TheAntipopulist
Formerly Ben___Garrison
No bio...
User ID: 373
TheAntipopulist
Formerly Ben___Garrison
1mo ago
Everything is worth what it's purchaser is willing to pay for it.
A lot of what we'd see in both GDP and debt numbers is just inflation. But there's also been genuine growth, especially in tech.
TheAntipopulist
Formerly Ben___Garrison
1mo ago
I would like for the system not to be destroyed, given that I have to live in it, and destroying something doesn't automatically make a better alternative pop out of nothing.
TheAntipopulist
Formerly Ben___Garrison
1mo ago
Arguing from miracles is just... painfully bad. If you have strong evidence that could be tested and perhaps replicated of supernatural phenomena occurring on Earth, that would be one thing. But this is like debating Trumpian 2020 election skeptics, where they're full of reasons to sneer and hate their outgroup, but if you ask them to make a positive case for their own arguments, they wither and try to deflect. The best evidence I can think of to dismiss these people as a group is the fact they've failed to find a single good example to rally around (be it an example of election fraud that was widespread enough to make a difference, or a miracle that genuinely occurred). They all have their own little gish gallop of bad reasons that primarily rely on the audience not being familiar with the arguments, because any evenhanded analysis would show their points are bunk.
TheAntipopulist
Formerly Ben___Garrison
1mo ago
Meanwhile, you’ve got the blue-haired commie fag brigade whining about “muh consumer prices” like a bunch of NPCs who can’t handle a little economic heat. Bro, wake up—those low prices came at the cost of your neighbor’s job and your country’s soul. Tariffs are the ultimate redpill: they expose how addicted we got to foreign handouts and force us to rebuild what we lost. Sure, your Walmart trash might cost an extra buck, but that’s a small price to pay for sticking it to the CCP and watching soyboys seethe. Trump’s playing 4D chess while the haters are stuck on checkers, crying into their avocado toast. This is peak kino—raw, unfiltered, and gloriously chaotic. Tariffs aren’t just policy; they’re a vibe, and that vibe is winning.
This is the quality shitposting that really makes me "feel the AGI".
TheAntipopulist
Formerly Ben___Garrison
1mo ago
Also, why would anyone need to establish an alt here?
Ban evasion I'm guessing.
TheAntipopulist
Formerly Ben___Garrison
1mo ago
I, like Hanania, was dunking on Dems plenty when they were in the driver's seat in terms of wokeness and immigration. I can appreciate how effectively Trump dismantled wokeness in the first month of his admin. But I oppose buffoonish as a rule, and while the delusions were previously coming from the left, now they're mostly coming from the right.
TheAntipopulist
Formerly Ben___Garrison
1mo ago
This doesn't seem true to me. Social media rose in the 2005-2010 era, which predates the 2014-2016 mark by up to a decade.
More damningly, social media rose all throughout the first world, but it was really only the Anglosphere (mostly the US, to some extent the UK) that went insane during this time period. The rest of the first world remained relatively tranquil until quite recently, even Germany which had a lot of challenges around the 2015 era.
TheAntipopulist
Formerly Ben___Garrison
1mo ago
I don't really disagree with anything you've written here, although I have some quibbles around the edges. In 1984, Reagan won with a margin of over 18%. Close elections aren't an immutable fact of the US electoral system, they're just a modern result of (most likely) partisan echo chambers.
I agree even small victories can bring outsized vibe shifts. The most recent election was a good example, with Trump barely winning but everyone treating it like he won by a 40% margin.
TheAntipopulist
Formerly Ben___Garrison
1mo ago
Debt is a normal financial instrument that has plenty of legitimate uses. Since 2000 the US economy has almost tripled in size, so an increase in debt is both expected and normal.
The main danger of debt right now is too much US federal debt, which Republicans and Democrats are both roughly equally at fault for not reigning in. Trump is poised to blow out the deficit even harder than ever before.
TheAntipopulist
Formerly Ben___Garrison
1mo ago
Your point is correct, nobody has a good retort here because they just dislike the fact that Hanania has turned his gun on right wing foolishness now.
TheAntipopulist
Formerly Ben___Garrison
1mo ago
His role is to write things that flatter the sensibilities and biases of the priestly caste
This is strongly off-base. Even just a year or two ago he spent most of his time attacking woke ideas more than anything, something that had strong buy-in from the "priestly caste". Hanania is probably more responsible than anyone for the Trump admin cracking down on woke ideology so effectively in the first month. This forum broadly loved him a few years ago, and only recently turned on him once he started aiming his sights on the foolishness on the right.
TheAntipopulist
Formerly Ben___Garrison
1mo ago
Voters have always broadly been braindead morons, but something happened around 2014-2016 to make both sides dovetail into their worst excesses despite things generally being good, at least better than the Great Recession which did not immediately provoke such foolishness.
TheAntipopulist
Formerly Ben___Garrison
1mo ago
I very strongly doubt much of anything could make one of the two parties lose "heavily" at this point, especially the Republicans. Trump and the legion of Trump defenders and Trump cultists have plenty of excuses to blame the outgroup. Off the top of my head, if a recession were to occur then the following excuses could include:
- The economy was built up with "fake money" from the Dems, so it's not Trump's fault.
