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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   25903 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 25, 2024

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What's going to be the big apocalyptic struggle this election?

I wrote a piece over at my blog about how at this time in 2020 we were already in "2 Weeks to slow the spread", were about 1 month out from the first anti-lockdown protests, and 2 months out from the Summer of Floyd.

It seems obvious to me that all the chaos in the wider American empire concentrates around election years and seems to have the oxygen sucked out of it on off years.. 2020 is obvious, 2016 was only slightly less history changing, and even the 2008 financial crisis was an election year event.

There's a lot of really obvious candidates: Ukraine could go south really catastrophically really quick; the middle-east is speculated to kick-off with a potential Israeli invasion of Lebanon; and going shearly off the numbers the US southern border is one of the largest population transfers in human history with few precedents since WW2 or the even the 4th and 5th century.

But I don't know, maybe it's my mind trying to fit things too neatly to the 2020 framework... it feels like the election hasn't started yet, it feels like there's some shoe to drop or issue I'm missing, something as far from public consciousness as Immunology in Jan 2020, or racial politics in March 2020...

I can feel this massive issue just behind my peripheral vision that's about to draw all my attention and require its own Motte containment thread, and that will devour the media and twitter, for months on end.

I feel like there's this huge world shattering issue that's about to explode and within the next few months I'll be lamenting that I only have 24 hours in the day to read enough about it, convinced that it DEMANDS every second of my attention.... And I have no idea what it is?

-Is Trump going to die?
-Will a Nuke Launch?
-Is China about to take Taiwan?
-Are all those Chinese and foreign nationals on the southern border about to start targeting power infrastructure?
-Is there about to be a financial crisis?
-An "Internet Lockdown"?
-Hot ethnic cleansing in Europe?
-Global food chain collapse? .

Give me your best guess.

What will be the major containment thread at the Motte between now and election day?

  1. MAGA terrorism. I've spent a lot of time going door to door for candidates. There are a lot of hot-and-cold-running crazies on the R side of the aisle. And while we have seen the odd beheading or guy driving his car at the FBI headquarters, we haven't seen anything big scale. We're going to see some massacre where people are waving Trump and Q flags. The reaction to this will dominate the election coverage. Will it turn off the BlueLivesMatter folks when somebody shoots a cop executing a warrant against some QAnon who takes her child on the run with her?

  2. Chinese economic collapse. We've been playing China's Final Warning about various property developers in the WSJ and everywhere else for years now. I think a lot of people have started to tune it out, to be honest. But it's increasingly clear that China is cooking its books, with suspicious editing of population figures among the most obvious signs. There is real fear that China might go the way of Japan, getting old and staying important, but ceasing to expand its role in the world. But if we saw a sudden Chinese crisis in the shadow banking sector or who knows where else that we aren't looking yet, the results in the short term would be destructive to the world economy in unpredictable ways. The sudden destruction of the Chinese economy would doom Biden, forcing a sudden recession on him.

  3. Israel might really cross the line. I'm betting on either a true massacre, that even the best NYT editor can't squeeze into the passive voice, or a truly shocking example of the Hannibal Directive.

  4. Ukraine is unlikely to lose in a way that seriously impacts the election. At worst you'd see a new, Pro-Russian government installed in Kiev. But...what if Ukraine wins? What if we're treated to Azov death squads in Crimea on TikTok? Don't think these nationalist psychopaths are going to be friendly to Collaborators. What if they're able to terror-bomb enough of Russian oil infrastructure to paralyze Russian oil exports and drive up the price of oil to the point that the global economy is impacted?

As a European, "hot ethnic cleansing in Europe" would be top of my wishlist. I have a few candidates in mind.

However it's very, very, very unlikely to happen within a 12-month time horizon. There is no party near power in any western/central European country with the will and means to do this.

The likeliest scenario (and it's not very likely) would be that we have another crazy year of illegal migration north across the Med like 2016 - except voters and politicians know what this spells now, and "Wir Schaffen Das" sentiment is supplanted by "No Fuckin Way" sentiment. I could then imagine a pushback of current wannabe migrants, and perhaps expulsions from some of the particularly god-forsaken tent cities - but not deportations of people who'd been here longer than a few months.

Ukraine could go south really catastrophically really quick;

It can't. The worst it could happen in Ukraine pre election is their defense to crack and they can be forced to a very bad peace talks over a barrel. And that is honestly just meh.

There just won't be enough NATO boots on the ground for things to go south.

-Hot ethnic cleansing in Europe?

The Muslims don't have numbers, the Christians have no balls.

At this point I’m not sure Russia would accept a peace treaty. They’ve already put in the hard yeoman work of attriting Ukrainian forces and and NATO ammunition stocks, and punching through through the built up fortification networks in the east. That’s 80 percent of the work needed to conquer the whole country. I don’t think they would just quit now without getting any of the dividends. Also I suspect the end goal of the war is to crack the NATO alliance, not just take Ukraine.

Also I suspect the end goal of the war is to crack the NATO alliance, not just take Ukraine.

I think that ascribes a level of strategic thinking to the Russian high command that has not been borne out by their actual achievements in Ukraine. Achievements which so far appear to be throwing away a generation of Russian men to achieve a bloody stalemate. Does anyone think that, as a counterfactual, if during Gulf War 2: Saddam's Boogaloo Russia and China had fed Saddam's government every possible armament and support they could that the US would have failed to conquer Iraq? The total time from the word "go" to the occupation of Baghdad was what, three weeks? Does anyone seriously think they could have made the US spend more than an extra week? Two? Russia has spent more than two years securing less than 20% of Ukraine's landmass. Meanwhile NATO has grown by two nations, the inclusion of Finland meaning that Russia's border with NATO has now grown by more than 800 miles and includes an entirely new front pointed directly at St. Petersburg, their second largest city.

If Russia's goals were (1) conquer Ukraine, and (2) crack NATO, then it would appear they have failed spectacularly at both. The only tension between NATO member states these days is when Trump says "pay your damn 2%" - which most NATO countries are now more willing to do since Russia has shown they're still willing to do something stupid. Meanwhile Poland and France are practically champing at the bit to try and put NATO troops in Ukraine.

I suspect Russia has taken about a US in Vietnam amount of casualties, and that Ukraine’s casualties are absolutely horrific. I’m in the process of writing a big effort-post about that, but I’m trying to find some mainstream sources for myself beyond “muh gut” “4chan” and “it was revealed to me in a dream”

Ping me when you write this.

That's about my instinct too 50-100k Russian losses, to 250-500k Ukraine.

given leaks, the eternal artillery ratio of both sides, and what I've heard listening to Judge Andrew Napolitano's podcast which has weirdly become one of the most intensive foreign policy interview shows today

I find such large discrepancy hard to believe. If so, why front moves very slowly? Russians have more artillery, but Ukraine has access to American intel & sattelite data.

I'm definitely interested in a big effortpost on Ukraine - I look forward to reading it.

Also I suspect the end goal of the war is to crack the NATO alliance, not just take Ukraine.

How much can Putin really crack the NATO alliance in a way that he could take advantage of? Even if Trump is elected and completely withdraws from NATO over the opposition of almost the entire US political/military establishment, the remaining members of NATO would dwarf Russia demographically and economically as well as including two nuclear powers. A conquered Ukraine and/or American withdrawal from the alliance would also put the whole of the rest of Europe on a dramatically heightened level of military preparedness for the forseable future.

I mean “crack NATO” in the sense of pushing things far enough that France, Germany and the United Kingdom have to either weenie out or consign themselves to the Third World War.

I don't know how many times people need to hear it, but Ukraine is not a NATO signatory. By "crack NATO" do you just mean make the west look a little weak for not going to WW3 over Ukraine?

I mean we are getting a great deal here. A very small amount of support and money and Russia is bogged down wasting money and blood and materiel for what? a 2rd rate former soviet bloc country if they win?

