January 12, 2024
On Trump
There are, frankly, a LOT of legitimate complaints about the 45th President.
He's a narcissist.
He's crude, vulgar, and a bit of a bully.
His business practices have been somewhat predatory, and he does not have much if any personal loyalty, though he is extremely demanding of it in his associates.
He's old.
Indeed, he seems to be loosing his touch a bit; he is nowhere near the tornado of energy and disruption he was seven or even three years ago.
In refusing to acknowledge his defeat at the hands of Pay to Play McPuddin'Brain he has done at least as much damage to the fabric of our democracy as Al Gore, Hillary Clinton, and that Crazy Lady in Georgia.
...and despite the election of 2020 being so sus that his opponents openly bragged about colluding against his working class base, he did NOT bring the receipts on that particular claim.
He is now motivated primarily by vengeance and seeks to gut and tear apart with animalistic fury the civil institutions that he feels denied him his second term.
And yet: He's ahead in the polls...not just for the Republican nomination, but for the presidency itself.
So why is this happening? Has the country gone insane?
Back in November, I had a conversation with a friend about this. While discussing the toxic contempt in which many of our erstwhile leadership cadre hold anyone who does not share their costal cosmopolitan worldview, I made the mistake of pointing out that I believed this was one of the reasons that working class types support Trump so earnestly. My friend (who is one of the smartest people I've ever known) did not react charitably. She has come to despise Trump, after the January 6 fiasco and points out his moral failings, being particularly unforgiving with regard to his sharp business practices, and quite remarkably credulous of the assault allegations against him. I was tired after a 4 hour drive and still suffer neurological aftereffects from the stroke, so I was not able to make a good case. In fairness my friend is sufficiently passionate about this issue for completely legit reasons involving personal experience as well as rock-solid civics concerns. She eloquently rattled off all the points I made at the beginning of the post (which are quite valid by the way) and after several minutes of me ineptly trying to point out that those valid points understandably carry little weight with his supporters, my friend pointed out that "Hey. You've got a really long drive ahead of you. DON'T YOU." And so I left. We've had little contact since aside from E-Mails & thank you notes for Christmas gifts. (In fairness we live 4 hours apart and December was...busy.)
My friends bewilderment is understandable, as the concerns about Trump are completely legit. However, they are, however principled, 'comfortable class' concerns. A lot of people, even those those like my friend, who have a ton of empathy for the less fortunate in society, have a hard time doing a conditional hypothetical on this particular issue. Conditional hypotheticals are fiendishly hard for us all, and I only have some insight into putting myself into the more enthusiastic Trump supporters shoes because I'm very much in a working class situation at the moment, so this is not any particular brilliance on my part.
In short, while all the criticisms of Trump listed in the first paragraph are legit... his supporters have some responses, and in some cases see his apparent flaws as features and not bugs.
He IS a bit of a narcissist.
He's got high self esteem! (all those years of teaching self esteem rather than ethics are coming back to bite the left). He also has confidence and a bit of swagger, which is shamefully absent in our bureaucratized ruling class now. Also, where were you when OBAMA was sitting behind Resolute Desk?
He IS crude, vulgar, and a bit of a bully.
He's blunt. If you are working class and male, mentally ill white women are your perpetual tormenters, and someone who has the guts and power sufficient to call an "ugly bitch" what she is, however discourteous it may be, is gonna at least get a nod of agreement, and additional admiration if he is not ruined by the statement of an honest opinion.
His business practices HAVE been somewhat predatory.
He's a New York real-estate mogul. He plays the game by the rules as they exist, not as how the people at the garden parties think they should be. Furthermore, they will point out that he knows how the game is played, and can better fix the system....this is less than persuasive given that in the 4 years he was in power he did not do so, but , Americans are an aspirational lot.
He seems not to have any downward loyalty.
Loyalty is a two-way-street! Trump WAS betrayed by his staff and lied to regarding some crucial points regarding troop deployments. His supporters, having seen their jobs sent oversees and their neighborhoods overrun by illegals, both at the behest of those who most often use this criticism...while those same critics show zero loyalty and immense hostility to anyone not in their little circle of smugness....are unpersuaded by the argument.
In fact, this criticism can easily be turned on its head. Trump has, for well more than thirty years been rather famously gracious to his working class employees (that he doesn't fire), and respectful to working class folks in general. While an undeniably ruthless businessman, he seems to be rare among the New York jet-set in actually appreciating that the construction workers and wait staff are people, and while not the vision and drive of any businesses, they ARE human beings and, moreover, are absolutely vital to them and worthy of respect. This is in STARK contrast to so many of his peers and critics who view those folks as something akin to a mosquito or a bad odor. In fact for many years this habit of Trump's was sometimes portrayed by the wine & cheese set as odd, silly, and dumb. This only furthers his support by the tormented.
