This just seems to be observing that doing things in politics is hard. It’s always been hard, and historically political parties have had stronger mandates in the past - it’s said that American...
This just seems to be observing that doing things in politics is hard. It’s always been hard, and historically political parties have had stronger mandates in the past - it’s said that American politics was one of the a sun party and moon party. Not true anymore.
The Trump administration also did jack all of what little policy plans they had in 2016. They basically passed the tax cuts, tried to cut the ACA, failed, then gave up and twiddled their thumbs until the house was lost in the midterms.
This was probably the most interesting section for me. I've long been wondering, what makes a society, anyway? I'm socially liberal, but I find that liberals and Democrats don't really present a...
that [old] left “was committed, or so we believed, to the universal, egalitarian values of the Enlightenment represented by Jefferson, Paine, and Lincoln.”
In the 1960s, a set of disillusioning arguments prevailed on the left, particularly in academia... they “disconnected Lincoln’s proposition from the idea of America and reattached it to the aspirations of those subordinate groups of Americans—women, African Americans, the working class—oppressed, victimized, or excluded by an irremediably corrupt nation.
If America itself is immoral, then who cares what the governing apparatus looks like? ...
Politics, which is fundamentally the forming of a society, itself becomes immoral.
This was probably the most interesting section for me. I've long been wondering, what makes a society, anyway?
I'm socially liberal, but I find that liberals and Democrats don't really present a coherent vision of what society should be besides a pluralistic one — which to me seems like a cop-out "D. all of the above!" non-answer answer that leaves many important questions unanswered, like what makes us even a people? What makes this our country? What is sacred? What unites and connects us? McDonalds and mindless consumerism? Don't say "we're united because we're Americans!" because that just seems tautological.
Is this even our homeland? If we accept the premise that this is native land first and foremost and we're occupiers, then where is our homeland? China, Mexico, Ireland, or wherever our immigrant ancestors came from? And if we all don't share a homeland here, are we just guests to each other?
If the premise of our country as a project is hopelessly tainted, does that also invalidate its many ideals? And if so, then is there anything civically worth aspiring towards, or are we left with only selfish pursuit of our own individual interests?
The Republicans have a vision of what society should be: a conservative, traditional, Judeo-Christian one that I disagree with. But hey, at least they have one.
Now that a whole bunch of new areas have been opened up to critique, from trade to corporate power to mergers to industrial policy to the Federal Reserve, and the expectation among the public is that our political leaders can and should do stuff, well, voters will start to expect our democratic institutions to function. And if we can make the case, that will lead us back to being a society again.
I actually agree with this. I think the election of Trump is a bad thing, but there are many positive signs too. Many voters were willing to ignore his many, many flaws because he had a bold vision to undo the sins of globalization. But there are a lot of people who want the dots connected between global trade, corporate power, domestic economy, and how economy structures society. There is opportunity for Democrats to draw those connections.
The Democrats' message that tariffs are a tax on the working class fell flat. There is a certain indignity in being forced to buy Chinese-made goods as a middle American living in a town that has been hollowed out by deindustrialization, and there are no competitive American-made goods available to buy because the game is tilted in disfavor of American manufacturing.
I'm not sure if going all-in on unions without trying to balance the trade game is politically sustainable. I think that even union workers see and fear the writing on the wall. Why hire an American worker for $18/hr + benefits when you (and your competitors) can hire a foreign worker for 1/4th of that (or less) to make the same product and then import it?
Huh. Interesting piece, but I feel like I need to know more about economics/anti-trust to have a full appreciation for it. I can't really dive into any of the specifics on that because it's not my...
Huh. Interesting piece, but I feel like I need to know more about economics/anti-trust to have a full appreciation for it. I can't really dive into any of the specifics on that because it's not my area of expertise and I'm a dumb dumb.
That said, "Learned helplessness" is an interesting way to describe the problem that Democrats have. I can't remember where I saw it, but after the election I saw someone talking about the Democrats' inability/unwillingness to persuade Americans on an alternative vision for the country, the way that FDR, Reagan, and Trump have done. That missing element of persuasion, and the examples cited in this article, feel like two symptoms of the same problem. Why that problem exists - whether it's inability or unwillingness - is a different conversation.
