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ranthacc.bsky.social @ranthacc.bsky.social · 1h

We know Hillary Clinton was a reasonably honest person, because frankly she was not a good liar. She was visibly awkward when she had to spin, and because people are weak and simple they code that as dishonest.

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ranthacc.bsky.social @ranthacc.bsky.social · 7h

Exactly. We faced a true monster, and it was politics as usual. That will never not be bleak. But he's never broken political gravity, he's honestly not especially strong, and politics as usual does not favor him anymore.

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ranthacc.bsky.social @ranthacc.bsky.social · 8h

He got a pretty meaningful honeymoon bounce, because even many Harris voters see him as within the normal bounds of politics. He's since bled support, he can be defeated, but you can't just declare him intolerable and expect that to matter. That's not the country we live in.

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ranthacc.bsky.social @ranthacc.bsky.social · 21h

Europeans fight about racism less than Americans, people assume that must mean they're less racist. Almost the exact opposite of the correct inference.

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ranthacc.bsky.social @ranthacc.bsky.social · 23h

Yes, but they're the kind of very edgy boys who believe in the great filter, so in their minds that just proves how smart they are.

ranthacc.bsky.social @ranthacc.bsky.social · 1d

On the Dem side, a handful of senators can break and vote for cloture. There is no equivalent for R senators. There is no real mechanism for them to break. A majority of the caucus will have to cave, and convince the house to do the same. Plausible ONLY with such a narrow politically popular demand.

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ranthacc.bsky.social @ranthacc.bsky.social · 1d

Also, primaries have a real cost. Avoiding them is one of the big incumbent advantages, you do not throw that away lightly. And this primary would have peaked with Gaza in the background. People are not being honest about how brutal it would have been.

ranthacc.bsky.social @ranthacc.bsky.social · 6d

Making them follow through on the nonsense they sell their base might be necessary for saner politics. But their base absolutely wants stuff. This would be a brutal form of stove touching.

ranthacc.bsky.social @ranthacc.bsky.social · 7d

Thing is, Schumer is absolutely not a candidate to lead the party, and however maddening the leadership vacuum is, having him try to fill it would only get in the way of real candidates.

(Not that he could fill it, SML is a terrible platform, but we don't actually want him to try.)

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ranthacc.bsky.social @ranthacc.bsky.social · 8d

Local late 90s version was "let's hang Barney up a tree", and I'm weirdly proud of the local tweens for matching the rhyme better, but also vaguely concerned how casual we were about lynching jokes...

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ranthacc.bsky.social @ranthacc.bsky.social · 8d

Nice of her to tell us it's a Bush-era Iraq line. If left to think for themselves, even some of her readers might mistakenly assume "don't sound like you're supporting Maduro" was reasonable enough. Vital scoop, we're so lucky rich young staffers and intercept journalists go to the same trendy bars

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ranthacc.bsky.social @ranthacc.bsky.social · 9d

For what it's worth, I think the big problem with 2 party FPTP is that it supercharges hyper-partisanship. Having one other side creates a really stark Us VS Them that I worry naturally escalates.

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ranthacc.bsky.social @ranthacc.bsky.social · 9d

In theory 2 party FPTP gives marginal factions MORE power, because the mainstream party can't wait until after the election to see if they're needed. I think there are arguments why splitting the coalition into components would be better, but the result would be a more moderate mainstream party.

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ranthacc.bsky.social @ranthacc.bsky.social · 9d

Having to be in coalition with most of the country is kind of a defining feature of democracy. People struggle to wrap their heads around that, and maybe PR makes that easier, but it doesn't change the basic issue.

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ranthacc.bsky.social @ranthacc.bsky.social · 9d

It's a thoughtful and considerate article, that thoughtfully considers a bunch of arguments that are objectively untrue, and then feels very satisfied with the clever conclusion it reaches based on that.

ranthacc.bsky.social @ranthacc.bsky.social · 9d

A lot of those viral "the people support us on everything" charts came from Data For Progress, a group whose open and explicit goal was to advance the progressive faction against moderates. They put their name on every poll, their bias is open, doesn't matter.

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ranthacc.bsky.social @ranthacc.bsky.social · 9d

Having said that, I'm not sure what they do on inflation without hurting unemployment. And I really think the idea that unemployment doesn't matter is a misreading of the Obama years.

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ranthacc.bsky.social @ranthacc.bsky.social · 9d

It's still very possible to justify ending Afghan involvement, but what people actually did was laugh off even the idea there might be consequences. Made in-group references to "the blob". So many issues like that, almost like stove touching for smug policy nerds.

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ranthacc.bsky.social @ranthacc.bsky.social · 11d

They pretended like we had a system for handling divided government, they threw random old guys onto the SC. Our system absolutely breaks if you push it, and for years they just tacitly agreed not to push. Though we're FPTP, so honestly I think strong parties would make it worse.

ranthacc.bsky.social @ranthacc.bsky.social · 11d

A bunch of creepy misogynists screamed until the entire discussion around TLJ became miserable, and Disney took the people making their franchise miserable, and went "attaboy".

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ranthacc.bsky.social @ranthacc.bsky.social · 11d

...probably shouldn't use consistent to mean 2 different things. I think the movie was uneven quality, but I agree with you it was perfectly consistent in terms of plot.

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ranthacc.bsky.social @ranthacc.bsky.social · 11d

I remember being so relieved they did something actually interesting. The movie itself was brutally inconsistent, but the storyline elements it introduced were solid to very good, and 100% would have felt consistent if they'd run with them.

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ranthacc.bsky.social @ranthacc.bsky.social · 11d

I like Walz, but honest to god VP never matters. And they were told very clearly by experts that VP never matters, the election showed that VP never matters, and yet still they double down.

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ranthacc.bsky.social @ranthacc.bsky.social · 11d

I tend to think the switch marginally helped us, but only marginally, and only because we were able to pull it off so cleanly. The panic was unhinged, it's a miracle it didn't wreck us, and people like Klein were openly deflated when we denied them the circus they'd been hungry for.

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ranthacc.bsky.social @ranthacc.bsky.social · 12d

God what a frivolous moment in history. Their vision of the world was inevitable, and now all of politics was just a tedious distraction. And all because some idiots misread demographic data and declared conservatism was dead.

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