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I want to talk about the AI video that Trump reposted, where he is flying a plane with 'King Trump' on the side, wearing a crown, dumping a payload of feces on a crowd of No Kings protestors in NYC.
Frankly, I keep thinking I can't be surprised anymore by the depths which Trump (or more realistically, his social media team0 will stoop too, and yet here we are...
Ultimately as a Christian, I find this sort of blatant hatred and mockery of the outgroup quite disturbing. I understand that staid, boring, conservatism has lost majorly over the last few decades. I understand that the right needs some vitalism, some dynamism, some sort of way to act in an agentic way that isn't just mindlessly opposing whatever progressives are doing at the moment, and then slowly backing off and letting progressives have what they want over the course of a few years.
However, I'm not sure the juice is worth the squeeze. At this point, while Trump definitely is effective at rallying the base, I simply find his aesthetics to be revolting. It's hard to countenance not just the outright hatred of the outgroup, but the sheer crassness that is presented here.
Not just that, but why would he egg on this idea that he wants to be king? It makes zero strategic sense from my perspective, all it does is fan the flames. I suppose if he wants to fan the flames of the culture war, fine, but that's also not something I'm behind.
Anyway, the current coalition of the right, where Christian or even just classical conservatives are sort of holding their nose and voting for Trump, seems increasingly unstable to me. I suppose we'll see how things end up.
From the last few years of Motte and Twitter discourse, I think the answer you will get is obvious:
His supporters don't care. He fights, he makes libs cry, and traditional, "respectable" conservatives are now seen as cucks who conserved nothing and are committed only to losing politely. MAGA cares absolutely nothing about propriety or decorum, because that's a chump's game, and any discussion that veers in the direction of "What happens when the other side does this?" will get a hundred stories about how the other side is worse anyway, the other side has been defecting forever, and only after we crush them and make them lick the soles of our boots might they learn to behave and restore a kind of equilibrium.
I don't think the analysis is correct, but I can see the crude, vitalist appeal of President Shitpoaster. What I think will actually happen is one of two things: (1) The darker suspicions of Trump's foes are true, and MAGA really does think it's going to remain in power permanently, one way or the other. (2) The Democrats will return to power eventually, this will be remembered, and yes, it will be tit-for-tat and we spiral into ever-worse decay.
Either way, I foresee no positive endgame.
Yes, I think that roughly describes my feelings on the matter.
The feeling’s now pretty mutual from the left too, in no small part due to not-so-veiled declarations of war like this one
My only hope is that y’all can be crushed at the ballot & soap boxes first, before the full consequences of this deranged White Terror can be realized… and before the bullet box ends up coming into play.
Sure. My statement was a recognition that I think @Amadan's predicted answer is correct: both on the ineffectualness of decorum-conservatives and that these sentiments have been coming from the Left for my entire adult life if not before (the Left in Britain played 'Ding, dong, the Witch is Dead' to mark the death of Britain's first female PM, and I was getting death threats from Leftists IRL in 2015). The left will recognise the importance of decorum only once it becomes clear how indecorum has worked out for them.
I doubt very much that the American Left will be crushing anyone for the next ten years even with the bullet box in play as it already indisputably is - they are wedded to incredibly unpopular positions, a terrible record, and they openly loathe 50% of Americans on the basis of their gender and >50% on the basis of their race. They may be able to retrench under a different banner but that will take time.
The British Conservative party, by way of contrast, has pursued the cunning strategy of being so utterly ineffectual, self-sabotaging and spineless that a left-wing PM has been forced to become a conservative and try to show them how it's done, though he will inevitably fail. Personally, I see Trumpism as having considerably better return on investment.
I’m sure you believe that.
Agree more-or-less-completely, both for ‘logical’ reasons and for more fundamentally emotionally-pessimistic ones,
This I do, in fact, dispute! Years of Lead may very well be in our future, but (for now) the fears of -and some calls for- the bullet box has dramatically outstripped its actual presence. That could very well change, though.