What I mean is that I think the end goal is to eventually attack a more marginal NATO member (probably Poland or the Baltic states) and then get Germany and France and the US to back down on doing anything about it, thus be-clowning NATO as an institution. Edited to add: Ukraine has the largest army in Europe besides Russia, and thanks to international support is one of the best equipped armies in the world. It was supposed to be Europe’s buffer against Russia for the next 20 years. It’s not Liechtenstein-tier like many people on Reddit assume. It’s not a minor conquest, and the “three days to Kiev” quote that’s often bandied about was from western sources, not Russia itself.

So you have a timeline for an invasion of a NATO state yet? Any interest in the wager?

Care to make a wager? I follow the news fairly closely and I had no idea the Ukraine was supposed to be a bulwark against Russian aggression until 2042. They were certainly not even close to the best equipped when Russia invaded. They are getting supplies now for sure, but still their air power is non-existent, along with dozens of other serious shortfalls in material and manpower.

Will you put up a few thousand to mark your opinion as a serious prediction? I will put up a few K against NATO leaving a NATO country to be taken over by Russia and NATO becoming "be-clowned". Say 2 year timeframe?

Quite the list there Kulak! You really do inhabit the true spirit of the culture war. I'm sorry things have become so boring for you, doom scrolling is addictive and it seems that at least you make some hay from it as well!

I'm with the other poster here that already mentioned AI. How is that not on your list? I kind of get that it has been a bit played out and discussing it also seems to make a lot of culture war stuff irrelevant pretty quickly if it indeed does take away many burdens of humanity (one way or the other). It should still be on the list though.

Of course, as you and some others already noted, there’s the possibility that Trump dies. Ignoring the baseline of natural causes, there’s a moderate possibility of this happening per an assassination, given that:

  1. The one method of removing politicians from office used by the ‘deep state’ (e.g. Watergate, which was most likely a CIA job) involving hilariously huge false-flag scandals has been lobbed at Trump so many times the way all the instances have fantastically failed is spectacular in and of itself.
  2. The motivations behind the previous use of the other method (e.g. the Bay of Pigs) were considerably lesser in stake compared to the betrayal Trump has committed against “them”.

The difference between then and now is that people are more willing to challenge the official narratives. If there will be magic bullets (and there will) they will be rejected, at least by the vast majority of the population. It could legitimately cause a national divorce, if it is officially decreed that the intelligence services did it, actually this time, rather than it being simply suspected.

What was Trump's great betrayal against "them"?

Aso best theory I've seen is JFK wasn't assassinated for crossing the CIA but for blocking the Israeli nuclear program... only actor who considered JFK an existential threat not just to the pensions but to their lives

What was Trump's great betrayal against "them"?

Being somewhat of a dove? Snubbing Hillary? Who knows. It’s mostly just something that could be pointed out after the fact of Trump’s opposition attempting to tear him down at every possible point ever (cf. Jan 6, which was a definitive IC job).

Aso best theory I've seen is JFK wasn't assassinated for crossing the CIA but for blocking the Israeli nuclear program... only actor who considered JFK an existential threat not just to the pensions but to their lives

It’s a good theory (insofar as they’d probably want to do that) but the main thing with the case is that there were multiple actors whose lives were threatened, not just Israel (e.g. Anti-Castro elements regarding Cuba, the Mob, etc.) It’s just that the deathbed confessions & auxiliary circumstantial evidence seem to be indicative of some sort of Cuban Exile impetus, rather than anything else. I would not surprised if some Mossad operative was in on the plot, though.

There's a great "Murder on the Orient Express" reboot to be made here!

I think most American elites now expect Trump to win or consider him at least moderately likely to do so. Biden could pull off an upset but I think there’s less fear about Trump now, it’s clear he can be generally kept within a policy pen in practice if not rhetoric.

Alright, to start with I think the cathedral knows trump is going to win this round, doesn’t actually have a backup plan, and are mostly trying to insulate themselves, personally, from worst case scenario consequences.

But, there is a potential political earthquake coming up- the trials over SB 4. SB 4, if you don’t know, is a Texas state law which would allow Texas(the state) to deport illegals without the cooperation of the federal government- there’s other things there but that’s the main provision. It’s currently stayed pending a full hearing with the 5th circuit, but Mexico has already said it won’t accept any deportations under the law.

Now, Texas’ chances of getting the law to go into effect aren’t very good. Almost the exact same law got struck down in Arizona a while back. But the 5th circuit is in other matters frequently Texas’ bitch and the case thus far has gone better for Texas than I would have expected. It’s dimly possible that the 5th circuit allows it to temporarily go into effect and the Supreme Court eventually strikes it down.

It’s anybody’s guess what happens then if the law’s been in effect for a month or two. Probably there’s a foreign policy crisis and then a mega-version of the state-federal standoff we saw earlier this year. And keep in mind, Texas is the natural hegemon for the south central US by virtue of size and location and also by being phenomenally wealthier than the neighbors. A much weaker federal government benefits Texas more than it hurts and Abbott has no incentive to worry about the federal government’s legitimacy- his incentive is not to call bluffs if and only if he has strong reason to believe they aren’t bluffs. And he knows that.

A major rearrangement of federalism’s arrangement with particularly large and wealthy states is certainly in the cards even if it isn’t the most likely scenario.

I don't really foresee any scenario where this could turn into a foreign policy crisis. If the law is allowed to go into effect then the chances that the Feds would try to do something to prevent enforcement against a court order are approximately zero. It's also likely that this law is a purely performative attempt to score points with voters without actually doing anything. I doubt Texas is going to try to attempt to deport Guatemalans to Mexico against the wishes of the Mexican government, and imprisoning illegals on their own dime is going to get really expensive really fast if there's anything more than a few token enforcement actions. Consider the worst case scenario — Texas officials try to deport someone to Mexico and end up getting arrested and detained by Mexican authorities. Now Abbot has to go to Biden hat in hand to get the State Department to negotiate with Mexico, and that isn't happening without a guarantee that he'll leave immigration enforcement to the Feds, because he certainly isn't going to turn this into a regular thing. At worst, Biden has every incentive to stall, making it look like he's doing everything he can while making sure that no settlement is reached until after the election. If Trump wins, then it's pretty much lights out for the detainees, because Biden has no incentive to continue negotiations, and the Mexicans are going to be disinclined to negotiate with Trump. But I doubt this even happens because, as you said, Abbot isn't stupid enough to get hoisted by his own petard.

Honestly, it seems to me like it's in Abbot's best interest for this law to get shot down. If it's upheld and he does nothing to enforce it, then it's just campaign fodder for Biden, who can point out that Abbot is all hat and no cattle. Same even if he does enforce it, because it's unlikely that Texas has the resources to make a dent in the problem. But if it's shot down then he can continue to bitch about the Feds and blame the courts from preventing him from taking the bull by the horns.

Texas has substantial leverage over the governments of Mexican border states. Abbott’s first recourse is to use it to get the Noreste to side with him in ignoring the Mexican federal government. This can spiral into a foreign policy crisis.

I doubt that there's any universe where the Texas government collaborating with drug cartels is going to be electorally advantageous to Republicans.

I think the cathedral knows trump is going to win this round

This is rather silly - we are still well more than half a year away from the election, no-one can possibly 'know' who is going to win with such confidence that they would think it not even worth trying anymore. Current head-to-head polls tend to favour Trump but only by a few points, and a minority do have slight Biden leads. Especially with the potential for Trump's criminal cases to throw a major spanner in the works, alongside the ever-improving economic situation, there is no reason to count Biden out, especially for his supporters, or the 'cathedral', such as is isn't.

Black swan #1 (negative): Ukraine

Macron acts like a naughty schoolchild, France actually puts troops in Ukraine, troops get killed, Macron tries to invoke article 5, Biden sends US troops into Ukraine to prevent Trump from winning the election. Russia nukes a city.

Black swan #2 (positive): Trump dies

Trump dies mysteriously. Trump's VP pick wins in a landslide. Secures the southern border, institutes other common sense measures with a broad popular mandate. With the bad man now dead, the tribes can come together. Wokism become a joke and gradually recedes from public life.

With the bad man now dead, the tribes can come together.

