Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
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User ID: 1226
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
16d ago
I am suggesting that you are badly overestimating their competence.
Also, you haven't really articulated why it's a win for America that Trump's cronies get license to loot Venezuela (assuming that even pans out).
Outside of white societies and some East Asians how many successful Democracies are there?
Other than, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?
Others have already answered you on this, but let me turn it around. Where are the successful autocracies? Every country people want to live in is a liberal democracy and that is not a coincidence. Democracies are institutionally more capable of reform and less prone to corruption. Even democracies with serious corruption problems (e.g. in Latin America or Eastern Europe) are generally better off than their authoritarian counterparts.
Have you heard about the natural resource curse?
The resource curse is a meme. Insofar as it is a thing, it is a thing where natural resources allow incompetent authoritarian regimes to prop themselves up well past the point where they would otherwise collapse. With a few exceptions in one direction or the other (e.g. Japan, Norway), developed countries generally have both excellent natural resource endowment and economies which do not depend on natural resource extraction.
KSA and the other Gulf States lucked into sitting on top of an enormous share of a critical resource while having proportionally small populations (KSA has fewer people than CA, and the other Gulf States are even smaller). Natural resource extraction is generally a low-tier economic activity. These states could never function as they do without oil wealth.
KSA isn't even doing particularly well compared to other oil states. It's bigger, in both land area and population, but MBS has an insatiable love of expensive vanity megaprojects rather than serious economic diversification.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
16d ago
I'm specifically talking about perception and the role that plays in legitimizing the actions, per the comment I was replying to. I've little doubt that the raid itself was meticulously planned and rehearsed.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
16d ago
The comparison crossed my mind.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
17d ago
I considered putting in a disclaimer because I knew some smartass would make a comment like this. Venezuela has severe problems, but it still has a long way to go before it hits rock bottom.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
17d ago
The ideal would be a Pinochet or MBS. A get shit done guy
I'm confused. Do you want a 'get shit done' guy or not?
Of course, the odds of getting something like that are vanishingly rare anyway. The central lie of authoritarianism is that it's effective. It's not. KSA is a shithole that's able to paper over the flaws due to sheer natural resource wealth enabling them to hire foreign experts to manage everything important despite incredible waste and corruption. The likely outcome of Trump cutting a deal with a replacement authoritarian is that the new leader pays off Trump and dials up the repression.
Exxon etc returning to Venezuela because they trust the regime. A significant portion of the Venezuela diaspora returning would be a win. Let’s say 5 years out 4-5 million barrels of oil production.
Why should I or any other American who isn't an Exxon shareholder care about this? My interests and the interests of a handful of nominally American multinational oil and gas companies are not closely aligned (they are, in fact, negatively aligned).
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
17d ago
One thing I find interesting about these threads is how the speed itself became part of the legitimacy.
"There's three ways to do things. The right way, the wrong way, and the Max Power way!"
"Isn't that the wrong way?"
"Yeah, but faster!"
Or, perhaps more charitable and tropically: "I took the canal zone and let Congress debate."
The cult of action is not a new thing. It is, I suspect, a deep rooted psychological type. Speed, brutality, decisiveness - action for the sake of action - are conflated with effectiveness by certain kinds of people, while caution, planning, and introspection are viewed with contempt. Of course, it's hardly a universal perspective. You have plenty of people with pretty much the opposite view.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
17d ago
What’s the end game for Venezuela that you would agree is “winning”?
A stable, reasonably* democratic Venezuela, reasonably traceable to Trump's actions/policies. That is to say, if Trump negotiates free and fair democratic elections, that's a win. If Trump negotiates for another authoritarian figure to take over who is subsequently toppled by a popular uprising, that's not a win. Likewise if the country devolves into a dysfunctional narco-state where the government doesn't actually control a large share of its territory.
Half a year to a year is probably too short to tell if it is successful, though it may be long enough to say if it failed.
*it doesn't need to be topping democracy index charts, but it does need to have real elections. I'll give partial credit for a pragmatic, competent authoritarian who unfucks things, but incompetence is the default state of authoritarian so I don't see much reason to expect that.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
17d ago
Red Sea/Houthis, North Korea, getting repeatedly rug-pulled by Putin, fumbling trade wars and getting played by China, surrendering to the Taliban...
