wemptronics
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User ID: 95
With enough publicity you could make faculty uncomfortable, but "in trouble" based on something like a viral X post that embarrasses the school is a longshot. A publicity route requires your case to be egregious or for your case to be at one of the universities already in the hot seat. I don't recall the last time I read a story in the wild of a professor eschewing course material to make the class about themselves and their beliefs. Especially not one with severe consequences. This is common enough to border on uninteresting.
If you decide you care enough, then you should start building a dossier yesterday. Syllabus, e-mails, rubrics, published learning outcomes if they exist, recorded lectures, etc. That's going to bring about any type of return for a decision to commit to the bureaucratic process. I don't think you're going to find a shortcut around a formal complaint. At the end of your effort all you might have is more uncomfortable relationship with Prof. SJ and the corrected grading accommodations. Give'em hell.
Was there some more israel/gaza stuff?
There was one other Israel-Gaza story I cooked up a post for partly motivated by accusations of boredom. The doldrums turned out to be false, so everyone is spared of it. For now.
I'm not seeing it in the OST so maybe it is a song in an expansion or a menu song not included in OST.
If it's in the game it was most definitely included with the historical meaning in mind. Paradox knows its audience and many appreciate a lesser known song that flatters the aspirational History Buff in them. I'm not sure if that's neutral, but Hoi4 players do cover the spectrum. It is is a game where one can LARP as Hitler or Stalin if they want. User created alt-history mods by political history nerds, usually ideologues of some flavor, are popular. Kaiserreich was the big one back in the day.
Charlie Kirk video? Hah! Have you seen what's happening in Gaza? He supported genocide by the way.
Don't go on the attack trying to look for ulterior motives and ideology behind the cheering - just call out the cheering as unkind and inhuman at the rawest level.
This is an okay way to make a good life and suss out potential friends. Decent folk-like. That you suggest it means I suspect we would get along fine. It is not, however, a solution that we can deploy at scale with any expectation of change.
Above all else keep the clip in circulation, with all its visceral, disquieting pathos. The idea that Charlie Kirk Is Dead can be thoughtlessly celebrated, but the actual sight of it - no, not unless you're a sociopath.
Technically we need not lose our decency as a side effect of value differences, but if you were to go on reddit and deploy your pathos attacks and appeals to empathy I'll wager you'll be disappointed. I have been! Most people who think better of themselves won't defend a video that they can't. Some can find cause, but far more can blink twice, move along, and get back into the groove after a moment. That's the domain that needs to change. If we can do that then, hell, what're we doing here? We can 10x improve politics in no time.
It sounds sort of like you want to slot this into something like trolling or outrage bait? I don't think I agree with that if so. Yes I don't care that he's dead. I love that he's dead. He was evil! That my enemies are incorrectly modeling my behavior and, were they only to change how they treated me, sounds like something that I would want to believe if I knew my participation in an activity was irresponsible or unjustified. Passing this responsibility onto others, especially onto my enemy, sounds ideal. You made me do it is tried and true.
because it has a significant risk of Streisanding the idea of actively supporting assassinations among people who currently don't support them
Personally, I think this is already out of the bag, among all manner of other things that make one a leftist, fascist, good, or bad. The left-coding isn't for the benefit of or in response to the right. The left-coding is and -- rather than something new -- we should consider this a resurgence of an old meme the left has relied on and used to great effect before. I suppose the right could try a 4D play and reclaim calls to violence (doesn't go well for them) or attempt its own social media-gov't speech restriction on behalf of conservatives which also doesn't go well.
I agree nobody should want to will something like this into existence or exacerbate it. A vicious, more violent left benefits some. What appropriate response do you have in mind?
An interpretation that leftists are responding to a freak accident as a bystander is somewhat accurate. Rather than an act of God, like a hurricane, this is more like civilians watching an enemy bomber fall from the sky over their city. The civilians look up to the sky and cheer. The civilians aren't killing anyone themselves, no, and the fact they are bystanders -- victims, even -- relieves any responsibility for cheering on death. It could even be considered imperative to cheer. This is their city, their neighbors, and friends suffering under the bombardment. Who wouldn't cheer as the enemy is made to pay?
