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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 7, 2024

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I think that in reality if elected Trump would probably just spend all day tweeting and failing to implement his promises. However, to many Democrats it is almost as if Trump is a Lovecraftian god the mere mention of whom leads to insanity. Such Democrats view him as some sort of annihilating force the very presence of which in the universe warps and endangers the sane, wholesome building blocks of existence itself. Meanwhile I just see a fat old huckster sociopath who talks a lot of shit but is effectively restrained by checks and balances. Not a savory person, maybe even a rapist, pretty certainly a bad guy, but not some sort of fundamental essential threat to the entire being of American democracy or to sanity.

It is not that I do not believe in evil. But I do find it odd when liberals perceive demonic evil in Trump, yet make excuses for vicious violent criminals (at least, as a class if not always individually) who are enabled by Democrats' soft-on-crime policies.

Would Trump do many harmful things in office? I am sure. Harris would as well. Which one would do more, who knows? I do not see a clear-cut answer to that question. He certainly would be no angel, I am sure of that. But it also seems to me that often, vehement anti-Trump sentiment has little to do with a clear-eyed assessment of the possible harms that he would cause.

What explains the particular mind-shattering power that Trump somehow inflicts on so many of his political opponents? Interestingly, it largely do not seem to be his actual political counterparts among the Democrat elite who view him as an eldritch destroyer of worlds... the Democrat elite may hate him, may despise him, may say that he is a threat to democracy, but I don't think I can remember any time that any of them acted as if he was a threat to one's very psychological foundation. Maybe their power and their close understanding of American politics generally inoculates them against such a reaction.

Lest someone think that I come only to shit on the Democrats, unfortunately no. Would that I actually supported either of the two main parties... my political life would be easier. But the Republicans, too, deserve some questioning on this topic. Republicans' reaction to Bill and Hillary Clinton, at one point, was a sort of precursor to the mental shattering caused by the concept of Trump. Interestingly, despite often being accused of being racist, from what I recall Republicans did not actually react to Obama quite as hysterically as they reacted to the Clintons. Sure, there was a lot of vitriol against Obama, such as Birtherism, but it was probably half as vehement as what was thrown at the Clintons.

Yet even though Republicans were in many ways mind-melted by the Clintons, including to the point that Republican forums back in the day teemed with theories about the Clintons literally being a murderous and pedophilic crime family, I still do not think it quite matches up to the new standards of psychological devastation that Trump has wreaked. That might sound weird, given the murderous pedophile thing, but to me supporters of those theories generally just seem like they are stupid and prone to weird fantasies and LARPs but have always been that way, whereas people who are existentially shattered by Trump seem like they might have been different at one point, but then suddenly Trump appeared in the corner of their reality and traumatically inverted it into some new configuration of dimensions.

Why does Trump have this effect? Is it just that there is a large number of people in this country who fail to agree with me that Trump's chances of becoming a dictator are extremely small, that a man who has most key institutions against him, has the top military brass against him, and lives in a country where the military rank and file are probably not about to try to overthrow civilian authority, has very little chance of ending American democracy?

I am not sure. The idea of Trump being the curtain call on American democracy is certainly one of the main things behind his psychological impact on people, but I have seen plenty of people who seem existentially horrified by him for completely different reasons. Some people seem to be driven out of their wits' ends just by the very fact that Trump is crude and vulgar rather than sounding like an intellectual.

I think that in reality if elected Trump would probably just spend all day tweeting and failing to implement his promises.

Voting for a candidate isn't just about the candidate, it's about the kind of people you can reasonably expect them to appoint. For instance, voting Harris means you can expect more people in the bureaucracy who are pro-diversity, pro-regulation, etc. With Trump, the appointments are going to be people doing conservative things like anti-diversity, anti-regulation, anti-taxes, etc. Moreover, Trump's last term is a learning point for his side - they are absolutely going to find rosters of people who are loyalists first and foremost to install into the bureaucracy.

It is not that I do not believe in evil. But I do find it odd when liberals perceive demonic evil in Trump, yet make excuses for vicious violent criminals (at least, as a class if not always individually) who are enabled by Democrats' soft-on-crime policies.

Criminals do not threaten the fundamental political order and norms themselves. No bank robber threatens the first amendment, no gang-banger threatens the existence of rule-based law. Democrats believe Trump explicitly wants to put his political opponents in jail and that he has no respect for the law, like when he contacted Pence and asked him to delay the certification of the 2020 votes.

This is a silly point, and it should have been obvious why with even a moment of consideration. At most, you're complaining that liberals are hypocrites for engaging in incendiary rhetoric, but such rhetoric has never been to convey some rational assessment.

they are absolutely going to find rosters of people who are loyalists first and foremost to install into the bureaucracy.

Where are they going to find enough of these, particularly given their general lack of the academic credentials necessary to get through the government hiring process? Plus, for that matter, how are you going to get rid of the masses of old, unfirable bureaucrats to make space for these "loyalists"?

What hiring process are you referring to? Senate confirmations? Those account for 1200 positions, roughly, the president can appoint to roughly 4000, and they are absolutely able to replace people who were there from prior administrations.

What hiring process are you referring to?

However hiring for the million-plus civilian Federal bureaucracy is done, particularly regarding hiring rules and degree qualifications.