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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   36197 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 24, 2022

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What in the fresh hell, Pennsylvania?

Has the Motte discussed John Fetterman? If so, I missed it... I admit there are enough races I'm watching across the country that it is hard to keep track of them all. But in case you, too, have missed it, John Fetterman is the Democratic candidate for the seat of outgoing Senator Pat Toomey, one of 7 Republican senators who voted to convict Donald Trump in his second impeachment circus. Seven days before winning the Primary, John Fetterman had a stroke.

I am not a medical doctor. For all I know, Fetterman will make a full recovery, eventually. But as of right now, the guy is one step above monosyllabic. Which made tonight's debate absolutely excruciating to watch. Over the course of the night, PredictIt shifted ten cents in favor of Fetterman's opponent, the Wizard of Mehmet Oz. And yet most media accounts of the debate are steadfastly reporting only the substance, such as it was. No surprise--the media has been carrying water for Fetterman for weeks. But like... really? You can't report a single sentence saying, "Fetterman was clearly not up to the task." Watching people hit Twitter to unironically praise him for "doing really well, for a stroke victim!" is shocking. The level of partisanship required to vote for Fetterman at this point simply boggles the mind. On the flip side, #Festerman was briefly trending on Twitter before (I presume) someone elbowed their censors.

Of course, we can trust our outspoken President to just tell it like it is. Perhaps President Biden understands better than anyone, given the possibility that he, too, might simply be functioning as a sock puppet for the Democratic establishment. The counterargument that criticizing Fetterman's cognition is some kind of "ableism" is just hollow. This is not a man who can do the job of Senator, at least not right now, and to pretend otherwise just seems exploitative to me. (And calling that a "bad faith" argument seems willfully ignorant. The man can barely speak, that's much more than an "auditory processing" problem.)

Of course, voting has been open for a month in Pennsylvania, and the state has already declared its intention to turn a blind eye to a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling as it counts undated ballots. So in addition to potentially electing someone with the mental faculties of a young child to high federal office, Pennsylvania is also setting up a judicial crisis for its election process.

And all because Oz is, well, a Trumpist. If this is what midterms look like, 2024 is going to be... just something else. I can't even imagine. It's simply too much.

The level of partisanship required to vote for Fetterman at this point simply boggles the mind.

The level of denial necessary to frame yourself as non-partisan when saying the above boggles my mind.

The opposition to stroke-addled Fetterman is a celebrity doctor with a history of pushing weight loss scams.

It's not like this is stroke-addled Fetterman versus Toomey. If that was the contest, perhaps you would have a point.

This election is now a choice between broken toys. If you can't see that, you're the one with the partisan blinders.

Oz is obviously a hack - not in a political sense, but just as a shill and as a person. But I watched the debate after I saw all the memes, and Oz sounded like a fairly normal person. Not just in comparison to a Goomba stroke victim, just in general.

It's obscene thinking Fetterman should be elected. His opening sentence he said goodnight. It wasn't something like Biden getting lost in thought (which in twenty years will come off as a near catastrophe and people won't believe he was President and the only reason will be ' ... He wasn't Trump '), it's that Fetterman is incapable of starting, maintaining, or finishing a thought. Also he can't wear a suit.

I'll preface this by saying I didn't watch the videos. I don't think there's a point.

I remember how Reagan's obvious dementia was treated as a cultural touchstone, a constant point of mockery and derision, evidence of how screwed up his supporters were. As it happens, he was one of the more successful presidents we've ever had.

I remember when Hillary was clearly dying on the campaign trail. I remember arguing over how she was dragged into a van, toes-down, and people were asking if she was actually going to survive till the election. As it happens, she's still kicking, evidently fully functional.

I remember when the argument was over Trump's obvious cognitive decline, how he was clearly too senile to occupy the presidency and it was time for 25th amendment solutions.

Now it's Biden who's clearly incapable, and Fetterman with brain damage.

A few quick thoughts.

  • I have never seen this general topic produce a useful result. Opponents think it's clearly necessary to remove the person, supporters think they're fine and the system can take it. This result is monotonously reliable regardless of the facts.

  • The system can, in fact, take it. We operate under a machine system, and that system can keep on running with an incumbent with brain damage or even deceased and being puppeted by their staff. No, this isn't ideal. It's not how it's supposed to work. Leaders are supposed to be leaders. But is is not ought.

  • Sympathy for the other side that mainly consists of calling for them to do something highly convinient for your own side is a very unusual sort of sympathy, and not, I think, a particularly helpful one. People should resist the urge to engage in it. Leaders make a variety of sacrifices for their tribes, and tribes accept those sacrifices. It's on a tribe itself to judge when a leader serves them poorly; outside opinions are generally not very productive.

Counterpoint: Reagan, Hillary and Trump were all too old, and all of those criticisms were 100% justified. Cognitive decline ramps up starting at age 62. It's an indictment of our country that we have such a preponderance of septuagenarians on our general election ballots. That things turned out well for one of those presidencies is very thin soup given the sample size of modern presidents. We can and should do better.

I guess I want to speak up for the people who think that Fetterman really wasn’t that bad. For the most part, it was clear what he was trying to say, even though he didn’t express himself fluently and seemed like a nervous middle schooler giving a presentation, or Like he was doing a Chris Farley impression, for the old are millennials among us. He had a lot of canned talking points, of course, because that’s just how debates work nowadays, no actual debating involved.

Unfortunately, in this day and age its always necessary to declare one’s affiliations along with one’s objective judgments of situation, so I need to express my own view by saying my dream would be to vote for a Republican candidate who is actually good, not that phony Mehmet Oz. We know Federman’s excuse, what is Oz’s excuse for not saying anything interesting during the entire debate?

I guess I want to speak up for the people who think that Fetterman really wasn’t that bad. For the most part, it was clear what he was trying to say, even though he didn’t express himself fluently and seemed like a nervous middle schooler giving a presentation.

