iirc Trump had really poor favourability ratings through most his presidency.
Now they want him back?
It is odd. Maybe surviving the assassination attempts is the sort of thing that impresses a lot of American voters.
I think it is simpler than that. While the economy on paper is doing well, if you don't own assets, you have experienced huge price inflation, especially in every day items, to the extent that things like a McDonalds are through the roof, large increases in rent, etc. Combine that with areas of the US doing really badly, e.g. Appalachia with jobs, and the perception of crime, drugs and immigration out of control.
Its the same reason as 2016, the social contract is broken for many (and like here why Corbyn became popular). Under Trump before COVID the economy did well without this huge inflation (who caused etc is a different matter).
I don't think I've ever seen anyone jump the shark quite so badly as @SouthamObserver did on Musk on the last thread.
I mean, wow.
Musk is a clear and present danger. Sell the Tesla buy a Taycan.
The bullying of @SouthamObserver on the last thread was disgraceful.
Interesting that Putin clearly rates Musk very highly from that Carlson interview, unlike Trump who he clearly despises.
You must work for the civil service with your definition of bullying. SO made some frankly ridiculous claims about Musk being more dangerous than China and those claims were robustly countered. SO is a big boy and long time poster, I doubt he is bothered by the responses.
You can think that Musk has been a dick on twitter, but he isn't that big of an outlier in this election supporting Trump e.g Bill Ackman is another incredibly wealthy man doing so. And that doesn't make them Putinists.
Dear old @SouthamObserver said that Elon Musk was more dangerous and damaging for the UK than China… and Qatar and Saudi
Pointing out that this is stupendous, embarrassing nonsense is not “bullying”, it is a kindness. Musk Derangement Syndrome is a real thing and it renders the sane tediously insane
We don’t want a valued PB-er like @SouthamObserver - and he IS valued - to turn into a Musked version of @Scott_xP
It's because he's seen as a traitor for deserting their side of the argument, so the absolute invective is reserved for him.
There’s also the possibility that Musk is right about Trump, and that Trump needs to win this election, despite his many flaws. And remember Musk knows these flaws: three years ago Musk was fiercely anti-Trump, two years ago Musk was promoting DeSantis as an acceptable anti-Woke version of Trump
Musk appears to believe this election is so pivotal the GOP absolutely MUST win even with a terrible candidate like Trump
And what if Musk is right?
On the prior thread about “whether musk is a genius/weirdo/chancer” someone correctly described Musk as a “visionary”. That’s precisely right, that’s Musk’s Genius. He can envision things others can’t, he can extrapolate quicker and further
What if Musk is envisaging something about Trump/this election and he’s correct?
This thought troubles me. I’m fairly settled in my view that Trump would be a bad president, bad for the USA, the West, the world. I hope he loses
But, what if Musk is right… again…
There are also cooler heads like Bill Ackman also backing Trump,
Personally I don't get it, but Musk isn't a massive outlier, there are wealthy smart people who previously where never Trump, who are now backing him in his election. If I was cynical, it is because they believe a Trump presidency is good for their financial interests, but they didn't go out on a limb like this before.
I think it's right to be cynical and of course some very rich people did go out on a limb. The Koch brothers, the Mercers built entire political machines based around furthering right-wing policies that suited their interests. Not to mention Mr Murdoch. Peter Thiel's involvement in politics predates Trump - and in many ways he's the model Musk's emulating, and they of course have a shared business history.
For the likes of Musk, Trumpism's mix of libertarianism for me (those with wealth), authoritarianism for thee (those without) and entirely transactional foreign policy hits a sweet spot that suits him personally, and like many of us he conflates what's in his interests with the greater good. There's a fairly long history of businessmen supporting far right political movements or politicians as long as given a free hand to do what they want.
What arguably has changed since 2016 and 2020 is that the aforementioned billionaires who predated Trump or backed him early didn't care much about their public image and being associated with those culturally we had down as 'the baddies'. Many of them revelled in it in fact. Musk really does care what people think of him - have you ever seen someone so desperate to be liked he'd buy a social network and set fire to it so he could be its King?
When Trump first came along he was uncouth, bizarre, and was culturally cringe. Supporting him was low status - it was what people who watch Duck Dynasty and marry their cousin did - and he was a losing cause in 2016 until midway through election night. In 2020, thanks to his often bizarre Covid pronouncements it remained low status. So you had to really not care what people thought of you and that you wouldn't be getting fancy gala invites anymore to publicly back him.
He still is one of the tackiest human beings who ever drew breath. Since then though, thanks to some cultural overreach from progressives, being right-wing in the US at least has gained more cultural cache, as there's now an entire alternative media ecosystem that has its own stars and heroes. So the barrier to supporting Trump has dropped - who cares if Leonardo DiCaprio and George Clooney think you're scum if Joe Rogan and Dana White are partying with you?
I think part of the difference with 2016 is Trump's opponent. In 2016, he was up against Clinton who was a serious figure and would likely have made a decent President (certainly in terms of policies). This time around we have had 4 years of Joe Biden, who has been the worst president of my lifetime and the Democrat candidate, Harris doesn't look that impressive either (and has tied herself to Biden).
I'd have to disagree there? Biden worse than Bush II or Trump. Nope - not in a million years. His foreign policy has been poor but that's a product of post-Iraq America and was often carrying through with Trump-era decisions.
Leaving Afghanistan in the way that they did was a disastrous disgrace, but it was Trump that did the deals that made it.
Domestically, objectively the US has recovered economically from Covid in a way Europe can only dream of, even if that's not entirely down to Biden, he hasn't wrecked it.
On culture wars stuff the Dems are now by and large fighting a rearguard action so I'm not sure one can say he's presided over some woke mania - it's notable Harris is running to the right of her 2020 positions on this stuff.
I think depending on what comes next he'll go down in the 'fine but flawed' category of Presidents - with the added caveat that his decline was unseemly. Unlike the proper horrorshows. But that's my opinion.
As for Harris, her popularity ratings are stronger than Hillary's were in 2016. She's obviously less experienced than Hillary was, but then how many candidates are more experienced than she was then?
I think her main problems are the way she got the job - there's a sense it defaulted to her, which looks slightly weak. And, as I said, to some extent the taboo among some groups of voting Trump has been broken. In part because the Democrats' progressive wing have repeatedly shot their party in the foot.
If you look at where she's running behind Biden (she's actually outperforming him among non-college educated white voters) it's the groups of voters Biden racked up silly numbers with in 2020 but now have a more sizeable minority voting Trump.
Musk seems to be on a similar journey to other celebrities like that bloke from Sunday night drama Lewis (I forget his name).
He started shouting opinions on Twitter, got involved in political arguments, fell in with a certain clique and then seemed to want to grab attention by winding other people up with ever more extreme views. The end game when the law of diminishing returns kicks in, was conspiracies.
He’s not the only one.There’s something about social media that sends some famous people down a destructive path, from which it’s hard to escape.
The antidote might be to remember is that however successful you are in your professional field , your political opinions are your own. You have one vote and are no more important than anyone else.
You are thinking about Lozza Fox.
I have said this before, it is the new mid life crisis for (mildly) famous people. Morgan, Vorderman, Lineker, Fox, to name a few in the UK that have become ever more obsessed with getting engagement on the tw@tter machine and in some cases so far down some rabbit holes they start repeating untruths on a regular basis.
Rowling is the best example. Just a bit too malicious, imo. Trans got Linehan too.
Right Said Fred love a WEF/vaxx conspiracy theory.
Rowling certainly has got caught up in twitter world, though I don't know if its for the likes / retweets perhaps in the way some of the other play to their "team". Its a very niche obsession and seems very unhealthy, but others seem to are wanting to caught the engagement and relevant. I am not convinced that is Rowlings motivation.
Ms Rowling started off on Twitter pretty sensibly. She articulated a clear reason why she thought the extension of right via self-ID was likely to be harmful to women.
It being Twitter, this led to a firestorm of people accusing her of being a TERF, and she ended up going to a bit of a rabbit hole, which reached an apogee when she tweeted a picture of that Tunisian boxer.
And what's awful - and annoying - is that her original, nuanced view became destroyed by the feedback loop of Twitter.
Because Twitter destroys nuance and intelligent discourse.
If the GOP had picked a less divisive candidate with a vaguely coherent policy platform, would they have walked it? Or would the MAGA cult decide that the deep state had shafted the messiah and outweigh the soccer mom vote that GOP would have picked up with somebody who was less repulsive to them?
If the GOP had picked a less divisive candidate with a vaguely coherent policy platform, would they have walked it? Or would the MAGA cult decide that the deep state had shafted the messiah and outweigh the soccer mom vote that GOP would have picked up with somebody who was less repulsive to them?
Probably, one poll had Haley beating Biden 59% to 41%
Sean Trende is excellent as always. He, Nate Silver, Mr. Ralston, and Anne Selzer are the four go-to pundits in the US.
They tell it as it is, not as they would like it to be.
Thanks.
This has been almost totally missed on here, and the site has been filled with wishcasting and playing the man, not the ball, when anyone dare say anything different about Trump.
Trumps had the mo for about three weeks. Harris campaign ran out of steam because she failed to resolve the change / continuity contradiction and looked shifty/empty. Meanwhile Trump doubled down on folksy crazy, which has a weird kind of authenticity.
Not good news for anyone who likes the post war settlement, nato and all that. Harris has two weeks left.
There was some good analysis the other day from, I forget whom, who explained how some of Trump's folksy stuff can even be quite endearing, like the McDonald's stuff.
I hadn't thought of it like that but I can see it now. And I'm old enough to remember when George W Bush was accused of being stupid and dumb too, and then won for similar reasons.
With the important difference that although he found it convenient to pretend otherwise, George W. Bush is in fact an extremely clever man.
Trump is definitely not.
I heard very little of this argument at the time from Liberals though.
George W was thick was a running joke.
Despite graduating from Yale, getting an MBA from Harvard and flying fighter jets for the national guard.
rcs1000's tip on Trump winning the popular vote and losing the election is looking more and more enticing.
Far more likely the other way round.
Not necessarily, Harris is closer to Kerry ideologically and personality wise than Biden or Clinton or Obama. Both Harris and Kerry are liberal ex prosecutors who can be somewhat stiff.
