Thread by @WilliamAEden

Alright I’m going to take @vgr’s bait

1 like = 1 take on Trump 😬

The takes might be hot, the takes might be cold, but the takes will be correct.

@vgr 1) Trump represents more of a continuation of various trends than a clear, radical break from the past.

@vgr 2) Trump Derangement Syndrome is a real thing, but it's a subset of Generalized Political Derangement Syndrome, which affects both left and right to different degrees.

@vgr 3) I buy Thiel's hypothesis that democracy relies on positive-sum games existing, and a technological/productivity slowdown means lower growth means more hyper-partisan zero-sum battles. This will get worse unless we can correct underlying dysfunction.

@vgr 4) Trump is not playing 4D chess, but he was playing a game on an orthogonal axis during the election, which gives the illusion of moves coming from outside the traditional game board.

@vgr 5) Comparisons of Trump to Hitler are totally off base. But I heard him compared to Martin Luther once though, and that analogy feels a lot more interesting.

@vgr 6) There's a theory that every new communications medium produces a new form of government. The transition process isn't usually very pretty. Martin Luther excelled at pamphleteering - Trump excels at Twitter.

@vgr 7) I do think that Trump was uniquely talented in ways that directly led to him performing better than anyone expected at elections. I also don't think these skills are at all correlated with running a government. This is a core unsolved problem of democracy.

@vgr 8) The theory that Trump is some kind of hyper-local hill-climbing machine learning algorithm seems on point. IIRC @ESYudkowsky said the first version of that I heard. @robinhanson described Trump as a political entrepreneur, to use a different frame.

@vgr @ESYudkowsky @robinhanson 9) Trump was exploring and stumbled across a fault line in the American public that didn't cleanly align with traditional R/D splits. He discovered a cluster around trade/immigration/anti-woke that pulled white working class voters from D to R, and redrew the map.

@vgr @ESYudkowsky @robinhanson 10) Incidentally this is *exactly* what just happened with Boris Johnson and the Tories in the UK election. Maybe the Trump-Johnson comparisons are actually quite on point here.

@vgr @ESYudkowsky @robinhanson 11) More fundamentally I think the distinction is between nationalist populism and globalist elitism, and the elites temporarily managed to gain control of both R and D leadership. This is why the Bernie-Trump comparisons also hit home.

@vgr @ESYudkowsky @robinhanson 12) Did Trump even mean to win the election? My guess was that he didn't intend to at first, but once he realized he was close he actually went for it and wanted to win. I'm not sure we'll ever really know though.

@vgr @ESYudkowsky @robinhanson 13) So Trump won the election. Now what? He needed to construct an actual ruling coalition. And that's where everything went straight off the rails and never came back.

@vgr @ESYudkowsky @robinhanson 14) There was a version of this presidency that was vaguely functional. In fact, a viable transition team was being assembled - by Chris Christie. Christie got fired.

@vgr @ESYudkowsky @robinhanson 15) Why did Trump blow off his own leg? Because Chris Christie put a man in prison. A man named Charles Kushner. The seeds for the destruction of the Trump administration were laid 15 years ago.

@vgr @ESYudkowsky @robinhanson 16) So Trump needed to staff a government, and he had no staff. Who could Trump trust? Basically nobody... nobody except for his close family. So Jared and Ivanka, and Trump Jr to a lesser degree, suddenly became central figures. It's not typical nepotism - it's desperation.

@vgr @ESYudkowsky @robinhanson 17) From the very beginning Trump was extremely short on political appointees, who typically execute the president's agenda at a high level, while the permanent bureaucracy passes from one president to the next and retains local knowledge to keep it all running.

@vgr @ESYudkowsky @robinhanson 18) One thing that excited me about the idea of a Trump presidency is that we could finally see what happened when a *genuine outsider* won the presidency. For the first time ever I believed in the American dream: that literally anyone could become president of the United States.

@vgr @ESYudkowsky @robinhanson 19) Well, sure enough, Trump almost immediately illuminated the enormous fault line between the insiders and the outsiders. The permanent bureaucracy became the #resistance and suddenly everyone in the US could directly perceive the so-called Deep State.

@vgr @ESYudkowsky @robinhanson 20) Interestingly, despite the president being the head of the executive branch, the permanent bureaucrats have various protections against being fired. It's unclear whether the presidency holds much power at all! But Trump explicitly adopted one plan that might work: attrition.

@vgr @ESYudkowsky @robinhanson 21) So the government has devolved into a war of all against all, with Trump at the top with few loyalists, little or no Trumpian political appointees to extend his reach, and a vicious running battle between Trump/GOP and Bureaucrats/Dems/Media/Intelligence.

