“When people show you who they are believe them the second time” — Maya Angelou 2.0
They’re not stupid, the Democratic mechanism is still the most legitimate one we have. You can’t force liberalism on an illiberal, thinking population. They’ve chosen who they are.
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The one consolation of this democratically revealed social truth is that it confers natural immunity against a left incarnation of Trump walking through the opening created by Bernie+AOC. Stalin-lite will be held at bay by the paranoid fever dreams of the Hitler-lite.
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This means, absent oxymoronic emergence of moderate political charisma (been there, done that with Obama, but a repeat is psychohistorically implausible now) the only counter to extremist charisma trying to woo a fascism-lite-leaning middle from both sides, lies outside politics.
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Commercial break. This segment of the doomscroll 2020 livetweet is brought to you by my frenemies at
@ycombinator Politics is not the answer. Start up, cash in, sell out, bro down. And hire me for consulting after you get Product-Market Fit and land a series A.pic.twitter.com/TwazkrKn7E2 replies 4 retweets 41 likesShow this thread -
In light of recent events, I’m going to recode Obama’s 2 victories as a triumph of appeal of monarchical cult-of-personality charisma over fascism-lite. Obama got coded as “one of the good blacks” Blackish virtue signal so long as no real change to illiberalism called for.
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Both coding voting for Obama as “proof I’m not racist” and coding voting for Trump as “defense against radical left antifa communists” are rationalizations of thinly denied basic dispositions. And you can’t blame disinformation/media bubbles either. This is who the country is.
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If you’re comfortable with this 800lb egregorilla in the room, you’re fine. There are three possible natural reactions for those who are not fine with it: turn institutionalist-statist (impersonal state institutions as the , turn Straussian (noble-lie programmer) or Third Way.
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I believe 2010s have demonstrated 3 truths: - democracy works (screw Thiel) - Straussianism doesn’t work (people aren’t that dumb, you can’t fool all the people all the time, you’re not saintly enough to lie nobly, there are no good emperors) - Industrial institutions are dead
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So your real political choices are: - Accept your new 800lb fascist-lite egregorilla overload - invent better institutions - invent a third way to be elite that’s neither Straussian nor institutionalist - score a mansion; aka secure a tiny personal zone of political agency
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Replying to @vgr
do you think the glamorization of the american gangster in pop culture has anything to do with FLE?
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Dunno. Trump has links to it and plays to the tropes. But i don’t think it’s central to FLE. They enjoy the pop culture same as the rest of us I’d guess. It’s not like they vibe more strongly with The Godfather or Good Fellas than others.
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Replying to @vgr
something in your thread brought it up with me, along with some rappers endorsing trump. I also love all of it as entertainment and don't like the sound of FLE. maybe latest season of Fargo also influencing. anyway thanks for all the tweets, appreciate the thought provocation
0 replies 0 retweets 1 likeThanks. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. UndoUndo
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