What occurred to me watching the Fetterman debate is that ordinary, American political rhetoric is hard to distinguish from literal brain damage: question-evading, compulsive repetition of simple points, failure to substantially engage with alternative points of view, reliance on memorized/rehearsed lines, introduction of irrelevant themes/ideas, etc.

There were portions of Fetterman's performance where he clearly wasn't communicating like a normal person, but I (literally!) couldn't tell how much was attributable to the stroke-induced impairment vs. how much was just the standard-issue (moronic) political medium.

What occurred to me watching the Fetterman debate is that ordinary, American political rhetoric is hard to distinguish from literal brain damage: question-evading, compulsive repetition of simple points, failure to substantially engage with alternative points of view, reliance on memorized/rehearsed lines, introduction of irrelevant themes/ideas, etc.

Eh, about political debates, you can't beat what happened in Poland during the last presidential elections...

The presidential candidates "debated" before the second round of elections at the same time, but in two different locations. The bizarre "debates" prompted many biting comments.

"The two photos below 1, 2, from the simultaneous so-called debates in Końskie and Leszno, best illustrate the state of Polish democracy AD 2020. My congratulations to both candidates and their staffs. This is how one destroys the community, which both contenders are supposedly constantly rebuilding..." - wrote political scientist and historian Professor Antoni Dudek.

Src (of the translated quote)

And yet most media accounts of the debate are steadfastly reporting only the substance, such as it was.

Everything I saw referenced the way his stroke affected his performance.

You can't report a single sentence saying, "Fetterman was clearly not up to the task."

Sounds like you want the editorial section.

Edit:

Washington Post front page top headline: "For Fetterman, verbal struggles, contentious exchanges in debate with Oz."

Where is it that you read that you're seeing the media only cover substance?

Where is it thar you read that you're seeing the media only cover substance?

Everything I could find last night. There is a lot more developed coverage this morning. In the moment, reporters seemed to be avoiding the issue.

Having worked closely with national politicians, I will tell you my experience is that about 85% of them could be replaced by a trained monkey who know to raise their paw to vote the party line and that is it. Staff cover most of the day to day actual duties in any case.

"In Labour and Conservative safe seats, a common saying is that a pig or monkey in a red or blue rosette would win an election in that seat" This is a very, very old joke, in political circles for a reason.

In Unitedstatesian politics, the same rhetorical function is filled by a yellow dog.

Appropriately, Fetterman has just such a dog. Perhaps it can assume the duties of the office if he cannot.

In British politics (I was a practitioner in my mis-spent youth), I remember the line being "a root vegetable in a red/blue rosette".

But as of right now, the guy is one step above monosyllabic. . . . This is not a man who can do the job of Senator,

This implies either: 1) a stroke that results in inability to speak necessarily also affects the ability to think analytically; or 2) the ability to speak is critical to the job of Senator. Neither of those things is true.

Re: #1, it would certainly be news to Steven Hawking that speech problems = inability to think, and it is pretty common knowledge that different areas of the brain control different processes. Moreover, suppose Fetterman's stroke had left him completely mute. Would that prove that he would be cognitively unable to perform the duties of Senator? I don't see how, and in fact I rather doubt that anyone would make that claim. Thus, the mere fact that Fetterman has language problems is hardly the ironclad proof that he is unqualified that you think it is.

Re: #2, Senators spend most of their time doing everything other than speaking. And, perhaps more important is that the number one job of a Senator is to represent his constituents. Hence, if Candidate X supports policies that I disagree with, and Candidate Y supports policies that I agree with but has suffered a stroke, it is nonsensical to argue that Candidate X will do a better job as Senator than Candidate Y - from my perspective, he will do a worse job.

This implies either: 1) a stroke that results in inability to speak necessarily also affects the ability to think analytically

I think a correlation suffices to carry the argument. And I think it should be pretty uncontroversial that brain damage of the type caused by a stroke often has a negative effect on one's ability to think analytically.

yours and SSCReader comment above reminds me of the article in the Atlantic arguing that Democrats only need Biden Corporeal presence. I wonder how many election cycles before the inevitable Horse in the Senate.

the number one job of a Senator is to represent his constituents.

Yes, for example in public committee hearings, floor debates, campaign speeches, town halls, and interacting with agencies to perform constituent services. All of which require the ability to intake speech and respond.

  1. the ability to speak is critical to the job of Senator.

I think Mitch McConnell in 2016 made it very clear that the Republican position is that someone capable of doing nothing is capable of performing the duties of a senator.

  • -10

I think Mitch McConnell in 2016 made it very clear that the Republican position is that someone capable of doing nothing is capable of performing the duties of a senator.

This is a direct partisan claim, and so should be accompanied by proportionally direct evidence. (For example, you could provide a link to a video where Mitch McConnell says, "the Republican position is that someone capable of doing nothing is capable of performing the duties of a senator.")

I assumed everyone here would be familiar with the eventsof the garland nomination. My bad.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merrick_Garland_Supreme_Court_nomination

Good to know that this place expects high quality evidence like... checks notes statements that the media isn't reporting an event accurately based on observation immediately following the event.

"Specifically refuse to take up this issue" is not the same as "doing nothing".

Difference without distinction.

Do you think Fetterman could not "Specifically refuse to take up [a] issue"?

What are you getting at here? Yes, it's not hard to argue that Garland was probably just a case of pure partisan stonewalling, with McConnell very tactically punting him so that Trump would get to make the pick instead. If anything, this isn't an example of incompetence on McConnell's part, which your first post implied--many people would agree that he is a slickly-tactical politcal operative, and few would agree that he's some sort of buffoon that holds up everything in Congress.

Well put. The people downvoting you are poor sports, and probably cheat at cards.

This implies either

No, I didn't put those two sentences together, and neither should you.

Yes, speaking is an important part of a Senator's job; I additionally regard comprehension as an important part of a Senator's job, and the debate shows Fetterman sorely lacking in that department even with transcripting aids. But I would more vehemently disagree with this:

perhaps more important is that the number one job of a Senator is to represent his constituents

I regard political leadership as subtantially more important than political representation. The Framers of the Constitution clearly agreed with me, at least in connection with the Senate; the House is where "representation" was supposed to take place (hence, "House of Representatives") while the Senate was supposed to be a more aristocratic institution. Essentially, I regard the 17th Amendment as a horrible mistake.

