Refried Boogaloo: Trump Just... Sucks

I agree with you on an individual basis - everyone is morally responsible for their own actions.

The problem is that populations behave in predictable ways and that is a structural issue. Take unhealthy breakfast cereals. An entire industry exists around generating demand, from sophisticated product development to distribution, advertising etc. So we can try to educate away from that due to negative outcomes, but in those efforts we only compete for market share, and the good guys have far less money. As with smoking, you really only get movement if you regulate out the behaviours e.,g. banning the habit from all public places and venues.

In the case of propaganda, we unfortunately have bottom up demand for 'bad' content which is satiated algorithmically in highly sophisticated ways. Take for instance the existence of Joe Rogan, a source of deeply harmful information, as the top podcaster. But the idea this is merit based is absurd. It's based on merit only within the confines of this sophisticated/harmful engineering.

Propaganda works at scale - that's why the gate keepers were so important to restrict it's use.

Generally you want to regulate markets properly to deal with these externalities.

 

I think there is a false choice presented in this discussion about abandoning groups.

There is all kinds of research that shows the the Dem brand is deeply damaged. Even many key dem constituencies believe the party does not fight for them. To what extent that is due to poor choices versus GOP propaganda is kind of irrelevant because it is a real perception in the market that has to be addressed.

However I dont see that as meaning Dems have to abandon minorities. Especially there were a lot of election hottakes that turned out to be wrong, and Spanberger and Mikie Sherill just did really well with the same voters.

Affordability is the critical issue. ironically the salience of immigration is now way down, and Trump's actual conduct on that is very unpopular.

IMO the thing liberal parties lack everywhere is a story. Third way politics provided a positioning that was extremely beneficial for 3 decades. Is liberalism dead now? What is the point of democrats in a post liberal world?

 

IMO it's inevitable that the Trump admin is going to default sooner or later.

It will start with technical defaults like an arbitrary variation of terms

 

I am getting kind of worried Trump is going to pull a Reagan but in these times, that will mean a fairly brutal interregnum.

We already see it IMO - lots of freelancing.

 

Situation is much worse now. The new National Security Statement FTW

You add this all up, this is a US, openly-stated plan to dominate Europe through the expansion of power of populist-right wing (and pro-Putin it must always be remembered) parties. It means European unity will weaken, the EU will be downgraded, NATO will be de-fanged, much of Europe will be made reliant on buying US weapons. and the continent will have to take economic dictation from the USA. At the same time Russia’s needs and interests will now be high on the agenda.

https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/the-new-us-national-security-strategy

 

Dems have to win voters who voted for Trump, or convince the parts of the Biden coalition that stayed home to return.

Also they need to win senate and house races in purple and red districts.

That part of electoral politics is self evident. The part I disagree with is it means you have to be fascist. I think that idea came out of the '24 hottakes, that somehow voters were heavily motivated by trans ads.

All the actual data analysis tends to suggest they wanted something done about the border, and prices. They don't like what Trump did, so they came back. However this does still leave a significant 'brand' issue as to how a Dem candidate can win a senate seat in Texas, Ohio, Iowa etc

 

Bulwark had a really good interview with Joe Manchin in the summer. Uncomfortable stuff. Manchin essentially agreed with the idea that a dem senator in a Trump +30 state had to be alive to local 'conditions' in order to win.

So if Dems hope to ever have a senate majority, let alone the senate majority that delivered Obamacare, there probably does have to be an electoral coalition with candidates much more conservative than the average Dem. ie. someone like Manchin.

 

How were the questions asked? I'm looking at that and seeing that questions 2, 3, and 4 all have multiple options. If they were each asked separately, that's fine to have them combined. If not, it's a poor question.