political hobbyist thread

[sys]

Populists - voters who are culturally conservative, economically liberal, make up 14% of the electorate. In contrast, Libertarians - voters who are economically conservative, culturally liberal - make up 6% of the electorate. pic.twitter.com/sYyNCAEnEt

— Echelon Insights (@EchelonInsights) July 7, 2021

[memphis]

America being the greatest country in the world is an interesting cultural question.

[sys]

America being the greatest country in the world is an interesting cultural question.

some good commentary on that by yglesias and @mattgrossmann.

[memphis]

Hadn't seen those, I think Grossman has a point that cultural questions are going to shift to different grounds as the country generally moves more liberal in certain areas. Marriage or weed are decent examples, I dunno what's another one like violence/sex in TV, music or video games?

[sys]

I dunno what's another one like violence/sex in TV, music or video games?

i feel like we mostly just got tired of that as a political issue rather than people changing their minds on it, but i guess it's sort of the same thing.

[chum1]

I'm not sure I completely agree with this account of the way things have changed. Or with the idea that there were two things and now there are four things. But there are some great reflections about the differing values of people today and how it is difficult for them to see eye to eye.

"School, once the most universal and influential of our democratic institutions, now walls them off."

George Packer: The Four Americas - The Atlantic https://t.co/C3BxXLiUcO

— Alexander (@alexanderrusso) July 8, 2021

[sys]

that was very interesting.

[Sandstone Outcropping]

I'm not sure I completely agree with this account of the way things have changed. Or with the idea that there were two things and now there are four things. But there are some great reflections about the differing values of people today and how it is difficult for them to see eye to eye.

"School, once the most universal and influential of our democratic institutions, now walls them off."

George Packer: The Four Americas - The Atlantic https://t.co/C3BxXLiUcO

— Alexander (@alexanderrusso) July 8, 2021

haven't read the article but listed to an interesting podcast talking about it last night.

[memphis]

That was pretty good, long tho. What was the podcast it was on, might give that a listen?

[star seed 7]

It's a pretty good representation of modern politically motivated white people.

[chum1]

It's a pretty good representation of modern politically motivated white people.

Yeah, it seems like there would only be a handful of non-whites in any of those categories. Do other non-white views of America just not count here or what?

[star seed 7]

Well politically motivated white people pretty much control politics in this country. I'm don't think the point was other views don't count, but they certainly do not have the amount of influence.

[sonofdaxjones]

What an enjoyable article.

Conservatives:  Hollowed out evil!

Libs:  Oh gosh, just a few ideological missteps along the way, but always on a correctable course

[memphis]

Well politically motivated white people pretty much control politics in this country. I'm don't think the point was other views don't count, but they certainly do not have the amount of influence.

Probably has to do with using past ideological and political movements for context, which well would have been even less inclusive, and trying to oversimplify so many different experiences over a long period of time.

[star seed 7]

Dax, it might be time for some self reflection if you think an accurate representation of conservatives (YOUR SIDE in daxspeak) comes across as hollowed out evil.

[8manpick]

I'm not sure I completely agree with this account of the way things have changed. Or with the idea that there were two things and now there are four things. But there are some great reflections about the differing values of people today and how it is difficult for them to see eye to eye.

"School, once the most universal and influential of our democratic institutions, now walls them off."

George Packer: The Four Americas - The Atlantic https://t.co/C3BxXLiUcO

— Alexander (@alexanderrusso) July 8, 2021

Man, every Atlantic article is about 3 times as long as it should be.

[sonofdaxjones]

Dax, it might be time for some self reflection if you think an accurate representation of conservatives (YOUR SIDE in daxspeak) comes across as hollowed out evil.

There's an entire section of the article which in so many words paints the conservative movement from the 1980's to the 1990's as either vapid empty suits or hellbent to destroy the government mechanisms as we know them.   It's complete tripe derived from partisan Lib dogma.

It then paints the Clinton and Obama years with a sort of white knuckle angst full of good intentions, but with some gut wrenching self congratulating over the top platitudinal missteps sprinkled with some gringe worthy political stump disenfranchisement.

The author correctly, but only superficially marks the turn of ProgLibs into ProgFacists and only slightly touches on the full assimilation of the Liberal movement into everything that they used to hate. 

[sys]

It's a pretty good representation of modern politically motivated white people.

Yeah, it seems like there would only be a handful of non-whites in any of those categories. Do other non-white views of America just not count here or what?

i think most non-white, non-black americans would be decently accommodated by those categories.  black americans are pretty unique and a fifth category is probably needed to accommodate a lot of black americans.

[chum1]

This schedule sounds like Hell. Not worth the prestige or whatever you get out of that job.

>@GOPLeader will have lunch with Trump at Bedminster, and dinner with @JoeBiden and Angela Merkel at the White House.

— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) July 15, 2021

[memphis]

"Some 70 percent of the seats that flipped in 2018 were drawn by courts or commissions...Democrats owe their current slender five-seat majority in the US House entirely to state court decisions that overturned GOP maps in Pennsylvania and North Carolina." https://t.co/POb4C0XAoE

— Lee Drutman (@leedrutman) July 26, 2021

Also key to keep in mind tho

Another key point I'd expand on: partisan gerrymandering has become more effective, but not b/c of tech advancements or parties becoming more nefarious.

The biggest culprits? The rise in partisan geographic sorting and declines in split-ticket voting & power of incumbency.

— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) July 22, 2021

[memphis]

Decent post on one aspect of why we build things for so much coin

And yet there’s a problem of comparable size when discussing infrastructure waste, which, lacking any better term for it, I am going to call leakage. The definition of leakage is any project that is bundled into an infrastructure package that is not useful to the project under discussion and is not costed together with it. 

https://pedestrianobservations.com/2021/07/23/the-leakage-problem

[sys]

interesting post.  so many problems with construction/land use in this country, and not much political will to change anything.

[Kat Kid]

I thought it was interesting but the passage about the Yellow Vest protests in France being “mostly white supremacist” is an odd charge without any supporting evidence. Stanning for Macron that hard is pretty funny.

[memphis]

I thought it was interesting but the passage about the Yellow Vest protests in France being “mostly white supremacist” is an odd charge without any supporting evidence. Stanning for Macron that hard is pretty funny.

Yea some of the characterizations of the in country politics were well, how to say this, hastily interjected into the broader subject without any supporting evidence.