Trump is OLD, and DOES seem to be loosing his sharpness.
OH FOR FU<#'$ SAKE! ARE YOU EVEN AWARE OF WHAT A BLITHERING PUDDLE OF DERP IS DROOLING BEHIND RESOLUTE DESK RIGHT NOW!!1!?? DO YOU EVEN NEWS!!? AAAAUUUUGGGHHH!
This does not actually address the issue, particularly in that we don't want to make the same mistake again, but but the sentiment is completely valid and understandable.
Then there is the matter of Trump, not conceding the admittedly very sus 2020 election, and not giving a great concession speech and going quietly into that dark night. This HAS shaken our republic.
1st: if you believe that there was election chicanery, and you do nothing because you don't want to make a fuss, you are a coward, you are complicit and you are not doing your civic duty, rather the opposite.
2nd: Calling for people to go forth peacefully and protest is so far removed from 'stochastic terrorism' as to render the term meaningless.
3rd: while Trump repeated some absurd and lurid claims about fraudulent ballots and flipped votes that he has indeed NOT brought the receipts for. There WERE, in fact, some very concerning things that happened in the lead-up to the election, ranging from the ubiquitization of mail-in ballots, to changes in rules regarding voting, and , most disturbingly, direct interference by the nation's intelligence services in the press to suppress stories critical of the S#!t's & Giggles campaign. The Twitter Files and the aforementioned TIME article being the receipts that Trump did not provide. This is NOT the same as the election thieving narrative that Trump has rather irresponsibly posited, and a very strong argument can be made that especially given that people were locked in there homes with nothing to do except look at the internet which contains the sum total of human knowledge, and they STILL did not avail themselves of information like the Hunter Biden story, that, despite the best efforts of our intelligence services to bury them, were available with just a little effort....that the country got EXACTLY what it deserved. Voting is not just a right, it is a profound responsibility.
But we weren't stupid and lazy. We knew about those stories WE didn't vote against the best three years since the crash of '08! WE didn't deserve this!
But it is a Republic, Trump's supporters are part of the whole of the country and as the saying goes. 'None of us is quite as stupid as all of us'. Which, as it happens, is a very strong argument for limited government.
BUT WAIT! There is a twist to all of this. There ARE actual arguments for Trump that are not reactions to the myriad of legit criticisms.
1: Until COVID hit, The Trump administration presided over the best economic growth the country has seen since he crash of '08 and for two years some of the best we've seen this century. This economic growth was not, as has been the case since the late 90's concentrated solely on the upper echelons of the investor class, rather, industrial jobs started coming back, and real wages for Blacks, Hispanics, and working class Whites went up by historic levels.
BUT...BUT!!1!! MEAN TWEETS!
Who cares that these inbreads have it better? THE TWEETSES ARE MEAN!
2: There were no new wars aside from a missile strike in response to a chemical weapons attack on civilians, and some counter piracy operations and counterterrorism raids. The ongoing war against ISIL/ DAESH was brought to a close, the withdrawal from Afghanistan was negotiated (in a fashion rather different than the shameful fiasco actually proceeded with by Trump's successor) and Trump opened negotiations with North Korea, a dicey proposition to be sure but one that expressed Trumps preference to "Jaw jaw rather than war war. " This is extremely important to some of his base which counts among its members a large number of the nations military families....families that feel they were lied to about WMDs for one thing.
WHO CARES! I don't! I'm too smart to be in the military. I went to a GOOD SCHOOL 'CAUSE I'M SMART! This is affecting my portfolio! My Raytheon stock is going down! Who cares about these Chud's toxically masculine kids? He's sucking up to dictators that those stewpid hicks who signed on the dotted line need to die to stop, COWARD! TRAITOR! Did I mention that the tweets are MEAN!?
Now you may have noticed that the last two conditional hypotheticals might, just perhaps, not been quite as thoughtful, fair minded, or even honest in their assessment of Trump's foes as those of his supporters were. That's because the post is not about them, Many eloquent and well written analyses of people's good faith opposition to DJT can be found pretty much everywhere without looking too hard. However, the above noted views are the way Trump's SUPPORTERS see the arguments against their more practical arguments for Trump. And, very occasionally, with certain individuals, those views are more correct than not.
Like it or not Donald J. Trump, is, in the U.S.A. in current year...our TRIBUNE OF THE PLEBS.