It strikes me as odd to suggest that stroke addled Fetterman is insufficiently able to provide political leadership when the alternative is... Dr. Oz.

Can we do without the dog and pony show? Oz votes the way you like. Fetterman votes the way I like. The stroke is irrelevant to both of us.

Can we do without the dog and pony show? Oz votes the way you like. Fetterman votes the way I like. The stroke is irrelevant to both of us.

I'm sorry you feel this way--indeed, I think it is corrosive to society that you feel this way--but I certainly do not feel this way. I'm also the kind of person who tends to vote for third party candidates, so you've furthermore misread me even to that extent (and I don't think there is anything in my post to suggest that I endorse Oz!). If you're going to insist that others are dealing in bad faith simply because you yourself are an unprincipled partisan, that's a you problem.

I don't think viewing senators as no more than button pushers makes someone unprincipled. It just means that "my senator should be a leader" isn't one of my principles.

I don't think most people think senators need to be leaders, and would cite the nomination of a weight loss snake oil salesman as evidence.

If you truly expect more from US senators, I apologise for my suggestion otherwise, and you have my sympathies for what must be a life of constant disappointment.

you have my sympathies for what must be a life of constant disappointment

I appreciate that. Because yes--my disappointment is immeasurable.

Look on the bright side. At some point we'll be dead.

Can you point to a Red Tribe leader that became incapable on the job, where you supported their removal? Ideally one where the removal actually occurred? Should Reagan have gotten the 25th amendment? Trump?

In an ideal world, I would agree with you, and I think most everyone here would as well. This is very explicitly not an ideal world. I think this is one of those situations where the proper response is to mourn the tragedy without attempting to assign blame or score points. I do not think it can be argued that this is a problem Blues caused. This is a problem we all caused together, and your disapproval is not going to help fix it.

William Rehnquist. As I recall, he was in very poor health late in life, but died in office rather than resigning. I thought at the time that this added to a poor precedent, and to no purpose.

Can you point to a Red Tribe leader that became incapable on the job, where you supported their removal? Ideally one where the removal actually occurred? Should Reagan have gotten the 25th amendment? Trump?

At the time, I was skeptical that Reagan should be removed, but some of the stories I have heard since his death suggest to me that the people closest to him did know that he was incapable of functioning as POTUS. Had those stories been publicly available (pre-Internet was a very different time!) I would likely have favored his resignation. Certainly I am fascinated by the legacy of Edith Bolling Galt Wilson, whose husband should probably have just resigned. We don't elect couples to serve as POTUS (maybe we should!). But somehow we now celebrate a woman who essentially held herself a bloodless little coup.

In an ideal world, I would agree with you, and I think most everyone here would as well. This is very explicitly not an ideal world.

One of the reasons I left law practice behind is that I am simply not moved by this kind of reasoning. I don't see any reason to compromise on my ideals, or to make allowances for the difficulty others have living up to theirs. My voting record is a shambles of support for non-viable candidates. My personal wealth is a fraction of what it could be if I refused to bear the costs of unilateral defections from undesirable status quos. But I don't know any other way to make the world a better place, than to refuse to choose evil simply because it is the lesser of available evils. I consider myself well-versed in the many arguments for not allowing the perfect to be the enemy of the good, but it's not perfection I'm after. I just refuse to concede ground to idiots, and if they burn me at the stake for it, then I'm well rid of them.

I am certainly not arguing that "this is a problem Blues caused." But I do think it's exploitative and wrong to use mentally handicapped people as partisan props. Calling that a "dog and pony show" or accusing me of bad faith or saying these kinds of arguments "go nowhere" is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. It's wrong to treat people this way. Once you acknowledge that this is not the way things ought to be done, then you should say and do what you can to stop it happening. Often, you will not be able to say or do anything to stop it happening! But here I am, doing my small part by raising the argument. If others have made similar arguments in bad faith, and you pattern match them to me, and thereby dismiss me as just another partisan hack, well--what can I say? I tried, and will continue to try.

well spoken, though I find myself more depressed than ever. Did you ever read "sort by controversial"?

It's wrong to treat people this way.

Do you think Fetterman is functionally unaware of his surroundings, of what's going on with his campaign? Is your argument that he shouldn't be allowed to do what he wants to do because it's bad for him, or that he's not the one doing it?

Did you ever read "sort by controversial"?

Yep. The phenomenon of scissor statements remains, I think, poorly understood, but I think it's a very real phenomenon.

Do you think Fetterman is functionally unaware of his surroundings, of what's going on with his campaign? Is your argument that he shouldn't be allowed to do what he wants to do because it's bad for him, or that he's not the one doing it?

Have you ever had a very close friend or loved one experience a serious stroke, or head injury, or similar? The recovery arc is similar (six months, perhaps one year of improvement, followed by a pretty hard plateau) but the specific symptoms are wildly unpredictable. Sometimes it seems to map to known brain region issues, so like, damage to the frontal lobes turns sweet people surly, as in the classic case of Phineas Gage. Bilinguial have been known to lose the language of their childhood, or the language of their adulthood, but not the other one. Sometimes brain functions seem to fade in and out, particularly if the recovered patient doesn't get plenty of sleep--hypersomnia is a common long term effect of brain problems.

Depending on the severity of injury, it's common for those with brain injuries to need a guardian, conservator, or similar legal arrangement to protect their interests. This might be because spotty executive function makes splurge spending a problem. It might be because the recovered patient is easily suggestible, or incapable of grasping the full consequences of their actions. And sometimes it will seem like they are actually fine, for a moment or a day or a week, and people will wonder whether it's really necessary to treat them paternalistically. In the ideal world, they have a close loved one who can navigate these problems for them in a way that is a dynamic blend of cooperation, leadership, and care. But there's no question that brain injuries often end marriages, when the healthy spouse can't or won't commit to bearing that burden for the rest of their life.