Even the things his supporters tout as 'successes' (e.g. strikes on Iranian nuclear program) are very much in the too soon to tell category, but he can reliably count on his supporters having a short attention span and forget about them by the time any consequences come due. After all, we're more respected than ever before.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
17d ago
It's less that Trump wins and more that Trump is very good at persuading his supporters to forget when he loses.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
17d ago
Was anyone expecting any different? Trump has always preferred gangster foreign policy and now we've got a direct statement that we won't be supporting Machado (and that we are, somehow, going to be running Venezuela). Right now it looks like pure racketeering.
Preliminary prediction: no substantive change in Venezuela. Maduro is a bad guy, but he's not any sort of political keystone and the authoritarian machinery is still in place. Long-term impact is that US further cements its reputation as being erratic and untrustworthy for the sake of Big Dick maneuvers. Increases the odds of nuclear proliferation as well.
Maybe I'm being overly pessimistic, but unless the US is about to actually invade Venezuela to install Machado I don't see why the Venezuelan regime wouldn't just put one of their own in the big chair.
Aside: unclear what the legal basis for this is beyond "my own party is too cowardly to hold me accountable". I've seen people draw comparisons to Just Cause or Urgent Fury for obvious reasons, but in the former case Panama declared war and in the latter case it was always kind of dodgy and at least had the figleaf of urgency regarding protection of US citizens. I guess they're going to try and spin this as law enforcement?
edit: wow, Trump does not sound okay in this presser. Also, apparently we're going to run Venezuela.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
17d ago
Maybe it's a redemption arc for murdering a bunch of Korean fishermen?
How did it go from "stop drug smuggling" to "regime overthrow"?
Marco Rubio really wanted to do it, and sold it to Trump as a big dick move.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
18d ago
Good thing that problem only afflicts Them, not Us!
Rather unfortunately, actually. The general illiteracy of even relatively high status conservatives is a major part of the right-wing crank problem. The US could use a serious conservative movement rather than the current crop of grifters and conspiracy theorists.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
18d ago
I am believing my lying eyes. Problem is, people here keep telling me not to, because what I see paints a very unflattering picture of them and their allies.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
18d ago
Why not have public events and take randos off the streets?
You don't want randos off the street. As another commenter mentioned: street randos includes a raft of unserious people (I don't think you actually have a ton motivated young men and women). Plus, with any political organization you have the problem that growing the organization benefits the organization but may not benefit the individuals who currently make up the organization.
much bemoaned the lack of elite human capital
Lack of EHC is an external critique. Most Republican organizers wouldn't agree with it.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
19d ago
You mean the thing that got a couple people on Twitter mad and had virtually no wider play in conworld? Which was discussed (and read) significantly more by liberals?
I feel pretty good about the thesis of cons don't read + right-wingers are okay with corruption as long as it isn't specifically welfare fraud.
If a 23 year old guerilla journalist (who was not particularly rigorous in his methods) was able to blow this up, then why didn't legacy media go after this low hanging fruit?
It took about six seconds of googling to find a NYT article from the end of November, a month before the viral video was released. I think your premise is wrong.
To answer the question "why is it blowing up now?": as Hanania has noted on a number of occasions, conservatives by and large don't read. Neutral tone (or even hostile) print journalism isn't going to catch their attention the way video is, even (especially) if the latter is sloppy. For the administration, it's a useful distraction from their own parade of fraud and corruption scandals and an excuse to do what they want to do anyway. Plus the president is a social media addict.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
21d ago
I have to be honest, this seems like you, personally, have a disdain for Protestantism's decentralization and comparative lack of ritual. Like, yes if Ramaswamy started the Church of Ramaswamy and tried to convince everyone he was a Christian now, everyone would think it was laughably fake and/or he'd lost his mind. But it's not at all clear to me that he'd be taken any less seriously if he became a regular church-going Baptist or Lutheran (e.g.) than a Catholic. Possibly moreso, since the RCC has a reputation for attracting LARPers. Nikki Haley converted from Sikhism to Methodism and as far as I can tell no one significant has called her sincerity into question.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
21d ago
Most business is conducted in committees, but virtually every rep has committee assignments. With 11k representatives, I could easily envision a situation where the vast majority of reps do very little except vote to organize the House and handle constituent issues.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
21d ago
I imagine you'd end up with a house-within-the-house that dealt with the vast majority of business.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
21d ago
house of representatives having 1,000 members
Weak. Return to the original apportionment ratio of 1-30,000. Bring on the Small City of Representatives.
