Watching the impeachment trial is very different to following it on twitter. It seems like the Dems wanted to get a specific piece of evidence in, and used the threat of witnesses to do so. But based on twitter you would think they made a massive strategic error.
At this point we know what happened and the outcome of the trial. Prolonging the trial is basically about how much you want put more material in the record and on public view vs. the potential opportunity cost of other policy gains in the Senate.
This line on twitter is "Dems decided to call witnesses, and then decided not to" when I think its more accurate to say they wanted to get a specific piece of evidence in, and they did, and the defense accepted it as accurate.
Open to being persuaded otherwise about how witnesses would have been an impeachment game changer, but my initial reaction is that twitter is hard wired to revert to a "Dems blew it again!" narrative on very little evidence.
It could be that the Dems are wrong in their strategic calculations here about presenting their case. But we generally assume that people who have more information of the facts on the ground make better decisions and it's not clear why we should suspend that assumption here.

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More from @donmoyn

13 Feb
The story of state legislatures seeking to restrict campus speech - in this case eliminating tenure protections - in the name of free speech (read, they don't like campus politics) is a big, important issue that gets about 1% of the attention of Gina Carano-type stories
At the same time conservative state legislators in Iowa are seeking to remove basic job protections designed to protect academic freedom, they are also seeking to coerce faculty to reveal their political leanings. thegazette.com/subject/news/e…
A big reason I've always had a hard time taking the cancel culture trope too seriously is that many of those who toss it around have generally shown fuck-all interest in state efforts to police speech on campuses, or have actually cheered or personally driven these efforts.
Read 6 tweets
12 Feb
The Biden administration taking on administrative burdens: eliminating work requirements in Medicaid that the Trump administration championed, and which resulted in loss of health insurance for the poor washingtonpost.com/health/biden-e…
.@pamela_herd & I argued that weaponizing the use of burdens was a central strategy of the Trump administration. So just going to start keeping track of ways in which the Biden admin is doing the opposite.
washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-c…
Ben Sommers, who has documented the negative effect of work requirements but other burdens like asset tests is joining HHS.
Read 6 tweets
11 Feb
Hard to move forward when much of one political party's worldview is based on groundless conspiracy theories.

Most Republicans believe Trump won the election, and half of Republicans believe that Antifa were responsible for he attack on the Capitol. washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/…
Twice as many Republicans believe the Q-Anon theory that Trump has been battling an imaginary cabal of child traffickers in the Democratic Party than believe that he encouraged his followers to attack the Capitol.
If you believe that "the way to defeat bad ideas is by exposure, argument, and persuasion, not by trying to silence or wish them away" it is hard to account for the fact that one American political party is now dominated by conspriacism. nytimes.com/2020/11/30/ups…
Read 7 tweets
10 Feb
Fixing the UI system is a good goal but throwing $500M at states ignores two things:
*in many states, the system is deliberately broken
*without a new approach, this will simply be a subsidy for overpriced consulting firms that built the existing systems

So what are solutions?
The ideal solution is probably to federalize the UI distribution process rather than have 53 systems. Maybe that is not feasible. Wyden's bill does not go that far, but does envision a larger role for the federal government in building and overseeing state systems.
Other approaches?
*Make the money dependent on a Race to the Top style competition that provides a credible state commitment for the state to solve the problem.
*Fund civic tech nonprofits who will build better & cheaper UI systems than Deloitte
Read 5 tweets
9 Feb
I'm sure it sucks for people in France who love blackface entertainment to find that is no longer an option, but it's probably a stretch to blame this on US college campuses rather than deeper issues in French society.
People have a bias towards using easily accessible information that supports their priors rather than reconsidering those priors. Like accusing an opera director that says he does not want to do blackface has "soaked up American culture" because he spent time in Canada.
Simpler explanation. Macron is in political trouble & so is pivoting right before the election. The easiest way to do that is to punch left at college campuses, and their crazy ideas about race, for creating division. And lets start attacking individual scholars. Sound familiar?
Read 6 tweets
7 Feb
Max Weber: The Man Who Saw the Protestant Ethic in Capitalism
Friedrich Hayek: The Man Who Saw a Road in Serfdom Image
Plato: The Man who Apologized
Simone De Beouvoir: The Woman Who Saw a Second in Sex Image
Read 4 tweets

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