I can't know for sure whether Fetterman is functionally unaware of his surroundings, since he has ("inexplicably?") refused to release his medical records. But he doesn't seem coherent to me. Having a Senator who may have spotty executive function, or be easily suggestible, or have a limited grasp of the consequences of his actions, seems like a recipe for disaster. The possibilities for espionage alone are enough to be worrisome. Watching his wife function as his handler--and having President Biden say Gisele is "gonna be a great, great lady in the Senate"--suggests very strongly to me that Fetterman is going where he's told to go and saying what he's told to say. Whatever personal autonomy he's managed to keep grasp of, I'm very skeptical that he is functioning at baseline human autonomy levels, and certainly not at a level we should want for people who get national security briefings, vote on major legislation, etc.

while the Senate was supposed to be a more aristocratic institution.

All this means is that the Senators represented a different set of constituents. If you think that the primary job of a Senator back then was not to represent the interests of those constituents, you are mistaken; I guarantee you that a Senator who did not adequately represent the interests of state legislatures who appointed him (or, perhaps more accurately, the interests of those with influence over those legislators) would not be reappointed

If you think that the primary job of a Senator back then was not to represent the interests of those constituents, you are mistaken

I'm not, though. If you think the primary job of a Senator was supposed to be representing the interests of their "constituents," you are cynical and reductionist. The primary job of a Senator was, and is, to lead. I appreciate a good realpolitik as much as the next Mottizen, but venal oligarch-wrangling (or similar) is not the job of Senators, even if it is too often how they get the job. Physicians must somehow collect payment from their patients, but it would be totally mistaken to say that it is the primary job of a physician to collect payment from their patients.

I was responding specifically to your attempt to contrast the job of Representatives versus Senators pre-17th Amendment, specifically your claim that is was only the former were meant to represent their constituents. That is obviously not correct.

Have we been given any other data other than seeing him speak that would reassure us as to his analytic and, shall we say 'comprehension' abilities?

If not, then why should we prevent people from 'reasoning under uncertainty' using the only reliable information they have?

I would broadly agree that sending a mentally disabled candidate to congress won't actually harm the overall function of that institution, mind you.

Re: #2, Senators spend most of their time doing everything other than speaking. And, perhaps more important is that the number one job of a Senator is to represent his constituents. Hence, if Candidate X supports policies that I disagree with, and Candidate Y supports policies that I agree with but has suffered a stroke, it is nonsensical to argue that Candidate X will do a better job as Senator than Candidate Y - from my perspective, he will do a worse job.

My dude, how do you expect a Senator to do things like direct staff, discuss possible legislation with colleagues... ANSWER E-MAILS if he is unable to effectively form sentences? You are eliding the difference between PUBLIC speaking in the actual Senate forum and all the other communication that the guy would have to do as part of his day-to-day operations. If he is to be making decisions, he has to be able to make said decisions clear to others, and that's the part he's actually struggling with.

This isn't the case of having, say, a deaf legislator who needs to use sign language to communicate but otherwise can clearly express their opinions and insights, maybe through a translator.

This is a guy who is literally having difficulty expressing his accurate internal thoughts in a coherent fashion.

Like, would you be okay sending a Senator who has Locked-in Syndrome to Congress, who could only communicate through blinking, as long as he had a long prior history of supporting your favored policies?

Do you see how someone who is otherwise 'on the fence' between the candidates policy-wise might reject the candidate who can't fully perform the job?

Like, would you be okay sending a Senator who has Locked-in Syndrome to Congress, who could only communicate through blinking, as long as he had a long prior history of supporting your favored policies?

Absolutely. Policies and voting records are king. If the alternative is a Senator who doesn't vote how I like, I'll take anyone.

Do you see how this might not satisfy a voter who is not 100% behind the policies supported by our paralyzed Senator?

i.e., an 'undecided' voter? And an undecided voter who has only moderate policy overlap with either candidate might really consider their other abilities as relevant?

Have we been given any other data other than seeing him speak that would reassure us as to his analytic and, shall we say 'comprehension' abilities? If not, then why should we prevent people from 'reasoning under uncertainty' using the only reliable information they have? ... Do you see how someone who is otherwise 'on the fence' between the candidates policy-wise might reject that person?

Sure. But that is not what OP said. OP said that his speaking ability is per se proof that he is incapable of performing his duties.

My dude, how do you expect a Senator to do things like direct staff, discuss possible legislation with colleagues... ANSWER E-MAILS if he is unable to effectively form sentences? ... This is a guy who is literally having difficulty expressing his accurate internal thoughts in a coherent fashion.

This simply begs the question. All we know is that he has difficulty expressing himself orally. We have no idea whether he can express himself in writing, nor in other ways (see eg., Steven Hawking)

Sure. But that is not what OP said. OP said that his speaking ability is per se proof that he is incapable of performing his duties.

No... but the failure to present other proof that he's suitable is concerning.

You can't update in favor of his ability to perform his duties when all you have is evidence that suggests he is less than capable.

All we know is that he has difficulty expressing himself orally. We have no idea whether he can express himself in writing, nor in other ways

These tend to be extremely correlated, though. Hawking's case was a bit different, he had ALS, which impairs all MOTOR function, but not cognition. If Fetterman has damage to the expressive speech processing part of his brain then his ability to express himself is impaired regardless of which medium is used. He can move his mouth, he can move his hands, but the information produced will not be accurate at reflecting his brain's intended message.

Quoth:

Expressive aphasia, also known as Broca's aphasia, is a type of aphasia characterized by partial loss of the ability to produce language (spoken, manual,[1] or written), although comprehension generally remains intact.

Typically, people with expressive aphasia can understand speech and read better than they can produce speech and write. The person's writing will resemble their speech and will be effortful, lacking cohesion, and containing mostly content words.

The most common cause of expressive aphasia is stroke.

