I don't really love the expansion they've done or the evening out in favor of the wild card teams. More isn't better and I think it's resulted in too many early series with too many disappointing upsets. Totally possible this is me projecting my own annoyance at the Orioles being swept out the last 2 years despite home field advantage, both as AL East champs in 2023 and top wild card in 2024 but whatever. I thought that those crazy single game playoffs they used to do were both more exciting and more fair in the sense that if you didn't win the division you were going to have to perform some wild feats to advance.
Anyway at least the MFin Yankees lost the big one, and with a total failure of their star players to do anything clutch at that.
This reminds me of Sam Kriss' take. Guy isn't for everyone but I thoroughly enjoy his writing.
https://samkriss.substack.com/p/i-told-you-so
The crescendo for those without the time to read it:
Trump will be bad. He probably won’t be as bad as his enemies keep screeching, but he’ll be bad. This is your fault. Once, when the kings of Israel sinned, God sent terrible empires to sack the holy city of Jerusalem, carry away its temple goods, massacre its people, and sell the survivors into slavery. Things have changed, but not that much. Now, he sends the king of the morons. You have sinned, and Trump is your punishment: whatever happens next, you will deserve it. You did not learn! The last eight years have taught you absolutely nothing: we’ve gone nowhere, we’re trapped in the same stupid loop, and now I’m writing essentially the same post all over again. You should have listened to the voice of the prophet, wailing in the wilderness, in the deserts and the unclean places, gibbering with the fury of the Lord. But you didn’t, and there’s not much left to say. Just that I told you so. I told you so. I told you so.
I'm saying very few people outside of highly politically engaged conservatives believed that he was a sexual predator. A philanderer sure, but not a rapist. I think his approval ratings would have been very different if they did, including in the 90s where there was just less sensitivity generally (and to the extent there was it was more likely to be religion based than feminism based). Even now, at least as I understand it, the allegations remain disputed, and in the realm of he said she said kinds of things. Doesnt mean they didnt happen but because no one really knows for sure the argument is a classical begging the question fallacy. We know some things about Trump we don't and will probably never know about Clinton.
Beyond that though we may be talking passed each other. If we want to look at things that happened during the Clinton years that set the stage for Trump NAFTA and granting MFN status to China probably have a lot more to do with it than the sex scandals. It got another good kick along the way by the collapse of the credibility of mainstream conservatism during the Bush years, and the maturation of right wing newstainment. I like Andrew and think he's an insightful guy overall, but am not seeing it on this one.
Ah come on man. The National Organization of Women? That was not and has never been the barometer for public attitudes about these things. His approval ratings were sky high compared to what prevails currently. There were times where it got into the 70s. That's because people didn't see it as a breach of ethics they were tolerating, they saw it as mostly trumped up by what was then a much more religiously conservative opposition. Would it be seen that way today? Probably not, but that's just presentism, not a trend.
As for center of gravity I just don't know about that either. Obama clearly came to some kind of arrangement with Hilary Clinton but she was the secretary of state who then promptly lost for the reasons we've been over a million times here. I don't see how the Clinton's could be the center of gravity when someone else was president.
Now, I'll agree with you that personal character has clearly declined as a consideration
However it's hard to say by how much when our increasingly venal candidates are constantly floating at historically terrible approval levels along with every other institution in America.
Based on the various battles over content in public education I have come to believe that the cultural issues and the bread and butter economic issues are indeed mutually exclusive. People only have so much time and attention so you have to pick one or the other, and balances in checking accounts are real in a way a lot of esoteric social justice signaling just isn't. It's also become a truism that lefty cultural obsessions wreck (mostly liberal and lefty) institutions at the expense of the core mission.
Which isn't to say that the GOP doesn't thrive on cultural grievance. Often I think that's about all they have. The difference is that the crumbling of religion as a major cultural force has them mostly playing defense of the median normie. They start to lose again when stuff they're out of step on like abortion comes to the fore.