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This is half-reminding me of something I once read at SSC or The Motte. Something about how modern politics is a game of rock-paper-scissors. Something like "moral grandstanding and sophistry" (a'la the left) beats "logical coherent arguments", and "pissing them off and making them cry" (a'la Trump) beats "moral grandstanding and sophistry". The argument was better than I'm laying it out here, and the split of categories likely was not entirely the same - does anyone remember?
Edit: found by @wraelk https://old.reddit.com/r/theschism/comments/ovvnlg/the_playbook_that_codes_itself/h7do9q8/
https://old.reddit.com/r/theschism/comments/ovvnlg/the_playbook_that_codes_itself/h7do9q8/
State vs debate vs sneer
Thanks!
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Isn’t this just the dicks / pussies / assholes theorem? From a more elegant time.
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I'd be curious what the argument was for logical arguments beating "pissing them off", as opposed to the latter just being a dominant strategy...
I don't know, that's partly why I was hoping someone might remember the original thread. I definitely remember in general that one of the key insights was that you can't engage with sophistry to beat it, you just have to tell them to fuck off or make them seem stupid in their way (thus why Trump beats the progressive left). I vaguely remember some sort of nod to the closed circle of RPS strategy, but it was a long time ago.
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How should this game be called Troll, Church lady, Spock ?
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Honest question - what do you believe the Democrats will do as a consequence of particular Trump actions that they would not do otherwise? In short, what concrete effect on Democratic legislative or activist actions or priorities do you think a less-crass Trump administration would have?
My god... it’s Nancy Pelosi flying a KC-135 stratotanker full of piss!
How did you break into my Grok video gen history? Please delete this
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Damn it, don't make me laugh as I'm mourning the end of common decency!
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Incorrect. It's piss and vinegar in a 50:1 ratio!
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On one hand, the Trumpian open vulgarity and corruption is easier to discover and critique. On the other, there's the argument that the fig leaf- jawboning, sue and settle, saving your stupid jokes for the Correspondent's Dinner- is important.
The Age of the Fig Leaf is over.
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Newsom, for one, seems to have adopted the Trumpian social media posting style, and I see that being praised. So there is precedent for the Democrats to copy what are deemed successful ploys of his, even if formerly they would have held their nose about it. I do dread to think what they might copy from the shit-dumping. Nobody needs this kind of vulgarity.
Agreed. It's distasteful. I'd prefer if that kind of behavior did not exist.
Meanwhile, that guy is POTUS while nobody offers me or you(*) so much as a small-town Mayorship. Who's doing it wrong?
True, all too true!
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Well, let's think of other things the left finds as unpleasant as shit dumping. Maybe they'll call him Hitler? Or just say they like when right-wingers are assassinated?
Or make a balloon of him as a big baby. Or call him "Drumpf", "Cheetoh", or, well, or a rapist, or a pedophile.
The laws are flat. The norms are flat. The Devil has turned round.
I remember back in 2015-16 when I hung out on a rapidly-radicalising SJ board, "Agent Orange" was used a fair bit. Of course, some of the members kept switching codes, IIRC because they were worried search spiders would include them in searches for "Trump" and thus display him as being talked about a lot.
(I mean, I can barely talk on the latter front; there are certainly things I try not to call attention to, although I don't play the You-Know-Who game.)
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I think we've seen a few brakes taken off, a few restraints both parties exercised (imperfectly) in the past, but the precedent of acceleration means everyone is going to have less and less restraint now. So when the Democrats accelerate, Republicans will be outraged, and Democrats will say "But Trump."