And again, why don't they just present an easy proof of his capabilities to allay concerns?

I'm sitting here wondering at the possible reasons they'd put this guy on the debate stage and yet wouldn't provide any other demonstrations of his capability that would make his debate performance excusable. Can't think of a single reason to grant benefit of the doubt now.

If you can give me an obvious reason for this other than the Occam's razor "he's not able to do that, either" I'd really like it!

And let me be clear, if he is suffering from expressive aphasia, I really and truly feel immense sympathy for the man, it'd be a nightmare scenario if it were me!

No... but the failure to present other proof that he's suitable is concerning.

Yes, I already agreed that it is "concerning." But that was not the claim that OP was making.

These tend to be extremely correlated, though.

Evidence?

Hawking's case was a bit different, he had ALS, which impairs all MOTOR function, but not cognition.

I didn't say that the cases are the same, but rather I used Hawking's example as evidence that an inability to express oneself orally does not per se prove that a person has intellectual limitations.

And let me be clear, if he is suffering from expressive aphasia, I really and truly feel immense sympathy for the man

I did not think otherwise.

  1. a stroke that results in inability to speak necessarily also affects the ability to think analytically; or 2) the ability to speak is critical to the job of Senator. Neither of those things is true.

That's the claim.

The inability to speak doesn't necessarily effect the ability to think analytically, but a stroke that causes enough brain damage to effect the ability to speak could absolutely impact analytical ability as well, which would be hard to observe from the outside.

So you'd REALLY want to rule that out, and they simply haven't done so.

And as I argue here, the ability to speak IS critical to the job of Senator, to the extent he will need to communicate with colleagues, staff, and other aspects of the congressional machine in order to actually keep his office functional and not just take up space in the building.

If we think that keeping a functional office and communicating with other senators isn't part of the job of a Senator then we're probably better off replacing them ALL with deaf-mutes.

we're probably better off replacing them ALL with deaf-mutes.

Probably, yeah. We won't have to here quite so many moronic speeches and they won't take up space in presidential primaries. Sounds like a better world.

*The inability to speak doesn't necessarily effect the ability to think analytically, *

So, you are agreeing with me, because that is the only claim I took issue with.

we're probably better off replacing them ALL with deaf-mutes.

Deaf mutes are capable of communicating, and being deaf and mute is not per se a disqualification for the office of Senator.

*The inability to speak doesn't necessarily effect the ability to think analytically, *

Sure. But that's not how I'd bet if I had to put money on it. Especially given the information that he had a major stroke. I will bet $100 right now that he's got more extensive damage than merely the difficulty speaking.

Like, you want to use Stephen Hawking as a counterexample, fine. But then you have to admit that he is an outlier since in the vast, vast majority of cases where someone loses the ability to form coherent speech, they usually also have diminished cognitive capabilities.

All I'm saying is that many voters are going to use the information they can directly perceived (his difficulty forming coherent sentences) and use that as a basis to form conclusions about something they can't (his actual cognitive fitness) and may likewise have doubts about his abilities to carry out the requirements of the office.

And they're right to do so, if his campaign won't provide other proof of his current state of recovery.

The level of partisanship required to vote for Fetterman at this point simply boggles the mind.

In general Congressional elections, most people don't vote for candidates. They vote to give their party control of the House or Senate. Showing up and voting the party line is 95% of the job. Fetterman demonstrated that he can do that; anything more is gravy.

Same deal with Oz. He's a garbage candidate, but a vote for him is a vote to block a Democratic trifecta, and that's literally all I care about in this election. If I lived in Pennsylvania, I'd vote for him.

This would be my stance on Herschel Walker if I lived in Georgia. The man is clearly a moron, clearly immoral, and clearly lies on a regular basis. I wouldn't want him to be part of my life in any way whatsoever. Would that nudge me over to preferring Warnock? Nah.

Still, having people so clearly unfit for office (or managing a Dairy Queen) in the Senate speaks volumes about American institutional collapse.

Yep been in fights on Reddit on this. I think most people get it that your just voting for Senate control and candidate quality isn’t that important. There’s always one person who wants to argue how bad the individual candidate is.

It’s not the old legislature where legislatures had more freedom to vote.

How does having poor quality Senators speak to “institutional collapse” - doesn’t it imply our institution’ quality is high that an idiot can run them? It reminds me of Buffetts quotes that you want to own businesses that still produce even if an idiot is in charge because some day an idiot will be in charge.

The Senate realistically needs about 5-10 competent people per side to set the agenda and then they just need warm bodies.

doesn’t it imply our institution’ quality is high that an idiot can run them?

No, it implies that the institution isn't where the power, control, and prestige actually sits, because smart people want power, control, and prestige, and smart people outcompete morons (most of the time).

How does having poor quality Senators speak to “institutional collapse” - doesn’t it imply our institution’ quality is high that an idiot can run them? It reminds me of Buffetts quotes that you want to own businesses that still produce even if an idiot is in charge because some day an idiot will be in charge.

I'd agree, if I thought we were actually maintaining functional institutions. I don't see this as idiots being capable of keeping the lights on, I see it as the lights flickering while the new maintenance guys don't know the first thing about electricity.

Of course, that will depend on where you think the United States is in the cycle of national success and failure.

I think it corrodes the facade that reasoned discourse happens 'behind the scenes' where Senators talk with each other, bounce ideas, debate, and coordinate efforts to pass legislation and actually decide the course of the nation.

I think that's what most people imagine when they claim that a given politician 'represents' them in Congress, not JUST their public-facing role (which, admittedly, is what gets the most media attention).

Lets just tear the mask off and send 80 people with Locked-In Syndrome to congress since if they can blink, they can communicate a 'yes/no' answer to proposed legislation.

The Senate realistically needs about 5-10 competent people per side to set the agenda and then they just need warm bodies.

The Senate is a bit different. The length of their terms and the rules of the chamber itself gives individual Senators a lot of independence to attempt to shape policy. The entire run of bipartisan legislation this term more or less comes down to a group of centrist/compromise oriented Senators getting fed up with leadership and creating a legislative agenda independently.