Coincidentally, the last thing I was reading before this was US Representative-elect Sarah McBride's statement about using the men's room on the hill. Jesus Christ, what a perfect example. How far will the Democrats go when capitulating to Republicans? Obviously, it's probably a very difficult position for McBride to be in, and in all likelihood she'll end up using a private restroom, but this is that "learned helplessness" on full display. A non-helpless party would be behind her and refusing to let this go. Not only are they letting some of the most vulnerable people in the country down, but they're also giving up a great opportunity to get a great counter message out through a media that is obsessed with these types of culture war issues. There's just no fight in them.
My genuine opinion on the Democrats is that they see America in collapse and see an opportunity for looting. Basically the entirety of leadership must go, those people are more interested in...
My genuine opinion on the Democrats is that they see America in collapse and see an opportunity for looting. Basically the entirety of leadership must go, those people are more interested in courting donations from rich special interest groups (the last minute crypto push for example) than in leadership. they raised a BILLION dollars and still ended up 100 million in the hole? after all the stories about old people being scammed out of hundreds of thousands of dollars?
The pollsters were pretty useless this cycle, but one thing was definitely true. The average gen z voter thinks America is a failing empire run by bad people, and I think that read is spot on.
At my moments of ?peak pessimism? I agree 100% if you replace "Democrats" with "The entire US Political Engine". The whole thing feels like political theatre engineered to distract the voting...
At my moments of ?peak pessimism? I agree 100% if you replace "Democrats" with "The entire US Political Engine". The whole thing feels like political theatre engineered to distract the voting populace from decline and looting. At times that theatre has succeeded in getting me to think of old friends and extended family as enemies and generally bad people. Someone has been selling divisiveness for a very long while now, and I have bought in wholesale at my worst.
I doubt it's engineered to be political theatre. There are structural flaws emergent from the very nature of democracy, free speech, mass culture, human biology, etc. What we see as political...
I doubt it's engineered to be political theatre. There are structural flaws emergent from the very nature of democracy, free speech, mass culture, human biology, etc. What we see as political theatre is just the interactions of these structural flaws that overwhelm our individual best intentions.
There's often an unquestioned cultural assumption in the west that democracy is automatically good and superior to autocracy in every way, and that any flaw is external to democracy.
While reforming the electoral college, implementing RCV, and other things would improve the situation, it doesn't address the fundamental problem of information asymmetry and incompleteness, the easy exploitability of free speech, and the fact that there are many voters who will vote for someone because they think that they have a magic lever switch on egg prices.
It appears to me that humans in crisis are desperate for solutions, and the bigger the crisis, the less critical they become of solutions offered, favoring easy/quick fixes above all else. While I...
there are many voters who will vote for someone because they think that they have a magic lever switch on egg prices
It appears to me that humans in crisis are desperate for solutions, and the bigger the crisis, the less critical they become of solutions offered, favoring easy/quick fixes above all else. While I agree that its likely not 'engineered' it does appear to me that the uber rich are encouraging wage stagnation and exploiting the ensuing crisis of the lower classes to put forth candidates claiming to have magic egg price levers while in reality being fully invested in pushing greater financial inequality and greater crisis.
I'm not sure how Elon Musk et al compare to the robber barons in the late 1800s/early 1900s, but to my mostly uneducated-on-the-topic self, it seems like we're on a pendulum swinging between power of the middle class and power of the uber wealthy. I don't know where I got the idea that WW2 was the catalyst for pushing the pendulum back in favor of the middle class, but if that's correct I'm really hoping it doesn't take something similar to sort out our current state of being.
I recall watching a youtube video on benevolent dictators and from what I remember, it's exceedingly rare, but there is currently 1 genuinely (to me and to the youtube video creator) benevolent dictator who's been running an African state for decades now. All of which is to say, I'm not opposed to a benevolent autocracy, I'm just not betting on a positive outcome and it feels to me like the US is heading towards some sort of autocracy/oligarchy at an increasingly alarming rate...
We're already there. It's just not official yet. There's still, until January 20, some lip service about "land of the free" and "free country" and "democracy". Over the past decade, with some...
US is heading towards some sort of autocracy/oligarchy at an increasingly alarming rate
We're already there. It's just not official yet. There's still, until January 20, some lip service about "land of the free" and "free country" and "democracy".