Leftists don't take this behavior seriously, are having a good time, and don't consider themselves responsible. I suspect that is usually true. Individuals enjoy becoming partners in crime by crossing a taboo, signal allegiance, or justify celebration with a commitment to conflict. The performative intent is also there when leftists decide to dance on the grave of a dead healthcare CEO then decide to worship his dreamy murderer.
Don't get me wrong I am glad that most expressions of celebration are made by bystanders having a good time rather than by hardened killers. This doesn't ease concerns or my condemnation. Don't celebrate murders is a good norm and weakening it among a significant, visible category of people raises the risk we see predictably bad outcomes. That leftists do not consider or respect this risk is of no comfort. In darker times, should they become apparent, It wasn't my fault isn't going to cut it.
Plus, it's not as if leftists are detached from the events. Rather than a comedian looking for a punch-line to tragedy they care as much any other group. They jump in the trenches when its their turn to spin the Guess the Perp wheel and argue about this policy or another. They have a good time celebrating the death of their enemy, then they have another kind of time of as they commiserate with each other on a perceived state of crisis. They have a third, additional kind of time declaring fascism of yesterday eclipsed by the fascism of tomorrow. They are no more or less accidental bystanders to these social phenomena as any other part of the lefty egregore.
I contend that for the average left-wing rando, "some nutjob has shot Charlie Kirk" has about the same valence as "Charlie Kirk has been struck by lightning"
What is the polar opposite case? I'd expect there to be plenty of right-wing anons dancing on the grave of, say, Hasan Piker. It's not a 1:1 comparison. Kirk, unlike Piker, was legitimized inside mainstream political power, whereas Piker is still primarily a shitposter millionaire who streams to teenagers and gets NYT profiles. Right wing anons aren't usually professors comfortable with expressing support for political murders. But, yeah, I wouldn't say that the right-wing is impervious to breaking this norm, or even faithful followers of this norm. The political class still mutters the words, but it doesn't take.
In the future, if we aren't living it, we may all have permission to cheer on one person or another bleeding out on a stage. We may even take turns. It's a darn shame.
This whole attempt to lionize Kirk after his death has been extremely black pulling, as a leftist.
I don't think any lionization is aimed at blackpilled leftists. Ezra Klein says free speech is good, but he doesn't lionize him. This is about the best response that can be mustered among a sea of "he didn't deserve to die, but..."
I don't know much about Kirk. As far as political influencers go, a commitment to the exercise of speech and "Debate*" is worth a nod even in an asterisked, scare quoted own-the-lib form. Doubly so in an environment where an exercise of (obnoxious) speech, the bedrock of our polite society, will get you targeted. I wish Kirk's politics were more like mine in his life and advocacy, but that goes for everyone.
Would it be helpful if you pretended Joe Rogan was killed instead? That sounds snarky, but I am curious who might be a controversial, but deserving figure you dislike to receive more than mostly derision with a he didn't deserve, but... primer.
wemptronics
9d ago
https://youtube.com/watch?v=IeWMw2hb4gY&ab_channel=Motte%26Bailey
The Intellectual Dark Web lives on in our memories. In case anyone else is curious here is the first CW thread top-level post on the discussion with Harris. Probably the first of several.
Ezra Klein is a woke idiot who lied about Charles Murray to push blank slate liberalism and he did it knowingly, and not out of ignorance, because the narrative was more important than the truth.
There's an argument to be had around the value of any given noble lie or paternalistic social engineering. Ezra Klein, however, is not the person to make these arguments, because he can't give much than an inch without falling into a crisis of dissonance.
wemptronics
16d ago
I am still immature enough to find humor in it.
