I answer questions about how to save the country, what we should do if it can't be saved, what worries me most about the Democrats, whether RFK, Jr has a point, and how I manage to keep faith
I’m puzzled by your opening paragraphs of AMA June 2023. You state that authoritarian one-party rule is not a primary concern then go on to describe each side’s positions as just that. I concede I may be missing your point. Thank you. TLP
I enjoyed these musings, especially the take on what has been going on with evangelicals. I never thought about how they have generated a theodicy to disguise a Machiavellian transaction. But now that you float it, it rings true.
First off, thank you for answering these questions, I think you slightly misunderstood me, I think what RFK gets right is the amount of money in the system is impossible not to be corrupted. When you say propose a better way to spend the money than on Iraq, Afghanistan, Covid, or Ukraine, and what RFK’s and Trumps voters are saying that’s not even possible because of the amount of money in the political system, the defense contractors, big pharma, basically buy off the gatekeepers, schools, government lawmakers, the media, it’s a difficult and long problem, that in many ways the republicans caused, but you need to suck out this money somehow from the system so that the taxpayers dollars can be used in ways that actually benefit Americans, $60 billion to Ukraine, come on, I actually want Ukraine in this conflict, but does anyone believe that the majority of that money is going into the hands of defense contractors, same with vax policy (I took vax) but mandates were always a big grift
"the progressive effort to make it illegal in blue states for parents to block their children’s efforts to initiate medically facilitated gender transitioning is anti-liberal"
Thank you for that.
"but so is the conservative effort to make it illegal in red states for parents to permit their children to initiate medically facilitated gender transitioning."
Sadly wrong, as I will explain below.
"The fully liberal position is to allow parents, their children, and medical professionals to make these decisions for themselves, without state interference."
Again, wrong.
Unless you want to disband the Food and Drug Administration's regulation of medications, all forms of medical licensing, etc, as illiberal.
But these are actions are not illiberal, they are the actions of a liberal government protecting its citizens from charlatans who would do great harm, harm that it is very difficult for the individual citizen to suss out alone.
Very unfortunately and unusually, the medical profession in the US has been captured by a group of charlatans, and is promoting deadly snake oil.
The situation in Europe is much better. The UK recently banned puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for children who are not participants in controlled experimental trials. This decision came after a thorough review of the available evidence. Similar reviews with similar results (the details vary slightly) have occured in France, Sweden, Finland, and Norway. Notably, all of these countries have not-for-porifit health-care systems.
The US medical establishment, under the thumb of Big Pharm, refuses to conduct a similar systematic evidence-based review, and so the crime against humanity of mutilating and sterilizing children continues apace here.
Red-state legistures are therefore DOING THEIR JOB by banning these heinous procedures, which should and would be banned by an effective patient-first medical system (as we see in Europe).
This is NOT illiberal in any meaningful sense, any more than it is illiberal for the government to ban laetrile as a cancer treatment, even if a particular patient wants it and a particular doctor wants to prescribe it.
“All of this, I should point out, is separate from the question of whether Republicans are interested in wanting the FBI to be less hostile to the right than in wanting it to revert to being far more hostile to the left.”
Thank you for responding to the original question. With due respect and more than a little curiosity, I will answer yours.
Is it a question at all? Or a false binary? I’m of the opinion, given a growing body of evidence, that the Republican Party of the 21sr Century would be just as comfortable welcoming Viktor Orban as John Locke to an inauguration ball. Therefore, the answer to the question is, (C) all of the above.
1.) The way this has actually been fixed is, to put it politely, changes in the makeup of the electorate.
The actual reality is, and you can see this in looking at polling, is outside of a few issues like gay marriage, most people's views don't actually change all that much. Like, why was there a giant rise in approval of interracial marriage in the mid-80's to early-90's? Because a large chunk of people who were already middle-aged and set in their ways during WWII, and getting Social Security during the Civil Rights Movement died off completely and were replaced by a bunch of people in the body politics, even if they were Reagan Republicans, were also pro-interracial marriage.
So, the sad reality is, we need to stick a few more elections until the actual voting power of Millenial's and Gen Z are enough to totally overwhelm the Boomer's and Gen X, at least at the POTUS level, so the GOP has to shift things. Because that's how parties come back to sanity - losting a lot, by big margins.