@vgr @ESYudkowsky @robinhanson 22) But Trump does have *some* appointees, so aren't they carrying out his vision? Basically: no.

@vgr @ESYudkowsky @robinhanson 23) When you have no loyalists, how do you choose your staff? You fall back on outside view metrics - qualifications like good schools and previous positions, and personal recommendations. Who are giving him those recommendations? The #resistance! Trump is completely surrounded.

@vgr @ESYudkowsky @robinhanson 24) In a stunning reversal from Trump the candidate, Trump the president *effectively* acts like he cares about what other people think and constantly bends himself to their narratives. Just wow.

@vgr @ESYudkowsky @robinhanson 25) Trump missed a chance very early on to reconcile with the Democrats and try to be a bipartisan populist president. The first obvious thing to do is massive bipartisan infrastructure bill. Instead he got Bannon's travel ban, and outsourced the legislative agenda to Congress.

@vgr @ESYudkowsky @robinhanson 26) Trump is strikingly moderate on many issues. People from NYC did not describe him as socially conservative before the election. I don't know many past GOP candidates who'd be caught dead doing this on stage, it's hard to square this guy with how he's viewed by media now:

@vgr @ESYudkowsky @robinhanson 27) Despite Trump's unorthodox views for a Republican candidate, he enjoys *massive* own-party popularity, higher than almost all previous GOP presidents. Trump didn't remake the GOP in his own image - he discovered the true preferences of the average GOP voter.

@vgr @ESYudkowsky @robinhanson 28) The upshot of this is that Trumpism is bigger than Trump. He was a proof of concept that an outsider with unorthodox views and an internet-based playbook is capable of winning the presidency. He won't be the last populist social media candidate in our lifetimes.

@vgr @ESYudkowsky @robinhanson 29) Another algorithmic behavior of Trump's is that he seems to run a type of tit-for-tat strategy, with 2 retaliations per defection. If you speak ill of him, he'll punch back twice... but if you then praise him he'll change tune quickly.

@vgr @ESYudkowsky @robinhanson 30) The major world dictators (Putin, Erdogan, et al) have this pattern figured out, and they don't hesitate to praise Trump when given the chance. He praises them right back. Our allies then freak out, so he retaliates. This is a bad dynamic for us, and everyone plays their part

@vgr @ESYudkowsky @robinhanson 31) Make no mistake - Trump's courteous words towards dictators does not mean he is their friend. As should be obvious by now, he will turn on anyone if they don't play his game. Look at the iterations of cat and mouse with him and Xi for example.

@vgr @ESYudkowsky @robinhanson 32) Interesting datapoint: when I talk to international relations experts here in the US, one of the *only* things they're willing to praise Trump for is getting more tough on China. Hmmm.

@vgr @ESYudkowsky @robinhanson 33) Trump has been broadly bad for norms in international politics. This is equally true for good norms and bad norms.

@vgr @ESYudkowsky @robinhanson 34) I'm still making up my mind on a lot of geopolitical issues, but I *think* something like opening direct talks with North Korea is more likely to help than hurt in the long run.

@vgr @ESYudkowsky @robinhanson 35) Conversely, Trump has been acting in a unilateral manner. This makes sense if the US is a true hegemonic world power, but *not* if we are precariously holding onto the reins of the international community. Multilateral action is always better, and he can't coordinate it.

@vgr @ESYudkowsky @robinhanson 36) Pulling out of the Paris climate agreement was a mistake. I don't think any leaders believed they would hit their goals, and the agreement had no teeth. But it *was* at least an instrument of cooperation signaling, empty as it may be. What did we gain? It's clear what we lost

@vgr @ESYudkowsky @robinhanson 37) It's really unclear to me how good Trump even is at deal making. The leaked transcripts of his first calls with Mexico and Australia give me pause. He didn't build goodwill, didn't accomplish his immediate objectives. It's unclear he even set the frame for future negotiation

@vgr @ESYudkowsky @robinhanson 38) He does have a few key plays at least. He often sets out an aggressive position and walks it back to a win, a common tactic. He's not afraid to resort to the legal system. He may also try to stiff people when he can get away with it, which is very icky and corrosive to norms.

@vgr @ESYudkowsky @robinhanson 39) Back to the question of norms... one thing I struggle with is how much it's valuable to maintain false pretenses just for the sake of stability and coordination. If Israel will never, under any conditions, give up Jerusalem, then should we acknowledge that fact and move on?

@vgr @ESYudkowsky @robinhanson 40) Trump has an innate skepticism towards the commonly accepted narrative of the international community and permanent bureaucracy, and doesn't hesitate to act or speak against it... and I have no idea if this is long-term helpful or extremely destructive. Or both.

