Jeremy Stangroom

First, I used the word “meme” in its original (Dawkins) meaning, so “I’ve not seen the meme” doesn’t make sense in response to it. The meme here is the idea that liberals want Trump to fail in everything, including diplomacy and peace talks. 1/

Second, it literally is a test with zero power if we agree on what I said previously (to which you at least agreed arguendo, as you responded “how does that make it...”). It has zero probability of rejecting H0 (non-tribal) if H1 (tribal) is true. 2/

Third, I’m taking it seriously because it contributes to bothsideism, which is extremely pernicious while we are facing a real danger of losing democratic institutions. 3/

We've had this conversation before. It's an entirely reasonable view that "left lunacy" makes losing democratic institutions more likely. For example, well there are endless examples, but 18 years of Thatcherite rule, Michael Foot & longest suicide note in history...

Or the polarization engendered by nationalist conflicts. Perfectly reasonable to suppose that though both sides are not equally bad, you're not going to get rid of the worse side before the less bad side reforms. That was absolutely certainly the case in the UK in the 1980s.

That looks like a terrible analogy. I don’t like Thatcher, but I’m not aware of her dismantling British institutions. Maybe I don’t know enough about UK, but I probably would have heard of something like that. And Labor in 1970s was way more left than anything of note in the US.

And Thatcher absolutely dismantled British institutions. Well that was her avowed aim. (Local government, for example. Abolished London's metropolitan authority.)

Did it make UK less democratic or less respecting of human rights than it was pre-Thatcher? Local government’s function in democracy is debatable and, in any case, London’s authority has been re-established, hasn’t it?