chooky
6hr ago
It's possible that the disaffection of the Bernie wing of the Democratic party in 2016 contributed a lot to Trump's ability to get swing votes and even create new swing voters. Perhaps it is true that Republicans would have struggled to win without these voters in 2016, but it would have likely been a nail-biter. My view is that you are underestimating just how much everyone hated and hates Hillary, especially the self-anointed vibe that both she and Harris give off. Given the inflation, senility scandal and overreaches of Biden's term, I have a very, very hard time believing that a non-Trump Republican (Rubio is an obvious example) would not have won against Harris in 2024 - perhaps the only counterargument here is that Trump's first term was actually quite productive and good.
chooky
1d ago
Yes, I think that a traditional Republican, though sure to be tarred and feathered by opposition operators, would have beaten the widely disliked Clinton in 2016 or Harris in 2024 (even within the Democrat party). Trump only won against particularly bad candidates, and it was pretty close. I think that a more normal Republican candidate would have also won those elections. Romney went against a uniquely good Democrat candidate and was himself probably a better candidate than anyone in the past few decades.
chooky
1d ago
All it would have taken was him deciding he was too old and lazy and just wanted to golf all day or something. This does not seem that crazy. I do not agree at all that Dem victory would have been inevitable if not for the low propensity voters Trump got support from.
I still don’t understand this “creating the opportunity” idea. The race was always going to be closely contested Democrat vs Republican, in any of 2016, 2020 or 2024.
chooky
1d ago
She lost in the primary to Trump so I’m slightly confused how she would not be a potential counterfactual that could have been the candidate if not for Trump “creating the opportunity”. We would be talking a more traditional style of campaign and policy, probably.
chooky
2d ago
You don’t think that a Romney Republican would have wiped the floor with Harris/Biden? Trump is a unique candidate to be sure in motivating the base, but he also won against uniquely unlikeable candidates in Clinton and Harris.
chooky
3d ago
Trump campaigned on tariffs as a means of boosting US manufacturing employment. Everything not connected to data centers is doing horrible. Keeping this campaign promise seems like it was bad.
chooky
4d ago
I agree wholeheartedly - they also won't reverse the other OBBBA deductions. So they will have to go looking for new taxes.
To be honest, we kind of need some more immigration to continue the Ponzi scheme of elder care as domestic birthrates plummet. I might support Trump et al doing some crazy kind of multi-tier citizenship benefits. We need more people paying in.
chooky
4d ago
The US president is just too powerful for anything to happen, but I would definitely expect a Dem administration to reverse the high-income tax cuts of BBB/TCJA. I would really like them to just reverse everything, especially SALT, tips/overtime and SS deductions, but it seems like we are just stuck with that garbage. The government needs funding, though, so I would expect Dems getting more creative about ways to tax the capital of the super-wealthy.
chooky
6d ago
Hmm, I guess we agree to disagree then. Muslims, to Western conservatives, would be a huge component of the threat to the homeland culture they are trying to preserve. Leftists would not care about this, and supporting Muslims goes straight to the fundamental ideal of diversity/tolerance, somewhat overriding the opposition to Muslims’ generally more restrictive beliefs. This is all enhanced by conservatives generally being pro-Christianity and liberals just outgrouping Islam.
Liberals might be more offended than conservatives about, say, women’s rights in Muslim countries, but they care far less about Muslim culture in the West, especially since there are so many famous examples of Muslims assimilating fairly well into American consumerism (eg the Kardashians). I realize that Poland is not exactly Western.
chooky
6d ago
Fair point, but surely we both immediately understand this as just an outgroup phenomenon. They are too foreign to count.
chooky
6d ago
The pattern I am obviously suggesting is a right wing cultural affinity for the clearly conservative Russia, which would not apply to the liberal EU.
chooky
6d ago
Prior to Trump, we probably would have said the same about the US GOP, too. It could easily turn out that right-wingers in Poland just end up culturally affiliated with Russia.
chooky
9d ago
I do not at all doubt the existence of hero bystanders; indeed, the latest school shooting was ended by a hero bystander parent. What I doubt is that armed guards dedicated solely to stopping school shootings would rise to the occasion, as I think that the commenter I was responding was correct that these would be people who couldn't manage to make the army. I am certain, given the rarity of shootings, that these jobs would rapidly devolve into playing videogames and watching Netflix.