Obviously the real solution is to lament the moral shortcomings of various demographic groups that combine for more than 80% of the population. That's what makes sense. In a democracy.
I saw that too, and had to send it to my wife. She is the Good Democrat in the family (I'm the bad one) and has been telling me over and over again that as ... unconvincing as I find this stuff I don't understand how damaging it is, and how it constitutes an attack on women eclipsed only by bans on abortion, but just barely.
Big picture I think we need to be honest with ourselves that trans is a combination of self expression and maybe culture bound syndrome, not something that's objective or with scientific basis. The (sub)culture it's bound up with in the US is also way, way too small to win elections. It doesn't even constitute a majority of Democrats.
The obvious pivot is to live and let live. Grown ups can do all the body mods they want, change their names, and wear whatever. That's the first amendment and it has to be allowed. But no boys in girls sports, no men in womens prisons, no linguistic gymnastics, and no public schools telling children they have something called a 'gender' that might be in conflict with their bodies. Stop with that and suddenly this all goes away.
I don't think anyone has to be madly in love with Joe Manchin types but its important to underatand that a really, really successful Democratic party would have a lot of those types in it.
Yea, I still think there's a good chance that another Republican would have won even bigger, and maybe had some coat tails. There's still a chance the Democrats win the house and a significant chance that if they don't the Republican majority will be even slimmer than the ultra slim majority they have now. A lot of down ballot Democrats outperformed Harris in important races.
However.... I think it's a real mistake to not take this opportunity for some re-invention. I assume the goal of the party isn't to trade off the executive on razor's edge general elections and play for narrow congressional majorities. It's to actually get governing coalitions big enough to do things, and that can't happen without appealing to a wider swathe of the electorate.
I was talking to a woman who runs one of the largest labor and delivery wards. She said 40% of the babies there have at least one parent addicted to fentanyl. What is empathetic: to tell them that’s their problem, or to take border security seriously?
People are putting their groceries on their credit card. No one is listening to anything else you say if you try to talk them out of their lived experiences with data points from some economists.
I'm not going to defend the ethics of Clinton, Bill. I do think there's some serious revisionist history about how all of that played back in the 90s. Past was a different country of course.
I also think Andrew's comment is pretty weak. Even if we concede the absolute worst about Clinton we've had 3 administrations since then, 2 of them D, without anything approaching those kinds of issues. And if we're only measuring pre 2016 it's not like Obama was riddled with ethics and/or sex scandals. Really the opposite.
And if they changed it back me and something like 98% of the fans would cheer the move, but alas no way that will ever happen. It's possible that they'll celebrate the old logo in a less conflicted way.
That's in conflict with what the polls show. Now it's still early and it's possible in a few weeks there will be a correction but right now it looks like the Democrats bled core constituencies and that the biggest swings were in blue counties.
Just because you voted for a person or a party doesn't mean you can't see their flaws, or that you can't know anything about the people who voted differently. I'm not one of those who was on here predicting a landslide.
We had Airedales growing up, which I have always loved. They require a lot of work, and a bit of a firm hand to train them properly, but they are great, highly intelligent, and fun dogs.
I think some incredulity is appropriate. I also think chances are high that there will be some buyers remorse to ride on sooner than we think, which will only be heightened by Trump becoming a lame duck way faster than we're used to. The question is whether anyone has it in them to show up with anything beyond that.
That strikes me as a lot less willing to grapple with facts than Yglesias is, agree or disagree with him.
He throws Israel's war out there as if it's illustrative. I'm de facto a lot closer to the left's perspective on that situation. But it's also an issue that struggles to crack the top 20 concerns of American voters. It isn't relevant.
It also raises questions about what she could have done to track left. Propose nationalizing the energy industry? Increase marginal taxes across the board by 20% to fund an NHS style healthcare system? Would that have gotten more voters out to vote for her? Color me skeptical.