They'll just shift to a new Bad Man, or Bad Woman. Hitler Mark II is always going to be a popular catch-cry. Remember how Mitt Romney was the worst thing ever, the Mormon theocrat who would enact The Handmaid's Tale for real? Now Mitt is the Only Good Republican, and the caravan moved on to the next Worst Thing Ever.

If Trump drops dead this second and they hurriedly shove Nikki Haley into the replacement slot, she will be slaughtered over being New Worst Thing Ever, and it won't matter a rattling damn that she is BIPOC or was the 'moderate' Republican alternative to Trump.

(Is BIPOC still the term of art, or has the euphemism factory churned out the replacement term?)

For the record, I think Haley would be a much worse president for everyone involved. She exemplifies the GOP at its worst - giving absolutely nothing to their constituents except for tax breaks to the business, constantly snatching defeat from the jaws of victory when facing off against Dems on cultural issues, and war adventurism in the middle east for the hell of it.

You can’t invoke article 5 unless you’re subject to ‘armed attack’ on home territory, which is clearly defined in article 6 as your sovereign territory or land on which your troops were stationed in 1949. As French troops weren’t in Ukraine in 1949 it can’t apply.

Technically, but in practice it’s whatever the NATO members want to do. If they really want to get into the Ukraine war, “the merest sop to the critical intellect will do.” And it doesn’t have to be all of NATO, a coalition of the willing could jump the gun.

I sincerely doubt anything is going to happen in 2024. The powers that be (TPTB — the PMC elites) simply don’t want anything to disrupt Biden’s chances of winning a comfy re-election. So nothing will happen. “It’s the economy, stupid” all the way down. Don’t be surprised to see the DOW approach 45000 and the S&P 500 approach 6000 this year. As long as Number Go Up, the typical voter will allow any demented meat puppet (Biden) to remain in office.

You point out 2008 and 2020. Those were the last two election years involving a Republican presidential incumbent. TPTB wanted to change to a PMC Democrat, as part of the long-term, Davos-approved plan for managed decline in the West. So, lo and behold, we got the Great Financial Crisis in 2008 (talk about a September/October surprise!) and we got COVID Floyd in 2020. TPTB overestimated its chances against Trump (as well as Brexit) in 2016, and 2012 was a rare election when TPTB would have been satisfied with Romney as much as Obama.

As long as Number Go Up, the typical voter will allow any demented meat puppet (Biden) to remain in office.

I didn't mod this while I was on my phone, but this kind of sneer just accrues reports from people annoyed by the culture warring. We generally don't care that much if you want to sneer at Trump or Biden, but when you're just blatantly calling them names, you're definitely casting more heat than light.

The idea that "TPTB" can control literally everything, including wars, social unrest, pandemics, the stock market, and inflation, in order to ensure that the person they want gets elected, is an Illuminati theory. And somehow the same people who also believe that TPTB are incompetent idiots mismanaging literally everything manage to believe both these things.

The idea that "TPTB" can control literally everything, including ... social unrest,

well, according with that article, with the magic of a Zoom call they can. No idea why would you ask about it, unless you forgot that article.

You sure did ellide a lot with those ellipses.

it's just that I already had an example in mind for one of the points of your so called "illuminati theory", for the one that is the most outlandish at that. The others are results from the functions of the government, so I don't know why you think they aren't controlled by it, reports of WMD for war and lowering or rising interest rates through the federal reserve for the stock market and inflation. The only tricky one would be Pandemics, but as COVID19 shows, you can fund your illnesses abroad if the local laws prevent gain of function research where you are.

And somehow the same people who also believe that TPTB are incompetent idiots mismanaging literally everything manage to believe both these things.

North Korea, East Germany, USSR fit like a glove.

You believe those countries were actually able to engineer the economy and society successfully? The OP is talking about puppet strings and invisible hands, not armies and secret police who make voting irrelevant.

Nothing precludes you from being incompetent grey cardinal, at least for a while if you inherit that power. If we assume that there is shadowy cabal that runs the US - you can literally see how they become more and more incompetent after the 70s - the cost disease kicks then and is accelerating ever since. It doesn't matter if the rulers are overt or covert. Well covert rule is cheaper.

That’s a pretty big assumption, and you haven’t provided any evidence.

I don't think that you have to provode evidence for hypotheticals. I am just pointing out that lizard people controlling everything and lizard people being less competent than before is not in any way contradiction.

But can you be trusted on this subject in light of your heritage?

everything, including wars, social unrest, pandemics, the stock market, and inflation

That's not everything. The last 2 are the same thing (the economy). All of these things can be (crudely) controlled.

And somehow the same people who also believe that TPTB are incompetent idiots mismanaging literally everything manage to believe both these things.

It's kind of the paradox. Not that mind-boggling of a belief tho. There are very smart people out there who think that a computer program answering cues can 'become intelligent' and take over the world as well.

Why would not-very-competent people who have a lot of power not use the technology of the day that actually works decently at modelling complicated phenomena to push for certain outcomes?

Do you genuinely believe the covid psy-op was organic? That the blm reversal 'actually you can go outside for police brutality protests' was genuine? That the pivot to Ukraine when the covid thing became too embarrassing was pure coincidence? That the pivot to Israel was also pure coincidence?

Or do you wonder why all these powerful people lied so much? With lies growing larger as time goes?

I don't know what it is to be honest. Were they trying to take out Trump because he really was threatening their system despite their mostly-successful blocking of his policies? Was it a way to cover up the last 30-50 years of failed foreign policy in the Middle-East, or just some kind of test, to see if people were ready to accept 'government says you can't enter this building at this time, thank you for your obedience'?

There is a paradox of competency. Clearly letting in millions of Central and South-Americans is not going to improve the general competency of the country. Planes are gonna start falling off the sky, bridges collapsing, trains derailing, towers getting smashed into...

Who could have predicted that sending gender studies majors to teach Afghans not to be sexist would not work? To be fair, with a few billion dollars and another couple decades I think it would have worked. In the mean time that's a nice way to secure employment for party-loyalists.

That the pivot to Ukraine when the covid thing became too embarrassing was pure coincidence? That the pivot to Israel was also pure coincidence?

Since those "pivots" had their timing fixed by Putin's invasion date and Hamas' massacre date, and since I'm very confident the US Deep State or whoever isn't collaborating with them, I'm going to have to go with OF COURSE. Putin's "de-Nazification" excuses were a cover for "I want conquest", not "I want to do Biden a solid".

Good luck to you. I'm as big a Deus Ex fan as the next guy, but actual paranoid theorizing about how the world is controlled by a giant conspiracy against you is a really hard epistemic failure to break out of. Meds can help, but of course that's what They would want you to do...

I'm very confident the US Deep State or whoever isn't collaborating with them

I would cautiously agree with you on that, contradicting evidence may come forward in the next few decades. I wouldn't say that about the previous conflicts with ISIS or Al-Qaida. What TPTB control is the media coverage, the foreign policy...

The previous EU and US response to conflicts on Russia's borders was not as dramatic.

actual paranoid theorizing about how the world is controlled by a giant conspiracy against you is a really hard epistemic failure to break out of.

It actually gives you some decent heuristics.

Meds can help, but of course that's what They would want you to do...

Is it? Was there like a multi-year media blitz to have people take meds or something? Schizos would have you believe that governments can just shut down borders and make you stay home and make you lose your job if you don't take the meds, but we all know it's impossible to ever close borders, and nobody would ever be able to coordinate such things.

Do you genuinely believe the covid psy-op was organic? That the blm reversal 'actually you can go outside for police brutality protests' was genuine? That the pivot to Ukraine when the covid thing became too embarrassing was pure coincidence? That the pivot to Israel was also pure coincidence

There's a difference between "coincidence" and engineered, just like there's a difference between "elites try to shape the narrative" and "TPTB can make everyone turn on a dime overnight." So short answer, yes, I think these things are more organic than not. I think "TPTB" would like to do the things you ascribe to them, but there's too much evidence of failure to believe they can just pick winners and move the zeitgeist on command.