The only gay bar I can remember going to was definitely fully... gentrified. Straightified? City, trendy nightlife, etc. Which is probably why an invading war band of very suspiciously not gay people was not an issue. It also wasn't ethnography friendly as it was not talking friendly. I wonder if we even have many gay pub equivalents in the states.
be me
be on long weekend with normies
find time to comfymaxx
visit wordy castle website
its weekly threads shitpost /general/
first post another post from not gay doctor indian anon
hes serially documenting becoming regular at gay bar
very suspiciously not gay famalam
scroll
read second post where anon complains about chinese cartoons
sigh
he doesnt know
he doesnt fucking know
anon doesnt know 2000s era travel blogs was the only good thing the internet ever made
think about how i didnt read the post of the very suspiciously not gay man bc i made a greentext instead
feelsgoodman.jpg
Log off
The "manifesto" is collection of writings in a diary written in broken Cyrillic/Russian. Most likely self-taught. The letter is indeed the shooter's suicide note I only read these two pages, but people get the gist. The gist is all I needed before I felt a pang of disgust and no longer felt compelled to learn of motive. Allow me to rant.
How kind, how caring, how comforting to leave a suicide note for friends and family. A depressive ritual, centuries old, that historically aims to share some of the burden of grieving with those left behind. A note acknowledges the tragedy a person creates, but attempts to leave some humanity along with with the selfish, often foolish act.
I don't see how the "suicide" note can do any of that in this case. In this case, the letter should impress upon friends and family a number of unusually burdensome regrets. This exit strategy will leave loved ones in a position where they will pressed to wake up thinking they wish their loved one had taken the easy way out. I wonder if the shooter considered what it might be like for a father to wake up wishing his son had taken his own life, and what that might do to a man? Suicide is usually a selfish act, but in comparison to the murder of children it is downright saintly. It would be better for the well-being of friends and family if they thought this person had a psychotic break without notice. I don't suppose we can expect moral clarity from a mass murderer.
The panning over the writing on all the weapons are where things are weird.
My read is that is pure attention grabbing. To my knowledge there's no Marxist or political commentary in the diary beyond Joo-maxxing. I don't think it's even accurate to call this type a misanthrope. They hate themselves and don't have the decency to do us the favor. I understand depression is colloquially said to be like emotional blindness, but I don't think it is appropriate to invoke that here. This is of a different category.
My hot take: if Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were alive today they'd be trans. It wouldn't be the trenchcoat mafia, it'd be the transcoat mafia. I'm not sure how hard it is to successfully profile this type to send them off to boarding school in Idaho. Sure, there's constitutional problems, but there's problems disarming domestic violence perps and we do that. Once they're over 18 society is stuck with the consequences.
I'm pretty sure it is a "Photo ID, please" ordeal to purchase a hatchet or chef's knife from the store. I do not know to what extent this is enforced. If I were to guess this is easy to work around for teens, just as getting beer as a 16 year old isn't a very serious hurdle in the US. I didn't mean this proves she is some some hardened criminal, but carrying bladed weapons in public has a well understood meaning and is a strong signal in the UK.
The difference between smh and the telegram chuds he scoffs at is that the misinformation printed on those telegram channels is written by someone who actually believes it....
Putting aside how significant that difference is, am I to grant more latitude to flat earther propaganda because they hold actual beliefs when journalists, you say, do not?
The information environment sucks. Traditional and nu-media, professionals and amateurs, they all contribute to the state of it. I don't care for the meme right's slop factory products or The Guardian's. All I can do is complain about it, so I have and will continue to.
They will omit details, use careful wording ("no evidence to substantiate claims") and construct a story that serves their interests first and foremost.
I'm not comparing chuds to journalists, saying one is more honest than the other, or judging that one has better epistemics as a category. I don't particularly trust journalists. Scott's assessment is correct, but he is too kind to internalize the more severe implications of a "not touching you" grade of truth in reporting. I am not inclined to tolerate wishful bullshit of others because of journalism's failures. I'll add that 'telegram chuds' isn't charitable a complete description. It's a variety of online right wing subcultures that are chomping at the bit to slurp down the outrage.
My suggestion is to build a gallows. Whoever can be scapegoated as the highest possible government official who failed with knowledge of grooming gangs at the time has to go. Yes, retroactively. They probably can't re-sentence the perps, so they need to make a big show of another newly convicted Asian guy. Sucks for him, but the people bay for blood.