He and the rest of the movement are hated not just because of the very legitimate criticisms of Trumps behavior and policies (and if I haven't made it clear I do think that some of them are actually legit) but rather a loathing of his working class base which is seen as unclean and dangerous by the creepy, corrupt, coastal, cosmopolitan, credentialed, class*.
This has very real issues with trying to persuade them to switch over because attacks on Trump are perceived as (and frequently are) attacks on them personally. And to them, looking seriously at Ramaswamy or DeSantis feels like a betrayal. Trump, whatever his faults (and they are legion) is the ONLY president since Regan who catered to them in campaign and even TRIED to keep his promises to them. Furthermore his policies (and perhaps his inability to do a lot due to the opposition of the Civil Service to virtually everything he attempted) resulted in the lives of working class people, on average, improving dramatically under his administration....until COVID 19, that bastard child of China and the U.S. federal health bureaucracy.....brought everything crashing down.
Then came the Biden Administration which bullied them with far more torturous lockdowns than Trump had done, MANDATED (rather than provide as an emergency option) an untested vaccine (developed in record time thanks to the efforts of Trump), and which has been applying the law as unevenly as is common in third world countries, in what seems to them to be an attempt to punish them for voting for their perceived interests. These are people who have suffered immensely in the tumultuous advancements of the last 30 years and can palpably sense the hostility and utter contempt they are viewed with by this nations leadership cadre and they will support Trump not just because that to them he seems to be the only lifeline in a storm, but because he is a thumb in the eye to their tormentors.
This is unfortunate, not the least because I really don't think Trump can win the General Election later this year. The polls do not agree with that last sentence at the moment, but while Trump's plethora of legal cases are seen (I think rightly to a rather large degree) to be politically motivated third world level bulls#!t, when he gets convicted of one of them (And he will! Some are probably legit and most of these are being tried in virtually kangaroo courts.) He will be a felon. And his support will drop like a rock. There's also the ongoing effort to get him off the ballot in several states, including swing states, which, as troubling as it is, may well leave him with an insurmountable hurdle in the electoral college. Combine these two factors with the white hot screeching hatred with which he is hated by Affluent White Female Unhinged Lefties and pretty much anyone in the comfortable class coalition and you have a sure prescription for an absolutely crushing debacle at the polls in November. A defeat so comprehensive and total that his coattails might well make the event be on a par with the fate of the Whigs in 1860.
If as seems likely, he gets the nomination, I'll hold my nose and vote for him, the stakes are too high not to, but I think that if he does not bow out, and do so gracefully, he will burn down everything, including his base which sees him as their final hope.
The alternatives though are not great. Viveck Ramaswammy is intelligent, articulate, passionate, empathetic, and smart, and as a bonus seems to hate Nicky Haley with a passion almost worthy of her loathsomeness. However, he has a definite used car salesman vibe and while a certifiable genius and competent businessman, is completely untested in government, which is necessarily quite different from business, as Trump found out to his detriment.
De Santis is a diffident campaigner, though he has proven to be a remarkably effective governor and good steward of Florida. He sucks as a campaigner and only got the governors job by being drug over the finish line by Trump. His sheer competence helped him get a massive re election victory in Florida, in spite of extremely unfair news coverage that painted him as every sort of bigot, but his lack of campaign acumen has come to the forefront again as he ineptly seeks the advice of the Republican campaign establishment and finds himself neck in neck with and possibly behind one of the most loathsome politicians the Republicans have ever produced: Hillary with a diversity card, the cultural quisling chickenhawk girlboss, who will do anything and betray anyone to climb into the box seat and get invited to the garden party, Nickey Haley.
Still, I like DeSantis. The fact that he is more focused on governance than campaigning is actually indicative of a level of professionalism that I have come to despair of ever seeing in a national level campaigner again. The total inability of him to tell his tone-deaf campaign staff to stop insulting the base and sock-puppeting and to go pound sand does not fill me with any confidence that he could win the general though. His military service is sometimes ridiculed (he was a J.A.G.) but he was forward deployed and while not a combat rate, it is a necessary one and he did sign on the dotted line in a time of war...unlike most people running for high office.
But these three and the others are all far behind Trump in the primary polls.
The question many in our ruling class are asking is "How is this possible?" and I think I've answered that. Torment and express contempt for a whole group of people and they might not like you very much.
It can be and might get worse though...
The late Nelson Mandela often quoted an old proverb from the region around the Cape of Good Hope "A child that is despised and cast out into the cold by a village may one day come back and burn it down to feel it's warmth"
It is a proverb that our ever so smug ruling class might want to ponder, lest this populist discontent turn dark out of desperation...... as so many such benighted movements have historically.
