porkpiehat
54m ago
And importantly, Trump needs 50 non-cucked Republicans to make any appointments. Judges can rule like kings in many cases. We need Trump to be able to appoint them which he can't do without those 50 votes.
I am hopeful for a blue fizzle based on demonstrated poll bias. But maybe I have my head in the sand.
porkpiehat
1hr ago
Immigration is by far the most important for Trump (and also for me and the health of the country).
Though people might say affordability is the most important, it was always a fake crisis that the party out of power uses as a cudgel for the party in power. Except for a couple years during the Biden admin, real wages have gone up consistently. But people's expectations go up faster thanks to Instagram and other comparison tools.
And of course the usual solution to "affordability" is to subsidize demand or to rob Peter to pay Paul, which just makes the problem worse.
I know that it's still important for Trump to acknowledge the retarded demands of the people. It's just that, in 5 years, no one will remember that gas was $1 higher than normal for a sixth month period. But immigration, if left to continue unabated, will permanently ruin the country.
porkpiehat
1hr ago
Chaotic, maybe. Dysfunctional, hardly. You couldn't have asked for better performance on the core goal of the administration. They have completely closed the border and have deported 1 million people, accelerating over time. No one could have predicted that level of success. IMO, they earn an A+ on that issue, and it's the most important issue.
porkpiehat
1hr ago
I agree that North Carolina is a likely flip, made less painful by the fact that Thom Tillis was a closet Democrat.
porkpiehat
1hr ago
The US never gets any credit for any of the great things we do (Covid vaccines being a recent example) but gets maximum blame for bad things. No one ever said how great the US was because of USAID, but when we took it away, there were howls of protest.
So I would say that, it's not just Trump. The U.S. hasn't understood soft power in a long time. Everyone hates us. So, if hated, better at least to be respected than to continue to beg for scraps of affection.
I do hope that EA's will fully fund the most effective measures with a small share of the bonanza of money coming their way post Anthropic and Open AI IPO's. Personally, I predict little progress on Africa's core problems but much higher SF real estate prices and political donations to politicians who promise to regulate AI. Perhaps I'm overly cynical. I do think that EA's in general believe what they say. It's just that they are also lazy and bullshit and status seeking, just like everyone else.
porkpiehat
2hr ago
The Senate in particular seems like it will be hard for Democrats to capture. They need to flip 4 seats.
The easiest to flip are North Carolina, Maine, Texas and Ohio. After that, Iowa, Alaska, Kansas. With the exception of Maine these are all red states! Trump won Texas by 14, Iowa by 13, Ohio by 11!
They also need to avoid being flipped in Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, and Georgia.
Michigan in particular is a tough race for them with a DSA Muslim vs a turbo normie. Wouldn't be surprised to see Rogers win that one by 8 points.
porkpiehat
2hr ago
The amounts of rampant fraud that has come out in the last couple years is convincing me that there are well-oiled grift machines out there that convert Tax dollars into either Mansions, Range Rovers, and Crab legs for some particular class of people, OR converts them into protests, election influence, and propaganda for particular candidates or causes.
The US elections coming up will be instructive. So far the absentee ballots requested are way down, which might speak to the disruption of some, um, how shall we say, "get out the vote" efforts.
If Democrats don't win bigly, as predicted by polls and prediction markets, then perhaps there was a lot of electoral fraud after all.
porkpiehat
2hr ago
Same user posted a conspiracy theory that the Iranians hit the USS Lincoln with multiple ballistic missiles. Was proven wrong almost instantly.
Also claimed Lindsay Clancy was a MKUltra victim.
So... if I had to guess... ZeroHedge comments section.
porkpiehat
2hr ago
Happened afterward. ✅
Plausible method of action. ✅
Epistemological hygiene check passed. Very good chance it was causative.
porkpiehat
2hr ago
We would conclude that anyone claiming October 7th killed millions of people is an idiot.
porkpiehat
4hr ago
Yeah, every online debate is just a meta argument about who the burden of proof falls on.
I think the lesson for me is not to proactively provide evidence but rather to make claims and then address with evidence if there are non-lazy counterclaims. Otherwise people will just do their lazy drivebys while sitting on the toilet.
porkpiehat
4hr ago
Yeah, people are shocked when they learn that defense is only like 15% of federal spending and most of that is just social programs and salaries as well.
We spend almost as much on veterans disability (much of which is fraud) as we do on weapons procurement.
porkpiehat
4hr ago
They fixed it via ending social promotion and by mandating phonics, right? Did they do anything else? Without looking it up, I would assume their spending is very low by US standards.
porkpiehat
4hr ago
I did state it was the only evidence we have. But yeah. It's removed now.
Better to state the universal negative, let people come up with counterexamples, and then attack those. Prevents lazy drive-bys.
porkpiehat
4hr ago
Yes, I think this is the correct take.
USAID was just a small part of a whole government pressure program in support of Leftism. Cutting USAID didn't have much of an effect since the amount of money spent was small and most was simply wasted. But turning off or even reversing the whole government pressure is quite impactful.