I'll skip over the 'what's actually happening and who's done what' debate, since I don't think we'll make any progress if you're already decided on a script, but:
What, precisely, is the proposed mechanism, here? Over on Earth Beta, do you think the Butler County assassin would have held back because his tyrant hadn't made a poop joke while wanting to deport millions of thousands of illegal immigrants? Would a state judge not have ordered already-cast primary ballots to be left uncounted, because not!Trump only 'started a riot' and didn't make fun of a disabled journalist? Is their goatee'd Charlie Kirk still breathing, because even if he still wanted to shove trans people back into boxes, at least he didn't punk on a particularly goofy student before the media reporting mangled his quotes to make him into a turboracist?
There's serious policy disagreements, approximately zero people in power in politics are interested in actually persuading or compromising on those policy disagreements, and even the virtues of an opposing side are being twisted into vices... and the poop joke is what people are going to remember? I'd like a world where professionalism was important, again. But leaving aside the many ways I could argue we've not been in that world for a long, long time, I just don't think the pragmatic argument holds water, or has held water for much of our adult lifespans.
I don't know what fucking script you think I'm following, but no, there is no mechanism. No, I do not think Trump refraining from literal shitposting would make things better. You're right, the brakes are off and it's too late. Congratulations, you win. I am not arguing for pragmatism. I am describing what I see. I do not expect "Who started it and who was worse?" to be a relevant question in the future.
I dunno what you're following, but you literally gave a list of what analysis and response you expected here, which me very uninterested in discussing the actual facts on the ground.
That's a much more straightforward answer to the question:
And was I wrong? No, I was not.
Hm.
Do you think that the post I wrote above is just slapping into that category? If so, do you understand why I'd be uninterested in trying to go into deeper discourse, or expect it to be unproductive?
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Thomas Mathew Crooks’ computer had search results for both Trump and Biden campaign stops, presumably to see which would occur nearer to Crooks, and Trump was the unlucky recipient of that horrid game of chance (and, even more so, the now-deceased Corey Comperatore).
I’m guessing on Earth Beta, Crooks is still a nihilistic malcontent who takes a shot at whichever candidate forces him to spend the least amount of time in the car so he can make national news and have his posthumous 15-minutes of fame.
Unless they don’t have social media and irony poisoning on Earth Beta, then Crooks eventually dies alone in anonymity.
That's a massive degree of confidence on a tiny amount of evidence.
As opposed to what other evidence, including any Crooks had expressed about politics? With what evidence we have, depressed loser who came to prefer infamy to life seems as probable as any hypothesis.
So, to get this straight, your position is that shooting Trump and having Biden in his browser history are roughly equivalent levels of evidence as to whom he wanted dead?
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What a wonderful comment, perfect analysis and summary
Might as well just lock this comment thread. Although maybe someone will feel like typing out one of these ideas in more detail for old times sake
You do realize that to anyone from the outside this will come off as "I agree with this post, that's why it's wonderful. Quick! Lock down the conversation before any icky diagreement spoils it"?
Like, it's cool that you agree with Amadan, and it's only natural to be biased to what you agree with, but aren't we here to disagree and talk?
It was tongue in cheek, obviously he's not going to actually lock the thread
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Yep, this basically sums up discussion of this on TheMotte. It saddens me but this is just one of those things where people are just so solidified in their opinion there is really no new argument or event that could change it.
Do you actually have an argument, though, or is it a boneless 'return to the noble losers that you used to be' kind of rhetoric?
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If you wish to argue by appealing to a general principle, what is the proper way to rebut such an argument if one disagrees that the principle is generally held?
I too am saddened when people are so solidified in their opinion that there is really no new argument or event that could change it. I am more saddened, however, when I see people who appear to believe that mountains of evidence they don't like and can't meaningfully respond to should spontaneously evaporate so that it can stop impeding the arguments they would prefer to present unchallenged.
On this subject in particular, a few others have offered the best insight available, and I'll reiterate it in my own words:
People who are upset by this appear to want the old sociopolitical system, wherein there was a strict division of labor between the people who cranked out images of shit being dumped on the hated outgroup by laughing cartoons of tribal champions, and the actual tribal champions who directly benefited from those images while standing solemnly before a podium in a very expensive suit extruding the blandest possible word-product into an array of very official microphones. If one is going to argue for this previous system, one should argue for it as it actually was, not as it might be imagined to be, particularly in the imagination of the side employing a large majority of the old shit-pouring cartoon experts.