In 2004 Kerry had he won Ohio would have won the EC despite losing the popular vote. Percentage wise Kerry was closer to Bush in Ohio in 2004 than he was to Bush in the national popular vote.
Certain swing states eg Wisconsin like left liberals, voting for Dukakis and Kerry and Obama but not Hillary for example. However nationally more voters prefer centrists like Hillary than left liberals, hence Hillary won the popular vote but Dukakis and Kerry didn't
Musk seems to be on a similar journey to other celebrities like that bloke from Sunday night drama Lewis (I forget his name).
He started shouting opinions on Twitter, got involved in political arguments, fell in with a certain clique and then seemed to want to grab attention by winding other people up with ever more extreme views. The end game when the law of diminishing returns kicks in, was conspiracies.
He’s not the only one.There’s something about social media that sends some famous people down a destructive path, from which it’s hard to escape.
The antidote might be to remember is that however successful you are in your professional field , your political opinions are your own. You have one vote and are no more important than anyone else.
You are thinking about Lozza Fox.
I have said this before, it is the new mid life crisis for (mildly) famous people. Morgan, Vorderman, Lineker, Fox, to name a few in the UK that have become ever more obsessed with getting engagement on the tw@tter machine and in some cases so far down some rabbit holes they start repeating untruths on a regular basis.
Rowling is the best example. Just a bit too malicious, imo. Trans got Linehan too.
Right Said Fred love a WEF/vaxx conspiracy theory.
Rowling certainly has got caught up in twitter world, though I don't know if its for the likes / retweets perhaps in the way some of the other play to their "team". Its a very niche obsession and seems very unhealthy, but others seem to are wanting to caught the engagement and relevant. I am not convinced that is Rowlings motivation.
Rowling really took an interest after researching a novel that touched on gender/sex issues and I think she sees herself as a defender of those not insulated by her wealth and fame - she's become personal friends with some campaigners and I think helped with some legal cases.
There's an element of defiance too. If you listen to a number of Gender Critical feminist women they will justify being blunt to the point of rudeness by saying they began by being polite but people refused to listen to them and called them bigots anyway so they might as well go all in and upset those they see as needing upsetting rather than catering to.
Linehan definitely did go a bit bonkers over it all.
Sean Trende is excellent as always. He, Nate Silver, Mr. Ralston, and Anne Selzer are the four go-to pundits in the US.
They tell it as it is, not as they would like it to be.
Thanks.
This has been almost totally missed on here, and the site has been filled with wishcasting and playing the man, not the ball, when anyone dare say anything different about Trump.
Trumps had the mo for about three weeks. Harris campaign ran out of steam because she failed to resolve the change / continuity contradiction and looked shifty/empty. Meanwhile Trump doubled down on folksy crazy, which has a weird kind of authenticity.
Not good news for anyone who likes the post war settlement, nato and all that. Harris has two weeks left.
There was some good analysis the other day from, I forget whom, who explained how some of Trump's folksy stuff can even be quite endearing, like the McDonald's stuff.
I hadn't thought of it like that but I can see it now. And I'm old enough to remember when George W Bush was accused of being stupid and dumb too, and then won for similar reasons.
With the important difference that although he found it convenient to pretend otherwise, George W. Bush is in fact an extremely clever man.
Trump is definitely not.
I heard very little of this argument at the time from Liberals though.
George W was thick was a running joke.
Despite graduating from Yale, getting an MBA from Harvard and flying fighter jets for the national guard.
Sean Trende is excellent as always. He, Nate Silver, Mr. Ralston, and Anne Selzer are the four go-to pundits in the US.
They tell it as it is, not as they would like it to be.
Thanks.
This has been almost totally missed on here, and the site has been filled with wishcasting and playing the man, not the ball, when anyone dare say anything different about Trump.
Trumps had the mo for about three weeks. Harris campaign ran out of steam because she failed to resolve the change / continuity contradiction and looked shifty/empty. Meanwhile Trump doubled down on folksy crazy, which has a weird kind of authenticity.
Not good news for anyone who likes the post war settlement, nato and all that. Harris has two weeks left.
There was some good analysis the other day from, I forget whom, who explained how some of Trump's folksy stuff can even be quite endearing, like the McDonald's stuff.
I hadn't thought of it like that but I can see it now. And I'm old enough to remember when George W Bush was accused of being stupid and dumb too, and then won for similar reasons.
With the important difference that although he found it convenient to pretend otherwise, George W. Bush is in fact an extremely clever man.
Trump is definitely not.
I heard very little of this argument at the time from Liberals though.
George W was thick was a running joke.
Despite graduating from Yale, getting an MBA from Harvard and flying fighter jets for the national guard.
He did have a bit of a habit for "release the sausages" moments.
The one I remember from that time that the media thought was really funny and the guy was being an absolute moron, was Donald Rumsfeld's, "There are unknown unknowns", when in fact it was making a very important point which went over a lot of the press pack.
Musk seems to be on a similar journey to other celebrities like that bloke from Sunday night drama Lewis (I forget his name).
He started shouting opinions on Twitter, got involved in political arguments, fell in with a certain clique and then seemed to want to grab attention by winding other people up with ever more extreme views. The end game when the law of diminishing returns kicks in, was conspiracies.
He’s not the only one.There’s something about social media that sends some famous people down a destructive path, from which it’s hard to escape.
The antidote might be to remember is that however successful you are in your professional field , your political opinions are your own. You have one vote and are no more important than anyone else.
You are thinking about Lozza Fox.
I have said this before, it is the new mid life crisis for (mildly) famous people. Morgan, Vorderman, Lineker, Fox, to name a few in the UK that have become ever more obsessed with getting engagement on the tw@tter machine and in some cases so far down some rabbit holes they start repeating untruths on a regular basis.
Rowling is the best example. Just a bit too malicious, imo. Trans got Linehan too.
Right Said Fred love a WEF/vaxx conspiracy theory.
Twitter drives people mad.
Those whom Twitter would destroy, they first make mad.
New poll: Trump is getting record levels of support among young Black and Latino men
I'm not sure that's particularly good news for Trump if it is happening at the expense of white non-college voters.
If it's simple incremental, it's one thing, but if it means Trump is extending his lead in Texas and Florida at the expense of votes in Pennsylvania, then it's another entirely.
Sean Trende is excellent as always. He, Nate Silver, Mr. Ralston, and Anne Selzer are the four go-to pundits in the US.
They tell it as it is, not as they would like it to be.
Thanks.
This has been almost totally missed on here, and the site has been filled with wishcasting and playing the man, not the ball, when anyone dare say anything different about Trump.
Trumps had the mo for about three weeks. Harris campaign ran out of steam because she failed to resolve the change / continuity contradiction and looked shifty/empty. Meanwhile Trump doubled down on folksy crazy, which has a weird kind of authenticity.
Not good news for anyone who likes the post war settlement, nato and all that. Harris has two weeks left.
There was some good analysis the other day from, I forget whom, who explained how some of Trump's folksy stuff can even be quite endearing, like the McDonald's stuff.
I hadn't thought of it like that but I can see it now. And I'm old enough to remember when George W Bush was accused of being stupid and dumb too, and then won for similar reasons.
With the important difference that although he found it convenient to pretend otherwise, George W. Bush is in fact an extremely clever man.
Trump is definitely not.
I heard very little of this argument at the time from Liberals though.
George W was thick was a running joke.
Despite graduating from Yale, getting an MBA from Harvard and flying fighter jets for the national guard.
He did have a bit of a habit for "release the sausages" moments.
The one I remember from that time that the media thought was really funny and the guy was being an absolute moron, was Donald Rumsfeld's, "There are unknown unknowns", when in fact it was making a very important point which went over a lot of the press pack.
I just looked up a clip of that and it's amazing how many comments there are from people who thought it was just satire rather than a comment he actually made.
Sean Trende is excellent as always. He, Nate Silver, Mr. Ralston, and Anne Selzer are the four go-to pundits in the US.
They tell it as it is, not as they would like it to be.
Thanks.
This has been almost totally missed on here, and the site has been filled with wishcasting and playing the man, not the ball, when anyone dare say anything different about Trump.
Trumps had the mo for about three weeks. Harris campaign ran out of steam because she failed to resolve the change / continuity contradiction and looked shifty/empty. Meanwhile Trump doubled down on folksy crazy, which has a weird kind of authenticity.
Not good news for anyone who likes the post war settlement, nato and all that. Harris has two weeks left.
There was some good analysis the other day from, I forget whom, who explained how some of Trump's folksy stuff can even be quite endearing, like the McDonald's stuff.
I hadn't thought of it like that but I can see it now. And I'm old enough to remember when George W Bush was accused of being stupid and dumb too, and then won for similar reasons.
With the important difference that although he found it convenient to pretend otherwise, George W. Bush is in fact an extremely clever man.
Trump is definitely not.
I heard very little of this argument at the time from Liberals though.
George W was thick was a running joke.
Despite graduating from Yale, getting an MBA from Harvard and flying fighter jets for the national guard.
He did have a bit of a habit for "release the sausages" moments.
The one I remember from that time that the media thought was really funny and the guy was being an absolute moron, was Donald Rumsfeld's, "There are unknown unknowns", when in fact it was making a very important point which went over a lot of the press pack.
Oh, that was extraordinary: Rumsfield's point was extremely astute, and he got laughed at.
Poll: those who made their decision on who to support over a month ago broke 52-48 for Trump. Those who made up their mind last month or week break for Harris 60-36.
Sean Trende is excellent as always. He, Nate Silver, Mr. Ralston, and Anne Selzer are the four go-to pundits in the US.
They tell it as it is, not as they would like it to be.
Thanks.
This has been almost totally missed on here, and the site has been filled with wishcasting and playing the man, not the ball, when anyone dare say anything different about Trump.
Trumps had the mo for about three weeks. Harris campaign ran out of steam because she failed to resolve the change / continuity contradiction and looked shifty/empty. Meanwhile Trump doubled down on folksy crazy, which has a weird kind of authenticity.
Not good news for anyone who likes the post war settlement, nato and all that. Harris has two weeks left.
There was some good analysis the other day from, I forget whom, who explained how some of Trump's folksy stuff can even be quite endearing, like the McDonald's stuff.
