ThenElection
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User ID: 622
ThenElection
1hr ago
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It's worth noting that, whatever their other faults, Kerry and Hillary did survive the primary process and get nominated. If his model is "I have the most control over the outcome of the primary process; the general election will be decided on economic macrotrends," then it makes sense.
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The other Clinton was the ur-triangulator, and he was very successful, though the political climate now is sufficiently different that it's hard to draw useful generalizations from it.
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Newsom isn't optimizing for Democrat-as-President; he's optimizing for Newsom-as-President. It's impossible for him to sell himself as a principled left wing ideologue or a committed moderate reformer. Given his biography and character traits, maybe he's making the calculation that, win or lose, baldly embracing reptilian cunning and ambition is a better strategy for him than trying to win people over based on trying to sell another narrative.
ThenElection
3hr ago
Leftists (meaning, here, Democrats and affiliated groups) are very eager to call out the Epstein class and variations of it that do center specifically on sexual immorality; this can be seen in everything from Reddit comments to statements by national Democratic politicians. Though it's less a belief in a conspiracy of sexual blackmail driving history and more a belief in the inherent corrupt perversions of the rich.
"Actual leftists" using your more materialist framing exist but have essentially no power.
Newsom is triangulating, not flipping. He opposes a state wealth tax that is actually on the ballot and has a real chance of passing; he supports a national wealth tax that is entirely theoretical and will not be passed anytime soon (hopefully...). This allows him to deflect future primary criticisms of him being in the pockets of billionaires by saying it's just the badly implemented and foolish state level tax he opposes.
He doesn't actually care about wealth taxes as a policy one way or another, except insofar as they help or hinder his way to the White House. But his current strategy balances the competing stories he's selling to donors and primary voters in a reasonable way.
ThenElection
1d ago
One of the strongest signs of intelligence is the ability to present views you reject in a way that resonates with actual adherents of the view.
I think the women who fangirl over murderers are literally insane.
People draw wild, overgeneralized inferences from this. Supposing 1% of women are sufficiently deranged to get turned on by and reach out to serial killers. In the modern media ecosystem, that serial killer would receive millions of contacts indicating interest. Usually, it's more like hundreds (and, notably, only for the particularly handsome; I'd be curious about the more typical serial killer numbers). A cute female serial killer would probably receive thousands.
A vanishing minority of both sexes think like that.
This had zero effectiveness in moving the needle on any cause he was pushing; he could have just as effectively taken a dump and made an MRA sculpture out of it.
On the systemic level, I'm sympathetic to your concerns. But they are pointed at something universal and timeless; fair or unfair as they are, they aren't changing now, tomorrow, or a thousand years in the future. The male sex will never be considered a victim sex or a sex worthy of public consideration. That's simply descriptive, not prescriptive.
That doesn't mean policy can't improve things for men, but it can't be on that basis. Get rid of credentialism; don't flood domestic markets with relative low wage competition; end the fad of preferential hiring of women for entry level positions. You can make arguments for those without asking people treat men as a victim sex; do that instead.
On the personal, non-systemic level, he will ironically probably receive orders of magnitude more romantic attention from a certain (unstable, disturbed) minority of women now, though he won't be able to take advantage of it.
ThenElection
6d ago
Periodically, we see an incel leader who seems to develop a sense of agency from his assumed role, and shortly after finds a girlfriend.
ThenElection
6d ago
Capitalism is unique in that it solves this in a way that enables a man not endowed with reproductive value at birth to channel his energies away from zero-sum conflict toward things (productive economic value) that benefit both himself and society.
Robin Hanson noticed it ages ago:
https://www.overcomingbias.com/p/two-types-of-envyhtml
https://www.overcomingbias.com/p/comparing-income-sex-redistributionhtml
This got him labelled the "incel professor" who wanted to enslave women in the mass media, even though he very obviously opposes any kind of coercive redistribution.
Among the California electorate, he's consistently run 7 or so points ahead of Kamala. That's still a touch below the average Democratic politician--Kamala always did extremely poorly, even among California Democrats--but he's a stronger politician.
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