In the wake of the Charlie Kirk shooting, there was an article I read that offered an interesting nugget; the author, a professional journalist, had of course heard (and only heard!) about the shooting the day it happened. When her kids got home from school, she went to talk to them about it. By that point, of course, her kids had not only heard about it, but had already spent the day watching close-up slo-mo video of the moment of impact, the spattering fountain of blood, the crimson-soaked security detail struggling to load his body into a vehicle... she described a fundamental generation gap, where the experience of the event was sanitized on her end and far more visceral for her children, simply through their respective approaches to media technology, in a way that she probably should have seen coming, and maybe should have done something to prevent...
Food for thought.
Nigga, this is just going through the exact motions Amadan outlined. I get it, libtards started it by employing legions of late night comedians and entertainers to metaphorically pour shit on Republicans for years except (duplicitous as always) they his behind a veneer of civility while their Hollywood Jews did the dirty work for them. Trump isn’t doing anything fundamentally different, he’s just more crass and if anything the crassness and directness of it is a virtue, there’s an honesty to the directness of it.
My point as always is that there is value to norms. Even if the norms seem paper thin or hypocritical I believe they are better than nothing. There are just proper ways a president should behave. I believe there is serious value in having a degree of ritual and civic religion. It is always possible to construct a plausible sounding reason why your enemies really started it, your enemies are actually so much worse than this, blah blah blah. It has to stop somewhere else escalation begets escalation. I know everyone will tell me this isn’t an escalation because libtards have already done a million worse things, but that’s exactly how escalation works and can always be justified
There are values in norms, but when one side gets to display a (mock) severed head to great applause, and responds to objections with "What? it's just a joke! why are you lot so sensitive, why are you always over-reacting?" then I think the erosion of norms set in.
Yes, Griffin got consequences for that, but there were defenders for it (and she seemed to learn nothing from "I torpedoed my career with a dumb stunt" by repeating it). I think the problem is that politics is pig-wrestling, and the mud is just getting deeper.
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Actually, no, it wasn't. I raised a general point on the meta level, one that I think is reasonable to ask and really could do with some effort in answering:
Or to put it another way for you or @Amadan or @ThomasdelVasto or anyone else interested, if the sort of argument Amadan describes seems bad, what would a better form of argument look like, in your view?
...and then on the object level I raised a separate point about the division of labor model versus the current jack-of-all-trades model. I made no argument that jack-of-all-trades is better, only noted that if one is arguing against it, one should do so honestly.
In any case, if that's a discussion you'd like to have, I'm all for it, but the way it doesn't start is this:
That is not my argument, and I don't appreciate you implying that it is. I am fully capable of speaking for myself, and do not require your assistance in framing my sentences. We actually have a specific rule about this:
I think you can probably find at least one mottezan who would endorse each individual sentence you've offered there. I decline to answer for all of them in aggregate.
There is not, however, infinite value in norms, and many people, myself among them, believe the old system was worse for a variety of reasons quite apart from "dirty work" done by "Hollywood jews". The old system insulated our politicians from accountability on a scale that was appallingly unacceptable, because the formalized channels allowed a small set of elites massively disproportionate control over what the public at large knew, understood, and thought about. This had woeful consequences, such that enough of us rebelled to burn the old system down. You may disagree with that decision, but you would do well to engage with why we made it if you want to convince us that we've made a mistake.
But again, the argument is generally not that ritual and civic religion do not have serious value. The argument is that they do not have enough value to offset the abuses the old system enabled and continues to enable.
The "somewhere" that it has to stop is the grave. It can stop short of there, if enough people on each side recognize value in doing so. And yet: "give me liberty or give me death".