Totally anecdotal. I was talking with my wife last night, who is a much more conventional partisan Democrat than me. Unlike me she grew up working class, raised by a single mother who is a hair dresser, lived in a small kind of crummy apartment, first generation in her family to go to college, etc. I'd been avoiding any discussion of the election issue, given I had no idea how upset she was going to be, and she was livid in 2016. She is very unhappy with the outcome but to my surprise she sounded almost red-pilled. Sort of a 'we are lucky we have been able to handle the pinch on prices and cost of living without giving a lot up, but huge numbers of people have had a really terrible time with this the last 4 years.' Yet to read a newspaper, or turn on the TV you wouldn't know thats the case at all.
I got the sense that the only thing really anchoring her with team D at this moment is abortion, and the knowledge that at the end of the day the top priority of the Republican party is still going to be to kick as many people as they can off of their health insurance as a partial offset for tax cuts. That's really bad!
Anyway I think the OP is nice and all but the actual story is right there, at the link below, and has been all along. Doesn't necessarily mean nothing else matters, but I think all of the culture war stuff is kind of contingent.
David, I don't want to pick on you given that many of our commenters most in need of a reality check seem to have have bowed out for a while, but early indicators are that there was something like a 10 point swing towards Trump in urban counties. The bluest parts of the country. You're sitting here claiming it's impossible to pick off voters when Trump/the GOP just picked off a bunch of voters.
On “Series! Recap of World Series of the 2020s”
I don't really love the expansion they've done or the evening out in favor of the wild card teams. More isn't better and I think it's resulted in too many early series with too many disappointing upsets. Totally possible this is me projecting my own annoyance at the Orioles being swept out the last 2 years despite home field advantage, both as AL East champs in 2023 and top wild card in 2024 but whatever. I thought that those crazy single game playoffs they used to do were both more exciting and more fair in the sense that if you didn't win the division you were going to have to perform some wild feats to advance.
Anyway at least the MFin Yankees lost the big one, and with a total failure of their star players to do anything clutch at that.
On “He Got Away With It”
This reminds me of Sam Kriss' take. Guy isn't for everyone but I thoroughly enjoy his writing.
https://samkriss.substack.com/p/i-told-you-so
The crescendo for those without the time to read it:
Trump will be bad. He probably won’t be as bad as his enemies keep screeching, but he’ll be bad. This is your fault. Once, when the kings of Israel sinned, God sent terrible empires to sack the holy city of Jerusalem, carry away its temple goods, massacre its people, and sell the survivors into slavery. Things have changed, but not that much. Now, he sends the king of the morons. You have sinned, and Trump is your punishment: whatever happens next, you will deserve it. You did not learn! The last eight years have taught you absolutely nothing: we’ve gone nowhere, we’re trapped in the same stupid loop, and now I’m writing essentially the same post all over again. You should have listened to the voice of the prophet, wailing in the wilderness, in the deserts and the unclean places, gibbering with the fury of the Lord. But you didn’t, and there’s not much left to say. Just that I told you so. I told you so. I told you so.
"
I'm saying very few people outside of highly politically engaged conservatives believed that he was a sexual predator. A philanderer sure, but not a rapist. I think his approval ratings would have been very different if they did, including in the 90s where there was just less sensitivity generally (and to the extent there was it was more likely to be religion based than feminism based). Even now, at least as I understand it, the allegations remain disputed, and in the realm of he said she said kinds of things. Doesnt mean they didnt happen but because no one really knows for sure the argument is a classical begging the question fallacy. We know some things about Trump we don't and will probably never know about Clinton.
Beyond that though we may be talking passed each other. If we want to look at things that happened during the Clinton years that set the stage for Trump NAFTA and granting MFN status to China probably have a lot more to do with it than the sex scandals. It got another good kick along the way by the collapse of the credibility of mainstream conservatism during the Bush years, and the maturation of right wing newstainment. I like Andrew and think he's an insightful guy overall, but am not seeing it on this one.
