johnfabian
7hr ago
Is this a troll? Golf is one of the most affordable and accessible hobbies you can have, and it's accordingly one of the most popular.
This is very country-dependent. In the UK, Ireland, and certain Commonwealth countries golf is very affordable, bordering on cheap. In the US it is generally affordable, somewhat less so in the south. But in mainland Europe and Asia golf is a sport for the elite.
johnfabian
7hr ago
I never really understood the appeal of golf. Does Trump love the game for what is truly is, or does he love it because it's a rich person sport you can brag about with other rich people that play that sport? Based on his skills and anecdotes, it sounds like he actually is passionate about the sport.
Golf is an endless difficult and rewarding sport. It's a game that just throws endless euphoria and disappointment at you. I love it desperately (I just came back from a holiday where I played golf every day, sometimes multiple times, for two weeks) and I understand why some might not. But Trump loving golf makes a lot of sense to me.
johnfabian
7hr ago
I think this is overstated. DeChambeau isn't really hated, his detractors think he's just more of an annoying kinda weird dude. Mickelson gets more ire, as do the LIV golfers who have generally failed to impress since the move. And of course your wording absolves Patrick Reed from consideration.
Also winning another major does big things for you. Both Koepka and DeChambeau seem fairly well-esteemed to me at the moment, just from idly browsing /r/golf.
johnfabian
5d ago
Those saccharine smiles in the audience, that praise him as being an American hero, smiling as they stab him in the back. Ugly.
It's not stabbing Grandpa in the back to take away his car keys. It might feel like a betrayal, but it's for the best.
johnfabian
9d ago
For larger massacres, generally. But lots of ordinary Wehrmacht soldiers had their surrenders not-so-politely declined; this was sort of glossed over in the post-war official histories but appear frequently in AARs. Also as Ioper notes due to the influx of draftees and soldiers from other branches into the Waffen-SS (whose units were almost always subordinated or OKH or OKW) just because someone was in the SS doesn't mean they were SS.
johnfabian
11d ago
Depends on the period, roughly speaking. During WWII Germany was of course villainized in propaganda and amongst western Allied soldiers; massacres of surrendering German soldiers were not regular but also not uncommon. SS troops were frequently shot out of hand due to several high-profile incidents. In the mass surrenders at the end of the war surrendering Germans were not classified as POWs but rather as "disarmed enemy soldiers" who were not entitled to the levels of treatment outlined by the Geneva Conventions. The claims surrounding the "Rhine death camps" are overblown but there was genuine systemic mistreatment of surrendering Wehrmacht personnel during and immediately after the war.
The dive in relations with the Soviet Union led to the quick realization that Europe and the United States might need to fight the Reds and there were a bunch of people with lots of experience killing Russkies. This is what initiated the rehabilitation of ex-Wehrmacht senior officers and the start of the "clean Wehrmacht" myth in the west. I'm short on time but I might come back to this later because there are some interesting dynamics at play here.
After the end of the Cold War the changing political realities and the opening of Soviet archives doomed the reputation of the Wehrmacht. There was no way to deny their involvement in horrendous war crimes or the depth of their entwinement with Nazi rule.
A simple way to look at the arc of it all is to look at how officers convicted of war crimes to Allied forces were treated. Take Kurt Meyer for example: sentenced to death, reduced to life in prison, transferred to Germany, released permanently all within ten years.
johnfabian
13d ago
That's very possible. I think if a bystander wasn't killed there would be a decent chance 20ish% of the population would have settled on it being staged.
johnfabian
13d ago
After reflecting on this for an hour, I have collected my thoughts. Obviously this is bad. I don't think people are going to jump immediately to start making nail bombs, but Trump getting killed or dying under conspiracy-able circumstances were what I always feared as a tipping point to some kind of actual level of civil conflict in the US. The shooter has achieved maybe the second-worst possibility after killing Trump in trying to kill him and failing.
Idle culture war prediction: "stochastic terrorism" is quietly retired as a term. 95% of people who ever used that unironically have spent the last few months saying Trump is a fascist who is going to end democracy and everyone should be doing their best to make sure he doesn't win. I think it's sort of a shame because there clearly is a genuine phenomenon there that it touches on, just the nature of it makes it so prone to abuse I suppose it was inevitably going to become useless.
johnfabian
13d ago
The story is an hour old, give it some time. Obviously CNN has a bias but they also don't want to fuck this up too bad.