Also lol at the idea distrusting the authorities is the modern equivalent of a witch hunt. Was it Matthew Hopkins Witchfinder Footsoldier? Who ran the Spanish inquisition again?
I share an impulse to scrutinize authority. Not all scrutiny is good, pro-social, or justified.
But it would be nice if the people who brag about epistemic humility actually employed it.
I am not entrenched in some position. I thought I was pretty clearly arguing that we don't know shit, so you shouldn't have that opinion with certainty, because it is not founded. I gave my opinion on what it looks like to me with the limited information we have. I am more than happy to vacate my position of ignorance for a better informed one. I'm probably not going to get that information from the outrage factory.
s per the link from jkf, the dude is a """digital creator"""... The only thing left to find out is if he's working for an NGO.
Thanks for the link I hadn't scrolled. Oh my. Well, if that's the case I suppose the blackpill doesn't taste so bad going down.
EDIT: It now occurs to me that one answer to "not even trying" perception: kids are awkward and do lots of things inexplicably poorly. Assuming this guy is mostly a normal pedestrian, then it's a good thing the girl, sensing discipline, acts awkwardly and doesn't commit to anything too crazy.
She doesn't look like she's even trying to be intimidating
Because girls don't know a lot about intimidation. Not even on the streets. They see what boys intimidating people looks like and and try to emulate it. Given enough time, dedication, and maturity the insecurity is dropped and girls can go pull the weave out dat hoes head without thinking it's not hard enough. Ain't no bitch need to fight like a man.
The other part that is suspicious is the length of the video. Why is it so short?
I am suspicious of all short videos. I assume she wasn't filming or calling the police, because she was breaking the law. How much earlier did the blades come out in the altercation? No idea, but doesn't look like she carries them on her person.
The Rittenhouse narrative that the media tried to drum up made no sensw from the start, it wasn't a case ofnmissing context.
The people that latched onto the narrative didn't need context. They still don't need the (truthful) context, because they already know what they want to believe. That is selfmade's point, but he is polite.
Despite sympathizing with the outrage quite a bit I fear demand for migrant rapists has already exceeded supply. The UK has only been able to openly talk about this for a few years!
It seems fair to me.
Because pointing a camera at a 12-year-old girl and following her around while she's clearly trying to disengage is A-tier creepy behaviour.
Is there a video longer than the than the 45 second one? There are a number of types of altercations that result in a Bulgarian man feeling compelled to, provoked into, or choosing to film a girl wielding a couple blades instead of walking away. Potentially, the Bulgarian man was not actually threatened by the encounter, but understood it was illegal, wrong, or entertaining. Most of the scenarios I envisage involve the kid instigating some shit as kids who stash weapons on the block do. Filming obscene, novel, or even dangerous things is now the response I expect from most people. Do it for the gram, fam.
In the 45 seconds of footage I saw, the girl start out keenly aware that brandishing her weapons on camera is bad, wrong, or illegal. I guess whatever preceded this was meant to be for show, but not to show everyone. This is why the video starts with her hiding the weapons. Called out, the punk instinct kicks in, and she reveals her weapons. She must be well educated in the arts of the street, because upon a challenge she chooses to keep it real.. What is she gonna do, stab me? Wu-tang!
There's a possibility that this girl is what many want it to be. Just like it was possible that Kyle Rittenhouse was a white supremacist, and that possibility carries on to the present. Maybe she had ready access to weapons in the land of loicenses because she was practicing for an upcoming tryout for the local HEMA club. Maybe. Perhaps she, to borrow language from people I associate with the outrage, dindu nuffin.
So I'm not beating up on a potential victim I'll pledge $100 to a Scottish youth charity that looks like it goes to underprivileged (white) Scots so long as we find reasonable suspicion the girl in the video is responding to immediate sexual advances by the man filming her. If there's no such of charity I'll ask locals decide where it should go.
Fair enough I was talking out of my ass. At least I now know where to go for my horoscopes. I don't exactly trust Russell, but I don't exactly not trust him either.
What do you think of when I show you this image?