Over the past decade, with some setup in the decade or so prior to that, the Wealth class in America has positioned themselves to take official control. Most major governmental departments are revolving doors between industry and the federal positions.
The Finance Industry is one big "fuck you" to everyone else, because "only professionals can understand the complicated world of finance" so Wall Street 'polices' itself since Wall Street staffs those departments supposed to be overseeing it.
SCOTUS has made it clear bribery is legal. You just have to do it "the right way" and it's not a crime. Project 2025 wants to gut just about every single governmental department. We're about to return to the Wild Wild West, where the wealthy rancher owns the local Sheriff, and it's so strange how anyone that rancher doesn't like is always in trouble. Or turning up dead.
That's what's about to happen everywhere. We have dozens of megacorps with nation-state money. Dozens more individuals with small nation-state money. We have several hundred wealthy ranchers who employ thousands of state and local level trusted confidants who will put every government of any level in their pocket. Bought and paid for.
Google's been fighting some antitrust stuff for a while now. Since Regan we've had a complete lack of antitrust. Really just the Microsoft IE case, but Microsoft saw how dangerous and costly that fiasco was for them, and they (along with every other mega corp) have spent the intervening decades ensuring it doesn't happen again.
Until a crusader, Kahn, came in. A true believer. Someone who's apparently resisted what were almost certainly a lot of efforts to convince her and her staff to cut that annoying shit out. Doing your job? Antitrust? Seriously? Oh, you are serious? Shit, you are serious. What can we do ... oh Trump.
He's back in office, and he can just say whatever the hell he wants and Kahn is going to be unable to continue pursuing the case. There's probably a dozen fairly simple different ways the office of the President, especially if they don't give a shit about appearances, can just make the case vanish. It won't matter that it's apparently got to sentencing. It'll just go away, and the others will too.
There's a really easy example of what's about to happen on the national scale. In The Firm, the novel not the film which differs from the way the novel wrapped up, McDeere flees to Florida trying to escape and evade the Mob. The criminals know he's in Panama City Beach, but not where. So they descend on the city with all their foot soldiers to find him.
How do they do it? Not by kicking in doors and going openly apeshit, which would bring in cops and stuff. No, they just start knocking on doors of hotels and motels and rental houses and everything like that. Each little team of foot soldiers has a stack of cash. They ask questions like "have you seen this man" and variations on that.
And they start peeling off cash. Some housekeeper says she's too busy to talk, cash just gets handed over. Some manager says guest details are confidential, hand over cash. Some taxi driver says his boss will fire him for pulling up records, cash. The foot soldiers are instructed to just keep handing over cash until the person they're questioning becomes cooperative.
Breaking legs, punching people in the eye, would draw attention. So they just keep giving cash until cooperation is achieved.
Except now, on the national scale in the 21st Century America that's been allowed to come about, there's literally zero need to pretend or hide. Want something? Start handing over money. Keep handing over money until that bureaucrat, Department Secretary, Representative, Senator, President, becomes cooperative. If they're squawking and saying things like "can't" or "not sure" or "might not be possible", you haven't given them enough yet. Keep handing money over.
Used to be, that was bribery. Not anymore. Now it's just government.
Wake up wageslaves. Time to make the doughnuts chooms.
Don't feel bad for being unfamiliar with antitrust. It's one of many legal concepts that is very important but doesn't get much publicity/ isn't taught in school. Antitrust enforcement aka...
Don't feel bad for being unfamiliar with antitrust. It's one of many legal concepts that is very important but doesn't get much publicity/ isn't taught in school. Antitrust enforcement aka preventing monopoly power is a tool toward a more just society and alleviating economic suffering.
Khan has aggressively attempted to enforce antitrust law including suing real page for rent price fixing and suing to block the Kroger grocery store merger.
I should clarify - I'm familiar with the concept and some of the broad strokes of what Linda Khan has been doing. I was referring to the evolution of the thinking, especially the part about Bork...
I should clarify - I'm familiar with the concept and some of the broad strokes of what Linda Khan has been doing.
I was referring to the evolution of the thinking, especially the part about Bork and how, supposedly, the counter-culture paved the way for his radical changes in anti-trust and regulatory policy. I'm skeptical of that claim, but I don't know enough about that era and the nitty gritty of how these sweeping changes took effect, especially when it's about something that specific. I'm familiar with the hippie to yuppie pipeline, and the general malaise of that era, but I didn't think they wielded that kind of political power or influence in the late 70s.