@vgr @ESYudkowsky @robinhanson 41) Example: news media. They were a core sense-making institution, and haughtily called themselves the fourth estate. They have deservedly lost a lot of trust from the public. Did Trump do us a service in publicly acknowledging their fall from grace? Or is this accelerationism?

@vgr @ESYudkowsky @robinhanson 42) One takeaway from this whole fiasco in my eyes is that the president just doesn't have a lot of power. So maybe the correct take on all of this is that we are way WAY too focused on Trump.

@vgr @ESYudkowsky @robinhanson 43) In contrast to the left's predictions, he has accomplished approximately nothing. The threat of radical totalitarianism seems completely laughable 3 years in. Could it have gone another way? It seems hard to imagine with Trump at the helm. (Maybe not so the next populist...)

@vgr @ESYudkowsky @robinhanson 44) Even controlling the House, Senate, *and* Presidency, the GOP was unable to accomplish almost anything. They have a tax cut to show for their efforts. Nothing on healthcare, the single most pressing issue voters care about. Nothing else legislative. Trump is not only to blame

@vgr @ESYudkowsky @robinhanson 45) Executive orders can be undone by the next president, as can most of the changes inside the various regulatory agencies. Executive power is as ephemeral as the whims of the voters.

@vgr @ESYudkowsky @robinhanson 46) Perhaps the single most enduring effect Trump will have is picking Heritage Foundation-approved judges, including on the Supreme Court. Yet that required a norm violation (removing Senate filibuster) and might disastrously invite a SCOTUS-packing scheme by the Democrats.

@vgr @ESYudkowsky @robinhanson 47) It starts to look like the real Trump Derangement Syndrome was believing he mattered in any way whatsoever and spending enormous amounts of time and energy on politics. Despite this lack of track record, he is *still* met with pronouncements of imminent doom!

@vgr @ESYudkowsky @robinhanson 48) A lot of the criticism of Trump centers around his character. I think that's a fair critique, to be honest. AND it doesn't get at the crux of why the people who voted for him decided to vote for him. Those voters would love a Trump without the character flaws.

@vgr @ESYudkowsky @robinhanson 49) Hopefully it's obvious by this point that I don't think Trump is some kind of strategic genius. He's very good at a few things. He's terrible at others. He also makes *tons* of unforced errors... (Though I have to wonder if those are load-bearing bugs of his search algorithm)

@vgr @ESYudkowsky @robinhanson 50) Here's my warning to the country: the real populist dictator won't be hated by half the people. He will be a younger, smarter, stronger Trump, just as good at social media, much better on policy, with a huge cohort of loyalists. He will be loved, and welcomed with open arms.

I’ve done 50 now and I am imposing a cap at 100. I’m not even sure I have another 50 good takes on the subject!

I got such a great reaction to the first 50 that I seriously considered calling it a finished product. I even made a Twitter poll that agreed with me.

But I’m going to 100 anyway. I hope scholars someday debate whether only the First 50 are canonical.

https://twitter.com/williamaeden/status/1206704960441708544?s=21

https://twitter.com/WilliamAEden/status/1206704960441708544

51) Trump was impeached today. I think this was a bad idea for America. Pelosi (my own representative!) originally said she wouldn’t impeach without Republican support, but ultimately backed down in the face of pressure.

52) “Impeachment is inherently a political process” because it’s in the hands of Congress is an odd thing to hear from the left, since it sounds like a constitutional textualist argument. It also means the Senate GOP can call their non-trial an “inherently political process” too.

53) For the record, the GOP opened Pandora’s Box when they impeached Clinton in a partisan manner. That was also really bad. But just as important is to learn how to deescalate. Someone has to do it.

54) Forced error = you have to make a bad move because of board position or the opponent’s play.

Unforced error = that’s all on you.

The Dems moving left because of primary challengers is a forced error. Trump’s Muslim ban was an unforced error.

https://twitter.com/nosilverv/status/1206916248371650560?s=21

https://twitter.com/nosilverv/status/1206916248371650560

55) I got the feature / bug / load-bearing bug trichotomy from @EricRWeinstein. The idea is that new code can be built upon an existing odd behavior in the core base, such that removing the bug breaks tons of features. It’s still a bug, but not one you can simply remove.

56) Probably only Trump fully understands Trump’s finances, but there are a few pieces I am confident about. He’s probably up to some sketchy stuff.

https://twitter.com/markkatakowski/status/1206221170418290688?s=21

https://twitter.com/MarkKatakowski/status/1206221170418290688

57) My model of Trump is that he exquisitely walks the line of questionably legal. This creates a lot of smoke and surprisingly little fire, which seems to draw Dem ire like a matador‘s red flag draws a bull.