(It would make gerrymandering harder and less impactful, though the dynamics of an 11k member house would be very weird)
Also fun and exciting: raiding an enemy tribe, catching them asleep, slaughtering their fighters, and leading their women and children home in ropes to their new lives as slaves—carrying the remains of their husbands and fathers, already in steaks for the party.
I see Yarvin is once again back to LARPing as a psycho.
Voting is symbolic war.
Political campaigning, much like military campaigning, is 99% tedious and unglamorous shit, and even the exciting bits are quite often exciting in the wrong way. Militaries resolve this by not allowing soldiers to quit (and, often, by not allowing them to refuse to participate). Political parties don't have such tool kits available, so they have to resort to cheap carrots. Which is to say, we already do what Yarvin proposes, just not through an app. Politics, especially local politics, operates heavily on a prestige economy, where you can climb the ladder just by being willing to show up and do boring organizational work.
The problem is that Yarvin is wrong. Most people don't crave this level of political engagement. Trump's big success is with low-propensity voters who are like 50/50 on whether they can be fucked to fill out their entire ballot in presidential election years. Votr^tm badges are not going to persuade them to commit massive amounts of time and effort in political ground game. They want to watch the game, they don't want to be out on the field getting demolished.
An app as an organizing tool would have limited utility, anyway. You could rally the grunts, perhaps, but an open registration tool would be hilariously vulnerable to sabotage and subversion.
instead of continuing to try and make people angry and pissed off, which hasn't worked
It has worked. The problem confronting Trumpism isn't that its supporters aren't motivated. It's
a) they have a ceiling of 51% of the vote, meanwhile about 40% of the country wouldn't piss on them if they were on fire and the marginal Trump voter will desert or stay home once it becomes clear he won't/can't deliver on his fanciful promises.
b) the gaps between their promises, their ideas, and their competence are insurmountable (but that's populism for you).
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
23d ago
I think the internet has just been devastating for Protestantism. I don’t really think there are any “serious” Protestants left.
I don't know what you mean by "serious" Protestants. There are clearly plenty of Protestants who are serious about their beliefs. If you mean that Evangelicals are tacky and unintellectual, I won't argue, but I don't see why that would make it unserious (plus, I think the main difference between megachurch evangelicals being tacky and Roman Catholics having ornate gravitas is about 1500 years). I'm also unsure on the role of the internet in this - Evangelicals started on their current trajectory well before the internet. And, of course, Evangelicals are not all American Protestants.
I don't think it's true that Protestantism isn't taken seriously. Rather, Protestantism lacks the centralized hierarchy, unified style guide, and Ancient Traditions^tm of Catholicism and Orthodoxy, which puts it at a disadvantage with people who really like those things. The aesthetics/values/ideas of American Protestantism (especially capital-L Liberal Protestantism) are heavily conflated with general American aesthetics/values/ideas, and, much like American culture as a whole, lives in an eternal present. The power of Catholic identity is not that it is inextricably tied to America, but that it isn't.
I agree with this, but let me rephrase this conclusion: Rubio is running a relatively classically (in an American sense) conservative foreign policy. They think Europe is weak and prissy, they don't trust international institutions, and they believe in unilateral action if allies are uncooperative, but their assessment of who US friends and enemies are is fairly conventional. Vance is pushing an extremely online The-West-Has-Fallen foreign policy. Openly worrying about the immigration policy and demographics of another continent is very peculiar from a normal security perspective, but makes significantly more sense as an expression of the not-so-subtly-white-supremacist faction of the Trumpist coalition. However, it's not really clear to me how much actual influence Vance wields in foreign policy versus being a dancing monkey for certain elements of the base.
Trump is, of course, drunkenly careening around doing whatever crosses his mind in the moment and leaving his subordinates to try and pick up the pieces (we're apparently back to threatening to invade our allies). This doesn't really help either faction - Rubio et al want the EU to cooperate in the anti-China coalition, which is significantly less likely if Trump insists on pissing directly into their mouth, while the Vance/Miller faction has to worry about Trump's behavior negatively polarizing European voters against the RW populist parties they're trying to promote (see also: the Poilievre collapse in Canada).
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