* This post is going to piss EVERYBODY off, but at least I got off a 6 point alliteration in the text. Go Me!
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
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1
Two things:
One, thank you for saying what I've been thinking, and doing so much better than I can these days.
Two, "COVID 19, that bastard child of China and the U.S. federal health bureaucracy," are words that should be engraved on Mount Rushmore, the Washington Monument, and the Lincoln Memorial. Then hang it in every living room in the US. It's that brilliant, and so true.
One, thank you for saying what I've been thinking, and doing so much better than I can these days.
Two, "COVID 19, that bastard child of China and the U.S. federal health bureaucracy," are words that should be engraved on Mount Rushmore, the Washington Monument, and the Lincoln Memorial. Then hang it in every living room in the US. It's that brilliant, and so true.
Posted by: ubu at Sun Jan 14 05:53:49 2024 (jH+gB)
2
Winnie said 'with these boxes of matches, and these necklaces...'.
Apartheid was fucked, because they only had 5% whites, and the whites who started apartheid did so as part of feuding with other whites.
The interesting question in South Africa was whether the hope of a functioning stable civil society could be realized with black participation. To some extent, by the time DoNS understood that Apartheid had to end, Apartheid might have already screwed that possibility over.
There's a basic question of how rare the cultural elites are who really really despise the general public, and want the public dead.
Center of gravity is beliefs that if acquired earlier are en-grained during tertiary school. 60% Bachelors, 30% Masters, and 2% PhDs, and not everyone in each category is at all impressed with Critical Theory. Even 2% wildly overstates the level of support for campus insanity among the public, because of all the PhDs discriminated against when it comes to tenure, etc. You cannot just assume that 100% of any one category are life long fanatic supporters, and cheerful would be mass murderers.
10/7/2023 has had some go-along-to-get-alongs come to their senses about how crazy these folks are.
I have no number producing model that I'm confident enough in to make any firm estimates to numbers. One of the major uncertainties is downstream of the long term fraud hypothesis, which requires that our old conventional understanding of indicators to be wrong.
But, if fanatic supporters of current regime are only 5%, then peacefully overcoming them is very possible, even if on a much longer time scale than a year. We would almost automatically return to a peaceful civil society, and ability to resolve disputes through various institutions.
I suspect less than 5%, because of intuitions off of the criminal populations.
But, if there are enough opposition to make civil war a practical possibility, there are enough to raise doubts about a return to peaceful civil society. I would still have hope for return to peace, even in event of war, because views about peace would not be uniformly distributed across all combatants and factions.
Apartheid was fucked, because they only had 5% whites, and the whites who started apartheid did so as part of feuding with other whites.
The interesting question in South Africa was whether the hope of a functioning stable civil society could be realized with black participation. To some extent, by the time DoNS understood that Apartheid had to end, Apartheid might have already screwed that possibility over.
There's a basic question of how rare the cultural elites are who really really despise the general public, and want the public dead.
Center of gravity is beliefs that if acquired earlier are en-grained during tertiary school. 60% Bachelors, 30% Masters, and 2% PhDs, and not everyone in each category is at all impressed with Critical Theory. Even 2% wildly overstates the level of support for campus insanity among the public, because of all the PhDs discriminated against when it comes to tenure, etc. You cannot just assume that 100% of any one category are life long fanatic supporters, and cheerful would be mass murderers.
10/7/2023 has had some go-along-to-get-alongs come to their senses about how crazy these folks are.
I have no number producing model that I'm confident enough in to make any firm estimates to numbers. One of the major uncertainties is downstream of the long term fraud hypothesis, which requires that our old conventional understanding of indicators to be wrong.
But, if fanatic supporters of current regime are only 5%, then peacefully overcoming them is very possible, even if on a much longer time scale than a year. We would almost automatically return to a peaceful civil society, and ability to resolve disputes through various institutions.
I suspect less than 5%, because of intuitions off of the criminal populations.
But, if there are enough opposition to make civil war a practical possibility, there are enough to raise doubts about a return to peaceful civil society. I would still have hope for return to peace, even in event of war, because views about peace would not be uniformly distributed across all combatants and factions.
Posted by: PatBuckman at Sun Jan 14 16:08:34 2024 (r9O5h)
3
above is after writing an essay with different content
Key bits from that I should note:
DeSantis, Christie, and one other early debater were JDs from law schools that have since their graduation have claimed the ability to keep their alumni from representing Trump.
