All sorts of Americans are like conjoined siblings, much too deeply and broadly intertwined with each other to be cut apart without severe damage being done.
Winning relationships with those who think differently helps to solve the problems that can be solved and to give greater protection from those who would inflame and exploit differences for their own advantage.
In a world where foreign adversaries pose serious threats, we really cannot afford to be in a civil war.
Another great conversation that makes me feel even more hopeless than before I listened.
Doesn't it really all come down to marketing to resistant consumers. Knowing your customer always helps but if one's store has a toxic brand it is hard to get them in the door to think rationally about what one actually has on offer.
Polls consistently show that Democratic policies are popular with non-Democrat voters as long as they are not identified as Democratic priorities. But once attached to the Democratic Party they become less popular. They will vote for referenda on policies supported by Democrats but simultaneously vote for Republican politicians who oppose those referenda. Is that rational?
The one point that I completely got was that people who engage less (or not all?) with the antisocial media have a better perception of reality and who other people really are. I assume they are also less ideologically biased against others with different opinions.
The future will all depend less on how candidates get marketed and more on whether Trump and his authoritarian acolytes are able to manipulate or capture the election market place itself.
Having had a night to reflect I think I have found what bothered me most about this conversation. It was the way that you discussed the current Republican coalition as somehow a normal political coalition. What I find here is a tacit acceptance of irrationality as a sort of rationality. A rationale for something is not necessarily rational. Rationalizations are also not rational in fact generally they are the opposite. That is why we speak of rational self interest. It is a real thing just like irrational self interest. And this irrationality, though more pronounced in the current Republican coalition, is bipartisan and found across the political spectrum left to right.
All facts are now alternative facts. Truth is now nothing but Stephen Colbert's Truthiness. Common sense is a cover for domination.
Our political system is experiencing market failure. "Market failure is a situation in economics where the free market fails to allocate resources efficiently, resulting in a net loss of social welfare or an inequitable outcome. It occurs when individual rational decisions do not produce rational outcomes for the group, often requiring government intervention to correct the market imbalance." (per AI) But the catch here is that the doom loop of political market failure has destroyed the possibility of government intervention. The conditions that make normal liberal democracy possible have left the building.
The way I see it today we have 1/3 of the Republican party affirmatively supporting an illegal and unconstitutional autocrat. Another 1/3 of the Republican party will tolerate the autocrat so long as the get "some of what they want" and aren't effected negatively. The last 1/3 will go along with ambivalence believing that any alternative would be worse. Similar dynamics exist in the Democratic Party but since they are out of power it isn't easy to see. But we have hints when you see how the Democrats respond to people like Manchin, Sinema, and now Fetterman. Wouldn't Bernie Sanders have to operate like a less gross Trump if he wanted to deliver on his socialist agenda? Some Republicans want to end the filibuster which is the only tool the minority has to significantly influence legislation in our three branches of government. The last two years of the Biden administration some Democrats were demanding the same. Neither party is really capable of negotiating anything in good faith anymore because they can't detach themselves from the hive minds in the antisocial media. The whole system depends on negotiation and compromise but neither side can compromise with the other side which they consider evil incarnate.
It looks to me that Trump is, for the moment, the preferred solution to the failure of the political market. I anticipate this will become the default because no one relinquishes power willingly and Republicans have the power to enforce a political monopoly and to structure the system to permanently marginalize any opposition.
I am anxious to see what happens if the Democrats recapture their majorities in Congress. Government by Presidential veto and Executive Order? With a SCOTUS predisposed to favor the Executive branch? Democrats out of frustration go totally nuclear on the Filibuster? More ridiculous attempts at impeachment and removal? Any upcoming Supreme Court vacancies will definitely be a shitshow and I definitely think that Democrats should refuse to fill any open seats until the voters have their say in 2028! Tis the curse of living in interesting times!
It's good to see rigorous academic proof for a proposition that was pretty obvious to me: Academia and the mainstream media have become bastions of far left intolerance.
All sorts of Americans are like conjoined siblings, much too deeply and broadly intertwined with each other to be cut apart without severe damage being done.