This is yet another article that says "the democrats are useless, because...", and I want to throe my hat into the ring: The Dems are useless because they live in a 1-party state. Trump isn't a...
This is yet another article that says "the democrats are useless, because...", and I want to throe my hat into the ring:
The Dems are useless because they live in a 1-party state. Trump isn't a real political party and the main argument of " he will destroy the country" precludes any discussion with him.
Meanwhile, leftists are dismissed because "we can't afford to piss off centrists or Trump will win and destroy the country".
Notice how none of this has any actual policy goals as its basis? The Dems heard the comment that a baked potato would be a better president than Trump, and so they're actually trying to elect the baked potato. Because they're the only game in town.
Meanwhile, the people who the Dems are trying to acquire with "we need to save democracy!", well, they want an actual democracy. The Dems' policy on e.g. Gaza stinks, they think, so they vote against the Dems.
"Vote blue no matter who" was always just a temporary solution - it got Trump out, but the actual solution needed to be implementing a third-party voting system, so that people could vote any "fuck you" candidate without spoiler-effecting Trump into office.
This just seems to be observing that doing things in politics is hard. It’s always been hard, and historically political parties have had stronger mandates in the past - it’s said that American politics was one of the a sun party and moon party. Not true anymore.
The Trump administration also did jack all of what little policy plans they had in 2016. They basically passed the tax cuts, tried to cut the ACA, failed, then gave up and twiddled their thumbs until the house was lost in the midterms.
Really really really long article for just that.
This was probably the most interesting section for me. I've long been wondering, what makes a society, anyway?
I'm socially liberal, but I find that liberals and Democrats don't really present a coherent vision of what society should be besides a pluralistic one — which to me seems like a cop-out "D. all of the above!" non-answer answer that leaves many important questions unanswered, like what makes us even a people? What makes this our country? What is sacred? What unites and connects us? McDonalds and mindless consumerism? Don't say "we're united because we're Americans!" because that just seems tautological.
Is this even our homeland? If we accept the premise that this is native land first and foremost and we're occupiers, then where is our homeland? China, Mexico, Ireland, or wherever our immigrant ancestors came from? And if we all don't share a homeland here, are we just guests to each other?
If the premise of our country as a project is hopelessly tainted, does that also invalidate its many ideals? And if so, then is there anything civically worth aspiring towards, or are we left with only selfish pursuit of our own individual interests?
The Republicans have a vision of what society should be: a conservative, traditional, Judeo-Christian one that I disagree with. But hey, at least they have one.
I actually agree with this. I think the election of Trump is a bad thing, but there are many positive signs too. Many voters were willing to ignore his many, many flaws because he had a bold vision to undo the sins of globalization. But there are a lot of people who want the dots connected between global trade, corporate power, domestic economy, and how economy structures society. There is opportunity for Democrats to draw those connections.
The Democrats' message that tariffs are a tax on the working class fell flat. There is a certain indignity in being forced to buy Chinese-made goods as a middle American living in a town that has been hollowed out by deindustrialization, and there are no competitive American-made goods available to buy because the game is tilted in disfavor of American manufacturing.
I'm not sure if going all-in on unions without trying to balance the trade game is politically sustainable. I think that even union workers see and fear the writing on the wall. Why hire an American worker for $18/hr + benefits when you (and your competitors) can hire a foreign worker for 1/4th of that (or less) to make the same product and then import it?
Huh. Interesting piece, but I feel like I need to know more about economics/anti-trust to have a full appreciation for it. I can't really dive into any of the specifics on that because it's not my area of expertise and I'm a dumb dumb.
That said, "Learned helplessness" is an interesting way to describe the problem that Democrats have. I can't remember where I saw it, but after the election I saw someone talking about the Democrats' inability/unwillingness to persuade Americans on an alternative vision for the country, the way that FDR, Reagan, and Trump have done. That missing element of persuasion, and the examples cited in this article, feel like two symptoms of the same problem. Why that problem exists - whether it's inability or unwillingness - is a different conversation.