I hadn't thought of it like that but I can see it now. And I'm old enough to remember when George W Bush was accused of being stupid and dumb too, and then won for similar reasons.
With the important difference that although he found it convenient to pretend otherwise, George W. Bush is in fact an extremely clever man.
Trump is definitely not.
I heard very little of this argument at the time from Liberals though.
George W was thick was a running joke.
Despite graduating from Yale, getting an MBA from Harvard and flying fighter jets for the national guard.
He did have a bit of a habit for "release the sausages" moments.
The one I remember from that time that the media thought was really funny and the guy was being an absolute moron, was Donald Rumsfeld's, "There are unknown unknowns", when in fact it was making a very important point which went over a lot of the press pack.
Oh, that was extraordinary: Rumsfield's point was extremely astute, and he got laughed at.
When I was in academia I used to try to reference this point, but not sure it went in. Perhaps post COVID, it might have had more impact.
Are there such things as "unknown knowns"? Almost looks like a foreign language doesn't it.
They are things we are neither aware of nor understand, COVID is one example. We didn't know it existed nor when it first appeared what it was, where it had come from, how it spread or how to treat it. All that was know was that hospitals in Wuhan were filling up rapidly with very ill people.
The general point is, the known, we can decide if we need to further improve on the solution, the known unknowns, are problems we know exist, but don't know the solution, so you can decide to allocate resources to further investigate them to try and find a solution.
The unknown unknowns are the most dangerous, because if you don't know a problem exists, you won't be allocating resources to it.
Are there such things as "unknown knowns"? Almost looks like a foreign language doesn't it.
They are things we are neither aware of nor understand, COVID is one example. We didn't know it existed nor when it first appeared what it was, where it had come from, how it spread or how to treat it. All that was know was that hospitals in Wuhan were filling up rapidly with very ill people.
The general point is, the known, we can decide if we need to further improve on the solution, the known unknowns, are problems we know exist, but don't know the solution, so you can decide to allocate resources to further investigate them to try and find a solution.
The unknown unknowns are the most dangerous, because if you don't know a problem exists, you won't be allocating resources to it.
Are there such things as "unknown knowns"? Almost looks like a foreign language doesn't it.
Nobody can give you an example of an unknown known, which is consistent with them existing.
From wikipedia...
Psychoanalytic philosopher Slavoj Žižek says that beyond these three categories there is a fourth, the unknown known, that which one intentionally refuses to acknowledge that one knows: "If Rumsfeld thinks that the main dangers in the confrontation with Iraq were the 'unknown unknowns', that is, the threats from Saddam whose nature we cannot even suspect, then the Abu Ghraib scandal shows that the main dangers lie in the "unknown knowns"—the disavowed beliefs, suppositions and obscene practices we pretend not to know about, even though they form the background of our public values.
A bit of a dent in the Trump price on Polymarket a couple of hours ago which I think coincides with the child groping video rumours dropping, then Trump recovered, now dropped again. (Or it could be polls?)
Are there such things as "unknown knowns"? Almost looks like a foreign language doesn't it.
Nobody can give you an example of an unknown known, which is consistent with them existing.
From wikipedia...
Psychoanalytic philosopher Slavoj Žižek says that beyond these three categories there is a fourth, the unknown known, that which one intentionally refuses to acknowledge that one knows: "If Rumsfeld thinks that the main dangers in the confrontation with Iraq were the 'unknown unknowns', that is, the threats from Saddam whose nature we cannot even suspect, then the Abu Ghraib scandal shows that the main dangers lie in the "unknown knowns"—the disavowed beliefs, suppositions and obscene practices we pretend not to know about, even though they form the background of our public values.
Up to you if you go with that analysis.
I'd say that's a subcategory of known knowns - we know what we know we just construct a pretence we don't.
My candidate would be something like dark matter - we know it must exist as all our mathematical models of the universe fall apart without it so it's a known. But what it actually is and how it behaves is unknown, making it an unknown known.
Nicholas Dames has taught Literature Humanities, Columbia University’s required great-books course, since 1998. He loves the job, but it has changed. Over the past decade, students have become overwhelmed by the reading. College kids have never read everything they’re assigned, of course, but this feels different. Dames’s students now seem bewildered by the thought of finishing multiple books a semester. His colleagues have noticed the same problem. Many students no longer arrive at college—even at highly selective, elite colleges—prepared to read books."
Are there such things as "unknown knowns"? Almost looks like a foreign language doesn't it.
Nobody can give you an example of an unknown known, which is consistent with them existing.
From wikipedia...
Psychoanalytic philosopher Slavoj Žižek says that beyond these three categories there is a fourth, the unknown known, that which one intentionally refuses to acknowledge that one knows: "If Rumsfeld thinks that the main dangers in the confrontation with Iraq were the 'unknown unknowns', that is, the threats from Saddam whose nature we cannot even suspect, then the Abu Ghraib scandal shows that the main dangers lie in the "unknown knowns"—the disavowed beliefs, suppositions and obscene practices we pretend not to know about, even though they form the background of our public values.
Up to you if you go with that analysis.
I'd say that's a subcategory of known knowns - we know what we know we just construct a pretence we don't.
My candidate would be something like dark matter - we know it must exist as all our mathematical models of the universe fall apart without it so it's a known. But what it actually is and how it behaves is unknown, making it an unknown known.
Another category that you may be mentally equipped to have the knowledge but not the meta-knowledge. For example, my goats probably kind of know about causality - they know that if they want to go somewhere and there's something in the way they can push it with their horns and that'll cause it to move and they can then get past it - but they probably can't specifically formulate the abstract concept of causality, in which case they don't know that they know about causality.
There may be a load of other things where we're the cognitive equivalent of goats, we have the knowledge but not the knowledge of the knowledge.
It seems kind of amazing to me that basically every swing state or national poll on this page has the lead of one candidate or the other under 3% *even though they're all polling different states*. https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/
Does anybody know how to do some kind of statistical test that would tell us if that's something that's actually plausible or whether the pollsters are all taking the path of least reputational damage and herding around a coin-flip no matter what race they're polling?
It seems kind of amazing to me that basically every swing state or national poll on this page has the lead of one candidate or the other under 3% *even though they're all polling different states*. https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/
Does anybody know how to do some kind of statistical test that would tell us if that's something that's actually plausible or whether the pollsters are all taking the path of least reputational damage and herding around a coin-flip no matter what race they're polling?
Looking at the big picture, there's a stark difference in the polling for this election compared with 2020.
There is no doubt that Trump is polling stronger than last time.
And there is no doubt that polls systematically understated Trump's vote last time.
The question is have pollsters corrected for what led to the undercount last time?
If no, then it will be an obvious massive Trump win.
But if they have corrected, and there is no systematic polling error, then Trump should be slight favourite.
On the other hand, if the changes they implemented - particularly past vote weighting - result in an overcorrection, then it's entirely possible that Harris is the one being undercounted this time.
It could also be Trump is a lot more popular nationally now in places it won’t impact the college. He could be a lot more popular in New York, and California, but not nearly enough to carry the state.
It would make the popular vote very tight, as HY says maybe even a Trump win, yet still deal Trump hefty college defeat as the battleground States narrowly go to Kam one by one.
If I’m right in “more salutes where you don’t really need them” theory, it makes the popular vote polls this time round very misleading to picking the winner based on PV history.
I think Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona and North Carolina is where it’s at. One candidate could win all four - all be it after days of counting - and be comfortable in the college, in spite of the popular vote.
I think it is near certain that Trump's vote efficiency will be worse that last time, simply because of how much better he's doing in California and New York. It's why I've been banging on about betting on Trump PV, Harris EV: not because it's the most likely outcome, but because I think it is significantly more likely than the odds suggest.
(I would also point out that I repeatedly tipped Harris at long odds.)
Yes. A switcheroo on the PV v EC historical trend, is worth punting on, if the odds are tasty.
But the question is, if Trump's vote efficiency will be worse than last time, simply because of how much better he's doing in California and New York, then what is happening? What is up? Is it men? Young men? Non whites? Dog Ladies? And why? Male Chauvinism? Feminism backlash? Certain section of society fared far far worse in pocket and other things under Biden and Harris, and Democrats have overlooked this?
Even though 2022 was unexpectedly good year for Democrats, it masked inklings of their Latino problem - not just Cubans in Florida, but Dems lost Latino’s everywhere. Maybe that will be even worse this time, costing them Nevada and Arizona.
We are overlooking the obvious: Kamala is an incumbent in an election season where incumbents get punished on post-Covid inflation. It might be as simple as that.
That goes without saying, and - indeed - I wrote a header on that.
That this election is even close is a consequence of the Republicans picking a candidate who is poison to 45% of the electorate.
Candidates aside, I've seen little in the way of political inspiration on either side for some years. Trump talks a good game, but the slightest examination reveals it as nonsense. The Dems are less grandiose, but also there's not much on offer.
In the UK we see exactly the same thing. Labour hooting and hollering and going off like the very dampest of squibs, and the Tories not really even bothering to do much more than say 'we'll be ok, really'.
Did we reach the political endgame, where there's nothing to fix? Each to their own, but my view is not.
Trump has the balls to have put solutions on the line.
So, he says: tariffs on everything imported into the US*, and quadruple on stuff from China.
It's an attempt to solve the problem of not enough stuff made in the US. It might - however - have horrendous consequences for the world and for the US economy.
I admire him for trying. But I think the solution he's proposing is potentially disastrous for the world.
* What should really worry the UK is that they specifically point to services for the first time. Now, in this case, it's referencing call centers going to the Philippines. BUT if tariff are put on UK services exports to the US it would have a lot of nasty consequences, including for my own business given we have developers in the UK who need to be crosscharged back to the US.
Thinly-veiled reference to the UK tech sector being grossly underpaid relative America.
Are there such things as "unknown knowns"? Almost looks like a foreign language doesn't it.
IMV in Rumsfeld's original (very good) point, he was referring to stuff they knew but did not realise the importance of. So you might have a vast pile of intelligence, a tsunami of information. You are trying to solve a problem using that information, and it is a case of picking out the correct bits. Some will be easy and obviously relevant - the "known knowns".