If you were paying attention to The News at the time, then you'd recognize this image captures important social commentary. It was disseminated by our very best, professional national media outlets. Attached to it was a story about a MAGA chud laughing in the face of a noble and indigenous savage. The media manufactured and corralled the narrative in less than a day. Full blast an hour or so before I knew the entire encounter available for viewing on Youtube. This was not much slower than the Twitter story of the mysteriously well armed (for Britain) chav(?) teen that is alleged to be warding off Pakistani Asian advances. Alternatively, a teenager making poor decisions.
I don't think the AI connection is very relevant here. You can argue the image generation enhances the meme, but I don't think it is central. The video is enough. To take off it requires a common understanding and a major demand. There's a lot of demand on Yookay Twitter. I judge that the demand can be largely laid at the feet of British institutions and culture which are paying a cost for past transgressions. You may judge differently. This does not absolve propaganda for feel mads or Twitter bucks.
My brain short circuits a little seeing a girl dual-wielding hatchet knife in public. That is not a situation that organically transpires. About the closest thing I can map it to is various criminal situations in lower-class environments filmed for entertainment.
I look forward to more information than five sentences in the Daily Record. Why do you lot need so many tabloids and why do they need to be daily? The Weekly World News is a world class tabloid.
If a party gets too strong, and too unrepresentative, people will successfully organize to take it down a notch.
Gerrymandering is sustainable in the sense it's not a catastrophic disruption to the function of government. It is still less than ideal. Safe seats lead to more important primaries which leads to more important primary voters. Primary voters skew radical, older, and more influenced by interests. It is poorly representative practice, but not in any positive "the King knows best" sort of way.
The pendulum is a comforting idea. It's also not an Iron Law of democracy. Political machines entrench themselves and last much longer than they should because people don't successfully organize to take them down a notch. Chicago has been poorly governed by a political machine for a long time. I consider competition closer to an Iron Law of Good in democracy, and gerrymandering reduces it.
That said, if we want to stop arguing about gerrymandering we need a new system. I'd choose a limited form of proportional representation for the house. Limit the number of parties represented with thresholds to preclude 1% parties. I don't know how other places do that, but pick whatever is the best I'm sure it's easy. Keep the senate as is to preserve the contract of the Union. Oh, I guess we have to start by killing all current representatives to not slow or obstruct the reform process. Tree of liberty, etc.
wemptronics
27d ago
Well no one should accuse you of being an unprincipled hypocrite.
With Trump I was only pretty sure he would commit to immigration (good) and tariffs (bad). I thought tariffs were dumb and it turns out I still think they are dumb. I had little confidence what he'd do with universities, how real DOGE would be, and so on. I was reasonably certain he would more effectively exert his will compared to 45, but was uncertain what he'd choose.
Actually, Dr. Tao signed a letter asking for the stick to be deployed against his classroom.
Do you mean the UCLA white supremacy statement, this letter that says punishing a fellow mathematics faculty member for speaking out against diversity statements is wrong, or a different third letter? Or, do you mean that signing the first white supremacy statement was detrimental to his classrooms because its ideas are terrible? If if it's the last one I agree.
In the context of UCLA he is probably justified in not considering himself very political. That is emblematic of the cultural dominance and the ensuing blindness that follows. It's why I say, "Stick, good." However, the guy had the rug pulled out from under him. He didn't have it pulled because of who he is, what he said, or what he did. He had it pulled because UCLA attracted Sauron's gaze. He issues a call to non-action: "the luxury of disengagement is no longer a viable option." Crying foul is not an ideal response to any behavioral correction, but this isn't the most direct, targeted, or deliberate discipline.
I found some of the replies in Trace's thread frustrating. Like getting in a discourse time machine: smart, good natured people carefully walking around that which still cannot be seen. A mutual understanding of university culture and recent history does not appear to be forthcoming. I do not expect academia to kiss the ring of Trump. For that reason I am glad TracingWoodgrain's criticism of Tao went viral. Tao's position and sentiment is common enough, so a public critique is positive even if it does not garner significant agreement.