Every politician after the presidential nominations this year is insane. A wise thoughtful sane person would look at the current situation, and conclude that it would be easier to let other people clear the minefield, and then later try to profit from this year's crop blowing themselves up. Trump is slightly less implicated in that, and is best equipped to sell peace to the GOP base, but i) is still crazy in a different way ii) would be crazy to run at all, if there was any chance that the Democrats would deliver on a deal where he does not run iii) is not anywhere crazy enough for what the job may need.
The reason government provocateurs are trying to get violence going is because they think it works in their favor, and are desperate after the Biden regime failed to deliver on their expectations.
The waiting game favors the populists, because the cultural elite faction is nuts, and spending credibility and legitimacy on stupid attempts to terrorize the public into submission.
Don't expect any resolution of disputes from the courts.
Don't expect any resolution of disputes from elections.
below is content not in that essay.
Do expect that peaceful processes can eventually result in fixes, but fixes outside the formal theories that rote-acting unthinking academic trained lunatics understand how to game.
The theory of political violence as an 'I-win' button is core to the enemy religion. The most principled opposition to the enemy is from conflicting religions. Disbelieving the tenets of the the enemy religion is part of what seems to be the optimal strategy to have in one's heart as one goes up against them.
Question everything you believe about political violence that resulted from study of academic theory of human behavior.
Unless your studies of academic theory were sixty to eighty years ago, or longer, it is quite likely that your theoretical training includes some sabotage by enemy cultists. In particular, the enemy does not study the extent to which all theories of human behavior are reduced order, nor the circumstances where forecasting is weaker, or where attempts to force the 'state space' of the group excite 'modes' that previously had little energy in them. Eighty to one hundred years ago, we did not quite have the developments in the hard sciences for understanding this metaphor as an approach to human behavioral fields, like history.
Key bits from that I should note:
DeSantis, Christie, and one other early debater were JDs from law schools that have since their graduation have claimed the ability to keep their alumni from representing Trump.
Every politician after the presidential nominations this year is insane. A wise thoughtful sane person would look at the current situation, and conclude that it would be easier to let other people clear the minefield, and then later try to profit from this year's crop blowing themselves up. Trump is slightly less implicated in that, and is best equipped to sell peace to the GOP base, but i) is still crazy in a different way ii) would be crazy to run at all, if there was any chance that the Democrats would deliver on a deal where he does not run iii) is not anywhere crazy enough for what the job may need.
The reason government provocateurs are trying to get violence going is because they think it works in their favor, and are desperate after the Biden regime failed to deliver on their expectations.
The waiting game favors the populists, because the cultural elite faction is nuts, and spending credibility and legitimacy on stupid attempts to terrorize the public into submission.
Don't expect any resolution of disputes from the courts.
Don't expect any resolution of disputes from elections.
below is content not in that essay.
Do expect that peaceful processes can eventually result in fixes, but fixes outside the formal theories that rote-acting unthinking academic trained lunatics understand how to game.
The theory of political violence as an 'I-win' button is core to the enemy religion. The most principled opposition to the enemy is from conflicting religions. Disbelieving the tenets of the the enemy religion is part of what seems to be the optimal strategy to have in one's heart as one goes up against them.
Question everything you believe about political violence that resulted from study of academic theory of human behavior.
Unless your studies of academic theory were sixty to eighty years ago, or longer, it is quite likely that your theoretical training includes some sabotage by enemy cultists. In particular, the enemy does not study the extent to which all theories of human behavior are reduced order, nor the circumstances where forecasting is weaker, or where attempts to force the 'state space' of the group excite 'modes' that previously had little energy in them. Eighty to one hundred years ago, we did not quite have the developments in the hard sciences for understanding this metaphor as an approach to human behavioral fields, like history.
Posted by: PatBuckman at Sun Jan 14 16:35:52 2024 (r9O5h)
4
It has been said, and I firmly believe, that one of the most important abilities of an executive is the ability to find, inspire, and promote good subordinates. Trump failed in this spectacularly. And after the uniparty establishment went after anyone who worked for or supported him with tongs, I seriously doubt he's going to be able to do any better in a second term.
If Trump had been in possession of a competent and loyal cabinet and staff, and the Senate and House has been willing to get behind his policies and push, and actually stand up to the Russiagate attack and such, we'd be in a vastly different and superior place. But again, I don't see that working any better a second time around. The senate is still very much in the hands of uniparty hacks, and the house makes the right noises but isn't actually willing to push through to resolution on anything. And again, he's not going to get a loyal and competent cabinet and staff.