"
Ah come on man. The National Organization of Women? That was not and has never been the barometer for public attitudes about these things. His approval ratings were sky high compared to what prevails currently. There were times where it got into the 70s. That's because people didn't see it as a breach of ethics they were tolerating, they saw it as mostly trumped up by what was then a much more religiously conservative opposition. Would it be seen that way today? Probably not, but that's just presentism, not a trend.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_image_of_Bill_Clinton
As for center of gravity I just don't know about that either. Obama clearly came to some kind of arrangement with Hilary Clinton but she was the secretary of state who then promptly lost for the reasons we've been over a million times here. I don't see how the Clinton's could be the center of gravity when someone else was president.
Now, I'll agree with you that personal character has clearly declined as a consideration
However it's hard to say by how much when our increasingly venal candidates are constantly floating at historically terrible approval levels along with every other institution in America.
On “Trumped”
Based on the various battles over content in public education I have come to believe that the cultural issues and the bread and butter economic issues are indeed mutually exclusive. People only have so much time and attention so you have to pick one or the other, and balances in checking accounts are real in a way a lot of esoteric social justice signaling just isn't. It's also become a truism that lefty cultural obsessions wreck (mostly liberal and lefty) institutions at the expense of the core mission.
Which isn't to say that the GOP doesn't thrive on cultural grievance. Often I think that's about all they have. The difference is that the crumbling of religion as a major cultural force has them mostly playing defense of the median normie. They start to lose again when stuff they're out of step on like abortion comes to the fore.
On “He Got Away With It”
Obviously the real solution is to lament the moral shortcomings of various demographic groups that combine for more than 80% of the population. That's what makes sense. In a democracy.
On “Trumped”
I saw that too, and had to send it to my wife. She is the Good Democrat in the family (I'm the bad one) and has been telling me over and over again that as ... unconvincing as I find this stuff I don't understand how damaging it is, and how it constitutes an attack on women eclipsed only by bans on abortion, but just barely.
Big picture I think we need to be honest with ourselves that trans is a combination of self expression and maybe culture bound syndrome, not something that's objective or with scientific basis. The (sub)culture it's bound up with in the US is also way, way too small to win elections. It doesn't even constitute a majority of Democrats.
The obvious pivot is to live and let live. Grown ups can do all the body mods they want, change their names, and wear whatever. That's the first amendment and it has to be allowed. But no boys in girls sports, no men in womens prisons, no linguistic gymnastics, and no public schools telling children they have something called a 'gender' that might be in conflict with their bodies. Stop with that and suddenly this all goes away.
On “Open Mic for the week of 11/4/2024”
There needs to be a changing of the guard. Whether it's an improvement or not depends on the people that come in as replacements.
"
I don't think anyone has to be madly in love with Joe Manchin types but its important to underatand that a really, really successful Democratic party would have a lot of those types in it.
"
Yea, I still think there's a good chance that another Republican would have won even bigger, and maybe had some coat tails. There's still a chance the Democrats win the house and a significant chance that if they don't the Republican majority will be even slimmer than the ultra slim majority they have now. A lot of down ballot Democrats outperformed Harris in important races.
However.... I think it's a real mistake to not take this opportunity for some re-invention. I assume the goal of the party isn't to trade off the executive on razor's edge general elections and play for narrow congressional majorities. It's to actually get governing coalitions big enough to do things, and that can't happen without appealing to a wider swathe of the electorate.
"
Interview is priors confirming for me but worth reading from a Democrat defying current trends:
https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/a-wa-red-district-conqueror-wants-fellow-democrats-to-look-in-the-mirror/
Money quote:
I was talking to a woman who runs one of the largest labor and delivery wards. She said 40% of the babies there have at least one parent addicted to fentanyl. What is empathetic: to tell them that’s their problem, or to take border security seriously?
People are putting their groceries on their credit card. No one is listening to anything else you say if you try to talk them out of their lived experiences with data points from some economists.
On “He Got Away With It”
I'm not going to defend the ethics of Clinton, Bill. I do think there's some serious revisionist history about how all of that played back in the 90s. Past was a different country of course.