Not all Senators are actually going to be policy innovators, but a Westminster style parliamentary chamber it is not.

In general Congressional elections, most people don't vote for candidates.

I'm sure many people do not vote for candidates, but I'm not sure "most" holds up in this case. Remember that about 25% of voters haven't got a party at all, and many partisan voters do not vote straight-ticket. It's not unusual for states to elect, say, a Republican governor and a Democratic senator. So even if most people do vote straight-ticket, enough people don't that the qualifications of individual candidates, beyond partisan affiliation, clearly makes a difference.

25% of voters haven't got a party at all,

I think "independents" are overrated. In my area, there's a lot of so-called "independents" who would never vote for a Republican. It seems in other areas there are party-line Republican "independents" as well. They don't want to think of themselves as party loyalists so they don't register with the party, but they are.

There's some interesting efforts at vote splitting from Shapiro, the Democrat currently favored to win the PA governor's race. Ads on crime and personal story that have a strong undertone of "Even if you're turning away from Fetterman, still vote for Shapiro!"

Yeah... and as others have pointed out, Shapiro would then be in a position to appoint Fetterman's replacement (until the next general election) should Fetterman win and opt out. We live in interesting times.

This sounds like an incredibly simple fix for the Dems winning PA senate seat.

  1. Fetterman declares he’s opting out if he and Shapiro wins.

  2. It’s unlikely Fetterman wins if Shapiro loses but then just declares he will 100% vote with leadership

At this point I don’t think Fetterman could do any worse.

I just tried to find this debate on youtube to understand what you're talking about. Searche queries like "fetterman oz debate unedited" find me nothing but short clips chosen by the mainstream media.

Plausibly, some people voting for Fetterman might just be completely unaware of what you saw. I'm not completely sure - I couldn't confirm it, though I certainly see the signs of youtube trying to make it impossible for me to do so.

When I went to find a few short clips chosen by the media, I was annoyed to be given links to the whole event.

Perhaps youtube knows our true desires better than we do?

You can watch the full debate here.

Fetterman often appears to be working (or even reading) from a script, and when he gets off script it's extremely glaring. And yeah, the cut-and-paste jobs I'm seeing this morning on YouTube and news websites are Hollywood-tier movie magic.

My guess would be that he's literally reading from a script. Given that he's been given a monitor as a "reasonable accommodation", I don't see why they wouldn't also just put his lines in front of him.

The CC monitor was large and immediately behind the moderators. You could see it in some shots.

Wow thank you for pulling out the clip, that is extremely glaring. I almost feel sorry for the man having to go up there.

It’s a shame that most people as tiki mentioned probably won’t see this clip or any similar ones.

with the mental faculties of a young child to high federal office, Pennsylvania is also setting up a judicial crisis for its election process.

Oh my god... I hadn't realized that he was that badly damaged by the stroke. To have him run is just cruelty.

And all because Oz is, well, a Trumpist.

That's really not it, and if you think that's it you don't get it at all, you're viewing a real life state election from a fakakta national lens. I'm just going to speak as a lifelong Pennsylvanian Republican voter here so it probably will feel more like a political ad than a high quality post, but it's not like the OP was all that deep anyway.

Oz is a truly terrible candidate on so many levels, and I'd probably rather have a blithering retard than Oz. I'm voting for the Libertarian, Erik for PA, flatbrim phillies hat and all

Oz lives in New Jersey. I understand that this doesn't matter to people who aren't from PA, and that some people who do live in PA have no pride in their state, but he doesn't live here, he has never lived here. If we're caring about Voter Fraud this week, he blatantly committed voter fraud when he pretended he was living in his in-laws' basement to vote in PA. No one ever saw him hanging around Bryn Athyn or New Hope or Doylestown, he just declared it was true. But hey, people are just allowed to do that right, he filled out the paper work to say he lived there and claimed he was paying his ultra-wealthy in laws a "market rent," it doesn't matter if he actually lived there; life-ruining voter fraud charges are for uneducated felons who were told they were allowed to vote, not rich people pretending they live in their in-laws basement.

The 2nd amendment is my number one issue, and I don't trust Oz on it, he was against it before he was for it. Oz wrote a series of Op-Eds over a decade detailing his support for a "New Zealand style gun ban," that is disqualifying to me. Even in his current campaign he supports red flag laws, another hard line, giving the state unlimited power to take guns away. I generally dislike Politifact, but they've collected all the op-eds here, work your way down the list. Even his attack ads on Fetterman have an anti-gun tinge, the shotgun thing is probably my favorite aspect of Fetterman.

Oz was pro-abortion before he was against it. He spent years on his talk show stating that heartbeat bills were an absurdity, he did fetal tissue research for years, and he stated clearly that the harms caused by illegal abortion outweighed those caused by legal abortion. Now he's flipped completely.

Wikipedia gives the best summary on his trans stances:

In 2010, Oz hosted and offered support to transgender youth and their families on his television show.[173][174][175] [Oz] announced that he is opposed to conversion therapy and called conversion therapy "dangerous".[176][177] Oz also had guests from GLAAD on his show who spoke out against conversion therapy.[178]

That hits all the wrong notes for me. I'm against trans-ing kids and think putting them on national TV is the most disgusting exploitation of mental illness one could commit regardless; and so called "Conversion therapy bans" are fascism, the state inserting itself into the therapeutic relationship and into the clerical relationship and announcing that only this one thing can't possibly be a delusion.

And it goes on. Oz was against Fracking before he was for it, he wrote articles about how he believed in Climate Change before he didn't, he was a Muslim before he married into a Christian cult and never talked about religion again. Oz simply isn't it, intellectually or by identity.

And I didn't even have time to get into his fucking talk show where he shills diarrhea pills to moron housewives.

To describe Oz as a Trumpist with any positive valence is to confirm that "Trumpist" has no meaning whatsoever beyond momentary political convenience.