So it's not a coincidence right?

EDIT: nevermind you did write you thought these things were more 'organic'. What kind of evidence would you need to believe that something is not 'organic', but rather 'fake and gay'?

but there's too much evidence of failure to believe they can just pick winners and move the zeitgeist on command.

The problem is that we don't know what exactly the goals are and what a 'failure' looks like, what we do see is large organized actions toward certain apparent goals, and they only seem to get bigger. What we may think of a failure may just be another possible path. Perhaps making all the boomers go MAGA was just one more way to get more people dependent on online socialization...

I gave you an example of 'TPTB' influencing various thing such as 'pandemics', 'social unrest', 'wars', which imo passes the bar of 'the idea that "TPTB" can control literally everything'.

But to you it's not valid because it's not 'TPTB can make everyone turn on a dime overnight.' I didn't claim that. They have a measure of control.

Most people don't say 'meteorologists can't predict the weather' because predictions after 5 weeks are generally meaningless. There is a certain level of prediction going on.

I'd say this is analogous to a boulder. If the boulder is big enough, no matter how hard I push it will not budge. If not, I can probably make it nudge forward and backward a little bit. If the boulder is uphill and I try really hard I can probably make it roll down the hill.

Am I able to roll the boulder back uphill? No. Am I able to send that boulder wherever I want? No. Can I make all boulders roll downhill? No.

I do believe that there are people that TPTB can make turn on a dime overnight. Journalists. It only took a few weeks for the coverage to go from 'It's racist to close borders to prevent Asians from bringing him a nothingburger of a cold' to 'Orange man bad for not doing enough to stop the spread of the Black Plague 2.0'.

Obviously the people in charge of these schemes are somewhat competent, but the moving parts are not necessarily. My understanding of those who are made to be 'flexible' in their beliefs is that there is some kind of underlying cognitive weakness. I don't expect these people to make good long-term decisions aside from professionally 'doing what TPTB say to stay on their good side'.

For the ones in charge, I would say the problem is their 'out-of-touchness'. It's hard to tell what being 'in-touch' means, but being a multi-faced sociopath 24/7 probably doesn't help introspection and relating to the common man. Especially if most of your interactions are with lackeys who are only thinking and saying whatever they think you expect them to.

What kind of psychology is at work behind the concurrent media coverage of : 'Glorious underdog desperately needs our support to fight back to the last man in urban guerilla against evil invader'

vs 'Glorious topdog desperately needs out support to invade and suppress evil terrorists fighting to the last man in urban guerilla' ?

I gave you an example of 'TPTB' influencing various thing such as 'pandemics', 'social unrest', 'wars', which imo passes the bar of 'the idea that "TPTB" can control literally everything'.

No, you claimed they do that.

If you embrace a belief in "shadowy gray cardinals " sitting in a room somewhere deciding what will happen this month, you can make everything fit that theory.

If you embrace a belief in "shadowy gray cardinals " sitting in a room somewhere deciding what will happen this month, you can make everything fit that theory.

Well that's the point of beliefs, that they fit the observed world. It'd be weird to have a belief that does not adequately address what actually happens.

Unfortunately I'm not aware of a website that tracks media lies over time to reliably be able to provide receipts for what I consider as evidence in this case.

One such example would be for example the response to the Steele dossier. My understanding is that a number of media outlets all came together with claims of leaks from US/Western officials of a mysterious dossier circulating among the 'experts' in intelligence that would implicate candidate Trump in nefarious immoral or anti-American acts. Such media reports were riddled with quotes from 'anonymous sources' and such.

Another example would be the coverage of the Jan6 protests. For example the NYT made the incorrect claim that a police officer was killed by protesters:

A few days ago, the New York Times quietly “updated” its report, published over a month earlier, asserting that Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick had been killed by being struck with a fire extinguisher during the January 6 riot.

I saw recently somebody claim online that these protesters killed a policeman, which shows that the strategy of 'lie loudly then quietly retract' had the intended effect of priming the mind of people who don't pay attention.

A third example would be the reaction to the NYPost article detailing their finding of Hunter Biden's laptop containing materials implicating him in at best in highly promiscuous activities with many connected socialites and at worst in international corruption, influence peddling, potential incestuous pedophilia... The reaction was of course to censor, dismiss, diminish as much as possible, using the same previously discredited 'anonymous intelligence' sources as for the Steele dossier, or the WMD in Iraq story... Why'd they stop using the same gimmick when it still works?

I believe that there are 2 underlying facts behind these examples:

  • media professionals have a narrative that they're trying to push (duh)
  • they coordinate together to either push false narratives or kill true but embarrassing ones, along with intelligence agencies/government operatives and social media companies, especially when it matters most right before elections

Does this involve "shadowy gray cardinals"? I suppose you could call the people in charge of media companies that, as well as the government officials they interact with, as well as the coordinators at the social media company level. Can the room be an email chain? Or a zoom meeting?

Perhaps when they wipe the servers they use to communicate confidential information on, they do not use acid, and Hillary does not personally smash them with a hammer.

Is it still a conspiracy if they're not literally wearing capes and bathing in blood?

How does your theory fit the facts better than my theory, which is "The media is very liberal and captured by woke nowadays, and thus needs to no cabal to push a particular narrative; nonetheless, they do not have the organization or unity or control to just make everyone do what they want"?

More comments

If The Powers that Be had this much control over human affairs and don't want Trump in office, it invites the obvious question of how he was able to secure even one term.

Well that was a mistake. I believe the ideas that Trump support are generally pretty popular.

Most people want their country to keep looking the way it did when they were children and not have 10% new different faces injected + a constant rhetoric that the way they've been living so far is abjectly immoral and they need to change NOW or they're EVIL. It should be a walk in the park for a generally well-presenting, competent-looking man to get ~60% of votes if he signals support toward a program that would support that worldview.

Usually the Republicans end up fielding the least-reptilian-looking investment firm manager who was able to curry enough favors from all the lobbyists to be eligible.

Then the voters say 'Well he probably laughs at plebs like me with his billionaire buddies but at least the country is going to descend into hell 20% slower than the other guy who outright laughs at me and blame me on TV for the country's problems'.

So the Democrats for whatever reason picked Hillary Clinton as replacement for golden goose Obama, and perhaps they had the idea that she was an utterly unlikable candidate so they had to go the extra mile to 'save the election'.

Here there's one measure of incompetency, picking HRC, and then there's one measure of competency, still trying to salvage it. They decided that in order to crush the Republicans, they would throw their entire media machine's support behind the goofiest, least-competent, most ridiculous showbusiness candidate this side of the Atlantic.

Plus they had to let the frustrated voters fantasize a little bit about getting what they want. Isn't that what democracy is for? You field some kooky guy who claims he wants to get you what you want, but he ends up losing to a more 'serious' candidate who has to compromise into getting you nothing that you want or the adults in the media or at the UN - or wherever people think adults are- will get you in trouble.

Then of course you use the worst possible version of the presentation of these ideas to discredit them 'oh yes we tried this in 2016 but that guy was just too goofy, serious people don't believe these things'.

That sounded like a good idea at the time, and the media kept laughing and scoffing that 'nobody is voting for Trump'. That was the plan. Who in their right mind would vote for a clown over serious girlboss HRC?

Then when it didn't work out they cooked up increasingly desperate counter-measures from the media to intelligence agencies, to the Science and health agencies... for a hot fix.

I wonder what the future is even going to look like. Because if you let people like Trump run the trouble is that they can get elected. We want to keep the song and dance of democracy going. And it's been going on pretty nicely with a nice continuity. Nobody's ever using the President's powers for anything that could disturb the general plan. Trump was ultimately the product of that small window in time in which the Internet was still letting unfiltered opinions through and the majority of voters started using the Internet. I'd say the Internet died in 2020 when governments found a reason to swing their weight around.

I think American democracy is going to get harder to maintain and the measures will get even more desperate than now - attempting to lock up top political opponents right before elections - like in these African countries where people vote along tribal lines, and voters risk machete attacks to cast their votes.