So I'm not enthusiastic about a second Trump term. It will be a repeat of constant attacks against anything related to him, and there will be little or nothing in the way of actual policy success. It will probably devolve into cabinet staff openly defying orders, see the undersecretary who after retiring, bragged on the View that she had deliberately not included one required part of the studies in the final document signed by the secretary for the orders to de-implement DACA, providing the hook that the Supreme Court used to invalidate that and declare Trump's ending of that program invalid on administrative act violations. And of course, this time Trump will probably ignore the "oh you can't go after these people, we will support your impeachment for obstruction of justice if you do that.." comments from his "loyal supporters" and it will get ugly fast.
On the other hand, another term of Biden, or a dual term presidency of Kamala, Newsom, or Michelle will very likely be the end of anything recognizable as the United States of America.
The single biggest mistake DeSantis has made, and one that sours me, as well as a lot of people that originally were looking at him very favorably, was to turn to GWB retreads to manage and direct his campaign and fundraising. They rather quickly demonstrated that they did not understand the current environment, and the fact that Desantis turned to those people in the first place is a very bad sign. Of course, like Trump, he's faced with the problem that the people with demonstrated skill and experience at a national level are all the old uniparty hacks.
Every time I think about it, the fact that neither party can field anything resembling a desirable candidate is the scariest thing in our political scene. Second place would be the fact that nearly everyone assumes that the Democratic party will pull some kind of last minute shenanigans to replace Biden on the ticket, picking someone that never had to face the public and other candidates in a primary process, and everyone seems to be fine with this as a legitimate strategy.
If Trump had been in possession of a competent and loyal cabinet and staff, and the Senate and House has been willing to get behind his policies and push, and actually stand up to the Russiagate attack and such, we'd be in a vastly different and superior place. But again, I don't see that working any better a second time around. The senate is still very much in the hands of uniparty hacks, and the house makes the right noises but isn't actually willing to push through to resolution on anything. And again, he's not going to get a loyal and competent cabinet and staff.
So I'm not enthusiastic about a second Trump term. It will be a repeat of constant attacks against anything related to him, and there will be little or nothing in the way of actual policy success. It will probably devolve into cabinet staff openly defying orders, see the undersecretary who after retiring, bragged on the View that she had deliberately not included one required part of the studies in the final document signed by the secretary for the orders to de-implement DACA, providing the hook that the Supreme Court used to invalidate that and declare Trump's ending of that program invalid on administrative act violations. And of course, this time Trump will probably ignore the "oh you can't go after these people, we will support your impeachment for obstruction of justice if you do that.." comments from his "loyal supporters" and it will get ugly fast.
On the other hand, another term of Biden, or a dual term presidency of Kamala, Newsom, or Michelle will very likely be the end of anything recognizable as the United States of America.
The single biggest mistake DeSantis has made, and one that sours me, as well as a lot of people that originally were looking at him very favorably, was to turn to GWB retreads to manage and direct his campaign and fundraising. They rather quickly demonstrated that they did not understand the current environment, and the fact that Desantis turned to those people in the first place is a very bad sign. Of course, like Trump, he's faced with the problem that the people with demonstrated skill and experience at a national level are all the old uniparty hacks.
Every time I think about it, the fact that neither party can field anything resembling a desirable candidate is the scariest thing in our political scene. Second place would be the fact that nearly everyone assumes that the Democratic party will pull some kind of last minute shenanigans to replace Biden on the ticket, picking someone that never had to face the public and other candidates in a primary process, and everyone seems to be fine with this as a legitimate strategy.
Posted by: David Eastman at Sun Jan 14 17:36:08 2024 (R7Z4D)
5
We are in a Fourth Turning, a thesis which famously has adherents such as Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and Steve Bannon. The TLDR is that every ~80 years we go through a period of severe disruption where we look at every challenge as an existential threat. We also have an inflection point for what it means to be American. In the Revolutionary War Fourth Turning, it was "Will we be subordinate to the central British government or will we control our own destiny?" In the Civil War Fourth Turning, it was "Will we accept central Federal control in areas of slavery, trade, and taxation, or will the States remain sovereign?" In the Great Depression/WWII Fourth Turning it was "Will we accept a moderate amount of Socialism to deal with problems?" In the current time it appears to be, "We will accept a central Nanny State controlling everything or will we return sovereignty to the people?" Once a consensus has been reached, you'll see things start to move very quickly. I think Covid was the inflection point, particularly in that it allowed parents to see what was being done to their children in the school systems, and I think many were quietly horrified at what they saw. The frog became aware it was being boiled. People started being vocal in their push-back. The Jan 6 reaction caused people to be hushed for a time, but that is wearing off. A second major turning point has, surprisingly, been Hollywood and the god-awful movies they've put out as not going to the movies was a safe way to protest the unwanted changes. As more and more voices are heard, a preference cascade is building.
