There's a recurring theme in Democratic circles that I think is under-examined, that goes "if only the rules were fair our party would win bigly". It's part of a wider feeling of denial about the last few years. I think Nate is right to call this out, and we need a better plan.
If you already can't imagine why people voted for Trump, or your thesis is some version of "they are evil", then you're not in a good position to think realistically about outcomes of future elections. You have to be able to confront the present before you can plan for the future
I turned in my prognostication card after two elections, but I am very grateful to the various candidates I worked with for giving me the chance to see Trump districts and meet Trump voters, and come away more confused and wary about my own political beliefs than when I started
A way to reframe the centrist/progressive divide is between Democrats who got into office with Trump votes, and those who didn't. That the former group is more politically moderate is interesting—you could imagine an alternate reality where the Squad came from deep red districts
The fact that left populism succeeded only in the most urban, educated, deep blue pockets of America should be a big red flag (no pun intended). As a practical matter I favor trying all the strategies in parallel that won Trumpy votes, whatever their ideological valence.
I'm afraid that the current situation has reduced Republicans to a cartoon right at the moment when we need to really understand them, not in order to empathize and feel a sense of national connection, but to beat the stuffing out of them in 2022 anywhere we can
Like if it turns out that non-college grads in deindustrialized cities don't care about student loan reform, but would really dig legalized weed, then replace the stars on Old Glory with marijuana leaves. Do whatever it takes. I would like to see more of an appetite for power
On an aesthetic level, a brand new State of Puerto Rico that then elects two Republican senators would be deeply satisfying. But on a personal level, I would really like us to win

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More from @Pinboard

29 May
The U.S. spent a trillion dollars (in today's money) on the Vietnam War. Imagine if we decided now to spend a thousandth part of that to get vaccines to all of Southeast Asia.
A timely vaccination campaign in Indochina could have a domino effect where one country after the other would achieve broad resistance against the spread of new and old variants of covid. Image
Whatever the State Department and CIA propaganda budget is for the next year, it should be diverted 99.9% to vaccine production, and 0.01% to painting big American flags on the crates of vaccine
Read 4 tweets
28 May
Both these columns appeared in the NYT today, but the moral distance between them could not be greater. @nytdavidbrooks ruminates on what the end of covid will mean for his social calendar. @zeynep urges us to step up vaccinating the world before millions more die needlessly.
I feel like this is the great fork in the road for Americans going into the summer. Do we pretend this pandemic never happened, or do we see it for the global phenomenon it's always been? (Brooks's column here nytimes.com/2021/05/27/opi… and @zeynep's here nytimes.com/2021/05/28/opi…)
There are times that America is capable of astonishing magnanimity. There are foods my mom still can't eat (like canned clam chowder!) because they take her back to the CARE packages that sustained her in early childhood after WWII, full of unfamiliar but life-sustaining food
Read 7 tweets
27 May
Excellent short thread about CA fires that applies to a lot of aspects of climate change. Underlying trends are often dominated by randomness. When the two line up, you break all records. But if the two are opposed, you can have deceptively mild outcomes even as trends get worse.
Unfortunately human beings don't see enough years in their lifetime for some of the longer patterns to be visible. Others only become visible on human time scales when it is far too late to do anything. Political leaders only have to hope for one or two lucky years on their watch
In the American West, things are even worse because there is a documented history of multi-year megadroughts (four in the last 1200 years) and you have to try to superimpose the effects of anthropogenic climate change on that as we enter a fifth one. science.sciencemag.org/content/368/64…
Read 4 tweets
27 May
Dear LazyWeb: I have a 13 inch 2020 MBP and a LG HDR 4K Display as a second monitor. After I power cycled the monitor, I can no longer get it to display at high resolution. Anyone come across this? I tried rebooting the mac, updating to latest OS, using different ports for cable
Thank you to everyone who offered tips. Swapping cables (to an Apple-made one) fixed this problem, even thought the peccant cable had been working before without issues. I guess it gave up the ghost.
It's incredible how bad the USB-C cable situation is, and about to get worse with the introduction of ones that can handle a higher voltage. They are all indistinguishable and designed so no two combinations of anything can interoperate. It's like reliving 2000-era wifi
Read 6 tweets
27 May
Our response to covid has a lot of bad implications for the fight against climate change, a far tougher collective action problem. Among the worst is the exposure of "trust the science" as a kind of secular faith, not a genuine defense of scientific thinking. This took many forms
There was a failure to understand time-critical decision making under uncertainty, a totemistic belief in peer-reviewed publication as the only fount of truth, an ongoing campaign of moralizing outrage against dissenting positions and thinkers who were later vindicated
Despite heroic efforts, many countries seemed incapable of learning from one another, and there was no ability to coordinate an adequate international response. Difficult concepts and dilemmas were never (in the US, at least) communicated in a way the public could understand
Read 9 tweets
26 May
GameStop stock (which is soaring again because YOLO) really is the next generation of cryptocurrency. No cumbersome blockchain, no transaction fees, tight regulation and convenient token (tradable on the stock exchange!) put it ahead of all competitors.
The stonk became unmoored from underlying assets on December 31 and, like a neckbeard Skynet, achieved self-awareness that only increased its value. I look forward to the rest of the market detaching similarly and completing the legalization of online gambling in the US
We live in the timeline where the apes smashed the monolith to bits with their bone Apes around the monolith scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey
Read 13 tweets

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