Many people on both sides believe that the principles at stake here are worth fighting and even killing over. Too many of them concluded this for the old system to survive, and so it has been gutted and is currently bleeding out in a ditch. I am not sorry for that, because I hated the old system with a passion words cannot adequately convey, and wish only that it would die faster.
This is a discussion forum. If you want to discuss why I believe what I believe, I'm happy to discuss that with you. You are certainly correct that many people here disagree with you on the value of the old norms. You are probably correct about the general shape of many of their arguments. But here's the thing: if their arguments don't persuade you, that doesn't mean they aren't persuasive. Maybe they're unreasonable. Alternatively, maybe you're unreasonable. If you want to discuss it, discuss it. If you want to take a "moral stand" and then complain when others object without substantively addressing their objections, it seems to me you've misunderstood what this forum is for.
I'm not trying to suggest that Trump is anywhere in the same league as Lincoln, but it is interesting how closely the contemporary complaints about Lincoln and the nascent Republican movement mirror those about Trump and MAGA today.
He is shrill. He is crass, He is uncultured. He is not even a proper gentleman, he is a backwoods bumpkin who grew up in a log shack. Electing him would be an insult to the institution of the presidency, and make an already tense situation worse.
Republicans in turn would point to the Caning of Charles Sumner and the ongoing civil unrest in the Kansas and Missouri territories claiming that the Democrats have shown zero interest in reigning in their violent fringe while the Whigs care more about losing gracefully while getting fat off the public trough than they do tackling the serious problems facing the nation.
I imagine there is an alternate timeline where moderate Democrats did more to police their extremists or the Whigs showed more spine and as a result Abraham Lincoln never became president. Is that the better timeline? I do not know.
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I'm not sure I understand the question. I have staked out my position before: we should not go accelerationist and try to purge each other.
My argument has clearly lost to the accelerationists on both sides who want to purge each other. I'm being descriptive here, not making any (useless) prescriptions.
I think people are piling on you for being right, but... seriously, what is the alternative here? Lie down and get ground down more and more? The purity spiral goes ever upward. People just want to draw a line in the sand and say no more, cross it and we'll shoot you. I don't think that's an accelerationist position so much as an ultimatum.
Of course, it then loses its effect given that the lines keep being crossed and not enough people keep being shot, so the normie appetite for political violence is somehow much, much less than people profess it to be.
I'm gagging for an alternative, because American purges and culture wars promise to be ruinous beyond their borders. But hey, the same could be said about their economy.
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I think the problem here is that your (possibly yours personally, but definitely my political opponents) ritual and civic religion is directly contradictory to mine and so why should I not want to tear it down and replace it with my own?
Yes. When one side or the other is so beaten down they accept defeat. That’s when it will stop. That’s how wars, even culture wars, work. And then it will start again at some point in the future, either near or far, about the same or different things.
Or we’ll all be AI serfs. I guess that might be enough to finally beat that dawg out of humanity.
Because while you're in the process of attempting to do this (poorly, not because you're bad at it, but because the other side will try and stop you) China builds the factories that build more factories and then drone-spams so hard you lose naval control over the key shipping lanes and then lose power projection abilities and then lose status as the world's reserve currency and then get to live without all the fun benefits of being the world's sole superpower.
Also there's no guarantee your system won't also be full of problems once it's settled and starts rotting, as all systems exposed to entropy and human nature do.
"You should go commit suicide, or let us shoot you in the head if we get particularly bored, because if you don't America Will Be Destroyed!" isn't nearly as compelling an argument as you seem to think it is.
(Alternating between "America must be destroyed!" and "you're going to destroy America!" is even less compelling—but that's neither here nor there...)
That isn't my argument? I wouldn't even vote Dem if I was American.
My argument is both sides of America have gone full retard, are ripping eachother apart myopically while the credible threat of losing global hegemony looms.
My further argument is "nuh uh they started it/are worse/make me really mad" may be true but fundamentally don't matter in the broader context, which exists regardless of your feelings towards it.
