Author | Lightnews

Reposted by Patriot Snopes

Aram Sinnreich @aramsinn.bsky.social · 7h

For those of you who don’t know, the residents of Paterson are overwhelmingly Black and Latino.

newjersey.news12.com/bomb-threats...

Bomb threats force closures at some New Jersey polling places

Paterson Mayor Andre Sayegh said polling sites at School 2 and School 10 in Paterson were shut down after threats were received.

newjersey.news12.com

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Patriot Snopes @patriotsnopes.bsky.social · 6d

I'm on here to explore the world of ideas with bluesky's brightest minds, but they just want to insult my podcast 😂

Patriot Snopes @patriotsnopes.bsky.social · 7d

I think that's fair. I've just heard a lot of maximalist "outcomes-don't-matter-at-all", which is unnerving, because if that's true then everything is just rhetoric and the good guys have no long term structural advantage. We'd just be at the whim of whoever is better at manipulating the public.

Patriot Snopes @patriotsnopes.bsky.social · 7d

"When you have the power you should do good things on their own merits, and it’s disconnected from electoral outcomes."

All I'm arguing is it can't be *completely* disconnected from electoral outcomes, which also seems to be the position Stancil takes. Obvs it's not as connected as we would like

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Patriot Snopes @patriotsnopes.bsky.social · 7d

All of this is straining under the sway of a populist demagogue, but to say outcomes don't matter AT ALL, that popular will does NOTHING to improve governance is going too far.

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Patriot Snopes @patriotsnopes.bsky.social · 7d

Despite the current extreme polarization, politics is not a zero-sum game. People broadly agree that economic growth and curing disease is good. Crime, corruption, pollution are bad. They don't want to die in meaningless wars.

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Patriot Snopes @patriotsnopes.bsky.social · 7d

Democracy *does* create a conflict resolution system, it's just not what gets the kids in Madagascar in the streets. They think they should be the ones making decisions because they will make better decisions that will improve their lives

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Patriot Snopes @patriotsnopes.bsky.social · 7d

Right, but then the argument above is that the grievances aren't actually addressed any better under democracy (because if they were outcomes would have improved, policies and parties that better address grievances would tend to win out)

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Patriot Snopes @patriotsnopes.bsky.social · 7d

Name 5

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Patriot Snopes @patriotsnopes.bsky.social · 7d

People don't wage democratic revolutions to create some sort of conflict resolution mechanism. They do it because they have actual grievances that aren't being addressed because people in power aren't accountable to them.

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Patriot Snopes @patriotsnopes.bsky.social · 7d

It's less vulnerable to the depraved whims of a dictator such as invading Ukraine. You can point to Iraq and Vietnam but we were forced to leave both because of public opinion and each had profound effects on our politics.

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Patriot Snopes @patriotsnopes.bsky.social · 7d

I agree democracy doesn't produce ideal outcomes, but it does produce better ones, on average. It doesn't just stifle violence — people get actual grievances addressed, because they have actual power.

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Patriot Snopes @patriotsnopes.bsky.social · 7d

That wasn't my intent. I know you're not arguing for despotism. My question was if you don't think democracy improves outcomes, isn't this a lot of work for no tangible payoff. It's not meant as an attack on you

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Patriot Snopes @patriotsnopes.bsky.social · 7d

Did I insult you in some way?

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Patriot Snopes @patriotsnopes.bsky.social · 7d

I never said it achieves "ideal" anything. But I do think democracies make better decisions, have lower levels of corruption, and enjoy greater prosperity because you are polling from all of society with many different viewpoints and more information than a single potentially crazed despot.

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Patriot Snopes @patriotsnopes.bsky.social · 7d

It's the scenario you've outlined in which popular will has no relation to popular good.

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Patriot Snopes @patriotsnopes.bsky.social · 7d

Right, so a feeling of autonomy which is basically hollow because it can't actually improve your situation, and stability, which plenty of authoritarian regimes achieve through propaganda, etc If this is true democracy in screwed and perhaps not worth saving. But I don't think it is.

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Patriot Snopes @patriotsnopes.bsky.social · 7d

If allowing people to pick their own rulers doesn't improve outcomes then what's the point? You're saying it's purely symbolic and we'd be just as well off with a despot?

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Patriot Snopes @patriotsnopes.bsky.social · 7d

But isn't this the whole premise of democracy? Why let people choose if they don't preference superior outcomes?

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Patriot Snopes @patriotsnopes.bsky.social · 9d

They're simply diagnosing why she has lower favorability. How do you read this as "hostility?"

Patriot Snopes @patriotsnopes.bsky.social · 13d

What did the oyster farmer say when he found out he had a Nazi tattoo?
aw shucks

Patriot Snopes @patriotsnopes.bsky.social · 14d

Just an enormous benefit of the doubt we're being asked to extend to someone with no political track record

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Patriot Snopes @patriotsnopes.bsky.social · 14d

Problem with accidentally getting a Nazi tattoo while fighting a war you previously protested is it makes you look like an idiot.

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Patriot Snopes @patriotsnopes.bsky.social · 14d

ELECTION BOMBSHELL: Gov. Janet Mills reveals she ALSO has a Nazi
Totenkopf tattoo.

Reposted by Patriot Snopes

Laura Bassett @lebassett.bsky.social · 14d

See the issue is that Trump ran on releasing on the Epstein files, and Bondi said she had them sitting on her desk ready to go, and then Elon Musk tweeted that Trump was in them and they were suddenly deemed a hoax and Ghislaine was moved to a spa prison, so you can understand the fresh intrigue

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 14d

Mike Johnson: "Suddenly now, they've somehow convinced themselves that the Epstein files will be damaging to President Trump and Republicans in some way that they've imagined, and so they feign outrage."

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