That said, I am totally fine with cops in schools and the idea of School Resource Officers, which seem like a much better approach than this idea of a dedicated school shooting team.
chooky
9d ago
Hmm, I'm like 4 or 5 episodes in. Pugh was great casting for young Cathy. I disagree with you that she should lack vitality, or do you somehow see her as justifiably mean rather than just malevolent?
For older Kate, yes, I would agree they are not really aging Pugh enough.
The show seems good, though I can't imagine the subject matter allowing it to be a hit!
chooky
9d ago
Which makes me doubt that such a LARPer would actually perform if duty called.
chooky
10d ago
I have a pretty hard time describing even the early days of Chavez's presidency as mere "backsliding". The guy was consolidating power from day one, and his political career started with a failed military coup. In my opinion, Chavez was effectively a dictator by 2001.
Here's a 1999 incident from Wikipedia:
Chávez called an election on 25 July to elect the members of the constituent assembly. Over 900 of the 1,171 candidates standing for election were Chávez opponents. To elect the members of the assembly, Chávez used a formula designed by mathematical experts and politicians, known at the time as the kino (lottery) or the "keys of Chávez". Chávez obtained 51% of the votes, but his supporters took 95% of the seats, 125 in total, including all of the seats assigned to indigenous groups, while the opposition won six seats.
chooky
11d ago
But... Lula has been president before. Why would we compare Lula to Chavez/Morales rather than Lula's previous terms? I do appreciate the irony of my question as a US citizen since Trump's first term did not really predict his second term, but still.
chooky
14d ago
I think you underestimate how widespread the effects of Doge and changes to working conditions were. My family member worked on the nuts and bolts of building domestic physical infrastructure that you almost certainly believe are a good way for the government to spend resources. It is not the case that Doge-driven changes only affected questionable departments or competent people doing unproductive tasks.
chooky
15d ago
It is way too convoluted to argue that higher private sector pay denotes greater social value and that DOGE was thus correct to push out high performers. This is definitely not the path to government efficiency! A successful DOGE push out would have to be one in which the bad employees who couldnt find new jobs or who thought they would get fired or who were in unproductive jobs outweigh the "bad" cuts. It is probably not the case that literally everything done by one's preferred politician is perfect and awesome.
chooky
16d ago
I had a family member take the buyout because they started looking for a different job (since the security and flexibility that is the draw of a federap job is gone), and they scored a way higher-paying job. Like many buyouts, it would have been the case with DOGE that many takers were the capable employees you don't want to lose.
chooky
16d ago
And I guess the difference vs the past is that fielding, by far the most exciting part of baseball, has gone away because of the 3-outcome hitters you note. Boo.
chooky
16d ago
I asked one of my friends about why there arent very many good quarterbacks anymore a couple years ago. They said it was because defenses have gotten much more sophisticated.
2016 was just kind of the beginning of incredibly hotly contested elections, i.e., ones in which Trump participates; Obama vs Romney was not nearly so intense. Plus, there is 4 years of population growth so the slightly fewer votes Clinton got vs Obama in 2016 was probably like 3% lower per capita. If Clinton is only against a normal Republican, it is very unlikely that she gets anywhere close to that turnout, while Republicans would have indeed been running against a great turnout motivator in Clinton (or, shit, Sanders; I would have voted for any candidate at all in 2016 opposing Trump or Sanders).
Regarding Hillary hatred among the left, my thinking on this is from my friends and family who, amid the 2016 election and primaries, talked about how much they hated her. As a fan of competence, I liked her, but vibes-based voters absolutely loathed her and pretty much always had.
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