You know they've got $$$ in their eyes knowing they can run on this for the next month.
johnfabian
13d ago
AP says two dead: the shooter and one attendee.
johnfabian
17d ago
Not the first time this has happened. People working within these types of political systems are generally better at this kind of coalition-building. This whole left coalition was assembled in two weeks after the election announcement. Meanwhile Americans are fretting about whether or not four months is enough time to switch candidates.
johnfabian
19d ago
Edit: Another point not about lately is Kamala Harris best shot to be president is just to be elected vice and then wait for him to die in office which is not that implausible. And she gets no negatives if the election is lost and is in a strong position for 2028.
Very much not, I would think. It's looking very much like she will not be elected vice-president again, barring some immense turnaround in the polls. If she goes into a primary in 2028 I would not think she is going to finish among the five top vote-getters. Her unique advantage and only asset is that at this point she is the candidate the Dems can pivot to without risking fragmentation, especially if Biden gives her the Official Blessing.
So her best play to be President at this point is to sit back and let others push Biden out, and then gracefully (if mock-regrettingly!) accept the scepter.
johnfabian
23d ago
Compare that time Hillary collapsed at an event and got thrown into her limo like a side of beef. Really bad, but immediately her surrogates (essentially the entire establishment media) were out there fighting it hard and within a few days she was doing appearances where she was shaking it off.
If Biden's debate was a Category 5 Hurricane of a PR storm, Hillary fainting was at best a weak tropical storm. Yeah the optics weren't good but an aging politician fainting in hot, humid weather (presumably over-dressed and maybe a decent coating of makeup) isn't some great disaster as long as it's not a sign of some other problem. Much more of an embarrassment to shove under the rug than a critical failing.
johnfabian
23d ago
I think it depends. The fatal weakness is any mention of "inclusivity" as a core value; once you do that you might as well roll over and present your belly because there is no way to defend yourself against someone with greater oppression points.
johnfabian
28d ago
Reddit frequently has these kind of issues, especially at high-traffic times. It might not be a coincidence in the sense that a presidential debate could put the servers on the fritz, but I highly doubt it's some kind of nefarious conspiracy.
johnfabian
28d ago
In the course of a week /r/neoliberal has flipped from smugly poo-pooing anyone questioning the mental fitness of Biden to accepting that he needs to be replaced immediately. Given that the subreddit for better or for worse captures the demographic of who runs the Democratic Party, I think that's a telling sign itself.
There can be few things in life as crushing as getting what you really wanted. Well this was what they wanted.
johnfabian
28d ago
And you don't know when things are going to rapidly take a turn for the worse.
johnfabian
1mo ago
As with a lot of situations where people talk about "LGBT" these days, I think 99% of this is about the T and maybe 1% about the LGB.
The shift towards acceptance of gay people is very broad across society. It's not just young people, not just progressives, not just the nonreligious, but just about everybody. Yes there are evangelicals and online weirdos who still freak out about gay people but they're the minority. I don't think there is going to be a substantial backlash to gays and lesbians. Maybe with respect to some of the more gauche and outwardly freakish gay men, but that's the 1%.
I think what it boils down to, and similar to what you're getting at, is people just don't like freaks. They don't care much about labels; they don't understand them anyways. But freaks make them uncomfortable. They don't want to be around freaks. They don't want their kids seeing freaks. They don't want to turn on the television and watch freaks. And the freaks are overwhelmingly concentrated in the T part of LGBT.
johnfabian
1mo ago
I'm reading China Miéville's Iron Council. He's a very descriptive author and I'm curious that more people haven't tried to copy this shtick of Industrial Revolution-set high fantasy. I feel this book is a bit more on-the-nose with respect to hitting the viewer on the head with Miéville's (anarchist) politics which is a bit unfortunate because in the other works I've read from him it's not bothered me.
johnfabian
1mo ago
and I'm curious how everyone else pictures Jack.
I've always pictured Jack as "beefy" in his frequent weight gains. Like imagine a boxer who has been retired for a year. Muscular and capable of immense violence but also a good 20-30 kg above normal weight.
When the hobbits raise the alarm in Buckland, the Nazgul scamper, clearly a bunch of farmers showing up with torches and pitchforks would have been bad for them in some way. Were they secretly kinda cotton candy under the cloaks?
I think according to Tolkien they just weren't very strong far away from Mordor, as none of them had their rings. Aragorn makes the point that they're physically not very capable and that fear and what they might inspire other ne'er-do-wells to do are their biggest concerns (while in Bree).
