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naraburns  nihil supernum  6mo ago (text post)   27983 thread views

U.S. Election (Day?) 2024 Megathread

With apologies to our many friends and posters outside the United States... it's time for another one of these! Culture war thread rules apply, and you are permitted to openly advocate for or against an issue or candidate on the ballot (if you clearly identify which ballot, and can do so without knocking down any strawmen along the way). "Small-scale" questions and answers are also permitted if you refrain from shitposting or being otherwise insulting to others here. Please keep the spirit of the law--this is a discussion forum!--carefully in mind.

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Matty Y thinks he has the answers for the Democratic Party. It's a pretty good list but it shows an astounding lack of self-awareness: https://x.com/mattyglesias/status/1854334397157384421

How many smart people like Matty Y are out there who are Republicans but just haven't realized it yet? Hopefully the Trump administration can build a big tent that includes these people, but I'd also settle for a less insane Democratic party.

Here's Matty's list:

  1. Economic self-interest for the working class includes robust economic growth

  2. Climate change is a reality to manage not a hard limit to obey

  3. The government should prioritize the interests of normal people over those of people who engage in antisocial conduct

  4. We should, in fact, judge people by the content of their character rather than by the color of their skin

  5. While race is a social construct, biological sex is not

  6. Academics and nonprofit staffers do not occupy a unique position of virtue relative to private sector workers

  7. Politeness is a virtue but obsessive language policing alienates normal people and degrades the quality of thinking

  8. We are equal in the eyes of God, but the American government can and should prioritize the interests of American citizens

  9. Public services must be run in the interests of their users not their providers

Edit: I found another one, this time by the "Liberal Patriot" Ruy Teixeira. When will these people realize that they are essentially Republicans now?

The big thing Matt Yglesias leaves out of this list that makes him a Democrat is that he wants to expand social welfare programs and raise taxes.

But the strange part is that many of the items in his list undermine the justifications for raised taxes, etc.
If academics and nonprofits don't have a presumption of moral status, how do we justify taking people's money to fund them and using their judgements to rule the people?
If education should be run purely as a service to students and parents, what moral argument is left against school choice?
If "politeness" rules aren't supposed to be a political weapon to stifle debate, how is his preference that "bad left wing ideas should gain power" at the expense of the truth going to be enforced?

It's all self-defeating, and so I suspect a totally performative offering of peace from a position of weakness, with his fingers firmly crossed behind his back.

If academics and nonprofits don't have a presumption of moral status, how do we justify taking people's money to fund them and using their judgements to rule the people?

I mean, in the "fund" case, it's just "having people research this is diffusely positive for society, so funding it from the taxpayer internalises the externality".

Of course, there are departments whose output is negative for society (obvious nonpartisan example: marketing psychology), which that argument suggests should get no grants and should in fact have to pay the government to compensate society for their "pollution". One can question whether internalising this externality is worth the costs of implementing such a scheme, but the "axe funding" part I'm completely sold on.

how is his preference that "bad left wing ideas should gain power" at the expense of the truth

Where did he say this quote? I can't find it.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GXd0TunXoAASp0t?format=jpg one of his more famous quotes, but I forgot he said "wrong" instead of bad. It was a delightful preview of 2020.

That quote has lowered my opinion of him, although he didn't say he wanted it at the expense of the truth.

EDIT: With that said, he appears to have kinda contradicted this since, although AFAICT he hasn't specifically walked it back (besides deleting the Tweet).

I think he started walking it back with "correction: I do not want wrong left wing ideas such as 'Yglesias should be fired from Vox' to gain pow--wait no!"

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