But some pieces of information may be absolutely vital, and you already have them. It is just that the vital nature of it is unknown at the moment, and may not become obvious until much later, or after an event. At which point, inquiries point to it and say; "You knew this! Why didn't you do anything about it????"
Or you might have all the information, and not be asking the right question.
In the case of the 9/11 attacks, they had a fair bit of intelligence on the attackers that, if it had been assembled in the right way, may have caused serious alarm bells to ring. But the right questions were not asked, perhaps understandably.
You have the information and you understand it. You just do not understand the importance of it.
Musk seems to be on a similar journey to other celebrities like that bloke from Sunday night drama Lewis (I forget his name).
He started shouting opinions on Twitter, got involved in political arguments, fell in with a certain clique and then seemed to want to grab attention by winding other people up with ever more extreme views. The end game when the law of diminishing returns kicks in, was conspiracies.
He’s not the only one.There’s something about social media that sends some famous people down a destructive path, from which it’s hard to escape.
The antidote might be to remember is that however successful you are in your professional field , your political opinions are your own. You have one vote and are no more important than anyone else.
You are thinking about Lozza Fox.
I have said this before, it is the new mid life crisis for (mildly) famous people. Morgan, Vorderman, Lineker, Fox, to name a few in the UK that have become ever more obsessed with getting engagement on the tw@tter machine and in some cases so far down some rabbit holes they start repeating untruths on a regular basis.
It’s called the radicalisation spiral.
The mistake is to buy into the version of history where there are puppet masters at the top playing 8D chess.
The players are themselves upon the board
Have you considered the possibility that Putin, Xi, Trump etc have fallen down the same plug hole? Why not?
Putin was a vicious, but smart dictator. Now he is rather Trumpism in his disasters.
Xi was a smart operator - many Chinese people I talk to say that he has gone stupid. That his behaviour seems weird and no longer seems like a long term strategy.
Musk seems to be on a similar journey to other celebrities like that bloke from Sunday night drama Lewis (I forget his name).
He started shouting opinions on Twitter, got involved in political arguments, fell in with a certain clique and then seemed to want to grab attention by winding other people up with ever more extreme views. The end game when the law of diminishing returns kicks in, was conspiracies.
He’s not the only one.There’s something about social media that sends some famous people down a destructive path, from which it’s hard to escape.
The antidote might be to remember is that however successful you are in your professional field , your political opinions are your own. You have one vote and are no more important than anyone else.
You are thinking about Lozza Fox.
I have said this before, it is the new mid life crisis for (mildly) famous people. Morgan, Vorderman, Lineker, Fox, to name a few in the UK that have become ever more obsessed with getting engagement on the tw@tter machine and in some cases so far down some rabbit holes they start repeating untruths on a regular basis.
Rowling is the best example. Just a bit too malicious, imo. Trans got Linehan too.
Right Said Fred love a WEF/vaxx conspiracy theory.
Twitter drives people mad.
Owning Twitter especially so.
It's like the ring of power.
Though Tolkiens point was that it was merely the agent - it was the love of power that drove people mad.
Which is why the Ring wasn’t even interesting to Tom Bombadil. And Sam gave it back.
iirc Trump had really poor favourability ratings through most his presidency.
Now they want him back?
It is odd. Maybe surviving the assassination attempts is the sort of thing that impresses a lot of American voters.
Trump is the anti-TheSystem candidate. It’s what populists do. See Boulanger. The competent ones are Napoleon or Caesar.
Trump voters are a disparate bunch. But they are united that America is Going The Wrong Way. Which is the flip side of Make America Great *Again*.
They are voting for a mythic Trump idea - not the actual orange bloke. For the people concerned about the Debt Clock, he will eliminate the deficit. For those concerned with Woke - he will defeat that. For the anti-abortion people, he will deliver more judges….
Harris is the vote for TheSystem. More of the same.
iirc Trump had really poor favourability ratings through most his presidency.
Now they want him back?
It is odd. Maybe surviving the assassination attempts is the sort of thing that impresses a lot of American voters.
Trump is the anti-TheSystem candidate. It’s what populists do. See Boulanger. The competent ones are Napoleon or Caesar.
Trump voters are a disparate bunch. But they are united that America is Going The Wrong Way. Which is the flip side of Make America Great *Again*.
They are voting for a mythic Trump idea - not the actual orange bloke. For the people concerned about the Debt Clock, he will eliminate the deficit. For those concerned with Woke - he will defeat that. For the anti-abortion people, he will deliver more judges….
Harris is the vote for TheSystem. More of the same.
He offers simple answers to complex questions.
The answers will not work, but the answers are appealing, even to intelligent people.
Sean Trende is excellent as always. He, Nate Silver, Mr. Ralston, and Anne Selzer are the four go-to pundits in the US.
They tell it as it is, not as they would like it to be.
Thanks.
This has been almost totally missed on here, and the site has been filled with wishcasting and playing the man, not the ball, when anyone dare say anything different about Trump.
Trumps had the mo for about three weeks. Harris campaign ran out of steam because she failed to resolve the change / continuity contradiction and looked shifty/empty. Meanwhile Trump doubled down on folksy crazy, which has a weird kind of authenticity.
Not good news for anyone who likes the post war settlement, nato and all that. Harris has two weeks left.
There was some good analysis the other day from, I forget whom, who explained how some of Trump's folksy stuff can even be quite endearing, like the McDonald's stuff.
I hadn't thought of it like that but I can see it now. And I'm old enough to remember when George W Bush was accused of being stupid and dumb too, and then won for similar reasons.
With the important difference that although he found it convenient to pretend otherwise, George W. Bush is in fact an extremely clever man.
Trump is definitely not.
I heard very little of this argument at the time from Liberals though.
George W was thick was a running joke.
Despite graduating from Yale, getting an MBA from Harvard and flying fighter jets for the national guard.
He did have a bit of a habit for "release the sausages" moments.
The one I remember from that time that the media thought was really funny and the guy was being an absolute moron, was Donald Rumsfeld's, "There are unknown unknowns", when in fact it was making a very important point which went over a lot of the press pack.
Oh, that was extraordinary: Rumsfield's point was extremely astute, and he got laughed at.
Because of the context.
ISIS was one of his unknown unknowns.
Had he taken his own dictum seriously, he might have been more cautious in policy making, rather than the complete opposite. Which was the Iraq clusterfuck.
Musk seems to be on a similar journey to other celebrities like that bloke from Sunday night drama Lewis (I forget his name).
He started shouting opinions on Twitter, got involved in political arguments, fell in with a certain clique and then seemed to want to grab attention by winding other people up with ever more extreme views. The end game when the law of diminishing returns kicks in, was conspiracies.
He’s not the only one.There’s something about social media that sends some famous people down a destructive path, from which it’s hard to escape.
The antidote might be to remember is that however successful you are in your professional field , your political opinions are your own. You have one vote and are no more important than anyone else.
You are thinking about Lozza Fox.
I have said this before, it is the new mid life crisis for (mildly) famous people. Morgan, Vorderman, Lineker, Fox, to name a few in the UK that have become ever more obsessed with getting engagement on the tw@tter machine and in some cases so far down some rabbit holes they start repeating untruths on a regular basis.
It’s called the radicalisation spiral.
The mistake is to buy into the version of history where there are puppet masters at the top playing 8D chess.
The players are themselves upon the board
Have you considered the possibility that Putin, Xi, Trump etc have fallen down the same plug hole? Why not?
Putin was a vicious, but smart dictator. Now he is rather Trumpism in his disasters.
Xi was a smart operator - many Chinese people I talk to say that he has gone stupid. That his behaviour seems weird and no longer seems like a long term strategy.
Sean Trende is excellent as always. He, Nate Silver, Mr. Ralston, and Anne Selzer are the four go-to pundits in the US.
They tell it as it is, not as they would like it to be.
Thanks.
This has been almost totally missed on here, and the site has been filled with wishcasting and playing the man, not the ball, when anyone dare say anything different about Trump.
Trumps had the mo for about three weeks. Harris campaign ran out of steam because she failed to resolve the change / continuity contradiction and looked shifty/empty. Meanwhile Trump doubled down on folksy crazy, which has a weird kind of authenticity.
Not good news for anyone who likes the post war settlement, nato and all that. Harris has two weeks left.
There was some good analysis the other day from, I forget whom, who explained how some of Trump's folksy stuff can even be quite endearing, like the McDonald's stuff.
I hadn't thought of it like that but I can see it now. And I'm old enough to remember when George W Bush was accused of being stupid and dumb too, and then won for similar reasons.
With the important difference that although he found it convenient to pretend otherwise, George W. Bush is in fact an extremely clever man.
Trump is definitely not.
I heard very little of this argument at the time from Liberals though.
George W was thick was a running joke.
Despite graduating from Yale, getting an MBA from Harvard and flying fighter jets for the national guard.
He did have a bit of a habit for "release the sausages" moments.
The one I remember from that time that the media thought was really funny and the guy was being an absolute moron, was Donald Rumsfeld's, "There are unknown unknowns", when in fact it was making a very important point which went over a lot of the press pack.
Oh, that was extraordinary: Rumsfield's point was extremely astute, and he got laughed at.
Because of the context.
ISIS was one of his unknown unknowns.
Had he taken his own dictum seriously, he might have been more cautious in policy making, rather than the complete opposite. Which was the Iraq clusterfuck.
AFAICR that was not why he was laughed at. People were laughing at the comment itself. Wrongly. It even won a 'foot in mouth; award.
I remember hearing a 'comedian' - probably on the BBC - ripping the sh*t out of the comment, presumably because he had not bothered to think it through.
I don't think I've ever seen anyone jump the shark quite so badly as @SouthamObserver did on Musk on the last thread.
I mean, wow.
Musk is a clear and present danger. Sell the Tesla buy a Taycan.
The bullying of @SouthamObserver on the last thread was disgraceful.
Interesting that Putin clearly rates Musk very highly from that Carlson interview, unlike Trump who he clearly despises.
You must work for the civil service with your definition of bullying. SO made some frankly ridiculous claims about Musk being more dangerous than China and those claims were robustly countered. SO is a big boy and long time poster, I doubt he is bothered by the responses.
You can think that Musk has been a dick on twitter, but he isn't that big of an outlier in this election supporting Trump e.g Bill Ackman is another incredibly wealthy man doing so. And that doesn't make them Putinists.