It's the show most similar to the original British The Office (much moreso than its American direct adaptation), if that entices you. But its sort of sarcastic humanism doesn't really translate to snappy trailers. Watch the second or fourth episode and see if you like it
johnfabian
1mo ago
Well, if you believe that all German war crimes on the Eastern Front were actually malicious lies made up by Jews and it was really all sunshine and roses, that contradiction resolves itself quite easily.
johnfabian
1mo ago
Party Down is an all-time great comedy show that very few people have seen. Strongly strongly encourage everyone to give it a shot
johnfabian
1mo ago
A politician who I think is quite similar to a Tammany Hall-type is Doug Ford, the premier of Ontario. He doesn't have a "machine" perhaps in the same way, as it is not built around a singular place or institution, but rather his close family members: Rob Ford was mayor of Toronto before him, and various other members of his family are following behind him into politics. In Toronto and Ontario they speak of "Ford Nation": a coalition of hangers-on, staffers, relations, magnates, and supporters, and I think it resembles a machine if you squint somewhat.
Ford is not an ideological man, and while he skews toward what you might call typical small-c conservatism that doesn't really encapsulate him. With him as Premier Ontario is embarking on massive expansions of public transit (roughly equivalent to the American federal government's expenditures in this regard) and nuclear power. He's also pushed through new highways through prime agricultural land. He has obvious populist tendencies: availability and price of beer has been a constant messaging point for him, even if it costs the government a billion dollars. He is extremely popular among immigrant groups and has been one of the biggest promoters of the rather absurd state of the international student program. His government is also very scrutinizing and responsive to public opinion: his rule through COVID was essentially through the whim of public opinion polls, seesawing rapidly from no restrictions to incredibly harsh and unconstitutional ones with great abandon. He has also presumably walked back proposed changes that he had promised key donors if they were publicly unpopular, like the Greenbelt land swaps.
It's also very good to be his friend. I don't know if there is necessarily good evidence that he is himself benefitting to any large degree from the state of things, but plenty of people who attend his daughter's wedding for no apparent reason profit. The members of his Cabinet get extra-juicy salaries and pensions, and he has both expanded the number of cabinet positions and adopted a policy of rotating his MPPs through those so that most have gotten a turn on the merry-go-round. This kind of personal largesse is also helped by the Canadian media's silent handshake deal to not report on personal matters: hypothetically if one were to perhaps be Ford's mistress, maybe you'd get a key spot in Cabinet, like, say, Infrastructure Minister or something. Just spitballing.
All this is to say is that it's basically a patronage system. We still have a civil service obviously, but elected jobs and public contracts are increasingly used as treats to be dangled for loyal supporters and donors. And the results aren't all that terrible, really. Yes it's wasteful and corrupt and inefficient and the fiscal burden of this is going to have to be reckoned with somewhere down the line. But Ford markets himself as The Guy Who Gets Things Done, and there's no doubt he gets things done. There's new regional rail and new subway lines and new nuc plants and new public buildings all coming online. This is causing a problem for the Ontario Liberals because they're getting their lunch eaten by him; all they have to offer as an alternative at the moment is that under Liberal rule politicians might be more polite and somewhat less corrupt but also nothing will change.
Partly it has to do with what /u/Rov_Scam pointed out, but I don't think that's the heart of it. Mickelson had long been a fan favourite, the second biggest golfer of the Tiger years, and was playing decently well into his 50s... even won his sixth major in 2021. So for him to jump ship from the tour that had made him a big star felt like a betrayal for people. Especially considering the money involved for his depreciating talent. It's one thing for an up-and-comer to take the big payout; sports careers are unpredictable, you could get a career-ending injury at any time, and lots of golfers simply lose their mojo for no explicable reason. He was also a big instigator of the scheme (he needed to be: big gambling debts!). For a fading older golfer to schism the world of pro golf for his own benefit after decades of being well-loved by the fans and by the prize purses... yeah, people didn't like it.
edit: The other thing to consider is that LIV as a product is just bad. This might all be forgiven if it were equal to or an improvement to the PGA tour in entertainment. It's not. All the changes that have been made to the format (teams, 54 holes, shotgun starts, music, etc.) have made it at various times annoying, crude, stupid, and boring. The talent is there but the players are not competitive. And the viewership as a result is practically non-existent. It exists only as long as the Saudis keep feeling happy about pouring billions of dollars into it per year.
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