Trump can't do any of the things that require influence inside an institution. All Trump can do is hit with stick. The stick is dumb, the stick is indiscriminate, but it's the stick in his hand. Dr. Tao is justified in complaining about the stick and I applaud him for it. Complaining about the stick is normal. If we don't already consider it a human right to complain about the stick, then we should consider it.
There is a cost to the stick and it is painful. This is unfortunate-- disastrous for some people I know. Of the anecdotes I've heard, such as jdizzler's below, everyone thus far has earned my sympathies. I hope we can look forward to a future without punitive actions against universities or research funding.
I've written before:
The institutions should function in a way that they can manage their own reputation and credibility.
In the end, all the stick can do is make it easier for any individual to assert pursuit of truthisms in the face of others who aim to paint big red targets on their back. Become a wee bit wiser to act a little more like good stewards. The only lesson worth learning is that conservatives will throw the entire package of higher learning into the boiling cauldron if they perceive it as an intolerable, hostile institution. Yes, that includes the Good Parts, because, unfortunately, much is packaged together under a generalized monoculture.
One can argue against the stick, one can hate conservatives or Trump, and they can continue to look down upon one or both. Surrender is not required to respect the stick. There is certainly no risk of counter-revolution in research labs or in the student body.
My main criticism is once the stick is proven real it must be shown to be avoidable. To critics that believe the academy is only good for culture war and who are committed to its destruction, I must insist we complete thorough, competent audit of research funding to save the Good Parts.
wemptronics
27d ago
Maybe not on the Continent, but there is some limited demand for this American export in the UK. This guy found space at the University of Edinburgh and got to work Confronting The University of Edinburgh's History and Legacies of Enslavement and Colonialism.
I don't think anywhere is going to welcome a significant influx of Very American academics. "They're taking our jobs!"
"Oh, I can know what he's referencing I can add some helpful links for this post. A little context, too." Oops. I guess I didn't not add helpful links or minor context. I have allowed myself to get lost in the textual sauce. An LLM, but worse.
This one is a trend that's been polled and surveyed for over a decade. It's bad. If we're pointing fingers I think this is one of many potential indicators of finger pointing direction.
The Heatmap is more interesting than the "ideological diversity" (ooo nodes) study. This one does not grab me like The Heatmap and instead I concluded, "Sure thing, social science. Run it back." For sake of brevity, this study asked 8 questions (n=400ish, 25%ish Republicans) and I'll share 3: (1) "Abortion should be illegal", (4) *"The federal budget for welfare programs should be increased", and (6) "The government should regulate business to protect the environment".
I don't think these are definitive type questions to accurately measure "diversity" -- a word the authors do not use -- of political temperament or ideology. The fun part is at the end where the authors remind us:
Ah
When academics invoke But, Trump, White, Christian in a context is important tone one must resist the temptation. Ah-ha! These inconvenient findings must be evidence for why the paper is correct. I, on the other hand, once again recall that science science is sham. Do it again, bozos, and do it better.
What other studies are you thinking of? This one got me good. What started as "helpful link":
This references the "heat map" study which you call flawed. For The Heatmap, or Ideological differences in the expanse of the moral circle, the study compares how liberals and conservatives express and/or extend "moral concern." The authors find liberals are prone to extend moral concern in a loose "universalist" fashion, whereas conservatives distributed moral concern a tighter "parochial" shape. They then mapped these response in concentric circles for our benefit. These circles start from the category of immediate family at the center, out to all of humanity, lifeforms in the universe, and finally everything that ever exists including space rocks.
People, like me, interpret "moral concern" as a synonym for units of caring. Which is not wholly accurate. This is a stated preference, but not a tested preference. A polite interpretation is that liberals are capable, or would like to be, of loving all of humanity and beyond to a greater extent than conservatives. From there, the "liberals love space rocks as much as their kids" dunks write themselves.