I generally dislike Politifact, but they've collected all the op-eds here, work your way down the list. Even his attack ads on Fetterman have an anti-gun tinge, the shotgun thing is probably my favorite aspect of Fetterman.

The shotgun incident is like the Dems Are the Real Racists meme brought to life. The guy that Fetterman chased down was, in fact, a criminal scumbag and now resides in a Pennsylvania state penitentiary. He (allegedly) got it wrong that day and the guy happened to (allegedly) not be engaged in criminal mischief at the time, but he correctly judged that the man in his neighborhood was a scumbag and confronted him with a shotgun. Above every other story I've heard about Fetterman, this makes me think that I would welcome him as my neighbor.

Of course, the world being as it is, Fetterman has to apologize for this terribly racist action and Republicans have to feign indignation that a totally innocent, definitely not at all suspicious jogger was threatened with violence if he didn't get the fuck out of the neighborhood. Some aren't even feigning indignation - they're actually excited that Fetterman is the Real Racist!

Regarding Oz, I continue to be mildly surprised that I'm the only person I know that's bothered by the idea of a Turkish dual citizen being a Senator.

Doesn't much of that apply to Trump himself? Trump was, as far as I've understood it, way more liberal on "values questions" before he made the decision that GOP would be his route to power.

Agree but Trumps personality traits are hard work, perseverance, and promoting Trump himself.

People will make fun of Trump for being a rich kid silver spoon but he has created a lot of businesses that mostly promotes Trump. An alliance with the right was easier to make for both sides as the right didn’t have someone with no limits on how far he would go to fight for his adopted people.

It could. Though I would argue that Trump had less intellectual writing behind his flip flops, and his whole Jungian embodiment of Loki vibe makes it less important.

Trump had certain non republican views, and he had some religious conversion stuff. He moved the Rs in his direction on most things, and the rest can be explained as finding faith. Believe in it or not, it's a better explanation than Oz offers, which is no explanation at all. Oz never talks about his faith, because it's either Islam or a cult.

Oz' campaign is based on being a doctor, he literally put trans kids on his supposedly informative TV show and asked the CDC to investigate gun violence as a health issue in national newspaper columns. Trump yakked it up with Democrats for clout, Oz offered them policy cover for their totalitarian aims.

I've written an effortpost on the topic of Oz and Mastriano as representing more pure divergent strains of Trumpism. Here But it's vital to understand that Oz is at best a strain, and to note his other weaknesses as a candidate.

I've written an effortpost on the topic of Oz and Mastriano as representing more pure divergent strains of Trumpism. Here But it's vital to understand that Oz is at best a strain, and to note his other weaknesses as a candidate.

It's a little weird to me how you go in so hard on calling Swedenborgians a cult and part of Oz's inauthenticity when, in actuality, they're an ancient sect (admittedly kind of weirdo, but no moreso than modern sects like the Charismatics) with deep roots in the Mid-Atlantic region that date back to the Revolution. His affiliations with them is probably one of the most Pennsylvania parts of him.

It's something I grew up hearing, everybody knows around here. Asplundh, Swedenborgian, Bryn Athyn, cult. This is local knowledge here, well known, that outsiders might not have. I feel the same way about it that people thought about Romney being a Mormon.

I'm mostly being jocular about it, but it is notable that he's said less about his faith than the average Republican, when he could be talking about his faith, and it would be helpful to him to do so. We should ask why.

Funny enough, I actually came here to see what The Motte was saying about the fact that the media was now being so open about Fetterman’s post-stroke struggles.

Here’s a CNN panel talking about how badly he performed: https://youtube.com/watch?v=6UAW0z6OD1o.

When I look up John Fetterman on Google News, two of the headlines are “Fetterman’s painful debate” (Axios) and “Fetterman struggles during TV debate with Oz” (Politico).

All this is very weird to watch, given how critical people were of Dasha Burns’ comments about Fetterman’s condition just a couple weeks ago.

After Biden election, I am convinced anybody who has the correct tribal endorsement can be elected, regardless of their mental facilities. In fact, I think there were cases where a dead man was elected, with an eye of somebody (from the same tribe) serving as his replacement. And frankly, I don't think it's something really new or new level of partisanship. Big politics has long been a team sport, and for a team sport, a slightly mentally impaired Senator that would always vote the way the team needs, is probably better than an unreliable maverick and certainly much better than the member of the other team. One could wish the politics in the US would look differently but I don't think it does now. So basically the result would tell us a) which team is better into getting the voters to turn out, and b) unfortunately, which team is better in getting ballots in in other ways than being filled by voters according to the laws. The specific candidate kinda matters but not as much as we'd like to think.

I have made a couple of posts on the topic. Probably going to do another one discussing the messaging wars in their ad spending sometime this week.

Please do. I'm a sucker for local campaign ads.

I am not a medical doctor. For all I know, Fetterman will make a full recovery, eventually.

My understanding of strokes, through some limited personal contacts, is that once the damage is done there is very little that can be undone. Successful recovery is measured in terms of activities of daily living from relearning/learning anew with different parts of the brain, not getting back to one's old self. It's literal brain cell death which is why so much of the medical emphasis is on identifying a stroke happening and quickly responding to reduce how many brain cells die from lack of blood flow.

Am neurologist, on iPad at work and don’t want to log in via their Wi-Fi for obvious reasons. Typing is laborious so going to type in shorthand. Technically right but missing tons of data. Too much info missing to give full prognosis but I think he’d do fine based on public info.

Stroke in his case = clot in brain vessel. He had a thrombectomy so he had the clot removed by an interventionalist. No idea how much brain tissue was permanently irreversibly injured. Could be pretty minimal based on the limited videos I saw.

Because they did thrombectomy, we know it was a large vessel. If a large vessel clot completes, he’d have a facial droop and right arm plegia in addition to a LOT more language issues. He seems down to a mild brocas aphasia. Brocas ranges from mute to stumbling words. He’s already on the pretty mild side of a brocas.

