United States Politics Thread 47

[Ares Land]

Yes, that's common practice in a number of industries (to varying degrees). I'd say it's a pretty common sense practice at heart.

There's a similar distrust of American products, though of course it's very difficult to put in practice.

Open source software can be checked for spyware.

At a cost, though. It may be more economical to stick to known sources.

[rotting bones]

Yes, that's common practice in a number of industries (to varying degrees). I'd say it's a pretty common sense practice at heart.

There's a similar distrust of American products, though of course it's very difficult to put in practice.

Open source software can be checked for spyware.

At a cost, though. It may be more economical to stick to known sources.

Open source software can be checked for spyware by the whole internet. That's one of the major benefits of using it. If it's a major project, any spyware in it will be known in online gossip. It will no longer be a major project as people stop using it. By contrast, Windows was logging every keystroke at one point including credit card numbers.

[Ares Land]

Open source software can be checked for spyware by the whole internet. That's one of the major benefits of using it. If it's a major project, any spyware in it will be known in online gossip. It will no longer be a major project as people stop using it. By contrast, Windows was logging every keystroke at one point including credit card numbers.

I can get the idea of rejecting open source originating in China. Especially if there isn't a large community behind it.

I do think rejecting open source in favor of Microsoft or Oracle because it's in the internal catalog is utterly stupid and that's definitely something that happens too.

[zompist]

Re: the discussion of what Trump might need to turn things around now: I don't know whether anything could turn things around for Trump himself. But arguably, what the larger MAGA Movement could use right now would be for Trump personally to somehow go away. I don't know whether that would repair everything for them, but it might improve their chances.

I wouldn't be sure of that. For one thing, Republicans have barely budged in their support for Trump. He's cratering among independents, but has stayed at or near 90% with Republicans.

And two, I think there'd be a real Death of Stalin situation when Trump's gone. He loves sycophants; he hates rivals. The Republican leadership offers slim pickings, a bunch of people who were completely unable to rival Trump: Rubio, Cruz, de Santis, Haley, and others it's not even worth looking up. Apparently JD Vance has similar popularity ratings to Trump, but I don't think that support is deep. And of course if Trump somehow lets down the MAGAhats, Vance will probably be caught in the crossfire.

Though it's opaque to outsiders, Trump has a particular mystique no other Republican has matched, and they've had 9 years to study him.

[Ares Land]

Though it's opaque to outsiders, Trump has a particular mystique no other Republican has matched, and they've had 9 years to study him.

I agree, and I think in a way it crosses party lines.
There's a certain fascination -- for the rest of us he's extraordinarily repulsive which is perhaps the other side of the same effect. Plus a certain feedback loop: Republicans love him, which makes the rest of the planet talk about him and hate him even more, which makes Republican love him even more and so on.

By contrast Vance is hateable and spectacularly unfit, but I don't know, more ordinary.

I think Trump also has a sense of theater most politicians lack, and a taste for the unexpected. His praising Mamdani was very Trump-ish.
Nature is amazing sometimes. To think he's doing it with only half a brain!

[Raphael]

I hate to do this, what with the Nazi Bar thing and all that, but I found an interesting piece on a Substack-hosted website to which I want to link to. It's about the question of what politics might be partly about aside from the Right/Left divide.

There've been some discussions on the ZBB in the past about what axes other than Left/Right there might be in politics. Now, some people including some guy named G. Elliott Morris have done a survey in the USA, and say they found some interesting stuff:

https://www.gelliottmorris.com/p/not-ju ... ost-voters

The tl:dr version is basically this graphic:

https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/Nvzj7/5/

The special thing about this survey is that in one question, participants were asked to freely write down, in their own words, what they would like to see in a party.

End result, they're dividing the people who filled out their survey into the following groups:

1) The people whose preferences are "Affordability/General Wellbeing/No Ideological Content": 38 percent

2) The people whose preferences are "Generally Right-Leaning Positions": 26 percent

3) The people whose preferences are "Generally Left-Leaning Positions": 26 percent, too. To be honest that seems a bit too suspiciously neat to me. Not sure if it smells right.

4) The people whose preferences are "Populist/Anti-Party/Disengaged": 6 percent

5) The people whose preferences are "Explicitly Moderate/Mix of Partisan Positions": 4 percent. That last group are the people about whom a lot of Very Smart Political Experts say that all parties and politicians should try to woo them.

I do kind of wonder how and where the people running the survey found their participants.

So, what do you make of all this?

[MacAnDàil]

Surely some people may confuse the 'general wellbeing' group with the centrist one thus giving the impression that the latter is more important than it really is.

[Raphael]

Surely some people may confuse the 'general wellbeing' group with the centrist one thus giving the impression that the latter is more important than it really is.

Good point!

[malloc]

Your rhetoric is indistinguishable from that of a Trump sycophant.

Perhaps so, but I cannot help but find his incredible success and seemingly invincible popularity at least somewhat impressive. It seems difficult to name any other leaders who have maintained such enduring followings despite objectively sucking at pretty much everything.

[Travis B.]

Your rhetoric is indistinguishable from that of a Trump sycophant.

Perhaps so, but I cannot help but find his incredible success and seemingly invincible popularity at least somewhat impressive. It seems difficult to name any other leaders who have maintained such enduring followings despite objectively sucking at pretty much everything.

You are seemingly oblivious to the fact that Trump is at his least popular right now.

[malloc]

You are seemingly oblivious to the fact that Trump is at his least popular right now.

Sure but he still has something like a 40% approval rating, which is truly astounding considering his terrible record.

[Travis B.]

You are seemingly oblivious to the fact that Trump is at his least popular right now.