The biggest issue drawing this out is, as our host points out, a lack of people willing to either be the voice of the people or the organizers of the people's actions. Change is scary and as much as those who are against the Nanny State want to return to what America has traditionally meant, the last ~160 years of momentum have been the other way. The Republican Party is too populated by those who are on the Nanny State side to provide the needed structure. Trump, like him or hate him, is the major voice for those who believe this and there is no obvious Heir apparent. DeSantis, who I generally like (I moved to Florida almost a year and a half ago), could have been, but he made a critical mistake when he turned on Trump in joining the primary and hitting Trump on the legal issues. After all the backstabbing by the Republican Party over the decades, this was a big step too far and aligned DeSantis with the Republican Powers That Be in the minds of too many. It's becoming obvious, even here in FL, that DeSantis doesn't have the political capital he did even a year ago. That group of middle organizational voices WILL come about one way or another, and how that happens will have a lot to say about how the final decade crescendo of this Fourth Turning will play out and if it will be a peaceful resolution or a violent one.
The biggest issue drawing this out is, as our host points out, a lack of people willing to either be the voice of the people or the organizers of the people's actions. Change is scary and as much as those who are against the Nanny State want to return to what America has traditionally meant, the last ~160 years of momentum have been the other way. The Republican Party is too populated by those who are on the Nanny State side to provide the needed structure. Trump, like him or hate him, is the major voice for those who believe this and there is no obvious Heir apparent. DeSantis, who I generally like (I moved to Florida almost a year and a half ago), could have been, but he made a critical mistake when he turned on Trump in joining the primary and hitting Trump on the legal issues. After all the backstabbing by the Republican Party over the decades, this was a big step too far and aligned DeSantis with the Republican Powers That Be in the minds of too many. It's becoming obvious, even here in FL, that DeSantis doesn't have the political capital he did even a year ago. That group of middle organizational voices WILL come about one way or another, and how that happens will have a lot to say about how the final decade crescendo of this Fourth Turning will play out and if it will be a peaceful resolution or a violent one.
Posted by: StargazerA5 at Sun Jan 14 19:16:15 2024 (r9yQ9)
6
@David Eastman: While I think that a lot of the personnel issues Trump faced at first were fully understandable (the sheer corruption of the bureaucracy, and the resentful, unprofessional refusal to carry out his lawful orders was a genuine shock) Trump never corrected. course in that regard.
Trump's whole argument was the one you made, that he was an excellent headhunter and could get good talent. He face planted on that point, which, as you point out, is a crucial executive skillset.
A lot of his supporters argue that Trump won't be fooled again, and will clean house this time. I see no evidence of that.
I held my nose and voted for Trump in 2016, I enthusiastically voted for him in 2020 despite his manifest flaws because the combination of the few policies he enacted and the freezing of the government as the civil service sat in the corner, held their breath and pouted saw a lot of good results.
I don't think that unlikely bank-shot can be repeated
Trump's whole argument was the one you made, that he was an excellent headhunter and could get good talent. He face planted on that point, which, as you point out, is a crucial executive skillset.
A lot of his supporters argue that Trump won't be fooled again, and will clean house this time. I see no evidence of that.
I held my nose and voted for Trump in 2016, I enthusiastically voted for him in 2020 despite his manifest flaws because the combination of the few policies he enacted and the freezing of the government as the civil service sat in the corner, held their breath and pouted saw a lot of good results.
I don't think that unlikely bank-shot can be repeated
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Mon Jan 15 06:09:29 2024 (liVFZ)
7
I just realized. There's been an Ubu sighting! Quick! Someone fetch a cryptozoologist!
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Tue Jan 16 06:37:22 2024 (liVFZ)
8
I prefer Trump to alternatives.
But, not because I am confident in him delivering. My basic criteria was that he didn't actually commit mass murder in 2016-2020, so he has a track record of not committing mass murder. A Republican I can trust not to commit mass murder is preferable, considering both the communist Democrats, and the Republicans too eager to collaborate with Democrats.
Part of his problems through 2020 was not being able to fire senior 'civil service' officials, which the executive order changing came into effect in 2021 after lots of them collaborated in the various efforts to displace him.
Warp Speed is both an accomplishment and arguably a demerit; Trades to make it happen fast seem to have caused a lot of the speech control efforts which followed.