I also think Andrew's comment is pretty weak. Even if we concede the absolute worst about Clinton we've had 3 administrations since then, 2 of them D, without anything approaching those kinds of issues. And if we're only measuring pre 2016 it's not like Obama was riddled with ethics and/or sex scandals. Really the opposite.
On “Trumped”
Heh I know who Hawley is.
And if they changed it back me and something like 98% of the fans would cheer the move, but alas no way that will ever happen. It's possible that they'll celebrate the old logo in a less conflicted way.
"
As in Fred Smoot? The old Redskins player who went to the Vikings then was involved in that sex boat scandal? I had no idea he was a Republican.
On “History Was Made in 2024 Election, Now What?”
I have seen various writers urge caution about the turn out thing. Millions of votes are still being counted in CA, and there is historically a lag.
However there seems to be strong certainty about a significant swing with hispanics and suburban women, and maybe even a black male swing.
"
That's in conflict with what the polls show. Now it's still early and it's possible in a few weeks there will be a correction but right now it looks like the Democrats bled core constituencies and that the biggest swings were in blue counties.
"
Just because you voted for a person or a party doesn't mean you can't see their flaws, or that you can't know anything about the people who voted differently. I'm not one of those who was on here predicting a landslide.
On “Puppy Love in the IG Era: Ten Favorite Dog Breeds”
We had Airedales growing up, which I have always loved. They require a lot of work, and a bit of a firm hand to train them properly, but they are great, highly intelligent, and fun dogs.
On “Trumped”
If I were Biden I'd totally pardon Hunter at this point. What is the point of continuing with the pretenses?
"
Phil, is there anything that could happen that would cause you to reconsider that hypothesis?
"
I think some incredulity is appropriate. I also think chances are high that there will be some buyers remorse to ride on sooner than we think, which will only be heightened by Trump becoming a lame duck way faster than we're used to. The question is whether anyone has it in them to show up with anything beyond that.
"
That strikes me as a lot less willing to grapple with facts than Yglesias is, agree or disagree with him.
He throws Israel's war out there as if it's illustrative. I'm de facto a lot closer to the left's perspective on that situation. But it's also an issue that struggles to crack the top 20 concerns of American voters. It isn't relevant.
It also raises questions about what she could have done to track left. Propose nationalizing the energy industry? Increase marginal taxes across the board by 20% to fund an NHS style healthcare system? Would that have gotten more voters out to vote for her? Color me skeptical.
"
Totally anecdotal. I was talking with my wife last night, who is a much more conventional partisan Democrat than me. Unlike me she grew up working class, raised by a single mother who is a hair dresser, lived in a small kind of crummy apartment, first generation in her family to go to college, etc. I'd been avoiding any discussion of the election issue, given I had no idea how upset she was going to be, and she was livid in 2016. She is very unhappy with the outcome but to my surprise she sounded almost red-pilled. Sort of a 'we are lucky we have been able to handle the pinch on prices and cost of living without giving a lot up, but huge numbers of people have had a really terrible time with this the last 4 years.' Yet to read a newspaper, or turn on the TV you wouldn't know thats the case at all.
I got the sense that the only thing really anchoring her with team D at this moment is abortion, and the knowledge that at the end of the day the top priority of the Republican party is still going to be to kick as many people as they can off of their health insurance as a partial offset for tax cuts. That's really bad!
Anyway I think the OP is nice and all but the actual story is right there, at the link below, and has been all along. Doesn't necessarily mean nothing else matters, but I think all of the culture war stuff is kind of contingent.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/price-tracker/
On “History Was Made in 2024 Election, Now What?”
David, I don't want to pick on you given that many of our commenters most in need of a reality check seem to have have bowed out for a while, but early indicators are that there was something like a 10 point swing towards Trump in urban counties. The bluest parts of the country. You're sitting here claiming it's impossible to pick off voters when Trump/the GOP just picked off a bunch of voters.
"
I'm in complete agreement with that.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.