Not sure "dick" quite nails it for someone trying to subvert democracy and deliver the world's most powerful nation into the hands of a far right demagogue.
As I say, I personally don't see it, but Musk is far from the only rich and powerful person that has decided this time around to go into bat for Trump that didn't in the previous elections. We saw the chart the other day how the donations from tech bros has changed this time around.
Yes it's those coastal elites trying to impose an oligarchy on the rest of the US
This Trump video that is getting people so excited on Twitter.
Let's assume for a moment that it is real, that it isn't fake, that he actually did it.
I don't think anyone cares. The man literally can shoot people in the street on 5th Avenue and not lose votes. Even more, the evangelical vote still think he is Christian and represents their values.
A simply extraordinary politician - have we even seen the like before?
This Trump video that is getting people so excited on Twitter.
Let's assume for a moment that it is real, that it isn't fake, that he actually did it.
I don't think anyone cares. The man literally can shoot people in the street on 5th Avenue and not lose votes. Even more, the evangelical vote still think he is Christian and represents their values.
A simply extraordinary politician - have we even seen the like before?
Much more to the point, given anyone who has been paying attention already assumed he had behaved as alleged, and anyone who isn't paying attention by definition isn't going to pay attention, it's difficult to see it making a difference.
It should do. But so should his attempts to overthrow the government. Or his multiple frauds. Or his record of business failure. Or his abject failure on every policy proposal he made as President. Or his links to Russia. Or his links to Elon Musk. Or his subversion of the US legal system.
It is remarkable how great a hold he seems to be exerting and not just over stupid people. Leon, for example, isn't stupid but has clearly been captivated because he's got it into his head that somehow Harris is the devil incarnate. And we're seeing that played out across literally millions of Americans.
Are there such things as "unknown knowns"? Almost looks like a foreign language doesn't it.
I have a good known unknown story.
A few years ago I was at an IP conference in Washington DC and I was walking back down to my hotel when I saw someone whose face I knew coming up the other way. He had the look of the archetypal senior partner in a US law firm. Another delegate, I assumed. I could not put a name to him but the face was so recognisable to me that it was clear we had spoken at the event and I had just forgotten who he was. There was no way to avoid him so I decided I had to say something and then move quickly on to avoid any embarrassment. I did that as we passed. "Hello, how are you? I hope all is well," I said in my brightest English voice. What I got back was a grunt and a kind of sneering dismissal. Then I clocked the security following him and I realised. It was Donald Rumsfeld!
This Trump video that is getting people so excited on Twitter.
Let's assume for a moment that it is real, that it isn't fake, that he actually did it.
I don't think anyone cares. The man literally can shoot people in the street on 5th Avenue and not lose votes. Even more, the evangelical vote still think he is Christian and represents their values.
A simply extraordinary politician - have we even seen the like before?
Much more to the point, given anyone who has been paying attention already assumed he had behaved as alleged, and anyone who isn't paying attention by definition isn't going to pay attention, it's difficult to see it making a difference.
It should do. But so should his attempts to overthrow the government. Or his multiple frauds. Or his record of business failure. Or his abject failure on every policy proposal he made as President. Or his links to Russia. Or his links to Elon Musk. Or his subversion of the US legal system.
It is remarkable how great a hold he seems to be exerting and not just over stupid people. Leon, for example, isn't stupid but has clearly been captivated because he's got it into his head that somehow Harris is the devil incarnate. And we're seeing that played out across literally millions of Americans.
How do you think history teachers in (say) 2124 will explain it to truculent Year 9s?
Publics have fallen for dodgy demagogues before, but usually after an experience of utter despair- 1920s Germany, say. You don't have to think America is perfect to think that their problems don't really merit this solution.
Are there such things as "unknown knowns"? Almost looks like a foreign language doesn't it.
I have a good known unknown story.
A few years ago I was at an IP conference in Washington DC and I was walking back down to my hotel when I saw someone whose face I knew coming up the other way. He had the look of the archetypal senior partner in a US law firm. Another delegate, I assumed. I could not put a name to him but the face was so recognisable to me that it was clear we had spoken at the event and I had just forgotten who he was. There was no way to avoid him so I decided I had to say something and then move quickly on to avoid any embarrassment. I did that as we passed. "Hello, how are you? I hope all is well," I said in my brightest English voice. What I got back was a grunt and a kind of sneering dismissal. Then I clocked the security following him and I realised. It was Donald Rumsfeld!
LOL.
My memory went a little haywire after I had meningitis a decade ago. Whilst I was recovering, I was visited by one of my oldest friends and their family. I greeted them by name, but after a few minutes could not remember anyone's name or much of the stuff I knew I knew about them.
Mostly, my memory problems were short-term ones. That was a rare case of long-term memory being affected.
I still don'y know if my memory is fully back to what it was before, or if I've just got used to a slightly degraded short-term memory. It's certainly not as bad as it was.
This Trump video that is getting people so excited on Twitter.
Let's assume for a moment that it is real, that it isn't fake, that he actually did it.
I don't think anyone cares. The man literally can shoot people in the street on 5th Avenue and not lose votes. Even more, the evangelical vote still think he is Christian and represents their values.
A simply extraordinary politician - have we even seen the like before?
Much more to the point, given anyone who has been paying attention already assumed he had behaved as alleged, and anyone who isn't paying attention by definition isn't going to pay attention, it's difficult to see it making a difference.
It should do. But so should his attempts to overthrow the government. Or his multiple frauds. Or his record of business failure. Or his abject failure on every policy proposal he made as President. Or his links to Russia. Or his links to Elon Musk. Or his subversion of the US legal system.
It is remarkable how great a hold he seems to be exerting and not just over stupid people. Leon, for example, isn't stupid but has clearly been captivated because he's got it into his head that somehow Harris is the devil incarnate. And we're seeing that played out across literally millions of Americans.
How do you think history teachers in (say) 2124 will explain it to truculent Year 9s?
Publics have fallen for dodgy demagogues before, but usually after an experience of utter despair- 1920s Germany, say. You don't have to think America is perfect to think that their problems don't really merit this solution.
An entirely manufactured grievance, from a bunch of corrupt politicians.
The problem is when we have idiot politicians mouthing of student politics style demands for reparations and then suddenly those people are in power it gives the other side an even stronger case “look - even the guy who is foreign Secretary wanted reparations”.
So when people were wanting the “grown ups” in power, you are going to have to wait until we get politicians without platitudes and bonkers points that do not work in the real world.
This Trump video that is getting people so excited on Twitter.
Let's assume for a moment that it is real, that it isn't fake, that he actually did it.
I don't think anyone cares. The man literally can shoot people in the street on 5th Avenue and not lose votes. Even more, the evangelical vote still think he is Christian and represents their values.
A simply extraordinary politician - have we even seen the like before?
Much more to the point, given anyone who has been paying attention already assumed he had behaved as alleged, and anyone who isn't paying attention by definition isn't going to pay attention, it's difficult to see it making a difference.
It should do. But so should his attempts to overthrow the government. Or his multiple frauds. Or his record of business failure. Or his abject failure on every policy proposal he made as President. Or his links to Russia. Or his links to Elon Musk. Or his subversion of the US legal system.
It is remarkable how great a hold he seems to be exerting and not just over stupid people. Leon, for example, isn't stupid but has clearly been captivated because he's got it into his head that somehow Harris is the devil incarnate. And we're seeing that played out across literally millions of Americans.
Given that mass hyonotism is a rather far-fetched reason to say the least, perhaps its worth you considering that others have a more nuanced view of Trump than you because they're exposed to different, and perhaps more information about the merits of both candidates than you are. Or you could just continue dismissing everyone who doesn't have the same level of hatred for Trump that you do as mad, bad, or stupid.
This Trump video that is getting people so excited on Twitter.
Let's assume for a moment that it is real, that it isn't fake, that he actually did it.
I don't think anyone cares. The man literally can shoot people in the street on 5th Avenue and not lose votes. Even more, the evangelical vote still think he is Christian and represents their values.
A simply extraordinary politician - have we even seen the like before?
Much more to the point, given anyone who has been paying attention already assumed he had behaved as alleged, and anyone who isn't paying attention by definition isn't going to pay attention, it's difficult to see it making a difference.
It should do. But so should his attempts to overthrow the government. Or his multiple frauds. Or his record of business failure. Or his abject failure on every policy proposal he made as President. Or his links to Russia. Or his links to Elon Musk. Or his subversion of the US legal system.
It is remarkable how great a hold he seems to be exerting and not just over stupid people. Leon, for example, isn't stupid but has clearly been captivated because he's got it into his head that somehow Harris is the devil incarnate. And we're seeing that played out across literally millions of Americans.
Given that mass hyonotism is a rather far-fetched reason to say the least, perhaps its worth you considering that others have a more nuanced view of Trump than you because they're exposed to different, and perhaps more information about the merits of both candidates than you are. Or you could just continue dismissing everyone who doesn't have the same level of hatred for Trump that you do as mad, bad, or stupid.
The problem is the derangement mixed in with the fair points. Soon as they start ranting about Russia and him being a Russian asset, which he quite clearly is not, the rest just glazes over.
This Trump video that is getting people so excited on Twitter.
Let's assume for a moment that it is real, that it isn't fake, that he actually did it.
I don't think anyone cares. The man literally can shoot people in the street on 5th Avenue and not lose votes. Even more, the evangelical vote still think he is Christian and represents their values.
A simply extraordinary politician - have we even seen the like before?
Much more to the point, given anyone who has been paying attention already assumed he had behaved as alleged, and anyone who isn't paying attention by definition isn't going to pay attention, it's difficult to see it making a difference.
It should do. But so should his attempts to overthrow the government. Or his multiple frauds. Or his record of business failure. Or his abject failure on every policy proposal he made as President. Or his links to Russia. Or his links to Elon Musk. Or his subversion of the US legal system.
It is remarkable how great a hold he seems to be exerting and not just over stupid people. Leon, for example, isn't stupid but has clearly been captivated because he's got it into his head that somehow Harris is the devil incarnate. And we're seeing that played out across literally millions of Americans.