Watch out! Apparently pointing out doublethink is frowned upon You might even be called a "quippy liberal"!

I also would point out that "demented meat puppet (Biden)" should bring out a mod hat.

Don't Karen about the mods not responding to your every report.

I've only ever reported one thing, that I can recall. This post, just to test it out.

TPTB overestimated its chances against Trump (as well as Brexit) in 2016, and 2012 was a rare election when TPTB would have been satisfied with Romney as much as Obama.

A theory that neatly accounts for everything and predicts nothing.

His first paragraph contained several predictions. His explanations for the past may seem a bit too pat, accounting for everything, but you cannot say he’s predicted nothing.

Sure but that hasn't happened yet, so at this moment his view is unfalsifiable, because every past Democratic/liberal/blue-tribe victory gets chalked up to 'TPTB' (to the extent that the financial crisis gets blamed on them, as if 'Davos' was quaking in its boots at a McCain presidency), and every defeat is written off as complacency.

That’s not how unfalsifiability works. If Cirrus’s predictions for this summer (no major CW events, DOW and S&P hitting certain numbers) turn out to be incorrect, that will be evidence that his theory is wrong, so it’s hardly unfalsifiable.

I don’t agree entirely with Cirrus’s theory, but sarker’s response was a low-effort cliche that doesn’t even apply.

In the long run I agree, but as I said that doesn't help us much now. As in, it's impossible to scrutinise this prediction now, and it's so distant.

This feels like one of the most boring presidential elections of my lifetime. So far it's mostly about Trump's personal scandals and Biden's age, both things that we've known and discussed already for what feels like forever. And it's frustrating, because like you said there are lot of big dramatic issues that we could be talking about. But neither of the parties seems to really want to talk about them in a clear way. There's been zero discussion of things like:

  • were the lockdowns were justified
  • why does the birth rate keep falling
  • why are we banning TikTok and not everything else
  • Are we going to give Ukraine air power to actually win the air, pull out and let the Europeans handle it, or just keep drip-feeding them leftover ammo from the 70s so they can fight forever but never win?
  • Are we just gonna keep supporting Israel forever, no matter what?
  • Are we actually willing to fight China over Taiwan, or are just kinda giving up on that?
  • Why do house, education, and healthcare prices just keep rising forever?
  • What's the point of college education if technology is automating all the educated professional jobs? It seems like what we need now are blue-collar and service-sector workers, not more office drones

But this is not discussed. Both candidates seem pretty similar, honestly- they both want to more or less leave things as they are, with just minor disagreements over taxes and trade policy. Fair enough, maybe it'll be good to have a boring election for once. This reminds of Clinton vs Dole in 96, which was a match between an incumbent vs a very old senator, with most of the debate being around Clinton's personal scandals.

why are we banning TikTok and not everything else

CCP controls TikToc. For all their many sins Facebook and X are not similarly run by the CCP.

Yes I know that's the official explanation, plus potential security holes. But then why not ban alibaba, wechat, weibo, etc? Or for that matter the billions of electronic devices manufactured in China? Is this the beginning of a general trade war on China, or is it just this one specific app? I want to see a real debate between Trump and Biden on this, instead it just sorta got rushed through Congress.

To be fair, it isn't just TikToc being targetted. More and more Chinese ownership or supply of communications infrastructure or devices have been banned in the past few years.

HTC Android devices are banned in the US. The import or sale of Chinese telecom equipment is banned. Previously installed Chinese-made cellular equipment was removed and replaced with non-Chinese equivalents at a cost of billions of dollars. The export of American made telecom components to China is banned by the US government. Etc, etc. This is a general trend picking up steam these past 4ish years.

I have and use Wechat on my phone. I only use it to communicate with Chinese immigrants in America or to video call Chinese people in China. I'm sure it is Chinese spyware and probably should be banned. But if few non-Chinese people use it then it isn't a major problem. Not exactly mass dataharvesting our youth.

Alibaba has potential trade consequences that go beyond social media apps, and would be a much harder sell. It could also significantly impact the viability of Amazon, Walmart, and other large businesses that mostly derive inventories from China.

WeChat and Weibo are, outside of a handful of Chinese nationals with friends and family in the mainland, effectively already banned from the west - by China itself. These apps are crippled and uncompetitive in their neutered western forms. The Chinese experience on both platforms is widely understood to be dramatically different.

In all of the cases above, no one is targeting the median American teenager with pro-CCP messaging and anti-western memes. TikTok is.

To your point about electronics in China: if it were feasible, we'd consider it. But I think you underestimate the sheer size and cost competitiveness of Chinese manufacturing. Between their massive volumes, government subsidies, decades of manufacturing expertise built up on other people's goods, and the utterly anemic and perpetually consolidating western semiconductor market, you're talking about a trillion dollar decades-long pivot that would plunge the US supply chain into prolonged chaos.

And frankly, I already know what Trump and Biden would say in any such debate. Trump has been making his case for decades, and you'd have to be sleeping under a rock for the last eight years to know exactly what he wants to do with respect to China. And Biden doesn't really have anything to say about China - his administration can and does take reasonable steps to protect government and military supply chains from foreign powers, but clearly they aren't too concerned about the nature of our remaining trade relationships. I don't know what we'd gain from this or frankly any debate between the two sides - I think people made up their minds on Trump v Biden years ago.

Sure, that's a good answer, as is @TIRM's . I just want to hear Biden make that case explicitly, with Trump getting a chance to respond. Instead we just have to guess at the motives, while the candidates talk in vague campaign slogans.

I get it now, and sorry for missing your point initially - my big lesson from interacting on this forum is that I tend to respond to the thing I know how to talk about, instead of the thing actually under discussion. Working on it.

Maybe the political parties could have a more productive dialogue with different candidates - I don't think any campaign with Trump in the mix can host meaningful debates, especially after the disastrous 2016 Republican primaries; and I'm less than confident that Biden is still firing on all cylinders. There's surely still some debate left in the downballot races, but between gerrymandering and party infighting, this year is less about debating issues and more about who should even get to speak.

I've worried for a while that the private sector has been absorbing competence on both sides of the aisle, ever since tech took off in the late 80s and early 90s. I think the kind of people you'd want to see in political contests, who'd be willing and able to actively engage in debates about relevant current issues, are pursuing more lucrative and less risky careers making targeted advertising platforms or whatever. So even if we had different candidates today, I'm doubtful we'd get quality debates.

Do you think there's an opportunity for productive debate with the state of US politics in 2024? With Trump v Biden? Someone else (who?)? Any downballot races you could point to as examples of what you want?

Do you think there's an opportunity for productive debate with the state of US politics in 2024? With Trump v Biden? Someone else (who?)? Any downballot races you could point to as examples of what you want?

a productive debate, probably not. FWIW I thought Biden's state of the Union address was pretty good. He got a big block of time to speak, uninterrupted, with lots of eyes on him. He seemed very articulate and well-prepared. He just didn't really say anything of substance.

I thought the recent election in Argentina was interesting. I don't speak Spanish so I don't exactly know what was said, but it seemed like the new president, Javier Milei, was able to speak very frankly about how their country was facing serious problems and needed a massive change in their economic system in order to fix it. And it's not just lip service, he's pushed austerity and deregulation in a big way.

It seems like you want something terrible to happen so that you'll be energized and entertained. Am I wrong?

Some people just want to see the worm.

Based on likelihood, my best guesses would be either an escalation in the ME (Israel-Lebanon blows up into a full-scale war with other countries getting involved), or Trump or Biden kick the bucket before the election.

Really, though, I think you are hoping for something cataclysmic and it's just going to be same old same old.

My previous hypothesis was that Trump would be literally in jail by election day, but that's looking increasingly unlikely given the delays he has been able to secure.

If you're expecting some external event to suddenly become the new "current thing" well, the smart money has to be on AI right? That's probably too soon for Doom™, but what if the October surprise is 40% of the workforce becoming obsolete?

Gaza? I'm finding it very interesting how the Democratic party usual suspects are getting hit by their own supporters (or I imagine these types are their own supporters), particularly in an election year where I'd expect them to be starting to circle the wagons around the old reliable Orange Man Bad.