It's literally the definition of re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic as it sinks, and not only is everyone focused on the chairs, they're screaming that half the crew are worse than you while everyone works together to unlock as many water tight bulkheads as they can. Maybe you're right about them, but you're still sinking!
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To what extent does Red Tribe get to live with "the fun benefits of being the world's sole superpower" while ground under the Blue Tribe's boots?
A world where "China builds the factories that build more factories" et cetera, et cetera, and America is no longer on top, but Blue Tribe is destroyed is strictly preferable to one where "the world's sole superpower" is under firm Blue control (and used to further crush Reds).
For that matter, the breakup of the US is worth it if it means the Blues are destroyed.
I won't go so far as approving a mutual annihilation outcome, but any scenario where Red Tribe still exists to some degree, but Blues have gone extinct is ultimately acceptable.
Brother W.H.A.T.
Have you ever purchased any item that was manufactured overseas? Isn't it nice how cheap they are? They're cheap because the USA ensures global commerce is smooth, very smooth. They're also cheap because the USD is very strong because the USD is the reserve currency.
Do you have any investments? The strength of the USA equity market is in part due to its status as a global superpower.
Do you enjoy anything paid for by the government? Like roads, electricity, massive defect spending on factories and bridges. The USA is able to run obscene defects due to the USD being a reserve currency generating strong demand for it, reducing inflation.
Do you have a 30 year fixed mortgage? Same mechanism there. Did you grow up in a house that had one? Massive W for you guys.
I could go on...
I'm not saying the blue tribe aren't nightmares, I wouldn't even vote Dem if I was American. But let's not be dishonest here, if you live on American soil you enjoy massive benefits as a result.
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That means letting your enemies possess a superweapon
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I for one will be quite happy if political discourse returns to slinging rude memes and videos at each other, rather than rioting and hoping for each other's deaths.
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Yeah, not surprised I have already gotten many of these responses. I just have to say I disagree. I want my politicians moral, I want them virtuous, I want them to at least pretend not to be pigs rolling around in the mud.
If this is the cost of winning, I'm not sure it's worth it!
And I wish the idea that the enemy are creepy, weird little subhuman freaks who deserve it hadn't been so thoroughly normalized all down the political aisles.
The people most competent to execute Actual Fascism are the fascists. C'est la vie.
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If you were moral and virtuous, you wouldn't go into politics.
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And I want a billion dollars and world peace. A single moral and virtuous politician isn't an impossible ask, but trying for more than one is a pretty unreasonable expectation. The entire career selects for fraudsters and sociopaths, and it did so as much back in ancient Rome and Han era China and medieval Baghdad as it does in present day America
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I’ve never had the problem of uncertainty around whether the cost of winning is worth it. I just reflect on MartyrMade’s “The Anti-Humans” episode and I am quite sure that winning is worth it.
I wish every right-wing politician kept a “momento mori” of the pitest prison experiment, the holodomor, the murder of the Romanovs, and the massacres of clergy by the Spanish communists and the French Revolutionaries. Worst case scenario, you watch your loved ones resort to cannibalism, then die anyway, then you are sent to a prison where you are anally raped while performing demonic parodies of the Eucharist with feces while not being allowed to sleep and coerced into torturing others. Worse case scenario, everything and everyone you care about is morally corrupted, then raped, then killed and erased from history in that order.
So I’ll allow some rude memes, thanks.
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If the alternative is having my livelihood threatened if I don't submit to an unconstitutional medical procedure, I'll take the pig.
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Anon, I...
...I don't think there's a lot of those around. As political machines grow bigger, selection pressures grow, and they select for traits other than morality and what I presume you mean by virtue. Mostly they just select for being able to perform as a politician - i.e., project an image, sell a message, navigate public opinion and the press and intra-party competition, etc. Pretending not to be a pig is part of that, but morality and virtue are not.
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If you lose, you still get a pig; you just get their pig instead of yours.
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