Given that mass hyonotism is a rather far-fetched reason to say the least, perhaps its worth you considering that others have a more nuanced view of Trump than you because they're exposed to different, and perhaps more information about the merits of both candidates than you are. Or you could just continue dismissing everyone who doesn't have the same level of hatred for Trump that you do as mad, bad, or stupid.
I haven't done the last, duh. In fact, I specifically said they are *not* stupid.
As for your other point re information, perhaps you could consider that it might be the other way around as I actually noted with this comment:
anyone who has been paying attention already assumed he had behaved as alleged, and anyone who isn't paying attention by definition isn't going to pay attention
This Trump video that is getting people so excited on Twitter.
Let's assume for a moment that it is real, that it isn't fake, that he actually did it.
I don't think anyone cares. The man literally can shoot people in the street on 5th Avenue and not lose votes. Even more, the evangelical vote still think he is Christian and represents their values.
A simply extraordinary politician - have we even seen the like before?
Much more to the point, given anyone who has been paying attention already assumed he had behaved as alleged, and anyone who isn't paying attention by definition isn't going to pay attention, it's difficult to see it making a difference.
It should do. But so should his attempts to overthrow the government. Or his multiple frauds. Or his record of business failure. Or his abject failure on every policy proposal he made as President. Or his links to Russia. Or his links to Elon Musk. Or his subversion of the US legal system.
It is remarkable how great a hold he seems to be exerting and not just over stupid people. Leon, for example, isn't stupid but has clearly been captivated because he's got it into his head that somehow Harris is the devil incarnate. And we're seeing that played out across literally millions of Americans.
Given that mass hyonotism is a rather far-fetched reason to say the least, perhaps its worth you considering that others have a more nuanced view of Trump than you because they're exposed to different, and perhaps more information about the merits of both candidates than you are. Or you could just continue dismissing everyone who doesn't have the same level of hatred for Trump that you do as mad, bad, or stupid.
The problem is the derangement mixed in with the fair points. Soon as they start ranting about Russia and him being a Russian asset, which he quite clearly is not, the rest just glazes over.
My glazing tolerance is pretty low with some. I usually just scroll by.
This Trump video that is getting people so excited on Twitter.
Let's assume for a moment that it is real, that it isn't fake, that he actually did it.
I don't think anyone cares. The man literally can shoot people in the street on 5th Avenue and not lose votes. Even more, the evangelical vote still think he is Christian and represents their values.
A simply extraordinary politician - have we even seen the like before?
Much more to the point, given anyone who has been paying attention already assumed he had behaved as alleged, and anyone who isn't paying attention by definition isn't going to pay attention, it's difficult to see it making a difference.
It should do. But so should his attempts to overthrow the government. Or his multiple frauds. Or his record of business failure. Or his abject failure on every policy proposal he made as President. Or his links to Russia. Or his links to Elon Musk. Or his subversion of the US legal system.
It is remarkable how great a hold he seems to be exerting and not just over stupid people. Leon, for example, isn't stupid but has clearly been captivated because he's got it into his head that somehow Harris is the devil incarnate. And we're seeing that played out across literally millions of Americans.
Given that mass hyonotism is a rather far-fetched reason to say the least, perhaps its worth you considering that others have a more nuanced view of Trump than you because they're exposed to different, and perhaps more information about the merits of both candidates than you are. Or you could just continue dismissing everyone who doesn't have the same level of hatred for Trump that you do as mad, bad, or stupid.
The problem is the derangement mixed in with the fair points. Soon as they start ranting about Russia and him being a Russian asset, which he quite clearly is not, the rest just glazes over.
The problem is you are unwilling to accept the facts. Therefore, when they are laid out for you, you come up with abuse to try and deflect from them.
It doesn't reflect well on you, but then your support for a criminal, failure, traitor and sexual predator (and yes, he's definitely all of those things, as you would know if you bothered to check his record) speaks even less well of you.
This Trump video that is getting people so excited on Twitter.
Let's assume for a moment that it is real, that it isn't fake, that he actually did it.
I don't think anyone cares. The man literally can shoot people in the street on 5th Avenue and not lose votes. Even more, the evangelical vote still think he is Christian and represents their values.
A simply extraordinary politician - have we even seen the like before?
Much more to the point, given anyone who has been paying attention already assumed he had behaved as alleged, and anyone who isn't paying attention by definition isn't going to pay attention, it's difficult to see it making a difference.
It should do. But so should his attempts to overthrow the government. Or his multiple frauds. Or his record of business failure. Or his abject failure on every policy proposal he made as President. Or his links to Russia. Or his links to Elon Musk. Or his subversion of the US legal system.
It is remarkable how great a hold he seems to be exerting and not just over stupid people. Leon, for example, isn't stupid but has clearly been captivated because he's got it into his head that somehow Harris is the devil incarnate. And we're seeing that played out across literally millions of Americans.
Given that mass hyonotism is a rather far-fetched reason to say the least, perhaps its worth you considering that others have a more nuanced view of Trump than you because they're exposed to different, and perhaps more information about the merits of both candidates than you are. Or you could just continue dismissing everyone who doesn't have the same level of hatred for Trump that you do as mad, bad, or stupid.
The problem is the derangement mixed in with the fair points. Soon as they start ranting about Russia and him being a Russian asset, which he quite clearly is not, the rest just glazes over.
My glazing tolerance is pretty low with some. I usually just scroll by.
And you accuse others of not having access to enough information to form a view because they ignore evidence that challenges it?
This Trump video that is getting people so excited on Twitter.
Let's assume for a moment that it is real, that it isn't fake, that he actually did it.
I don't think anyone cares. The man literally can shoot people in the street on 5th Avenue and not lose votes. Even more, the evangelical vote still think he is Christian and represents their values.
A simply extraordinary politician - have we even seen the like before?
Much more to the point, given anyone who has been paying attention already assumed he had behaved as alleged, and anyone who isn't paying attention by definition isn't going to pay attention, it's difficult to see it making a difference.
It should do. But so should his attempts to overthrow the government. Or his multiple frauds. Or his record of business failure. Or his abject failure on every policy proposal he made as President. Or his links to Russia. Or his links to Elon Musk. Or his subversion of the US legal system.
It is remarkable how great a hold he seems to be exerting and not just over stupid people. Leon, for example, isn't stupid but has clearly been captivated because he's got it into his head that somehow Harris is the devil incarnate. And we're seeing that played out across literally millions of Americans.
Given that mass hyonotism is a rather far-fetched reason to say the least, perhaps its worth you considering that others have a more nuanced view of Trump than you because they're exposed to different, and perhaps more information about the merits of both candidates than you are. Or you could just continue dismissing everyone who doesn't have the same level of hatred for Trump that you do as mad, bad, or stupid.
The problem is the derangement mixed in with the fair points. Soon as they start ranting about Russia and him being a Russian asset, which he quite clearly is not, the rest just glazes over.
The problem is you are unwilling to accept the facts. Therefore, when they are laid out for you, you come up with abuse to try and deflect from them.
It doesn't reflect well on you, but then your support for a criminal, failure, traitor and sexual predator (and yes, he's definitely all of those things, as you would know if you bothered to check his record) speaks even less well of you.
Sean Trende is excellent as always. He, Nate Silver, Mr. Ralston, and Anne Selzer are the four go-to pundits in the US.
They tell it as it is, not as they would like it to be.
Thanks.
This has been almost totally missed on here, and the site has been filled with wishcasting and playing the man, not the ball, when anyone dare say anything different about Trump.
Trumps had the mo for about three weeks. Harris campaign ran out of steam because she failed to resolve the change / continuity contradiction and looked shifty/empty. Meanwhile Trump doubled down on folksy crazy, which has a weird kind of authenticity.
Not good news for anyone who likes the post war settlement, nato and all that. Harris has two weeks left.
There was some good analysis the other day from, I forget whom, who explained how some of Trump's folksy stuff can even be quite endearing, like the McDonald's stuff.
I hadn't thought of it like that but I can see it now. And I'm old enough to remember when George W Bush was accused of being stupid and dumb too, and then won for similar reasons.
With the important difference that although he found it convenient to pretend otherwise, George W. Bush is in fact an extremely clever man.
Trump is definitely not.
I heard very little of this argument at the time from Liberals though.
George W was thick was a running joke.
Despite graduating from Yale, getting an MBA from Harvard and flying fighter jets for the national guard.
He did have a bit of a habit for "release the sausages" moments.
The one I remember from that time that the media thought was really funny and the guy was being an absolute moron, was Donald Rumsfeld's, "There are unknown unknowns", when in fact it was making a very important point which went over a lot of the press pack.
Scientists loved the known unknowns/unknown unknowns formulation and would use it regularly. That the Press didn't get it is an indicator that the failures of the media over Covid were not new.
We already had 4 years with Trump round 1. We have the measure of the man and know what we are dealing with. If we get round two it will not be any better that is for sure! Let's hope his golf ball lands in the bunker and stays there. Better for the majority of us this side of the pond. Ardent fans aside.
Are there such things as "unknown knowns"? Almost looks like a foreign language doesn't it.
I have a good known unknown story.
A few years ago I was at an IP conference in Washington DC and I was walking back down to my hotel when I saw someone whose face I knew coming up the other way. He had the look of the archetypal senior partner in a US law firm. Another delegate, I assumed. I could not put a name to him but the face was so recognisable to me that it was clear we had spoken at the event and I had just forgotten who he was. There was no way to avoid him so I decided I had to say something and then move quickly on to avoid any embarrassment. I did that as we passed. "Hello, how are you? I hope all is well," I said in my brightest English voice. What I got back was a grunt and a kind of sneering dismissal. Then I clocked the security following him and I realised. It was Donald Rumsfeld!
My mother did that with the Queen once. She got a much more courteous response - a smile and a twinkle as the Queen knew exactly what had happened
This Trump video that is getting people so excited on Twitter.
Let's assume for a moment that it is real, that it isn't fake, that he actually did it.
I don't think anyone cares. The man literally can shoot people in the street on 5th Avenue and not lose votes. Even more, the evangelical vote still think he is Christian and represents their values.
A simply extraordinary politician - have we even seen the like before?
Much more to the point, given anyone who has been paying attention already assumed he had behaved as alleged, and anyone who isn't paying attention by definition isn't going to pay attention, it's difficult to see it making a difference.