Winning relationships with those who think differently helps to solve the problems that can be solved and to give greater protection from those who would inflame and exploit differences for their own advantage.
In a world where foreign adversaries pose serious threats, we really cannot afford to be in a civil war.
Another great conversation that makes me feel even more hopeless than before I listened.
Doesn't it really all come down to marketing to resistant consumers. Knowing your customer always helps but if one's store has a toxic brand it is hard to get them in the door to think rationally about what one actually has on offer.
Polls consistently show that Democratic policies are popular with non-Democrat voters as long as they are not identified as Democratic priorities. But once attached to the Democratic Party they become less popular. They will vote for referenda on policies supported by Democrats but simultaneously vote for Republican politicians who oppose those referenda. Is that rational?
The one point that I completely got was that people who engage less (or not all?) with the antisocial media have a better perception of reality and who other people really are. I assume they are also less ideologically biased against others with different opinions.
The future will all depend less on how candidates get marketed and more on whether Trump and his authoritarian acolytes are able to manipulate or capture the election market place itself.
Having had a night to reflect I think I have found what bothered me most about this conversation. It was the way that you discussed the current Republican coalition as somehow a normal political coalition. What I find here is a tacit acceptance of irrationality as a sort of rationality. A rationale for something is not necessarily rational. Rationalizations are also not rational in fact generally they are the opposite. That is why we speak of rational self interest. It is a real thing just like irrational self interest. And this irrationality, though more pronounced in the current Republican coalition, is bipartisan and found across the political spectrum left to right.
All facts are now alternative facts. Truth is now nothing but Stephen Colbert's Truthiness. Common sense is a cover for domination.
Our political system is experiencing market failure. "Market failure is a situation in economics where the free market fails to allocate resources efficiently, resulting in a net loss of social welfare or an inequitable outcome. It occurs when individual rational decisions do not produce rational outcomes for the group, often requiring government intervention to correct the market imbalance." (per AI) But the catch here is that the doom loop of political market failure has destroyed the possibility of government intervention. The conditions that make normal liberal democracy possible have left the building.
The way I see it today we have 1/3 of the Republican party affirmatively supporting an illegal and unconstitutional autocrat. Another 1/3 of the Republican party will tolerate the autocrat so long as the get "some of what they want" and aren't effected negatively. The last 1/3 will go along with ambivalence believing that any alternative would be worse. Similar dynamics exist in the Democratic Party but since they are out of power it isn't easy to see. But we have hints when you see how the Democrats respond to people like Manchin, Sinema, and now Fetterman. Wouldn't Bernie Sanders have to operate like a less gross Trump if he wanted to deliver on his socialist agenda? Some Republicans want to end the filibuster which is the only tool the minority has to significantly influence legislation in our three branches of government. The last two years of the Biden administration some Democrats were demanding the same. Neither party is really capable of negotiating anything in good faith anymore because they can't detach themselves from the hive minds in the antisocial media. The whole system depends on negotiation and compromise but neither side can compromise with the other side which they consider evil incarnate.
It looks to me that Trump is, for the moment, the preferred solution to the failure of the political market. I anticipate this will become the default because no one relinquishes power willingly and Republicans have the power to enforce a political monopoly and to structure the system to permanently marginalize any opposition.
I am anxious to see what happens if the Democrats recapture their majorities in Congress. Government by Presidential veto and Executive Order? With a SCOTUS predisposed to favor the Executive branch? Democrats out of frustration go totally nuclear on the Filibuster? More ridiculous attempts at impeachment and removal? Any upcoming Supreme Court vacancies will definitely be a shitshow and I definitely think that Democrats should refuse to fill any open seats until the voters have their say in 2028! Tis the curse of living in interesting times!
Why would you want to win over people whose values and views repulsed you?
I think the point is to win over the "exhausted middle", not the "wings".
It's good to see rigorous academic proof for a proposition that was pretty obvious to me: Academia and the mainstream media have become bastions of far left intolerance.
Yeah, out of touch. And the 40% arent reaching over.