Coincidentally, the last thing I was reading before this was US Representative-elect Sarah McBride's statement about using the men's room on the hill. Jesus Christ, what a perfect example. How far will the Democrats go when capitulating to Republicans? Obviously, it's probably a very difficult position for McBride to be in, and in all likelihood she'll end up using a private restroom, but this is that "learned helplessness" on full display. A non-helpless party would be behind her and refusing to let this go. Not only are they letting some of the most vulnerable people in the country down, but they're also giving up a great opportunity to get a great counter message out through a media that is obsessed with these types of culture war issues. There's just no fight in them.
My genuine opinion on the Democrats is that they see America in collapse and see an opportunity for looting. Basically the entirety of leadership must go, those people are more interested in courting donations from rich special interest groups (the last minute crypto push for example) than in leadership. they raised a BILLION dollars and still ended up 100 million in the hole? after all the stories about old people being scammed out of hundreds of thousands of dollars?
The pollsters were pretty useless this cycle, but one thing was definitely true. The average gen z voter thinks America is a failing empire run by bad people, and I think that read is spot on.
At my moments of ?peak pessimism? I agree 100% if you replace "Democrats" with "The entire US Political Engine". The whole thing feels like political theatre engineered to distract the voting populace from decline and looting. At times that theatre has succeeded in getting me to think of old friends and extended family as enemies and generally bad people. Someone has been selling divisiveness for a very long while now, and I have bought in wholesale at my worst.
I doubt it's engineered to be political theatre. There are structural flaws emergent from the very nature of democracy, free speech, mass culture, human biology, etc. What we see as political theatre is just the interactions of these structural flaws that overwhelm our individual best intentions.
There's often an unquestioned cultural assumption in the west that democracy is automatically good and superior to autocracy in every way, and that any flaw is external to democracy.
While reforming the electoral college, implementing RCV, and other things would improve the situation, it doesn't address the fundamental problem of information asymmetry and incompleteness, the easy exploitability of free speech, and the fact that there are many voters who will vote for someone because they think that they have a magic lever switch on egg prices.
It appears to me that humans in crisis are desperate for solutions, and the bigger the crisis, the less critical they become of solutions offered, favoring easy/quick fixes above all else. While I agree that its likely not 'engineered' it does appear to me that the uber rich are encouraging wage stagnation and exploiting the ensuing crisis of the lower classes to put forth candidates claiming to have magic egg price levers while in reality being fully invested in pushing greater financial inequality and greater crisis.
I'm not sure how Elon Musk et al compare to the robber barons in the late 1800s/early 1900s, but to my mostly uneducated-on-the-topic self, it seems like we're on a pendulum swinging between power of the middle class and power of the uber wealthy. I don't know where I got the idea that WW2 was the catalyst for pushing the pendulum back in favor of the middle class, but if that's correct I'm really hoping it doesn't take something similar to sort out our current state of being.
I recall watching a youtube video on benevolent dictators and from what I remember, it's exceedingly rare, but there is currently 1 genuinely (to me and to the youtube video creator) benevolent dictator who's been running an African state for decades now. All of which is to say, I'm not opposed to a benevolent autocracy, I'm just not betting on a positive outcome and it feels to me like the US is heading towards some sort of autocracy/oligarchy at an increasingly alarming rate...
We're already there. It's just not official yet. There's still, until January 20, some lip service about "land of the free" and "free country" and "democracy".
Over the past decade, with some setup in the decade or so prior to that, the Wealth class in America has positioned themselves to take official control. Most major governmental departments are revolving doors between industry and the federal positions.
The Finance Industry is one big "fuck you" to everyone else, because "only professionals can understand the complicated world of finance" so Wall Street 'polices' itself since Wall Street staffs those departments supposed to be overseeing it.
SCOTUS has made it clear bribery is legal. You just have to do it "the right way" and it's not a crime. Project 2025 wants to gut just about every single governmental department. We're about to return to the Wild Wild West, where the wealthy rancher owns the local Sheriff, and it's so strange how anyone that rancher doesn't like is always in trouble. Or turning up dead.
That's what's about to happen everywhere. We have dozens of megacorps with nation-state money. Dozens more individuals with small nation-state money. We have several hundred wealthy ranchers who employ thousands of state and local level trusted confidants who will put every government of any level in their pocket. Bought and paid for.
