone for being gay or black or trans. The rules, written and unwritten, about what you can or can't say at work, are still written or unwritten and enforced or unenforced by the same fat liberal white women.
Mewis
7d ago
In what sense could negative social consequences be reliably enforced, if not codified into written rules, litigated by experts on those rules and then enforced? How could those rules be enforced if they didn't establish legitimacy among the general population through some kind of democratic input?
I am not forcing you to stay in this timeline.
Mewis
8d ago
I think by this point there is not a plausible path to the presidency for Biden, or at least, not one Biden can follow without a dramatic and improbable improvement in his condition. This is not really something that models do a good job of capturing. Most polling models anticipate some kind of regression to the mean in response to short term bounces and dips in polling. But that assumes a candidate that is capable of running a normal campaign. That's Nate Silver's argument - that Biden's chances depend on the assumption that he can run a normal campaign.
Mewis
8d ago
Are you talking about the fundamentals-based models or the polls-based models? They give very different results.
Mewis
8d ago
https://www.natesilver.net/p/why-i-dont-buy-538s-new-election
FiveThirtyEight versus 538
Nate Silver, public statistician, has launched a broadside against the forecasting blog he originally set up, which continues to produce modelling that indicates a incredible dead heat between Biden and Trump. What gives?
What it really comes down to is how unusual this election is turning out, and how forecasting is not keeping up with reality. On paper, Biden is secure - he's an incumbent President in an America that is peaceful and prosperous. These indicators have been long championed as the surest omens of victory. But nothing lasts forever. As Silver points out, those advantages count for less and less nowadays. And they assume that the candidates are otherwise mentally competent to run an effective campaign. If Biden still retains the faculties to run the country, he's not demonstrating them.
There of course, is a limit to models. We cannot predict exactly how Biden's incapacity might affect the election, or a horse switch to Harris, because events like this have never occurred before in modern electoral history. But it's at the point where these models now interfere with normal political judgement. Biden backers use the 538 model as a palliative, even as Biden slips further in the polls. As a result they are sleepwalking into picking a candidate who himself seems to be sleepwalking.
Nate Silver's own model does give Biden a fighting chance, especially when fundamentals are emphasized over polling. But he himself admits that the model is probably useless by this point, and that polling is a better indicator of Biden's weakness. Silver also has reason to say "I told you so" - he has beaten the Biden is too old drum for years now, and gotten plenty of flak from his own team over it.
Oh, I don't think that Kamala is honest or competent. But I don't put this debacle on her. It's ultimately Biden's fault, he's the President and 100% responsible for his decision to seek reelection.
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