2.) So, the problem with the whole 'center-left economic, center-right socially' thing is due to a few reasons -
a.) A lot of those voters aren't just center-right socially, but actually pretty right-wing socially, and vote based on those efforts. They wouldn't be OK with a party that offered say, universal health care, and a 15-week abortion ban. They want the full abortion bans, the gay marriage bans, and so on. They deeply care about, just as there are a lot of people who deeply care about protecting their abortion rights.
b.) Also, there was a good Twitter thread that looked deeper into the data people usually point too, and actually, a lot of those center-left voters were basically supporting of Social Security and Medicare so they get coded as center-left, but against all other spending for poor people.
c.) Another chunk of these voters are older African-American or other voters who may not have 'woke' views on LGBT folks or abortion, but also don't care about those things. Like, some 74-year-old black grandma in exurban Columbia, SC probably codes as center-right socially in polling, but she'd die before voting for a Republican.
3.) A slight point, I thnk a few limited points have led to a somewhat overreaction about the Democrat's losing minority voters and becoming a party of only the college-educated.
First, there's the small matter, as we saw with the Dobbs aftermath, is there are a decent chunk of non-college educated white voters who are actually pretty liberal on abortion, but voted for Trump because of immigration or whatever.
Hell, you can see a more 'educated' version of that in Barstool Sport's founders Dave Portnoy's reaciton to Dobbs and the fact despite being a 'fratboy' site, they're still selling Pride t-shirts.
But, even pushing beyond that, there are several polls showing Democrat's actually did better in 2022 than in 2020 among Latino voters, or at worst, ran even with 2020. Now, yes, for obvious reason, Hispanic's will never be the 90-10 vote that black voters currently are, and appear to be for the time being, because younger black women are not slightly shifting right as younger black men are (and even then, it's getting 20% as opposed to 10%, and I wonder if people who aren't Donald "I was part of culture for 40 years' Trump could get the same support), but because the Florida GOP are really good and the Florida DNC are bad at their jobs does not mean the voting patterns of Hispanic's as a whole are going to look like Miami.
The best exit polling showed Biden winning 62% of Hispanic votes in 2020. I bet he gets around that, give or take a couple of points in 2024.
I’m puzzled by your opening paragraphs of AMA June 2023. You state that authoritarian one-party rule is not a primary concern then go on to describe each side’s positions as just that. I concede I may be missing your point. Thank you. TLP
I enjoyed these musings, especially the take on what has been going on with evangelicals. I never thought about how they have generated a theodicy to disguise a Machiavellian transaction. But now that you float it, it rings true.
First off, thank you for answering these questions, I think you slightly misunderstood me, I think what RFK gets right is the amount of money in the system is impossible not to be corrupted. When you say propose a better way to spend the money than on Iraq, Afghanistan, Covid, or Ukraine, and what RFK’s and Trumps voters are saying that’s not even possible because of the amount of money in the political system, the defense contractors, big pharma, basically buy off the gatekeepers, schools, government lawmakers, the media, it’s a difficult and long problem, that in many ways the republicans caused, but you need to suck out this money somehow from the system so that the taxpayers dollars can be used in ways that actually benefit Americans, $60 billion to Ukraine, come on, I actually want Ukraine in this conflict, but does anyone believe that the majority of that money is going into the hands of defense contractors, same with vax policy (I took vax) but mandates were always a big grift
"the progressive effort to make it illegal in blue states for parents to block their children’s efforts to initiate medically facilitated gender transitioning is anti-liberal"
Thank you for that.
"but so is the conservative effort to make it illegal in red states for parents to permit their children to initiate medically facilitated gender transitioning."
Sadly wrong, as I will explain below.
"The fully liberal position is to allow parents, their children, and medical professionals to make these decisions for themselves, without state interference."
Again, wrong.
Unless you want to disband the Food and Drug Administration's regulation of medications, all forms of medical licensing, etc, as illiberal.
But these are actions are not illiberal, they are the actions of a liberal government protecting its citizens from charlatans who would do great harm, harm that it is very difficult for the individual citizen to suss out alone.
Very unfortunately and unusually, the medical profession in the US has been captured by a group of charlatans, and is promoting deadly snake oil.