- The media is lying to you about the state of the economy. Also, have I explained to you in detail how much I hate the media? Let's deflect the conversation to that instead. I'll start my laundry list of media hatred at vaccine mandates and Biden's age.
- The USA is an evil empire of PMCs who want everyone to become transsexuals, so a crash is good, actually.
Roughly half of the country will be in echochambers hearing nothing but these excuses. There might be a swing, and Republicans could easily lose, but it will be by a tiny swing of like 2% of the population, involving a handful of seats in the House, and <5 seats in the Senate.
TheAntipopulist
Formerly Ben___Garrison
1mo ago
This post is mostly correct, but feels like it's 6 years old. This was definitely going on during High Woke during Trump 45, but it's become less prevalent now. It's still occurring in a few areas, but D's have largely understood they've shot themselves in the foot and are backpedaling.
TheAntipopulist
Formerly Ben___Garrison
1mo ago
Genuinely trying to understand your points here.
For 1, how is this grossly exaggerated or substantially false?
For 2, is there some relevance here? This seems like the generic laundry list of sneers right-populists use against the media, for which I agree with Scott and Hanania. I can agree with limited claims that the media will often spin and misrepresent. But the media brought receipts. They have screenshots, and from what I can tell, nobody's really saying the screenshots are faked.
TheAntipopulist
Formerly Ben___Garrison
1mo ago
Elite Human Capital. Hanania has written some posts about it, and has a full book coming at some point. He's the type of person who could have started an anonymous substack and had it do reasonably well. He could come on to a place like this and hold his own in a discussion. If e.g. Trump tried to do either of those things, he'd fail pretty miserably.
TheAntipopulist
Formerly Ben___Garrison
1mo ago
They should either be deported to 1) their country of origin, 2) a country they transited through, or 3) anywhere the US government wants, if the person consents. A Honduran who jumped the Southern border ought to be able to be dumped back in Mexico. But I wouldn't want e.g. a British person who arrived by plane and who overstayed their visa to be dumped in Mexico.
For the record, the current stance of Catturd and the Trump administration is that this entire thing is a "hoax". Although what "hoax" means here is unclear -- the direct statement occurred in regards to whether the leaks were "war plans" or "attack plans", with the latter wording being perceived as a huge admission of guilt from the media by the Trump defenders. "Hoax" could also simply mean "thing I don't like"... so who knows?
TheAntipopulist
Formerly Ben___Garrison
1mo ago
It's blowing up sufficiently that somebody might get fired over it. One of the big unwritten rules of the Trump administration is "don't cause bad headlines on cable news", and while I haven't watched Fox specifically, the fact that I keep seeing this all over the news sites I watch on day 2 is indicative that it's something that Trump could get pissed over. Mike Walz's ass could be on the line, and Hegseth and even Vance could be in hot water to some degree. That's a pretty significant level of disruption for a scandal in the Trump admin.
I'm sure we'll probably have forgotten about this in a month, though.
TheAntipopulist
Formerly Ben___Garrison
1mo ago
I wouldn't blame you for wanting more, as I've never heard retail to be a particularly wonderful sector to work in. There's probably a lot of that vague existential dread that you're "missing out" in some way when you've worked a job you don't want to for decades.
I don't know what sector you're applying to, but I'd be open to further conversation if you want tips applying to places, or for a second person to look over the resume you're sending. For the record, I work tech in a smallish DC financial lobbying firm.
No pressure to take me up on it or anything.
TheAntipopulist
Formerly Ben___Garrison
1mo ago
This was a good read.
TheAntipopulist
Formerly Ben___Garrison
1mo ago
Applying for jobs is bad, but not that bad. When I was applying for my first real jobs in 2017-2018, I had about a 10% conversion rate to first-round interviews. Even if you have 1/10th of the level I had, you should still get several interviews per thousand applications, and that's pretty conservative. If you're not even managing that, there's a good chance there's something fundamentally wrong with the way you apply.
TheAntipopulist
Formerly Ben___Garrison
1mo ago
Vance is smart and EHC, and it's likely that he understands Trump is a total buffoon who needs to be shepherded to reasonable goals. His reaction to Trump back in 2016 was his genuine opinion. Eventually he decided that sucking up to Trump was better to gain power, but he still sees Trump as an idiot.
I think Trump is really just governing based on raw emotional energy
Correct. Always has been. There is no plan, only vibes. This is what the American people demanded.
TheAntipopulist
Formerly Ben___Garrison
1mo ago
Is this really a big deal? I mean, by a competent administration it would certainly be, but this is well within the bounds of buffoonishness we've come to expect from Trump and those he employs. I'd say the long-term damage Trump has done to US foreign policy is a far greater issue, although I suppose R's can squint and say "that is helping us, actually, it's 4D-chess" for all that, while accidentally inviting reporters to your classified meeting is more plainly indefensible.
Still, this is really blowing up in ways I didn't expect. Even Hillary has been risen from the dead to opine on it.
I sort of agree with this at a broad level, but people claim miracles are happening quite frequently, so you'd expect at least one case to have evidence that's genuinely decent instead of just testimony.
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