Now, I don't know for sure these are the regular supporters, or if they're the ultra-lefty/prog types who make the most noise but are tiny in actual vote numbers, but I'm surprised Gaza is still such a live concern. But protesters inside the building who could afford to fork out the minimum $250 ticket price to attend are the ones I'd expect to be more exercised about "Ahhhh, Trump is gonna eat our babies!"

Tickets for Thursday's Biden event cost between $250 and $500,000, according to a Democrat familiar with the planning. More than 5,000 people were expected to attend.

Also, what?

The event closed with each of the men donning aviator sunglasses, Biden’s trademark. “Dark Brandon is real,” Biden bellowed, referencing a meme about himself.

This image from your first link is wild. That flagpole in the middle with a trans flag and a Palestinian flag, the sign that says "Dykes for Palestine", the guy in the middle wearing a mask in the rain. The whole thing is just amazing. I have a hard time understanding how anyone that's retained their sanity and intellect could want to be seen allied with this ridiculousness.

To be fair, these are the kind of people who would turn out to protest anybody in government, because even if the DSA managed by a miracle to become the ruling party of the state, they'd still not be right-on enough for a certain segment of the population. These people will even more vigorously protest Trump and the Republicans.

But they are also the segment that pins its hopes on the Democrats to block the evil Republicans, so they expect more from them when in power as the nearest they've got to "you are supposed to be pro-minorities, pro-LGBT+, pro-equality etc. so give in to our reasonable demands". That's what makes it fun for me as an outside observer; we don't yet have this level of crazy (though we're getting there) over here in Ireland so I can't get my Schadenfreude fix from seeing Ivana and the Labour Boys having to be rushed past the grubby hordes on the way to Big Party Conference, I have to rely on it second-hand (these are your nutjobs, party-associates of AOC and The Squad, not ours. Though the girls seem to be keeping quiet recently, don't they?).

I'm finding it very interesting how the Democratic party usual suspects are getting hit by their own supporters

Is that a Yemen flag there underneath the Palestinian flag, with a Trans flag in between? I guess they're... supporting the government over the Houthis?

The Houthis seem to use the Yemeni tricolor as they represent themselves as the government, so I think the protestors get away with this one on that front.

(recognizing how funny it could be if it were otherwise)

I've seen little evidence the Democrats have a plan B aside from jailing Trump. I see constant reports that their ground game is in shambles, they are hemorrhaging in every demographic except college educated white women, and polling in nearly every bell weather or swing state is devastating to them. But they just don't seem to care. They are either very stupid, or they have assurances from the usual three letter agencies about another, more pro-active Peter Strzokian "insurance plan".

Put me down for Trump dies in prison, and somehow all the cameras were broken and all the guards were on break.

Let me start this by saying Trump could totally win with a hiccup in the economy, Biden looking old at the wrong moment, something going really bad in foreign policy, or something else off.

But, where are you seeing this idea the Democratic ground game in shambles? In reality, in basically every special election for the past few years, plus the midterms, the Democrat's have run past their prior margins, including just this past week, winning a Trump +1 state legislative seat in suburban Huntsville by twenty five points.

In addition, Biden just raised $25 million in one night, with a plan to actually get a healthy bit of funding out to state parties, all while many Republican state parties, including swing states like Michigan and Arizona, are either in feuds with each over who is actually in control of the state party, is basically in a deep fundraising hole, or in some cases, both.

Also, Trump's own small donor fundraising has fallen apart, which is why, along with the whole needing money for legal bills, is why all of the sudden he's friendlier with Chamber of Commerce types, and has done things like talk about being OK with entitlement cuts, and totally flipped on TikTok, once a billionaire with a stake in ByteDance got close to him.

Plus, on the actual primaries, even in closed primary states after Haley dropped out, she was still getting 15-20% of the vote in some of these places. Now, I don't that's representative of actually 20% of the GOP voter base, but in a close election, you need every voter you can possibly get.

As far as the polling goes, it is interesting - all the polls are showing the biggest shift since the Civil Rights Act with Trump supposedly winning 25-30% of the black vote, straight up winning the Hispanic vote, and either winning or getting close with the youth vote, but the other thing people don't mention because it make things look even weirder, is these polls usually show, because otherwise Trump would be up by like 10, is Biden is somehow turning around 30 years of movement, and winning older white voters.

Now, maybe that's happening.

But, we're not seeing this shift among non-white voters in special elections, and even in 2022, the only real shifts to the right happened in Florida, along the Texas border, and in some deep blue parts of NY & CA, all while the national vote for both African-American & Hispanic voters basically stayed steady from 2020.

In addition, polls that oversample black, Hispanic, and youth voters to get more than just a subsample with a higher margin of error show numbers much closer to 2020 & 2022.

Again, Trump can win. I even think he could get to 15% of the black vote and 45% of the Hispanic vote. The issue is, in places like the Atlanta, Dallas, Milwaukee, etc. suburbs, the bottom is falling out of the suburban vote, especially among women who are turned off by Trump, then got turned off by Dobbs. Plus, there's a new generation of 30-something's coming to the suburbs, and they're more diverse, and less conservative than the prior generation.

But, my personal belief, is here are the actual most likely results of the 2020 election.

  1. 2020 redux - it turns out, most people haven't shifted their views

  2. Trump inside straight redux of 2016 - slight turnoff shift by minority voters, youth vote dropoff, etc.

  3. Big Biden win - what happened to rural voters among Democrat's in the past few decades happens to the GOP among suburban voters, there's more Haley voters/supporters who decide not to turnout, Trump's non-voter base that he turned out in 2016 & 2020 have gotten bored, and the Genocide Joe types are overstated on Twitter, and it turns out young single women care more about abortion than whether Biden is old or Doordash delivery is more expensive.

But, where are you seeing this idea the Democratic ground game in shambles? In reality, in basically every special election for the past few years, plus the midterms, the Democrat's have run past their prior margins, including just this past week, winning a Trump +1 state legislative seat in suburban Huntsville by twenty five points.

With the shift of college educated voters to the democrats, I expect this to be more common. The highly educated are much more likely to turn out for non-presidential elections (republicans benefited from this in previous elections as well). But there's a ton of voters that only show up every 4 years, and only vote for president, and those demographics seem to be sliding towards the GOP.

Also worth noting the Trump was not running in those elections -- to the extent that the guy has some reality distortion field going on, it does not seem to extend to his hangers-on; this does not me that it's not still working for him.

Sure, but the issue is there's evidence like I pointed out above that's even fallen off - see Trump's small donor donations, etc.

Now, yes, the person still posting about how the 2020 election is stolen, etc. he's obviously showing up, but not all the non-college educated Trump supporters he brought out in 2016 or 2020 are as connected as people assume, and for all the talk of Biden needing every vote, so does Trump. It turns out that you do need money to actually get lower propensity voters to turn out, and the state parties in many places are in state of disaster, Trump's focused on his legal bills, and so on.

Again, Trump could still win. I'm not denying that. But, his mythical ability to turn out non-voters is slightly overrated. Especially if his campaign, instead of being about immigration and closed factories, becomes obsessed with 1/6, his trials, and so on, as appears to be happening with his current speeches.

Donno man, the guy was turning up tens of thousands for boring (?) rallies at the height of a Deadly Pandemic (tm) -- say what you will, the man can turn a crowd. The money thing I'm pretty sure he proved false in 2016 -- as I recall he raised like half as much as Hill-dawg? For Trump, the media does it for free -- Biden does too to a great extent, we'll see how he campaigns but much of his messaging is actively distasteful to the black/hispanic (and now maybe Muslim, depending on the path chosen re: Israel) demographics.

Hey, as a leftie social democratic, I'm happy the right now seems to think they can win elections without money, without state parties, running specifically on things normies despise or think is highly weird, all depending on the greatest racial realignment in American political history since the Civil Rights Act, that has not shown up in any actual elections, including in 2022.

Again, Trump can win.