The situation in Europe is much better. The UK recently banned puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for children who are not participants in controlled experimental trials. This decision came after a thorough review of the available evidence. Similar reviews with similar results (the details vary slightly) have occured in France, Sweden, Finland, and Norway. Notably, all of these countries have not-for-porifit health-care systems.
The US medical establishment, under the thumb of Big Pharm, refuses to conduct a similar systematic evidence-based review, and so the crime against humanity of mutilating and sterilizing children continues apace here.
Red-state legistures are therefore DOING THEIR JOB by banning these heinous procedures, which should and would be banned by an effective patient-first medical system (as we see in Europe).
This is NOT illiberal in any meaningful sense, any more than it is illiberal for the government to ban laetrile as a cancer treatment, even if a particular patient wants it and a particular doctor wants to prescribe it.
“All of this, I should point out, is separate from the question of whether Republicans are interested in wanting the FBI to be less hostile to the right than in wanting it to revert to being far more hostile to the left.”
Thank you for responding to the original question. With due respect and more than a little curiosity, I will answer yours.
Is it a question at all? Or a false binary? I’m of the opinion, given a growing body of evidence, that the Republican Party of the 21sr Century would be just as comfortable welcoming Viktor Orban as John Locke to an inauguration ball. Therefore, the answer to the question is, (C) all of the above.
So, to your first few questions
1.) The way this has actually been fixed is, to put it politely, changes in the makeup of the electorate.
The actual reality is, and you can see this in looking at polling, is outside of a few issues like gay marriage, most people's views don't actually change all that much. Like, why was there a giant rise in approval of interracial marriage in the mid-80's to early-90's? Because a large chunk of people who were already middle-aged and set in their ways during WWII, and getting Social Security during the Civil Rights Movement died off completely and were replaced by a bunch of people in the body politics, even if they were Reagan Republicans, were also pro-interracial marriage.
So, the sad reality is, we need to stick a few more elections until the actual voting power of Millenial's and Gen Z are enough to totally overwhelm the Boomer's and Gen X, at least at the POTUS level, so the GOP has to shift things. Because that's how parties come back to sanity - losting a lot, by big margins.
2.) So, the problem with the whole 'center-left economic, center-right socially' thing is due to a few reasons -
a.) A lot of those voters aren't just center-right socially, but actually pretty right-wing socially, and vote based on those efforts. They wouldn't be OK with a party that offered say, universal health care, and a 15-week abortion ban. They want the full abortion bans, the gay marriage bans, and so on. They deeply care about, just as there are a lot of people who deeply care about protecting their abortion rights.
b.) Also, there was a good Twitter thread that looked deeper into the data people usually point too, and actually, a lot of those center-left voters were basically supporting of Social Security and Medicare so they get coded as center-left, but against all other spending for poor people.
c.) Another chunk of these voters are older African-American or other voters who may not have 'woke' views on LGBT folks or abortion, but also don't care about those things. Like, some 74-year-old black grandma in exurban Columbia, SC probably codes as center-right socially in polling, but she'd die before voting for a Republican.
3.) A slight point, I thnk a few limited points have led to a somewhat overreaction about the Democrat's losing minority voters and becoming a party of only the college-educated.
First, there's the small matter, as we saw with the Dobbs aftermath, is there are a decent chunk of non-college educated white voters who are actually pretty liberal on abortion, but voted for Trump because of immigration or whatever.
Hell, you can see a more 'educated' version of that in Barstool Sport's founders Dave Portnoy's reaciton to Dobbs and the fact despite being a 'fratboy' site, they're still selling Pride t-shirts.
But, even pushing beyond that, there are several polls showing Democrat's actually did better in 2022 than in 2020 among Latino voters, or at worst, ran even with 2020. Now, yes, for obvious reason, Hispanic's will never be the 90-10 vote that black voters currently are, and appear to be for the time being, because younger black women are not slightly shifting right as younger black men are (and even then, it's getting 20% as opposed to 10%, and I wonder if people who aren't Donald "I was part of culture for 40 years' Trump could get the same support), but because the Florida GOP are really good and the Florida DNC are bad at their jobs does not mean the voting patterns of Hispanic's as a whole are going to look like Miami.
The best exit polling showed Biden winning 62% of Hispanic votes in 2020. I bet he gets around that, give or take a couple of points in 2024.