It should do. But so should his attempts to overthrow the government. Or his multiple frauds. Or his record of business failure. Or his abject failure on every policy proposal he made as President. Or his links to Russia. Or his links to Elon Musk. Or his subversion of the US legal system.
It is remarkable how great a hold he seems to be exerting and not just over stupid people. Leon, for example, isn't stupid but has clearly been captivated because he's got it into his head that somehow Harris is the devil incarnate. And we're seeing that played out across literally millions of Americans.
Given that mass hyonotism is a rather far-fetched reason to say the least, perhaps its worth you considering that others have a more nuanced view of Trump than you because they're exposed to different, and perhaps more information about the merits of both candidates than you are. Or you could just continue dismissing everyone who doesn't have the same level of hatred for Trump that you do as mad, bad, or stupid.
The problem is the derangement mixed in with the fair points. Soon as they start ranting about Russia and him being a Russian asset, which he quite clearly is not, the rest just glazes over.
The problem is you are unwilling to accept the facts. Therefore, when they are laid out for you, you come up with abuse to try and deflect from them.
It doesn't reflect well on you, but then your support for a criminal, failure, traitor and sexual predator (and yes, he's definitely all of those things, as you would know if you bothered to check his record) speaks even less well of you.
What are the links to Russia?
Here's a start for you, from the very earliest days of his presidency:
And only recently it emerged that several of Trump's social media supporters were funded by Moscow. They claimed they didn't know, which is about as convincing as Clarence Thomas' protestations of integrity:
Does this make Trump a Russian spy? No. Does it mean he has links to Russia? Yes. Does that make him unfit to be President of the USA? To any sensible person the answer should also be yes. So your talk of 'derangement' is simple abuse born I hope of ignorance and my criticism stands.
But as there are multiple other reasons why he should be disqualified it's actually a side point. The real question is why that's not blindingly obvious to every American voter.
Here we do possibly get to the polarisation of American politics and 'my enemy's enemy is my friend' mentality. We could also talk about the low information of many voters. If you get news off Twitter, controlled by Elon Musk* you will only get pro-Trump stories. This is bound to have a reinforcing effect.
But it's alarming. What worries me is that such changes suggest the collapse of American democracy will continue even if Trump is defeated and then presumably jailed. The MAGA followers will just find another candidate, be that Vance or Ramaswamy. And both are more dangerous than Trump because they're much younger, brighter and saner than he is.
*Amusingly, autocorrect made that into @Leon which will please him.
Sean Trende is excellent as always. He, Nate Silver, Mr. Ralston, and Anne Selzer are the four go-to pundits in the US.
They tell it as it is, not as they would like it to be.
Thanks.
This has been almost totally missed on here, and the site has been filled with wishcasting and playing the man, not the ball, when anyone dare say anything different about Trump.
Trumps had the mo for about three weeks. Harris campaign ran out of steam because she failed to resolve the change / continuity contradiction and looked shifty/empty. Meanwhile Trump doubled down on folksy crazy, which has a weird kind of authenticity.
Not good news for anyone who likes the post war settlement, nato and all that. Harris has two weeks left.
There was some good analysis the other day from, I forget whom, who explained how some of Trump's folksy stuff can even be quite endearing, like the McDonald's stuff.
I hadn't thought of it like that but I can see it now. And I'm old enough to remember when George W Bush was accused of being stupid and dumb too, and then won for similar reasons.
With the important difference that although he found it convenient to pretend otherwise, George W. Bush is in fact an extremely clever man.
Trump is definitely not.
I heard very little of this argument at the time from Liberals though.
George W was thick was a running joke.
Despite graduating from Yale, getting an MBA from Harvard and flying fighter jets for the national guard.
He did have a bit of a habit for "release the sausages" moments.
The one I remember from that time that the media thought was really funny and the guy was being an absolute moron, was Donald Rumsfeld's, "There are unknown unknowns", when in fact it was making a very important point which went over a lot of the press pack.
Oh, that was extraordinary: Rumsfield's point was extremely astute, and he got laughed at.
Because of the context.
ISIS was one of his unknown unknowns.
Had he taken his own dictum seriously, he might have been more cautious in policy making, rather than the complete opposite. Which was the Iraq clusterfuck.
AFAICR that was not why he was laughed at. People were laughing at the comment itself. Wrongly. It even won a 'foot in mouth; award.
I remember hearing a 'comedian' - probably on the BBC - ripping the sh*t out of the comment, presumably because he had not bothered to think it through.
This Trump video that is getting people so excited on Twitter.
Let's assume for a moment that it is real, that it isn't fake, that he actually did it.
I don't think anyone cares. The man literally can shoot people in the street on 5th Avenue and not lose votes. Even more, the evangelical vote still think he is Christian and represents their values.
A simply extraordinary politician - have we even seen the like before?
Much more to the point, given anyone who has been paying attention already assumed he had behaved as alleged, and anyone who isn't paying attention by definition isn't going to pay attention, it's difficult to see it making a difference.
It should do. But so should his attempts to overthrow the government. Or his multiple frauds. Or his record of business failure. Or his abject failure on every policy proposal he made as President. Or his links to Russia. Or his links to Elon Musk. Or his subversion of the US legal system.
It is remarkable how great a hold he seems to be exerting and not just over stupid people. Leon, for example, isn't stupid but has clearly been captivated because he's got it into his head that somehow Harris is the devil incarnate. And we're seeing that played out across literally millions of Americans.
Given that mass hyonotism is a rather far-fetched reason to say the least, perhaps its worth you considering that others have a more nuanced view of Trump than you because they're exposed to different, and perhaps more information about the merits of both candidates than you are. Or you could just continue dismissing everyone who doesn't have the same level of hatred for Trump that you do as mad, bad, or stupid.
The problem is the derangement mixed in with the fair points. Soon as they start ranting about Russia and him being a Russian asset, which he quite clearly is not, the rest just glazes over.
It depends what you mean by “asset”. That has a technical definition that is broader than you might imagine.
It is clear, though, that Russian money bailed Trump put on numerous occasions whether via DeuBa or the purchase of one of his homes at an inflated price. That gives Putin leverage.
Musk seems to be on a similar journey to other celebrities like that bloke from Sunday night drama Lewis (I forget his name).
He started shouting opinions on Twitter, got involved in political arguments, fell in with a certain clique and then seemed to want to grab attention by winding other people up with ever more extreme views. The end game when the law of diminishing returns kicks in, was conspiracies.
He’s not the only one.There’s something about social media that sends some famous people down a destructive path, from which it’s hard to escape.
The antidote might be to remember is that however successful you are in your professional field , your political opinions are your own. You have one vote and are no more important than anyone else.
You are thinking about Lozza Fox.
I have said this before, it is the new mid life crisis for (mildly) famous people. Morgan, Vorderman, Lineker, Fox, to name a few in the UK that have become ever more obsessed with getting engagement on the tw@tter machine and in some cases so far down some rabbit holes they start repeating untruths on a regular basis.
Rowling is the best example. Just a bit too malicious, imo. Trans got Linehan too.
Right Said Fred love a WEF/vaxx conspiracy theory.
Musk seems to be on a similar journey to other celebrities like that bloke from Sunday night drama Lewis (I forget his name).
He started shouting opinions on Twitter, got involved in political arguments, fell in with a certain clique and then seemed to want to grab attention by winding other people up with ever more extreme views. The end game when the law of diminishing returns kicks in, was conspiracies.
He’s not the only one.There’s something about social media that sends some famous people down a destructive path, from which it’s hard to escape.
The antidote might be to remember is that however successful you are in your professional field , your political opinions are your own. You have one vote and are no more important than anyone else.
You are thinking about Lozza Fox.
I have said this before, it is the new mid life crisis for (mildly) famous people. Morgan, Vorderman, Lineker, Fox, to name a few in the UK that have become ever more obsessed with getting engagement on the tw@tter machine and in some cases so far down some rabbit holes they start repeating untruths on a regular basis.
Rowling is the best example. Just a bit too malicious, imo. Trans got Linehan too.
Right Said Fred love a WEF/vaxx conspiracy theory.
Comments
Its the same reason as 2016, the social contract is broken for many (and like here why Corbyn became popular). Under Trump before COVID the economy did well without this huge inflation (who caused etc is a different matter).
Leaving Afghanistan in the way that they did was a disastrous disgrace, but it was Trump that did the deals that made it.
Domestically, objectively the US has recovered economically from Covid in a way Europe can only dream of, even if that's not entirely down to Biden, he hasn't wrecked it.
On culture wars stuff the Dems are now by and large fighting a rearguard action so I'm not sure one can say he's presided over some woke mania - it's notable Harris is running to the right of her 2020 positions on this stuff.
I think depending on what comes next he'll go down in the 'fine but flawed' category of Presidents - with the added caveat that his decline was unseemly. Unlike the proper horrorshows. But that's my opinion.
As for Harris, her popularity ratings are stronger than Hillary's were in 2016. She's obviously less experienced than Hillary was, but then how many candidates are more experienced than she was then?
I think her main problems are the way she got the job - there's a sense it defaulted to her, which looks slightly weak. And, as I said, to some extent the taboo among some groups of voting Trump has been broken. In part because the Democrats' progressive wing have repeatedly shot their party in the foot.
If you look at where she's running behind Biden (she's actually outperforming him among non-college educated white voters) it's the groups of voters Biden racked up silly numbers with in 2020 but now have a more sizeable minority voting Trump.
It being Twitter, this led to a firestorm of people accusing her of being a TERF, and she ended up going to a bit of a rabbit hole, which reached an apogee when she tweeted a picture of that Tunisian boxer.
And what's awful - and annoying - is that her original, nuanced view became destroyed by the feedback loop of Twitter.
Because Twitter destroys nuance and intelligent discourse.
Had Trump thrown a hissy fit, and said he'd actually won the Republican Primary, etc., then who knows?
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/haley-campaign-press-release-breaking-haley-beats-biden-18-points-national-marquette-poll
A CBS poll in January had Haley beating Biden 53% to 45%, DeSantis beating Biden 51% to 48% and Trump beating Biden 50% to 48%
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nikki-haley-fares-best-against-biden-2024-presidential-election-poll/
And I think it's a far from unlikely outcome.