58) Trump inherited a lot of money from his dad. There’s some math suggesting he did worse than the S&P at growing that wealth, I’m not confident. But it looks clear that his dad did everything possible to skirt the law to maximize Donald’s inheritance: google.com/amp/s/www.nyti…

59) To Trump’s credit the wealth *did* grow, not via passive allocation, which puts him above average for the scion of a wealthy businessman. He does have some talent for real estate, or at least the surrounding set of skills necessary to benefit from real estate.

60) Trump has very likely exaggerated his net worth at various points, as he has everything else. Scott Adams has the take that every time someone fact checks him down to “merely low single digit billionaire” that’s earned media coverage of his billionaire status... checks out.

61) Trump’s fortunes have risen and fallen though, it’s not been a monotonic climb straight to the White House. Lots of his properties went bankrupt, and he defaulted on loans. One of the only willing banks by the end was Deutsche Bank, and DB is involved in some sketchy stuff.

62) That one leaked tax return showing a massive loss, btw? I think that’s very likely a realized loss he wanted to carry forward into future tax years to net against appreciated assets. I would bet subsequent tax returns show almost zero tax paid for a long time.

63) The most damning piece of all is that Trump properties have been used extensively in Russian money laundering. Anonymous LLCs are allowed to buy Trump properties and not disclose their source of funds. But this was *completely legal*, so he did it.

google.com/amp/s/newrepub…

64) So, does this mean he is bought and sold by Russians? No, I actually don’t think so. He needed that barely-legal cash at one point, but he’s past that now. And we all know how much loyalty Trump shows to people that have helped him along the way.

65) For the record, I think we should refrain from using neo-McCarthyite terms like “Russian asset” against American citizens. Even someone advocating policies that help Russia can still be doing it because it’s *also* good for America. This isn’t the Cold War anymore.

66) My earlier description of Trump makes it sound like he only said the things GOP voters wanted to hear, but it’s not quite that simple. If you look back over several decades there are some constants that appear to be genuine Trump policy preferences.

67) Trump is clearly a law and order President, see eg the Central Park Five. He lived through the NYC crime wave, and Giuliani’s reign. He has also been consistent in talking about currency manipulation and trade deals. This fits his transactional nature.

68) One of Trump’s consistent policies - I shit you not - is nuclear non-proliferation. He has been seriously considering this problem since 1987, including a plan to cooperate with Russia to deter future nuclear powers. Absolutely stunning.

google.com/amp/amp.slate.…

69) So other than law and order, trade, currency, non-proliferation... I doubt he cares. Abortion? Gay marriage? Health care? I doubt it. He outsourced his legislative agenda to congress, because he didn’t want to be bothered.

70) One theory is that Trump is developing dementia, given his odd speech patterns and playing fast and loose with factual events and explanations. I don't think so.

71) First of all, go back and look at the videos of Governor George Bush vs President George Bush, and see how much more articulate he was before. Was Bush also developing dementia? Maybe the broader electorate requires a less sophisticated technique.

72) Second, I think people underestimate the effects of aging alone. Given normal rates of decline, we can expect working memory to have fallen by ~1 standard deviation from ~50 to your late 70s. That's 15 IQ points! How will you sound at that age compared to now? Yikes.

73) What about the theory Trump is on some kind of uppers? There's a bit of evidence around Sudafed or diet pills, nothing I find convincing. But... it sure would explain a lot, wouldn't it? That man has a LOT of energy, and it shows. It helps explain some of the odd speech too.

74) This opens a whole can of worms. The US can barely figure out whether it's okay for college students to use cognitive performance enhancers. What about politicians? What about the guy holding the nuclear trigger? Is it wrong to NOT give a president cognitive enhancement??

75) The next tweets are going to be takes so cold they're straight from the deep freezer, but we have to talk about the way Trump uses words. I'm so sorry but I have to reach 100.

76) Trump's critics are very hung up on the fact that Trump lies, a lot. But by any reasonable outside view criterion, *every single politician* lies a lot. Trump's unique style is not in fact distinguished by his constant lying.

77) The criterion that Trump's communication gives up on is *consistency*. While politicians lie constantly, they attempt to stick to the same lies day in and day out, at least until the broader societal narrative moves on. This gives a veneer of truthiness to politics.

78) This was the first "4D Chess" move that Trump made. He was able to explore a larger communication space by relaxing the constraint of consistency, which aided in his exploration of the electorate, and allowed him to run circles around other politicians.