But, as I said, I firmly believe a Biden 54-45 win where the bottom falls out of the college educated vote for the GOP, and the non-white basically stays stable or drifts to Trump by a point or two, but also, the non-college educated vote for Trump also falls, ironically, in part due to some of the restrictions against mail-in voting passed in GOP-controlled purple and light-blue states, is more likely than a Trump win that's more than 2016 redux.

But they just don't seem to care. They are either very stupid, or they have assurances from the usual three letter agencies

They do care, they’re just flailing because their options are limited. What would you do in their place, assuming you couldn’t just fix the election? People turned out against Trump because of fear in 2016 and contempt in 2020. In 2024 people just don’t care anymore.

bell weather

This is a strange one. It is a bellwether. A "wether" being a castrated male sheep. If you want to more easily keep track of your sheep you would want to put a bell on one. You wouldn't want a bell on an intact male or a female sheep given all the furious ringing that would occur.

Put me down for Trump dies in prison, and somehow all the cameras were broken and all the guards were on break.

My one regret about the move off reddit is that we no longer have remindmebot and fantasies like this need never intersect reality.

But they just don't seem to care. They are either very stupid, or they have assurances from the usual three letter agencies about another, more pro-active Peter Strzokian "insurance plan".

My position has been pretty consistently that these people (despite appearances) are not stupid. See my "running a red light in front of a cop car" analogy. The most reasonable explanation for their lack of concern about electoral outcomes is that they know that they're sufficiently insulated from said outcomes. Though I remain uncertain as to which of the many possible means of said insulation is the most likely, I lean towards the 'bureaucratic "deep state" bypasses, stymies, and ignores any attempt by Trump to do anything, just like last time but more so' view.

Yes I think the missing crisis is that the powers that be in the left blew their load on trials. It still seems like it’s a big deal that the primary opposition Presidential candidate nearly had his property seized by the state and has criminal charges all over the place. It just doesn’t seem like it’s having the desired effect.

The thing I don’t get is it feels like someone is pulling the strings for summer of Floyd, launching dozens of cases against Trump, etc and designing these election strategies but I do not know who is the puppet master.

Fwiw Democrat political strategies seem to be failures. 2020 is likely a landslide in my opinion without summer of Floyd; it would have been 2008 with Trump taking the L for COVID happening in his watch just like 2008 was a blowout with the GOP losing because of the financial crisis. Court cases also seem to have boosted Trump. The only good thing I can say from the court cases is it seemed to elevate Trump before Desantis could get in a fight.

Massive riots and bio warfare attacks would be counterproductive this cycle because Biden is sitting in the chair to take the blame. The Great George Floyd Fracas and COVID worked because no matter what Trump did the media could light him up for it.

Lockdowns>“Trump is a tyrant!” No lockdowns>“Trump is doing nothing while millions of Americans die!” Send out Federal law enforcement and National Guard to stop rioters>“Trump is a racist tyrant!” Trump doesn’t do anything about the riots>“look at all the chaos that Trump’s America has wrought!”

None of that works with Biden in the Oval Office. You see how much trouble the Israel/Gaza thing alone has caused for Democrats, with Biden getting criticism for supporting Israel while simultaneously getting criticism for not supporting Israel enough.

As a leftist/social democratic, there are no puppet masters. It's always weird when people assume the other side are these insane puppet master, wielding superpowers that can't be stopped. The left was like this for a long time as well, and it was annoying then. Karl Rove wasn't some Sith Lord, he was just pretty good at his job.

Like guys, there is no secret decoder ring. If anything, we on the left complain about how bad we're at politics as much as you guys do, because neither side thinks they're winning.

it would have been 2008 with Trump taking the L for COVID happening in his watch just like 2008 was a blowout

I'm always interested when people assume this - in every other country, regardless of ideology, the incumbent leadership gained a huge advantage, and many of them won big electoral victories. Now, inflation and other issues have run some of those politicians aground, but in 2020, they were all very popular. The only reason Trump didn't get that was not that the left would not give him any credit (see various Republican governors who had insanely high approval ratings during COVID), it's he did a terrible job, outside of the one thing his base now hates (Operation Warp Speed).

I do think a non-COVID 2020 election would've been interesting, because Trump would've had a good economy, but it was basically just the late-era Obama economy continuing, there would've been no checks going out to low-info voters, and many things people on this forum like Trump that normies don't would've been a bigger deal. I also think there might've been a bigger move among the center-right to basically sit out things, especially the people who got radicalized by COVID and then supported Trump/DeSantis/etc. harder than they would've before.

I don't mean famous people, but the owner of a HVAC company in suburban Michigan whose kind of annoyed by Trump, dislikes immigration, but also dislikes that he tired to repeal Obamacare, but hated that the country was shut down, and like the PPP loan he got. Without the latter, maybe he doesn't vote for Biden, but does he turn out for Trump?

I don't mean famous people, but the owner of a HVAC company in suburban Michigan whose kind of annoyed by Trump, dislikes immigration, but also dislikes that he tired to repeal Obamacare, but hated that the country was shut down, and like the PPP loan he got. Without the latter, maybe he doesn't vote for Biden, but does he turn out for Trump?

This person is a deep-red Republican who might have qualms about their abortion policies but definitely agrees with trump’s economic and border agendas.

the owner of a HVAC company in suburban Michigan whose kind of annoyed by Trump, dislikes immigration, but also dislikes that he tired to repeal Obamacare, but hated that the country was shut down, and like the PPP loan he got.

There are people who like Obamacare? What would be the reasoning? From the business owner POV it seems that they'd be trying to hire less than full-time not to have to pay for health insurance.

If he wanted to spend more on health insurance for his employees, he could have done that prior to Obamacare I think.

I don’t want to touch a lot of these because they are political narratives. Personally, I think for example Trump did the best job of anyone and you highlight two of them Operation Warpspeed and the PPP loans/economic program. The first was the most important thing for saving lives and the second was a primary reason America bounced back so quickly.

On the puppet master thing it’s because they feel coordinated. America has black criminals dying from law enforcement all the time for doing black criminal stuff. In Floyd’s case it’s using counterfeit money to by fentanyl of which put himself 80-90% of the way to his death. It makes no sense to me he wasn’t just labeled an OD. Black guy dies of fentanyl OD normally wouldn’t even make a local newspaper. Instead we had spontaneous riots in every major city and a lot of small towns. It only happens in an election year. And the timing of the riots just feels like someone is organizing. It’s like a war day Ukraine where there are battles at 20 different areas of the front where it’s obvious someone made a decision to time them together.

The same thing with the legal cases for Trump it feels like someone tried to stack them for constant news coverage and with many timed to land with key events during the peak of the election. If he had one case coinciding with the election it would seem like one person doing their things but when you have multiple it feels like someone is giving Lieutenant's battle plans.

In your case you identified Karl Rove as doing politics. In this case there is no one.

On the puppet master thing it’s because they feel coordinated. America has black criminals dying from law enforcement all the time for doing black criminal stuff. In Floyd’s case it’s using counterfeit money to by fentanyl of which put himself 80-90% of the way to his death. It makes no sense to me he wasn’t just labeled an OD. Black guy dies of fentanyl OD normally wouldn’t even make a local newspaper. Instead we had spontaneous riots in every major city and a lot of small towns. It only happens in an election year. And the timing of the riots just feels like someone is organizing. It’s like a war day Ukraine where there are battles at 20 different areas of the front where it’s obvious someone made a decision to time them together.

No point relitigating the cause of Floyd's death here, but social movements triggered by one emotive incident which stands for wider grievances or concerns are hardly uncommon. Alan Kurdi, Jyoti Singh, Rodney King; these are people who under different circumstances might have dropped out of the news cycle in days, or indeed never entered it, but chance would have it that their deaths (or beatings) happened in just the right time, place and manner prompt a wider consideration of some important issue.

The puppet master thesis is the “just the right time, place, and manner” is a US election. And this was all about winning an election than any real concern about black people. If Floyd had everything else happen to him and it was 2018 or 2021 he would just be another dead black man.