In 2004 Kerry had he won Ohio would have won the EC despite losing the popular vote. Percentage wise Kerry was closer to Bush in Ohio in 2004 than he was to Bush in the national popular vote.
Certain swing states eg Wisconsin like left liberals, voting for Dukakis and Kerry and Obama but not Hillary for example. However nationally more voters prefer centrists like Hillary than left liberals, hence Hillary won the popular vote but Dukakis and Kerry didn't
There's an element of defiance too. If you listen to a number of Gender Critical feminist women they will justify being blunt to the point of rudeness by saying they began by being polite but people refused to listen to them and called them bigots anyway so they might as well go all in and upset those they see as needing upsetting rather than catering to.
Linehan definitely did go a bit bonkers over it all.
The one I remember from that time that the media thought was really funny and the guy was being an absolute moron, was Donald Rumsfeld's, "There are unknown unknowns", when in fact it was making a very important point which went over a lot of the press pack.
:-(
New poll: Trump is getting record levels of support among young Black and Latino men
Hence they had Trump ahead in the popular vote but Harris ahead in the key Midwest swing states and Pennsylvania
https://www.fox10phoenix.com/news/fox-news-poll-trump-harris-october-16
If it's simple incremental, it's one thing, but if it means Trump is extending his lead in Texas and Florida at the expense of votes in Pennsylvania, then it's another entirely.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REWeBzGuzCc
Those who may yet change their mind? Harris +5.
Emerson College Polling
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvB0x-WXsyI
And is why Harris' superior GOTV effort will find those late voters - and switch them.
The general point is, the known, we can decide if we need to further improve on the solution, the known unknowns, are problems we know exist, but don't know the solution, so you can decide to allocate resources to further investigate them to try and find a solution.
The unknown unknowns are the most dangerous, because if you don't know a problem exists, you won't be allocating resources to it.
Psychoanalytic philosopher Slavoj Žižek says that beyond these three categories there is a fourth, the unknown known, that which one intentionally refuses to acknowledge that one knows: "If Rumsfeld thinks that the main dangers in the confrontation with Iraq were the 'unknown unknowns', that is, the threats from Saddam whose nature we cannot even suspect, then the Abu Ghraib scandal shows that the main dangers lie in the "unknown knowns"—the disavowed beliefs, suppositions and obscene practices we pretend not to know about, even though they form the background of our public values.
Up to you if you go with that analysis.
My candidate would be something like dark matter - we know it must exist as all our mathematical models of the universe fall apart without it so it's a known. But what it actually is and how it behaves is unknown, making it an unknown known.
Nicholas Dames has taught Literature Humanities, Columbia University’s required great-books course, since 1998. He loves the job, but it has changed. Over the past decade, students have become overwhelmed by the reading. College kids have never read everything they’re assigned, of course, but this feels different. Dames’s students now seem bewildered by the thought of finishing multiple books a semester. His colleagues have noticed the same problem. Many students no longer arrive at college—even at highly selective, elite colleges—prepared to read books."
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/11/the-elite-college-students-who-cant-read-books/679945/
Swings and roundabouts.
Still disappointing.
There may be a load of other things where we're the cognitive equivalent of goats, we have the knowledge but not the knowledge of the knowledge.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/
Does anybody know how to do some kind of statistical test that would tell us if that's something that's actually plausible or whether the pollsters are all taking the path of least reputational damage and herding around a coin-flip no matter what race they're polling?
Sounds like a win to me.
But some pieces of information may be absolutely vital, and you already have them. It is just that the vital nature of it is unknown at the moment, and may not become obvious until much later, or after an event. At which point, inquiries point to it and say; "You knew this! Why didn't you do anything about it????"
Or you might have all the information, and not be asking the right question.
In the case of the 9/11 attacks, they had a fair bit of intelligence on the attackers that, if it had been assembled in the right way, may have caused serious alarm bells to ring. But the right questions were not asked, perhaps understandably.
You have the information and you understand it. You just do not understand the importance of it.
The mistake is to buy into the version of history where there are puppet masters at the top playing 8D chess.
The players are themselves upon the board
Have you considered the possibility that Putin, Xi, Trump etc have fallen down the same plug hole? Why not?
Putin was a vicious, but smart dictator. Now he is rather Trumpism in his disasters.
Xi was a smart operator - many Chinese people I talk to say that he has gone stupid. That his behaviour seems weird and no longer seems like a long term strategy.
Which is why the Ring wasn’t even interesting to Tom Bombadil. And Sam gave it back.
Trump voters are a disparate bunch. But they are united that America is Going The Wrong Way. Which is the flip side of Make America Great *Again*.
They are voting for a mythic Trump idea - not the actual orange bloke. For the people concerned about the Debt Clock, he will eliminate the deficit. For those concerned with Woke - he will defeat that. For the anti-abortion people, he will deliver more judges….
Harris is the vote for TheSystem. More of the same.
The answers will not work, but the answers are appealing, even to intelligent people.
ISIS was one of his unknown unknowns.
Had he taken his own dictum seriously, he might have been more cautious in policy making, rather than the complete opposite.
Which was the Iraq clusterfuck.
I remember hearing a 'comedian' - probably on the BBC - ripping the sh*t out of the comment, presumably because he had not bothered to think it through.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foot_in_Mouth_Award
People who were never slaves to demand money from people who don't own slaves: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd6vy79p750o
"raping death cases"
Let's assume for a moment that it is real, that it isn't fake, that he actually did it.
I don't think anyone cares. The man literally can shoot people in the street on 5th Avenue and not lose votes. Even more, the evangelical vote still think he is Christian and represents their values.
A simply extraordinary politician - have we even seen the like before?
Any political party who is in power if they are paid a penny is never going to see power again
It should do. But so should his attempts to overthrow the government. Or his multiple frauds. Or his record of business failure. Or his abject failure on every policy proposal he made as President. Or his links to Russia. Or his links to Elon Musk. Or his subversion of the US legal system.
It is remarkable how great a hold he seems to be exerting and not just over stupid people. Leon, for example, isn't stupid but has clearly been captivated because he's got it into his head that somehow Harris is the devil incarnate. And we're seeing that played out across literally millions of Americans.
https://archive.ph/O4wfl
A few years ago I was at an IP conference in Washington DC and I was walking back down to my hotel when I saw someone whose face I knew coming up the other way. He had the look of the archetypal senior partner in a US law firm. Another delegate, I assumed. I could not put a name to him but the face was so recognisable to me that it was clear we had spoken at the event and I had just forgotten who he was. There was no way to avoid him so I decided I had to say something and then move quickly on to avoid any embarrassment. I did that as we passed. "Hello, how are you? I hope all is well," I said in my brightest English voice. What I got back was a grunt and a kind of sneering dismissal. Then I clocked the security following him and I realised. It was Donald Rumsfeld!
Publics have fallen for dodgy demagogues before, but usually after an experience of utter despair- 1920s Germany, say. You don't have to think America is perfect to think that their problems don't really merit this solution.
My memory went a little haywire after I had meningitis a decade ago. Whilst I was recovering, I was visited by one of my oldest friends and their family. I greeted them by name, but after a few minutes could not remember anyone's name or much of the stuff I knew I knew about them.
Mostly, my memory problems were short-term ones. That was a rare case of long-term memory being affected.
I still don'y know if my memory is fully back to what it was before, or if I've just got used to a slightly degraded short-term memory. It's certainly not as bad as it was.
https://www.newsweek.com/tim-pool-podcast-quit-latest-1973420
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1876_United_States_presidential_election#Electoral_disputes_and_Compromise_of_1877
So when people were wanting the “grown ups” in power, you are going to have to wait until we get politicians without platitudes and bonkers points that do not work in the real world.
As for your other point re information, perhaps you could consider that it might be the other way around as I actually noted with this comment:
anyone who has been paying attention already assumed he had behaved as alleged, and anyone who isn't paying attention by definition isn't going to pay attention
It doesn't reflect well on you, but then your support for a criminal, failure, traitor and sexual predator (and yes, he's definitely all of those things, as you would know if you bothered to check his record) speaks even less well of you.
NEW THREAD
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/03/connections-trump-putin-russia-ties-chart-flynn-page-manafort-sessions-214868/
All of them could be perfectly innocuous, but taken together they look like a disturbing pattern.
To take it at random, here's another:
https://edition.cnn.com/2018/07/22/politics/butina-konstantin-nikolaev/index.html
Even Steve Bannon had concerns about the links between the two:
https://edition.cnn.com/2018/01/03/politics/steve-bannon-guardian-russia-analysis/index.html
And only recently it emerged that several of Trump's social media supporters were funded by Moscow. They claimed they didn't know, which is about as convincing as Clarence Thomas' protestations of integrity:
https://apnews.com/article/russian-interference-presidential-election-influencers-trump-999435273dd39edf7468c6aa34fad5dd
That's picked at random. There are actual book length studies on his relationship with Russian groups, e.g.:
https://www.amazon.com/House-Trump-Putin-Untold-Russian/dp/152474350X?dplnkId=aefa78d3-61fd-4637-aca9-aacd3da6304d&nodl=1
Does this make Trump a Russian spy? No. Does it mean he has links to Russia? Yes. Does that make him unfit to be President of the USA? To any sensible person the answer should also be yes. So your talk of 'derangement' is simple abuse born I hope of ignorance and my criticism stands.
But as there are multiple other reasons why he should be disqualified it's actually a side point. The real question is why that's not blindingly obvious to every American voter.
Here we do possibly get to the polarisation of American politics and 'my enemy's enemy is my friend' mentality. We could also talk about the low information of many voters. If you get news off Twitter, controlled by Elon Musk* you will only get pro-Trump stories. This is bound to have a reinforcing effect.
But it's alarming. What worries me is that such changes suggest the collapse of American democracy will continue even if Trump is defeated and then presumably jailed. The MAGA followers will just find another candidate, be that Vance or Ramaswamy. And both are more dangerous than Trump because they're much younger, brighter and saner than he is.
*Amusingly, autocorrect made that into @Leon which will please him.
It is clear, though, that Russian money bailed Trump put on numerous occasions whether via DeuBa or the purchase of one of his homes at an inflated price. That gives Putin leverage.
It's why I came off
It’s goes really wrong when people already believe they’re important. It amplifies egos.
Southam remains one of the sagest voices on this site.