79) To bring in another metaphor, Trump got inside the machine's comms OODA loop. Politicians and media got taken for a ride, fixating on every inconsistency while Trump had moved on within a 24 hour news cycle. Trump isn't Teflon, he's quicksilver, melting through your fingers.

80) It seems like inconsistency sunk other presidential bids though, like John Kerry's notorious flip-flopping, so why didn't voters seem to care when Trump did it? I suspect he knocked out much more of the surrounding support structure than the elites realized at first.

81) It has been much discussed how Trump *feels* more real/true/alive than other politicians. A cold take, I know, but this is too important to gloss over, because it's a real effect.

82) One aspect of feeling alive is being responsive to real-time feedback. Most career politicians are super rehearsed. This can come across sounding great in moments, but it's also a rigid, brittle structure. Trump can think on his feet, which is harder than it looks.

83) The classic live vs dead example is when 2016 Rubio repeated verbatim the same line 4 times, and Christie called out exactly what everyone in the audience was thinking. "There you go again."

84) Compare that to Trump's off the cuff response when Wolf Blitzer quoted Vicente Fox swearing at Trump on the debate stage. "The wall just got 10 feet higher." That's hard to think of on the spot!

85) I am completely serious btw when I say that comedians have almost the perfect skillset to become president. There have been several well known examples already *cough*Zelensky*cough*

https://twitter.com/WilliamAEden/status/1207869229082525696?s=20

86) But why does this improv ability matter? It is clearly a costly signal of some important skill. I suspect this ties into a whole big complex of evolutionary theory, the origins of humor, sexual selection arms race for human intelligence, and signals of psychological fitness.

87) So what does this mean for Trump? It might mean - gulp - that Trump is... actually smart. 😬

88) Charisma is critical for politicians, but it comes in many forms. Being able to deliver a great prepared speech is also hard, and traditional politicians are great at it... but there's another skill of being fun/funny/energetic that people love in one-on-one connections.

89) This is why retail politics still has a place in national elections. Individual voters liking you is a hard-to-fake signal, which you get from winning local elections and pressing the flesh in Iowa. Obama was great at speeches but was even better at winning people over.

90) Trump learned that voters don't care about consistency if they *actually like you* - and his unrehearsed style, quick verbal repartees, supreme displays of confidence, and super high energy style just won people over on a gut level. FYI, this exploit has always existed.

91) While this can be fun to be around sometimes, unfortunately it causes a lot of respectable politicians problems because it reveals just how stilted and unlikeable they are... and that means Trump is almost completely frozen out of coordinating with said politicians. Ouch.

92) So is Trump our first post-truth president? Do the meaning of his words really mean nothing? Sadly, the words of previous presidents didn't mean anything either, they just pretended to. Coming back full circle: Trump is the continuation of a trend, laid bare for all to see.

93) For those of us disillusioned with politics *before* Trump came into office, it was easier to see him for what he was.

"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard." - HL Mencken

94) Putting it all together: Trump was a charismatic man who drew back the veil on politics, told GOP voters what they wanted to hear, had little to no ability to govern the country, nor had enough loyalty to staff a government. He was built to win the presidency, nothing else.

95) We walk a dangerous line today, because the traditional political system would do anything they could to remove him - understandably so, he's an existential threat to their system. But they burn their own political capital to do so, making the losses doubly bad.

96) Remember that infections aren't the only thing that can kill the host, the immune response can do the job just the same. Remember that "this too shall pass", and please do not do any unnecessary collateral damage to the foundations of our prosperity and governance.

97) Looking ahead to 2020, I'm seeing an awful lot of terrible takes. "Trump is on track for a landslide." "The only person who could beat Trump is [candidate X]" for all values of X. I think the left has a form of Stockholm Syndrome after 2016.

98) The race is still early. Generic congressional ballots and special elections both agree the national environment is significantly Democratic right now. Trump's approval rating is poor and not improving. Economic fundamentals are good, but the felt sense isn't one of a boom.

99) And no, the electoral college isn't rigged for Trump. The Midwest itself gives an electoral college advantage right now - in 2008 and 2012 the Dems actually had the electoral college advantage, not Republicans! Whoever takes the Rust Belt takes America (kinda, for 4 years).

100) In short, and in consolation: Trump is neither inevitable - nor even necessarily likely - to have another 4 years in office. The probability of a second Trump term is probably just a coin flip. 2020 is yet to be decided.

Merry Christmas everyone, and have a Happy New Year!

Whew, that's finally over. Please remind me never to do this again, or to listen to @vgr in general. Thanks for the kind words everyone, and I hope my new followers enjoy my 99% Trump-free content!