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The gods of impossible problems drew cards in 2014 and decided to go in low-to-high order. Traumatized whiteness in 2016, middle class precarity in 2020, climate in 2024. 3-act tragedy. No problem actually solved. Just 3 groups of people allowed their scream-to-be-seen turns.
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One reason big problems rarely actually get solved is that most people are easily bought off by being given an opportunity to be seen/heard as having the problem. Not only are they satisfied with the recognition, they resist actual solutions because the problem is their identity.
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These problems are not solvable. Only crashable. As in a Flight 93 takeover and crashing of the institutions seen (mostly incorrectly) as responsible, without better ones ready to fill the vacuum, and without regard to actual functions. So in each case “now you have 2 problems.”
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It’s like how in riots over any issue, small businesses get looted because they are visible targets that vaguely rhyme with the obscure root causes of whatever is angrying up the mob. 2016-28 is going to be “riot democracy” with the vote being about “who gets to loot next?”
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A tale of 3 democracy riots 2016: Traumatized whiteness = “nationalism” = loot elite and impersonal state institutions 2020: Traumatized precariat = “inequality” = loot market institutions and large corps of the Buyback 500 2024: Traumatized planet = “climate change” = loot ?
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In 2016, clueless institutional elites like me had NO idea how much disaffected whites were directing (however inappropriately) their hulk-smash energy towards us. In many cases targeting institutions they weren’t aware they were dependent on. 2020 = clueless billionaires.
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They think it’s about defeating Warren the way we thought it was about defeating Trump. They think “reasonable” explanations pointing out how their mental models are misframed and the anger misdirected will defuse the anger just as in 2016.
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In 2016 we clung to stories about how “America was already great” and global prosperity that simply weren’t believed by activated crowd. In 2020 they cling to stories about historic stock market highs and low unemployment that simply aren’t being believed by activated crowd.
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In 2016 elites didn’t realize the extent to which opioid crisis had become the rallying symbol of anger, whatever its actual importance in the larger scheme of things. In 2020 the wealthy aren’t realizing the extent to which housing/urban blight have become the rallying symbol
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The “enemy” in the inequality riots election is a Venn diagram of 3 parties: billionaires, urban NIMBYs in high value geographies, and stock-owning class that has seen nominal wealth balloon from QE-buyback loop. Warren and Yang are the paladins vying to represent the anger.
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I don’t think Bernie strikes the right note in representing the anger. His message is too big-tent dilutive of inequality. But even if both lose and a more wealth-friendly candidate (Trump or one of the other Democrats) wins, the anger energy will define 2020-24.
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In fact I think that’s the likely outcome. Traumatized whiteness had the strong tailwind of electoral college mechanics to make itself heard and let off steam at White House level. Traumatized urban precariat has a strong headwind in the same department. This is bad news.
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Why? Because if it can’t find electorally legitimate (module Russia) expression it feels is proportionate to energy, you’ll get more chaotic riots not less. Think Hong Kong.
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I’ve now heard multiple very wealthy people (n ~ 6) argue that inequality is a misframing and wealthsplain the “real problem” to me. They’re missing the point. If enough people believe “inequality” is the right framing, it will prevail and direct the anger energy.
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I think they all sincerely believe in some sort of “approximate meritocracy and Darwinian competition” folk theory, where even if they are compassionate rather than contemptuous towards precariat, they think it’s the only way the world can work. They’re TINA theorists.
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Effectively they’ve used the failure of 1910s vintage communism to convince themselves aggregate low-wealth political interests is not a contender at all in the Darwinian political arena, except in extremist Venezuelan form which of course can’t happen here.
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Just like in 2016, institutional elites had concluded that of course illiberalism had been permanently falsified in 1933 and ethnonationalosts couldn’t aggregate into political contenders at all, except in extremist Greece/Italy form which of course couldn’t happen here.
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Initially I thought healthcare would be the rallying symbol. But now I think the angries are young and healthy enough that they feel the pain of high rents far more than the cost of healthcare. Many are even choosing to live dangerously without health insurance.
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In general, in all these democracy riots, the systematic political miscalculation is believing live players to be dead players. Weakening players are not dead players and dead players are not extinct players. There are downcycling weapons-of-the-weak available at every stage down
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Live player/dead player is a choice to act with agency *in whatever form it is available to you*. So weak live players band together in collective action tactics as they weaken. Disenfranchised players band together in civil disobedience actions as they weaken. Etc.
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No sufficiently large constituency ever just lays down and meekly dies just because more powerful players have declared them terminal losers marked for extinction. There's always a subset willing to fight to bitter end, for at least delivering a bloody nose to the "winners".
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It's like that trope in horror movies or thrillers where the beast/villain is down for the count, but with the last breath of life, grabs the hero by the ankle and drags him down too. gandalfbalrog.gif
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A couple more points. There's an arc to this 3 act story with 2 dimensions. Shifting focus and downward devolution in abstraction level of the discourse.
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Downward devolution: Act 1 = war of ideas/ideologies (vote with words, virtue signals) Act 2 = war of economic trends (vote with dollars, economic signals) Act 3 = war of material trends (vote with lifestyle choices/designs)
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Harambe inaugurated Act 1 with a nihilistic null signals, a skip-to-the-end doomerism around discourses that were already visibly futile Ok boomer is inaugurating Act 2 by explicitly disengaging from the idea-level discourse and says "see you in the ballot box/market/court"
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Simpler version of the whole story: 2016: Vote with memes 2020: Vote with dollars 2024: Vote with feet This is assuming the core 3 tragic problems remain unsolved and nobody sees any net increase in agency/imagination.
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In 3 years it's obvious that traumatized whiteness has not actually been solved by Trumpism. It's just handed out some palliative care in the form of twitter owns. In the next year, that will "settle" into a permaweird limbo equilibrium, kinda like Richard Spencer.
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