For example, this time it is Lula who must beware of U.S. intervention. And Trump actually did tariff Brazil for their politically motivated prosecution of Bolsonaro. (It's currently at 25%). Brazilians can look forward to the prospect of being much richer if Flavio Bolsonaro is elected and the tariffs are ended. My $PAGS stock which I recommended on the finance thread two weeks ago is up 21% today on election news.
porkpiehat
4hr ago
This is how it usually goes down for me.
NPC: We need more tax money for our underfunded public schools
Me: How much do you think insert local ghetto spends per student?
NPC: I don't know, $3000?
Me: They spend $34,000 per student per year. There's 20 kids to a class, so that's $680,000 per teacher.
NPC: Nevertheless
porkpiehat
4hr ago
I guess an iron law of writing is that one should never use weak evidence in your argument, even if it's all that is available.
I'm just going to take it out, since it seems like a lightning rod for people who, lacking evidence of their own, latch onto the weakest part of the argument like a terrier onto a bull's penis.
porkpiehat
4hr ago
Lol. That's a good one.
My personal favorite is when the New York Times implies causation by using weasly language construction.
"He criticized the President. Now he's being deported." (serial rapist)
"He donated money to Trump. Then he lost his house."
"Man dies after police incident"
porkpiehat
5hr ago
Fixed
porkpiehat
5hr ago
It's the only data we have.
The parsimonious explanation is that an extra 1 billion dollars given to Ethiopians is immediately spent on consumption, mostly on imported goods.
Definitely nice for the Ethiopians who benefited, but I doubt they made any progress on fixing entrenched problems.
We simply must get past the idea that government/NGO spending does anything useful unless we can closely track it and see the progress. Allocating funds != accomplishing goals. Look at California High Speed Rail. This applies doubly in corrupt countries.
porkpiehat
5hr ago
Yes, and if true, it would be trivially easy for people to raise money and save those lives. The fact that no one really made an effort shows a lack of belief. If relatively small amounts of money is all it takes to save African lives, they all would have been saved long ago.
porkpiehat
5hr ago
Forgive the self-reply, but I feel like it's too juicy not to point out the amazing parallels between Brazilian politics and US poltics.
Obviously Bolsonaro is the Brazilian Trump.
Trump: almost assassinated. Bolsonaro: almost assassinated and seriously wounded.
Trump: defeated by a geriatric man from a previous regime. Bolsonaro: same.
Trump: defeated by a "corrupt socialist". Bolsonaro: Defeated by a corrupt socialist.
Trump: Janaury 6th. Bolsonaro: January 8th
Trump: target of judicial warfare. Bolsonaro: same, but actually sent to prison
Trump: stymied by kinglike judges. Bolsonaro: stymied by Godlike judges.
Trump: children proposed as political heirs. Bolsonaro: children elected to Senate and maybe Presidency
Trump: ballot harvesting in black areas might have lost him election. Brazil: Ballot harvesting in black areas but no electoral college.
Brazil is just like the U.S. except like 50% more retarded. Lusotropicalism enjoyers are on Cloud 9.
Back in 2025, DOGE axed USAID and, according to partisans on the left and right, the results have been monumental.
To the left, USAID was somehow singlehandedly keeping millions of Africans alive. The loss of USAID resulted in their deaths. Wikipedia, the fallen one, reports this:
The impact of the actions taken by the USAID on global health is wide-reaching.[34] A study published in June 2025 estimated that funding cuts and the abolition of the agency could result in more than 14 million preventable deaths by 2030, including 4.5 million children under 5 years old.[9] Another estimate (by epidemiologist and health economist Brooke Nichols) is that over a period of one year from when they began, the cuts will result in the deaths of as many as 262,915 adults and 518,428 children.[35]
Obviously this is farcical on its face. And nearly 18 months later, there is no evidence of the massive death wave that was predicted.
Not to be outdone, the right has its own version of a USAID conspiracy theory: that closing USAID somehow killed leftism in South America.
Since USAID was shut down, seven countries in Latin America have held Presidential elections (Bolivia, Ecuador, Honduras, Chile, Costa Rica, Peru, and Colombia). All seven have elected a President who is right of center. Brazil now remains as the strongest center of leftism in Latin America. But it looks like they might flip as well. In the first round of voting, Flávio Bolsonaro beat Lula by nearly 2 points. They now advance to the runoff.
Conservatives on X are crowing about how this shows that USAID was propping up leftist governments in Latin America. But... I just don't see the mechanism. The money spent was too small. The programs too ineffectual.
The likelier truth about USAID is, like most government programs, it was essentially useless. The biggest political effect is that it allowed leftists a sinecure with good pay and benefits. And cutting it was worth it for that reason alone. But did cutting USAID kill people in Africa or bring down communists in Latin America? Press D to doubt.
Why would I ever bet you with those odds when I can get much better odds on Kalshi? What a strange offer. Counterparty risk means I wouldn't bet you at any odds, no offense.
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