The first big case in this vein was Treyvon Martin and it wasn't a factor in the 2012 election. The first big police killing case of the current era was in 2014, a midterm year, and it didn't have much impact on that election. There were a number of others and they made have made an impact on some local elections, but I don't recall any precedent for it becoming a national issue at the electoral level. If it's 2020 and you're trying to manufacture an issue so you can get votes, there's already precedent to suggest that George Floyd isn't it. And there's nothing to suggest that the whole controversy even helped the Democrats. It resulted in a lot of Democrats saying a lot of dumb things about defunding police, and Biden had to specifically go against these people while campaigning. For Trump it was easy because all he had to do was keep to the party line that Floy'd death was a tragedy but there was no systematic problem with the police and we needed to stop the riots. Biden had to navigate dangerous waters. It's hard to see how anyone in May of 2020 would have thought that making a big deal out of Floyd's death would result in an advantage for Democrats.

I agree Floyd killing himself was not used well politically he the left. It becoming a bigger issue than Trayvon Martin though is the puppet master thesis. The puppet master can be bad at his job which in this case I think they made a mistake.

Also I wholeheartedly disagree that Trump just had to call it a tragedy. The right doesn’t agree with that. That implies the police did something wrong. I do not believe that. Letting the left control the narrative is something I do not agree with. A reason I vote for Desantis or Trump is because they have the balls to call out bad narratives.

I know that's the thesis, I'm just saying you can't prove that simply by the fact that Floyd's story was covered disproportionately, since individual cases prompting a much broader movement addressing wider issues is a pretty common pattern that happens without anyone co-ordinating it. A few years before or after 2010 Mohammed Bouazizi might have sunk without a trace, but that doesn't imply that there was any puppet-master of Tunisians.

Plus, it's pretty unclear whether that summer of protests and riots actually did Biden any favours.

The protest hurt Biden. But that doesn’t negate a thesis that they thought it would was good strategy.

And of course you can never prove any theory in this day and age. We could have a puppet master in plain site (like 2020 election fraud and mail in ballots) and it would be called a conspiracy theory.

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The left was like this for a long time as well, and it was annoying then.

If anything, we on the left complain about how bad we're at politics as much as you guys do, because neither side thinks they're winning.

So the left now blames exclusively themselves for their failures, and not people like the Koch brothers, Federalist Society, or alleged Russian disinfo agents?

Seems to be in contradiction with how having an internal locus of control is today right-coded, be it in the context of Black-white achievement gap or obesity.

but I do not know who is the puppet master.

I figure this is because there aren't any — there's no one person, or even small group, in charge, just a "prospiracy" of numerous left-wing bureaucratic "cogs" each following personal and social incentives to produce what looks like coordinated action. No "strings," just emergent behavior.

Agree I guess it’s similar to a market economy where you have coordination but no one understands but a small piece of how things happen.

The Time Magazine Piece about the coordination after the 2020 election makes me think this is false, and that there is a lot of coordination.

That was a zoom call about organizing protests if they lost whose attendees liked to think of themselves as Marvel heroes. Taking them seriously would be laughable.

What’s funny to me is that prospiracy just sounds like market behavior or an emergent behavior. Of human action if not human design. Yet academic economists — even those sympathetic to the right — always dismiss prospiracy as conspiracy.

We see a similar dynamic in Canada.

If you look at the polling numbers Pierre Poilievre's conservatives are on track for the largest majority in Canadian history and Trudeau's Liberals might drop to 3rd or even 4th place. It might be a Conservative Ultra-super-majority with a Bloc Quebecois official opposition.

And the Liberals and left seem to be doing nothing about it aside from jiggering the election date 5 days later so their government pensions vest before they leave office.

I torn between suspecting they think they have an apocalyptic event between now and 2025 that will make the polls irrelevant, or that they're just resigned to cashing out and letting the entire Laurentian Elite die under a hostile Alberta led government...

We have a similar dynamic in reverse in the UK where the Conservatives are heading toward a huge defeat. Ultimately Westminster system governments kind of sputter out after about ten years. They give up the ghost. It even happened to Thatcher eventually. Everyone in power knows the people want change regardless of type, so why try?

I've been Noticing lately that governments with any significant period of incumbency during the Covid period are tending to get hammered into the ground in the first 'dust-clears' election available. I suppose it's too much to think hope that voters are putting 2 + 2 together on the 'sky-money + forced business closure --> inflation + impending doom' thing -- but the 'inflation + impending doom' thing does seem to be enough.

I guarantee you that almost every swing Tory-Labour in the UK, Liberal-Conservative in Canada, or Labour-National in the New Zealand hasn't suddenly decided COVID policies were the wrong way to go.

They think, "it was good we got checks and didn't go crazy like the American's did opening up so soon, but bad prices rose."

Meanwhile, part of the reason, outside of general two party dominance that despite his current not great approval ratings, Biden is still outpacing most other incumbent world leaders is because regardless of what the Right and Left both think, the economy is currently the best in the world and inflation is amongst the lowest.

I guarantee you that almost every swing Tory-Labour in the UK, Liberal-Conservative in Canada, or Labour-National in the New Zealand hasn't suddenly decided COVID policies were the wrong way to go.

True -- but they are also Noticing that things kind of suck ATM and seem likely to get worse before they get better; this is what I mean by the electorates' inability to put 2 and 2 together at least not hindering them in making sure the incumbents reap what they've sown.

Note well that this isn't really a left-right thing -- the British Conservatives are probably getting hammered by a Labour party which in it's Blair iteration was to the right of the current Canadian Liberals -- who are set to be hammered by a Conservative party that is a bit incohate at the moment, but certainly very left wing by American conservative standards.

Sure, but if those parties had done what people here would've wanted on the pandemic, they would've likely lose elections in the 2020/2021 era, so at worst, they got three extra years in power, so they got to do what they likely thought was right, get celebrated for it politically, but then they lost as all politicians do.

Like, I know parts of this site likes to engage in conspiratorial-type thinking, but in reality, most politicians actually say and do what they believe on the big stuff. Poltiicians are actually far more honest today in 2024, worldwide, than they ever have been in history, because there's more feedback loops than anytime in history.

If you were a random Dixiecrat from North Carolina in 1966, you could go to DC, actually work well with your African-American colleagues in the Democratic party, vote for big-time spending bills that pushed a lot of money to inner cities, but also your district, then go back to your district, say some race-baiting stuff in some speeches, go to the opening of the bridge you got money for, slam the spending in Harlem, and easily win reelection, because nobody cares about a random House race in North Carolina.

Now, for good and ill, no politician can really pull that two step.

Most of the parties in question pulled snap Covid elections to cement their mandate (despite the dEadLY pANdemIC going on at the time) -- the timing in Canada anyways was such that a hypothetical politician with some shred of understanding about inflation could have hung in there with a Sweden-level response and reaped the rewards of a strong dollar (vs the US, always a political win) and low inflation.

You're right that most of these people probably believed in what they were doing, but the fact that the consequences were eminently predictible and they did it anyways leads me to believe (or hope at least) that some politicians might notice the correlation between "not believing stupid things" and long term electoral success/legacy. Politicians who go from 'strong minority govt' to 'scrabbling to maintain second place' are not generally treated kindly by the history books.

Like, I know parts of this site likes to engage in conspiratorial-type thinking, but in reality, most politicians actually say and do what they believe on the big stuff.

"Politicians tell voters what they want to hear, but don't follow up" is conspiratorial thinking now? Don't get me wrong, as an open conspiracy theorist this is welcome news to me. The issue I tend to run into is people saying "that's not a conspiracy" when I bring forward a documented case, so it will be nice to have a reference to possibly one of the most milquetoast examples of following incentives, being deemed conspiratorial thinking by an anti-conspiracist.

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I think it's just a general vibe of "things are not good -> vote out the incumbents"

Not the best, but I'll take it!

Agreed -- one would like to think that it might act as a lesson to politicians that it may not be the best idea to jump off a bridge just because everyone else is doing it, but hahahaha not likely.

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