One of the exercises has the participants distribute their moral concern as a zero-sum resource. Liberals were more likely to apply concern to things far away from the center than conservatives, although they still applied concern to the center. That maps the same direction as the non-zero-sum, unlimited distribution which brings liberals and conservatives closer, but still distinct in pattern. Conservatives, even when told that moral concern is not finite, won't ascribe much moral value to space rocks. The gradient for conservatives shows they don't consider space rocks worthy of concern at all. In the study they stop giving moral concern points, regardless if they're finite, much sooner when extending outwards. They do so to the point where the outer circles are closer to non-existent.
If I can believe that these exercises can provide insight, then I would very much like to see the study repeated, then simplified, and finally standardized. I want to see this deployed across cultures and through time. What would populations in Somalia, South Africa, or Spain land if we replicated the study in those population? Does safety and prosperity change the disposition and by how much? Race/ethnicity? Climate?
A million questions. How does this interact with other parts we know to be (at least partly) hardwired like temperament and preferences? If the finding that liberals generally have a higher IQ is true, then might it be related? I know the findings are not so broad, but it's hard to not think there could be costs (and benefits) in processing the world in such a way. So long as we can consistently clamp down moral temperament as dimorphic across culture and time.
How exciting! Of course, because it's exciting, triggers my imagination, and was made into a meme then I assume it won't hold up. The limited/unlimited sample sizes for the exercises were 131 and 263 people respectively, however each only had about 35 conservatives. Maybe this should have been its own post, but I figure someone smarter and most handsome could have done it better than I.
Dems are more conformist if we take the Do It Again, Bozo science at face value. This would suggest they're at least a little better about backing Their Guy. As a counter-point, the above quoted text sounds like an obviously bipartisan phenomena to me. It is normal for the average politically interested voter to vote for plainly partisan reasons.
What behavior should we expect from Dems when their election plans fall apart? "Yesterday I said it would be a mistake to let the Californian machine "brown and a woman" candidate takeover, but the party fucked it-- oh well we'll get you guys next time." Nobody wins elections by telling the opposition they are right on the tepid candidate. No way, that billion dollar campaign is gonna happen. It may as well be spent on a fun, joyful Brat! campaign.
Your average MAGA voter was railing against TikTok a year ago and has no problem accepting a reversal of course. This is exactly the kind of example where we -- you, me, everyone else -- are programmed to notice the enemy's transgressions, but forget our own. Now? All quiet on the big bad Chinuh! front. Difference in degree, not kind? Maybe. I think we probably have some people better suited to the point out contradiction game. Team Trump can turn on a dime. I consider this as an uncontroversial statement without comparison to anything else. Team Trump has no problem accepting a reversal or re-reversal. The D machine's efforts in 2024 was absurd and, yes, it worked to an extent. It had to work. It was always going to work. You can't just give up at the end of democracy. [Which should really put in perspective the monumental and historical fuck-up of Democrats in 2024.]
All the politicians, all the consensus, would back the Republican candidate no matter what some writer at National Review said ten minutes ago. Trump has some in-house resistance, but how'd that work out? How many Republicans backed Trump after calling him some name or even disavowed him? Many, including Vance. Democrats have seen this and they've called it out! "People can change their minds, you know?" Yeah, yeah, some more than others.
The mainstream Dem machine is impressive and has some unique advantages. Concepts of optics, messaging, and narrative are more prominent in the minds of Blue voters and, to some extent, this has trained them. Maybe the Republicans don't get as close as Kamala did if the parties swapped position and infrastructure. Republicans have their own training and they seem to be developing it. Falling in line behind Kamala for the party -- or whoever it is -- can be your expectation next time. No surprise or condemnation or special accusation necessary.
Political disputes at the moment, but more righties than lefties tend to support violence as a means in other general settings. Is this the same? No, it's frequently not the same. There are many qualities of American leftism that are in not mirrored or symmetric to the right. This is a fundamental problem with the left-right paradigm, and it is not solved by added another axis. There are qualities of leftism that I also find frustrating, abhorrent, or special. Nature nurture, blank slateism is a huge fundamental contradiction in liberal and leftist ideology. The right has contradictions has of its own, as you admit. I share many of the same grey tribe suspicion of lefty thinking, culture, and politics. I think you lean too far in your condemnation of the people.
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