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David Roberts Profile picture
@drvolts
Jul 13 • 4 tweets • 1 min read • Read on X
One of the most shocking things you discover when you start covering US politics closely -- at least naive young me found it shocking -- is that most political journalists don't seem to give even a tiny shit about policy.
My take on politics, though I'm not sure I could have articulated it, is "I want good results -- increased welfare -- for my fellow citizens, and to get it, I have to figure out how this stuff works." I kind of assumed that's why anyone would pay attention to politics.
But I've spent a *lot* of time over the years talking to or working alongside political journalists & it is just wild how little it comes up & how little curiosity they evince about it, except insofar as it represents some sort of power play in the Great Game.
I guess the obvious analogy is sports journalism, where the game itself is the thing, but I mean ... this is boring, awkward, frustrating sports played by mostly tedious or obnoxious people. Actual sports are much better sports! Why not just cover actual sports?!

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More from @drvolts

David Roberts Profile picture
Jul 11
🧵The main thing Americans do not understand/appreciate about presidential elections is that you are not voting for a person, you are voting for an *administration* -- cabinet members, appointees, military leaders, advisers & analysts, the whole civil service, etc. etc.
You're voting for an executive branch -- that's an *enormous* organization. The president himself makes only a tiny fraction of the decisions in the day-to-day management of that org. It's a whole apparatus, vastly larger than one individual.
Yet people instinctively think -- and the media reinforces this misperception at every term -- that the president, this one person, is "in charge" of the US & responsible for everything that happens, that their unique personal capabilities determine the country's fate.
Read 17 tweets
David Roberts Profile picture
Jul 8
Hey, remember climate change? We kinda stopped talking about it here in the US, but ... it's still happening. A tour. 🧵

Massive, heavy rains & flooding in Bangladesh:

theguardian.com/world/article/…
Heavy rains, flooding, & landslides in Nepal.

reuters.com/world/asia-pac…
"Japan’s meteorological agency has issued a heatstroke alert for 26 of the country’s 47 prefectures, urging people not to go outside unless absolutely necessary, to use their air conditioners during the day and at night, and to drink plenty of water."

theguardian.com/world/article/…
Read 10 tweets
David Roberts Profile picture
Jul 5
I haven't written much about politics since the debate, mainly because I'm so overwhelmed by disgust & contempt toward this country's media & commentariat that it has rendered me inarticulate with rage. Twitter probably doesn't need more rage. I do just wanna make one point tho.
To be clear up front: I don't give one tiny hot fuck who the Dem nominee is. I truly don't. Biden's fine. Harris is fine. A warm puddle of vomit is fine. *There is no conceivable resolution to the nomination fight that could change the basic calculus of this race.*
Preventing a fascist takeover of the US is my top priority--as a journalist, as a voter, as a human. If it isn't yours too, you should feel bad about yourself. If you haven't made the stakes of this election clear to everyone within the sound of your voice, you should feel bad.
Read 25 tweets
David Roberts Profile picture
Jun 26
All right I've been tweeting too much today, but one more quick 🧵 before I log off this hellsite.

Here @Noahpinion makes the argument that crime is, in fact, down. He does so by citing all sorts of official statistics from FBI etc.

noahpinion.blog/p/yes-of-cours…
Now, there are, of course, many in the MAGA base who will simply refuse to believe official statistics. ("You get to believe whatever you feel" is one of the benefits of membership.) But official statistics still carry weight with most media & most people. In other words ...
... the question of whether crime is down can -- perhaps not to the extent we'd like, but still to a substantial extent -- *be settled*. There's something approximating an official, objective answer. There's a fact of the matter.
Read 13 tweets
David Roberts Profile picture
Jun 22
To me one thing that the Hochul congestion-pricing fiasco illustrates is the importance of epistemic circles. She is practically drowning in empirical evidence and modeling, rigorous work done over years & years by professionals, but in the end ...
... what really *reached & moved* her was the testimony of the people around her. All that objective evidence ultimately could not overcome vibes. The people she hangs out with, the people she talks to, don't like it, and that's what mattered.
You can say -- as I do! -- that this is a dereliction of her duty, a total failure to approach the issue in a rigorous way. She deserves plenty of condemnation & contempt for the ridiculous way she made this decision. Nonetheless ...
Read 9 tweets
David Roberts Profile picture
Jun 8
Y'all, I just got back from a car dealership. Holy shit. I thought, "maybe my stereotypes are outdated, maybe it's not so bad any more."

It's ... so much worse. I couldn't believe it. I have to rant a bit.
We're thinking about leasing a RAV4 Prime -- the PHEV. We thought we should at least test drive one. Dealer didn't have a Prime, but they had a normal hybrid, fine. But of course, after the test drive, they drag us inside to talk about leasing.
I'm not exaggerating when I say that the guy we were forced to talk to knew *nothing*. "What's the difference between the trims?" "I don't know, let me go check." (He's gone for 10 minutes, during which time we look up the difference in trims online and read all about them.)
Read 13 tweets

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