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Will Stancil Profile picture
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28 Nov, 4 tweets, 1 min read
honestly the underlying story, which ranges from an individual romance up to a pangalactic conflict, and twists around the roles of heroes and villains for the whole series in a dizzying and unexpected way, is epic in scope and has incredible potential
it's actually kind of daring to make imperial militarists the heroes of the whole thing, because you both end up cheering for them and you know how it turns out. it's genuinely political, even if the execution is deeply stupid
it firmly plants the seeds of space fascism in the flaws of space democracy! when I saw it back in theaters that completely blew mind, I didn't even notice the terrible, terrible, terrible other stuff

also the romance theme is one of the best pieces of music in the whole series
I'd say it has the most wasted potential of any star wars movie but, sadly, the force awakens exists

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More from @whstancil

Will Stancil Profile picture
28 Nov
I'll be blunt here: this is stupid, the numbers don't support it, and you should reconsider it. It gets written after every election because it tickles some kind of liberal reporter fetish about recognizing their bubble, but the numbers do not support it.
This claim relies on the assumption that smaller states are less urban but that THAT CLAIM IS WRONG. Nor are large, highly urban states necessarily Democratic: both Texas and Florida fall into that category. It literally takes five minutes of data analysis to see this. Image
Why is the claim that liberals are politically weakened by their urban strength so irresistible?

Because if you DIDN'T somehow blame this on liberal insularity, people might recognize "Please subordinate your interests to rural white people" for what it is: politicized racism.
Read 7 tweets
Will Stancil Profile picture
28 Nov
I've been trying to figure out why I'm finding discussion like this so frustrating, and I think it's because, by every indication, we survived Trump by the skin of our teeth, and yet the usual suspects have IMMEDIATELY reverted to acting like it was never a problem
Of course we should look at how things played out. It's useful to see the limits of Trump's power to force the GOP to come along with him - extensive, but apparently not quite far enough. But who could have been sure of any of this in advance?
But this was a near miss, in a lot of ways. The election was an extremely narrow thing - as narrow as 2016. Not only could Trump have won outright, but with slightly improved luck, he could have won a few more states, making it much easier for him to challenge the results.
Read 14 tweets
Will Stancil Profile picture
19 Nov
Joe Biden: I will reach across the aisle and negotiate bipartisan deals for the American people

The literal actual official GOP:
This asymmetry is not sustainable. You cannot share government with a party that tells itself, and its supporters, that it is the only party that is allowed to win elections or govern.
Because it HELPS THE GOP to talk about them in nice inside-voice language, while they refuse to do the same for us. It lets them rile up their followers while facing no political penalty
Read 4 tweets
Will Stancil Profile picture
19 Nov
A long-time hobbyhorse of mine is that ISSUE POLLING, as opposed to ELECTION POLLING, is next to worthless. (Of course, recent events call election polling into question, too.) The problem with issue polling is that it's totally unclear what it tells you.
It's really easy to know what an election poll tells you:

"In a few weeks [or whenever] you will go into a voting booth, and have to pick between these options. Which will you pick?"

You can perfectly replicate the decision in front of voters.
Of course there are other pitfalls - you don't know who will vote, you don't know if people will change their minds, etc. - but ultimately you can at least offer poll respondents the exact choice they'll have to make on a ballot.

But an issue poll doesn't work like that.
Read 8 tweets
Will Stancil Profile picture
17 Nov
The point I’m trying to make here is that this isn’t explainable by differing incentives or institutional factors, the places we’ve all been trained to look for answers. There is a PSYCHOLOGICAL gap between D and R leadership
This gap - how one party is led by people who are nervous and afraid, who refuse to act without a foolproof plan, and who pride themselves on being smart, while the other is led by people who are intuitive, aggressive, risk takers - is totally undiscussed but hugely important
There are a lot of potential explanations about how that gap came to exist, ranging from the age of Dem leaders, the lack of accountability for failure, dynamics in the parties, but with leadership essentially fixed it’s the content of their character that is the core problem
Read 4 tweets
Will Stancil Profile picture
17 Nov
National media should be paying closer attention to what’s happening in Minnesota: not only did our state senate GOP cause a massive COVID outbreak by flouting guidelines, but they covered it up, hiding that they had exposed many people.
This comes after many months of working to obstruct safety measures by the Governor, including opposition to a mask mandate, removal of his commissioners in retaliation, and insistent pressure to fully reopen.
The most public opponent of safety measures was the Senate GOP leader, Paul Gazelka. Immediately after the election he changed to noticeably less strident tone. People assumed he was dialing back performative opposition.

In reality, it seems he learned he’d contracted the virus.
Read 4 tweets

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