If I saw him in clinic, prognosis for recovery would be great. Could have some persisting deficits. A lot would depend on the extent of injury that we don’t know. I’d say the most important factor is already-demonstrated recovery and difference from worst case scenario, complete loss of language and other L MCA stroke symptoms mentioned above.

Recovery in stroke is front loaded. Would make strides in months and then not much further after. He could sit at what we see for life. He could basically return entirely to normal. Would be totally unsurprised if he’s back at pre stroke baseline in 3 months.

Also, even if there’s irreversible brain loss, in small cortical strokes, there’s always a lot of potential for recovery from neuroplasticity from surrounding brain tissue remodeling language networks. Especially in younger patients.

My mother had a stroke (actually a series of strokes) and has regained all of her speech and movement, just a couple of months later. She has some very minor short term memory issues but other than that you couldn't tell she had it at all. It really depends on exactly how much damage was done and where.

As a PSA make sure if you are on meds for high blood pressure you are getting your BP checked regularly, meds that were working can become ineffective and sometimes there can be very few warning signs until it is too late.

That is an awfully broad claim. Surely much depends on the severity of the stroke and the particular kind of stroke, as well as other factors. FWIW, Fetterman was released from the hospital nine days after his stroke, which seems on the short side, but perhaps not nowadays.

It's literal brain cell death which is why so much of the medical emphasis is on identifying a stroke happening and quickly responding to reduce how many brain cells die from lack of blood flow.

That is... quite horrifying and it sounds like he shouldn't be even running for election and should instead be trying to recover as much as possible before trying to handle the stresses of political decision-making.

I'm sure there would be enough people who are ready and willing to take the stresses of political decision-making on themselves for him if he's elected.

That is... quite horrifying and it sounds like he shouldn't be even running for election and should instead be trying to recover as much as possible before trying to handle the stresses of political decision-making.

This is solely based on second hand impressions from watching interviews and the like, but his wife gives off a serious Lady Macbeth/Hillary Clinton vibe. Cynically, I would guess that she's the real "power behind the throne" / one making the push here.

One of his current ads sort of obliquely addresses the stroke by talking about how nice it is that he got to spend time recovering with his family and how everyone should have the same opportunity... so send me to Washington to leave my family and do high stress, literal fucking life-or-death negotiations for the next six years! This campaign is the most amazing dumpster fire that I can remember.

I've seen clips. Not much to say really, except that I'm surprised he consented to show up for the debate. A senator doesn't need charisma or even intelligence to vote the party line, which is what a lot of voters are looking for. He could be inanimate carbon rod. The story of a TV personality and a stroke victim duking it out for senator will be a droll anecdote for the history books though, in a chapter about the political dysfunction of the late second period American republic. I can almost here Wanda McCaddon narrating.

Woah, the 90 day PI chart is a shock. All the news made it sound like fetterman was going to wipe the floor with him, but Oz has been clawing his way back for months.

Was something special going on, or am I just an idiot for ever trusting the media?

Were the Millers meme template: You trusted the news?

Less flippantly the new annual gallup poll on institutional trust came out last week and I've been meaning sit down and redo by old post on inferential distance since the transition to the new site so I suppose I should just get off my my ass and do it.

He had a stroke just before the primary, but he's been able to run a very tightly controlled campaign until he somehow agreed to debate. I'm not sure how his handlers agreed to let him do that.

I suppose they decided that too many people would assume the worst if he couldn't even show up to give wrote talking points for ~25 minutes of speaking. The problem is more in having a candidate that can't give rote talking points in 60 second chunks than in the strategy one chooses after being in that position.

I'm still not sure what an inlady is supposed to be.

https://twitter.com/greg_price11/status/1585062398251401216

I genuinely feel horrible for this guy and hope he recovers as much as he possibly can. How the hell did they not sub him out for some other candidate as soon as it happened? Did they really expect him to magically get better? Could they not find any other male Democrat who's built like a linebacker but still uses he/him pronouns?

Why do you feel bad for him? While he's obviously impaired, he's not incapable of making his own decisions. If he had a shred of integrity, he would have dropped out.

He is a very tall man who looks like a stereotypical Trump voter with very left-leaning politics and a Hispanic wife. People were thinking he was going to be a shoo-in presidential candidate in 6 or 10 years. Shame to throw that dream away just because of some crippling brain damage.

My understanding from American left twitter is that it's more than that. His campaign was supposed to be the proof-of-concept that economy-oriented left-wing politics can be a winning combo, that there was still room in the Dems for (white, but not only white) guys who vote left because they support the labor movement and a more equal division of wealth and that leaning towards that view would actually be good for the Dems to recoup the populist energy. (The fact that Fetterman comes from a family of means himself is mostly immaterial to that purpose, the history is full of people's champs who come from wealth themselves - you could see Trump himself that way.) Moreover, it was a good proof-of-concept race in the way that he was facing a rich guy who became rich through frivolous means, ie. being a celebrity TV doctor and selling quack cures.

When you've got a situation like that, game pieces all on board, the whiff of a slam-dunk event, of course you're going to hang on to that - and I would suspect that health situations where it's not immediately obvious how serious it's going to be are not the easiest thing in the world to use for demanding a candidate steps down, since you might just create potential conditions for someone else to do the same to you if you happen to catch a little bit of something.

His campaign was supposed to be the proof-of-concept that economy-oriented left-wing politics can be a winning combo, that there was still room in the Dems for (white, but not only white) guys who vote left because they support the labor movement and a more equal division of wealth and that leaning towards that view would actually be good for the Dems to recoup the populist energy.

I am very skeptical of this narrative. None of Fetterman's ads even hint at his left-wing politics, except when he has to try to defend past statements. His whole tone is built around heavily implying that he is a Trump/Carlson style right populist who wants to fight Washington, without ever mentioning any specific policies. Meanwhile, most of the attack ads against him are about how Fetterman is an extreme leftist.

I'm talking about the reasons why he was talked up when he was being made a candidate, and before it. It's unsurprising and expected that he'd run to the centre during the actual election.

Probably "in-laws"

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