it is actually true that Bernie's policies are a very mixed bag (in terms of popularity, not speaking towards viability or efficacy at all). some of the policies that are explosively popular with leftists are total non-starters with everyone else. Student loan forgiveness, etc
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the one policy that REALLY REALLY REALLY is and ought to be popular is Medicare for All. it polls well and the main resistance to it comes from corporate dominated media that seems motivated to protect the profits of the medical-financial-industrial complex.
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and then there's the Person of Bernie himself. he rates highly for authenticity and integrity which ought to be huge plusses....but Donald Trump (the most insincere, corrupt, and shitheaded political figure I've ever known) was able to get elected with millions of votes.
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so apparently what Americans vote for isn't policies or personalities but, hmmm, what do they really vote for? Do we even know? Why did Trump even win in 2016? I don't think any past analysis still holds up.
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seems to me that about 63 million voters (in the right states to secure an EC victory, despite being a minority of voters) are motivated by an unquenchable desire to inflict pain on fellow citizens and viewed Trump a their vehicle to do it.
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They don't view them as fellows, but rather as rivals or enemies in a zero sum game. With that view there's a clear imperative to hurt the outgroup, take their resources, humiliate and antagonize them until they wither and die and capitulate to total domination.
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I'm being pessimisitic again. Maybe some folks just voted Trump cuz of the R next to his name and they aren't so vicious, just partisan and callous.
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in any case nothing in politics makes sense. the U.S. is very nearly a failed state (on an institutional level, if not at every level of society), and the political system is harmful and destructive. We're fucked.
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Trump will win again despite badly botching response to Covid19 because his 62 million voters are epistemically closed and cannot find any faults in him. This is tragic. Voting is supposed to be the mechanism by which the people course correct the government. Doesn't work.
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I predict Trump will win in November and I predict that large population blue states will retaliate in every way they can eventually forcing direct confrontation with federal authorities. there might even be secession talk. possibly riots in the streets. this won't pass lightly.
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what are your probabilities for these events? no opinion about them (I have no idea) just nudging toward rigor and/or just curious how confident you are
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Replying to @eigenrobot
how would I begin to assign probabilities to these outcomes? I can't really quantify it so I'll just make a qualitative assessment. 1. extremist rhetoric on the left will ramp up massively. it will be like 2017 all over again, but much worse and much more hostile.
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Replying to @danlistensto @eigenrobot
2. blue state governors will attempt token gestures to pacify their enraged voting base but ultimately they have to manage state bureucracies and will not do anything drastic. 3. blue state big city mayors WILL resist more directly. it will get weird in a cop vs. cop way.
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