The office of president is basically useless right now. The center of gravity of the fundamental problem is the lower level people on the other side. If cultural elite judges, lawyers, etc., are too culturally alien to reach consensus agreement with Christian mainstream culture, then the problems are too deep to have disputes resolved merely by a single election for a single office. The Republican officials at the state level are not being the appropriate level of aggressive in supervising public universities, in administering state higher learning criteria, in changing professional licensure, etc. Those republican officials need to have their feet held to the fire, or to be replaced.
I have a 'yes and no' reaction to fourth turning model. Human behavior model, necessarily reduced order, confidence in it being predictive is absolutely wrong. At the same time, there are many many indicators that 'common sense' in politics are lagging the objective realities, that things are primed to be surprising, and that things absolutely must change in some yet unknown way.
If we have not been making progress in fixing the electronic voting problem in every state, then we still have lots of work to do on lower level Republican officials. Non-electronic voting is a necessary but not a sufficient level of election reform.
The presidency is less important, not more important, now. Biden spent prestige of the office, and lowered the prestige to a more appropriate level, given the corrupted foundation.
Fixing things is a 'rest of us' problem. The logic of the presidency now? Is this a Republican who can collaborate with the Democrats? Will the Democrats be further motivated to display their unhinged thinking? The Democrats want to, if anything, murder Trump. If anyone can muster the will to change the Democratic Party leadership to one that can consider collaborating with Trump, that would probably require kicking the communists out. This logic does not lead to the suspicion of there being anyone who can out-Trump Trump.
Trying to accommodate the insanity of the cultural elites is a sucker's choice. Continuing to pick the strategy that they rage against inspires them to de-legitimize themselves.
The contaminated information cries out for autistic mode. In autistic mode, we have a couple more congressional cycles before we can evaluate if the logic of a reduced priority presidency holds for 2028.
This is a longer cultural fight, and you can partly evaluate that by paying attention to the leadership of ten or so local to you universities.
But, not because I am confident in him delivering. My basic criteria was that he didn't actually commit mass murder in 2016-2020, so he has a track record of not committing mass murder. A Republican I can trust not to commit mass murder is preferable, considering both the communist Democrats, and the Republicans too eager to collaborate with Democrats.
Part of his problems through 2020 was not being able to fire senior 'civil service' officials, which the executive order changing came into effect in 2021 after lots of them collaborated in the various efforts to displace him.
Warp Speed is both an accomplishment and arguably a demerit; Trades to make it happen fast seem to have caused a lot of the speech control efforts which followed.
The office of president is basically useless right now. The center of gravity of the fundamental problem is the lower level people on the other side. If cultural elite judges, lawyers, etc., are too culturally alien to reach consensus agreement with Christian mainstream culture, then the problems are too deep to have disputes resolved merely by a single election for a single office. The Republican officials at the state level are not being the appropriate level of aggressive in supervising public universities, in administering state higher learning criteria, in changing professional licensure, etc. Those republican officials need to have their feet held to the fire, or to be replaced.
I have a 'yes and no' reaction to fourth turning model. Human behavior model, necessarily reduced order, confidence in it being predictive is absolutely wrong. At the same time, there are many many indicators that 'common sense' in politics are lagging the objective realities, that things are primed to be surprising, and that things absolutely must change in some yet unknown way.
If we have not been making progress in fixing the electronic voting problem in every state, then we still have lots of work to do on lower level Republican officials. Non-electronic voting is a necessary but not a sufficient level of election reform.
The presidency is less important, not more important, now. Biden spent prestige of the office, and lowered the prestige to a more appropriate level, given the corrupted foundation.
Fixing things is a 'rest of us' problem. The logic of the presidency now? Is this a Republican who can collaborate with the Democrats? Will the Democrats be further motivated to display their unhinged thinking? The Democrats want to, if anything, murder Trump. If anyone can muster the will to change the Democratic Party leadership to one that can consider collaborating with Trump, that would probably require kicking the communists out. This logic does not lead to the suspicion of there being anyone who can out-Trump Trump.
Trying to accommodate the insanity of the cultural elites is a sucker's choice. Continuing to pick the strategy that they rage against inspires them to de-legitimize themselves.
The contaminated information cries out for autistic mode. In autistic mode, we have a couple more congressional cycles before we can evaluate if the logic of a reduced priority presidency holds for 2028.
This is a longer cultural fight, and you can partly evaluate that by paying attention to the leadership of ten or so local to you universities.
Posted by: PatBuckman at Wed Jan 17 12:25:06 2024 (r9O5h)
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