Sure but he still has something like a 40% approval rating, which is truly astounding considering his terrible record.

Mind you, those people are largely Republicans who'd still support him even if he shot someone in broad daylight in Times Square with millions of witnesses.

[malloc]

Mind you, those people are largely Republicans who'd still support him even if he shot someone in broad daylight in Times Square with millions of witnesses.

That doesn't really change my basic point, though. Trump still has 40% support either way and you even admit he would retain 40% support even after unambiguously committing homicide. Attributing that to dogmatic Republicans does not change the fundamental fact of his invincibility.

[rotting bones]

The thing you have to understand about Republicans is that it is common for them not to know the policies of their own candidates. Some of them do know the policies, and many of those people are hoping the Republicans will bail out their failing businesses.

[zompist]

End result, they're dividing the people who filled out their survey into the following groups:

1) The people whose preferences are "Affordability/General Wellbeing/No Ideological Content": 38 percent

2) The people whose preferences are "Generally Right-Leaning Positions": 26 percent

3) The people whose preferences are "Generally Left-Leaning Positions": 26 percent, too. To be honest that seems a bit too suspiciously neat to me. Not sure if it smells right.

4) The people whose preferences are "Populist/Anti-Party/Disengaged": 6 percent

5) The people whose preferences are "Explicitly Moderate/Mix of Partisan Positions": 4 percent. That last group are the people about whom a lot of Very Smart Political Experts say that all parties and politicians should try to woo them.

On the last point, I think you're misinterpreting the pundits. Absolutely no one says "The key thing is to woo a group numbering 4% of the population." It's a matter of simple observation that there is a large group of people who move between parties; that's why we can see a twenty-point swing between elections. The pundits actually talk about an "Independent/Other" group that makes up 35% of the population. Similarly Gallup finds 34% of voters identifying as "moderate".

Now, this fellow also finds 38% of the public not clearly aligned with conservatives or liberals. I'd be highly surprised if we're not talking about the same people.

The Pew site I linked to also shows that these days, the middle can be pretty neatly sorted into "leans Republican" and "leans Democratic". So I doubt his conclusion that people are non-ideological.

A bunch of people have said that the key to fighting authoritarianism is to concentrate on bread and butter issues— things that benefit the average voter. Of course, Democrats would say that they do so already, and the media ignore what they say on those issues.

I don't know this guy, but I assume he's a centrist, because a third party is the perennial temptation for pundits, and every few years someone tries it. It never works. It might with proportional representation, who knows. One reason is probably that such attempts always seem to aim at "Republican Lite", not "Democrat Lite". Another is that centrists just don't care enough to do all the political organizing, donating, voter-calling, etc. that would actually build a movement. Some people just vote based on the vibes in the last month, and there really are no centrist vibes.

There are always non-voters. People usually think that non-voters will vote for their particular obsesssion, but I sincerely doubt that there are many non-voters who think "I'd vote if only the candidates pandered to the center more." Everyone panders to (what they think is) the center.

Finally, I'd note that prices are not going to go down, and we don't want them to. That's called a "depression." *

* Two exceptions: products can go down in price due to technological improvements; raw resources can go down when a temporary squeeze lifts. E.g. the price of chocolate is 10x its normal rate, mostly due to drought and a virus.

[rotting bones]

Finally, I'd note that prices are not going to go down, and we don't want them to. That's called a "depression."

We don't under capitalism. We do under socialism. This is the sense in which people don't realize that everyone (except a mainstream economist) is a socialist at the end of the day.

[rotting bones]

Honestly, I'm not sure oligopolists don't want a market crash. When the market crashes, businesses get closer to monopolies. The distance between the rich and the poor increases, making the poor more dependent on the rich. Small businesses and consumers in general suffer.

[zompist]

Finally, I'd note that prices are not going to go down, and we don't want them to. That's called a "depression."

We don't under capitalism. We do under socialism.

You can claim anything you want about an untested pie-in-the-sky future, but socialist regimes to date are not known for efficiency. You can decree low prices all you like; then you get shortages.

Don't get me wrong; I want a far more left-wing economy. But here you are just declaring that your perfect system will be perfect.

Honestly, I'm not sure oligopolists don't want a market crash.

As noted by the notorious socialist Adam Smith.

[rotting bones]

Finally, I'd note that prices are not going to go down, and we don't want them to. That's called a "depression."

We don't under capitalism. We do under socialism.

You can claim anything you want about an untested pie-in-the-sky future, but socialist regimes to date are not known for efficiency. You can decree low prices all you like; then you get shortages.

Don't get me wrong; I want a far more left-wing economy. But here you are just declaring that your perfect system will be perfect.

Honestly, I'm not sure oligopolists don't want a market crash.

As noted by the notorious socialist Adam Smith.

I use the same reasoning economists use. The only difference is that I'm not throwing anyone under the bus. Mainstream economists mainly care about a line going up. I mainly care about the lives of real people.

[Travis B.]

We don't under capitalism. We do under socialism.

You can claim anything you want about an untested pie-in-the-sky future, but socialist regimes to date are not known for efficiency. You can decree low prices all you like; then you get shortages.

Don't get me wrong; I want a far more left-wing economy. But here you are just declaring that your perfect system will be perfect.

Honestly, I'm not sure oligopolists don't want a market crash.

As noted by the notorious socialist Adam Smith.

I use the same reasoning economists use. The only difference is that I'm not throwing anyone under the bus. Mainstream economists mainly care about a line going up. I mainly care about the lives of real people.

The problem with prices going down is then you end up in a deflationary spiral. Note, however, that prices going down once Trump's insane tariffs are stopped would hurt no one, as the extra money is being siphoned off rather than actually being conveyed to sellers.