Google's been fighting some antitrust stuff for a while now. Since Regan we've had a complete lack of antitrust. Really just the Microsoft IE case, but Microsoft saw how dangerous and costly that fiasco was for them, and they (along with every other mega corp) have spent the intervening decades ensuring it doesn't happen again.
Until a crusader, Kahn, came in. A true believer. Someone who's apparently resisted what were almost certainly a lot of efforts to convince her and her staff to cut that annoying shit out. Doing your job? Antitrust? Seriously? Oh, you are serious? Shit, you are serious. What can we do ... oh Trump.
He's back in office, and he can just say whatever the hell he wants and Kahn is going to be unable to continue pursuing the case. There's probably a dozen fairly simple different ways the office of the President, especially if they don't give a shit about appearances, can just make the case vanish. It won't matter that it's apparently got to sentencing. It'll just go away, and the others will too.
There's a really easy example of what's about to happen on the national scale. In The Firm, the novel not the film which differs from the way the novel wrapped up, McDeere flees to Florida trying to escape and evade the Mob. The criminals know he's in Panama City Beach, but not where. So they descend on the city with all their foot soldiers to find him.
How do they do it? Not by kicking in doors and going openly apeshit, which would bring in cops and stuff. No, they just start knocking on doors of hotels and motels and rental houses and everything like that. Each little team of foot soldiers has a stack of cash. They ask questions like "have you seen this man" and variations on that.
And they start peeling off cash. Some housekeeper says she's too busy to talk, cash just gets handed over. Some manager says guest details are confidential, hand over cash. Some taxi driver says his boss will fire him for pulling up records, cash. The foot soldiers are instructed to just keep handing over cash until the person they're questioning becomes cooperative.
Breaking legs, punching people in the eye, would draw attention. So they just keep giving cash until cooperation is achieved.
Except now, on the national scale in the 21st Century America that's been allowed to come about, there's literally zero need to pretend or hide. Want something? Start handing over money. Keep handing over money until that bureaucrat, Department Secretary, Representative, Senator, President, becomes cooperative. If they're squawking and saying things like "can't" or "not sure" or "might not be possible", you haven't given them enough yet. Keep handing money over.
Used to be, that was bribery. Not anymore. Now it's just government.
Wake up wageslaves. Time to make the doughnuts chooms.
Don't feel bad for being unfamiliar with antitrust. It's one of many legal concepts that is very important but doesn't get much publicity/ isn't taught in school. Antitrust enforcement aka preventing monopoly power is a tool toward a more just society and alleviating economic suffering.
Biden appointed Lina Khan to run the federal trade commission.
Khan has aggressively attempted to enforce antitrust law including suing real page for rent price fixing and suing to block the Kroger grocery store merger.
I should clarify - I'm familiar with the concept and some of the broad strokes of what Linda Khan has been doing.
I was referring to the evolution of the thinking, especially the part about Bork and how, supposedly, the counter-culture paved the way for his radical changes in anti-trust and regulatory policy. I'm skeptical of that claim, but I don't know enough about that era and the nitty gritty of how these sweeping changes took effect, especially when it's about something that specific. I'm familiar with the hippie to yuppie pipeline, and the general malaise of that era, but I didn't think they wielded that kind of political power or influence in the late 70s.
Thanks for clarifying. I'm guessing that there are law review articles about the history of antitrust enforcement in the last 100 years.
I thought this article was interesting and worth discussing.
I don't necessarily agree.
This is yet another article that says "the democrats are useless, because...", and I want to throe my hat into the ring:
The Dems are useless because they live in a 1-party state. Trump isn't a real political party and the main argument of " he will destroy the country" precludes any discussion with him.
Meanwhile, leftists are dismissed because "we can't afford to piss off centrists or Trump will win and destroy the country".
Notice how none of this has any actual policy goals as its basis? The Dems heard the comment that a baked potato would be a better president than Trump, and so they're actually trying to elect the baked potato. Because they're the only game in town.
Meanwhile, the people who the Dems are trying to acquire with "we need to save democracy!", well, they want an actual democracy. The Dems' policy on e.g. Gaza stinks, they think, so they vote against the Dems.
"Vote blue no matter who" was always just a temporary solution - it got Trump out, but the actual solution needed to be implementing a third-party voting system, so that people could vote any "fuck you" candidate without spoiler-effecting Trump into office.