I'm really coming to think the shorthand moderate = centrist = median voter heuristic is the source of a lot of these dumb debates. Like it's a pretty banal observation that staking out too many out of step positions is bad politics.

I'm of two minds on oligarchy rhetoric: 1. We absolutely should focus are fire on bad actors like Musk and Thiel and specific corporations like Palantir. 2. But there really is general dissatisfaction with elites + the whe vibescession that you can't just ignore.

The other thing I think we're seeing from the later batches of election results is below the surface, Trump's grip on the most engaged Republican voters has clearly culminated.

I will say Democrats do face real tension between their primary electorates and the swing voters who decide general elections.

I think we can stick a fork in Resistance grift. It is cooked. Performance without visionary substance is losing.

I'm honestly less worried about old books getting pulped and more worried what kind of revanchist antediluvian garbage they're feeding into these models to train them in the fine arts of phrenology or witch hunting.

Has anyone pointed out yet that scrapping EMALS is going to significantly hinder the Navy's ability to adapt Ford class carries to the inevitable pivot to drone operations over the next 50-75 years? Grandpa is not just costing us buckets of money. He's actively sabotaging the future.

Never in my lifetime has a Democratic Speaker/Minority Leader been particularly impressive on TV and I'm ok with that as long as they're good at whipping votes. This is a quintessential insider job.

"HR training" for the vast majority of working people means sitting through a couple of hours of cringey videos that were probably filmed in Vancouver, BC and maybe answering a quiz designed to make it impossible to fail unless you answer wrong on purpose.

Now that supplements woo is right coded, Democrats should just go ahead and give the FDA real power to regulate those things for efficacy. This is absolutely a key pillar in cutting off the right wing disinformation-industrial complex at the knees.

My gut instinct is all the culture warring isn't going to work when diesel is over $5 on a national average and that's trickling into everything. It's still the treatlers' country and we're just living in it.

Anyway, I'm leaning toward national Prop 187 being a highly likely post-Trump outcome now. MAGA as a durable multiracial working class coalition ain't happening, and they'd rather burn the country down to the roots than give up white supremacist fantasies.

Chris Wyman@wymancr.bsky.social · 5d ago

You know Texas is close when they're pulling out all the old Islamophobic hits. I can smell the sweaty desperation in Austin all the way up here in North Texas. I think we're getting a good idea how much uglier this is going to get trying to copy Trump without the celebrity.

You know Texas is close when they're pulling out all the old Islamophobic hits. I can smell the sweaty desperation in Austin all the way up here in North Texas. I think we're getting a good idea how much uglier this is going to get trying to copy Trump without the celebrity.

DFW Airport abandons plan to add more Islamic foot-washing stations after Abbott threat

Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport says it will no longer consider adding more Islamic foot-washing stations after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott threatened to pull funding due to “illegal religious disc...

www-fox4news-com.cdn.ampproject.org

(That was Warframe community of course, but you can think of any number of online games with clan mechanics that substitute for bowling leagues)

Chris Wyman@wymancr.bsky.social · 6d ago

I am thoroughly unconvinced the decline of Boomer social activities like bowling is causing America's civic decline because by and large that kind of communal play has simply been replaced by online gaming, and things like the Warfare community are absolutely just as if not more vibrant.

I think we need to be very careful about GLP1a discourse. They don't completely "cure" obesity for everyone, but the profound 15-30% reduction in weight plus other metabolic effects does seem to massively improve health markers even if you never reach "normal" BMI and that is huge.

The central problem for Democrats is people think they're weak and easily jerked around by weird activists. The central problem for Republicans is people think they're callous and Trump was only able to counter that because of his celebrity persona. They are now reverting to type.

Retailers cannot refund consumers directly. That is not a thing. But they could be using tariff refunds to discount prices temporarily or give employees windfall bonuses instead of doing share buybacks and CEO perks.

Elizabeth Warren@warren.senate.gov · 7d ago

Apple: ~$2.2 billion Nike: $986 million FedEx: ~$800 million Amazon: $640 million General Motors: $500 million Giant corporations are raking in millions in tariff refunds and getting even richer. But remember: corporations passed tariff costs on to you. Where's YOUR refund?

I am thoroughly unconvinced the decline of Boomer social activities like bowling is causing America's civic decline because by and large that kind of communal play has simply been replaced by online gaming, and things like the Warfare community are absolutely just as if not more vibrant.

Ok, this argument over where students should register to vote is dumb because philosophically, you should have a voice in the government who's jurisdiction you're primarily subject to. Despite some carve outs for taxation students absolutely face arrest and prosecution where they attend school.

Threads vs X vs Bluesky is an interesting case study in size, cultural relevance and founder effects. Threads is genuinely huge and quite active, but not many political and media elites use it as an assignment desk so it's impact on discourse is neglible.

Revising my views from WI, it seems electability arguments *can* work if you have actual evidence to support them (eg Republicans clearly preferring to run against someone plus good polling plus the weaker candidate doing something stupid). But just handwaving over ideology doesn't cut it.

I'm honestly surprised no CEOs have openly called for workers to take meth and coke to keep up with the machines and boost productivity.

An adult discussion of vaccines would also take into account countries with truly universal healthcare are also far more likely to have comprehensive screening and quarantine that reduces the need to vaccinate against unknown exposure than the US, with its sky high uninsured population.

Chris Wyman@wymancr.bsky.social · last wk.

Seems like we're going to need a secret third thing for immunization recommendations if this is going to become just another stupid culture wars battleground. The problem of course being idiotic antivaxers and normal parents mostly send their kids to the same schools.

Seems like we're going to need a secret third thing for immunization recommendations if this is going to become just another stupid culture wars battleground. The problem of course being idiotic antivaxers and normal parents mostly send their kids to the same schools.

I'm back in my bullshit that white collar workers just need to fucking unionize. "Your special skillset aquired through expensive education and intelligence gives you bargaining power so you don't need solidarity" was always a lie that was going to come home to roost eventually.

The more I think about, the funnier the center-left embrace of the marketplace of ideas conceit is. In literally any other competitive exchange they recognize laissez-faire results in terrible outcomes, so why should selling ideas be any different?

Had the cursed thought that we could quietly defacto ban AI data centers by doing inclusionary zoning. You must offer say 25% of your GPU compute below market rate to open source modelers doing woke science.

I wish we could process that 3 things are true: 1. Blue dog Democrats generally do overperform massively 2. It is usually not enough to overcome gerrymandering and partisan polarization outside of wave years in very red constituencies

It really can't be overstated how much of the failure of Bidenism was downstream of losing SCOTUS and not having a majority ready to do something about it. Deliverism failed in part because it was actively sabotaged and the most immediately visible parts of the agenda were vetoed.

Republicans coming out of the gate with the message "there's going to be some pain but you're going to love it" and the vacillating between "fake news" and "so what?" dependinf on Dear Leader's mood may be the thing that saves the republic this time.