The Right Way to View Competing Political Horrors

[thoreau]

The unreasonable left gripes that the Team Blue establishment keeps locking them out. The unreasonable right is the GOP establishment.

[Shem]

There is pretty much nothing I can't imagine donkeys doing trying to preserve Roe v Wade. I think literally anything probably with the exception of actual contract killing would be in play.

This seems like a huge overstatement to me. A nontrivial chunk of the left wouldn't even vote for Hillary Clinton to preserve Roe, and you think they'd burn down the edifice of society for it? There's a side that's carried out assassinations over abortion, and it's not the left.

[thoreau]

There is pretty much nothing I can't imagine donkeys doing trying to preserve Roe v Wade. I think literally anything probably with the exception of actual contract killing would be in play.

This seems like a huge overstatement to me. A nontrivial chunk of the left wouldn't even vote for Hillary Clinton to preserve Roe, and you think they'd burn down the edifice of society for it? There's a side that's carried out assassinations over abortion, and it's not the left.

That's only because of the situation they face, the culture they grew up in, and the options they perceive. Give them a different situation, different options, and different cultural conditioning and some of them might be different. Which means they're exactly the same as Reds.

[JasonL]

There is pretty much nothing I can't imagine donkeys doing trying to preserve Roe v Wade. I think literally anything probably with the exception of actual contract killing would be in play.

This seems like a huge overstatement to me. A nontrivial chunk of the left wouldn't even vote for Hillary Clinton to preserve Roe, and you think they'd burn down the edifice of society for it? There's a side that's carried out assassinations over abortion, and it's not the left.

Let's keep in touch as cases come forward.

[JasonL]

I agree that the right is definitely worse as a vacuum of ideas. They have turned broadly anti-intellectual, anti-science, and anti-media over the past couple of decades, and have more or less purged from the conservative coalition anyone with two brain cells to rub together. When you do that, fundamentalism, personality cults, and hucksters are bound to fill the void.

The left otoh are much more selective in their anti-intellectualism. They merely ignore, impugn the motives of, or cancel anyone who criticizes their underlying narratives or offers the wrong solutions.

This is how I see it. The first IS worse than the second.

[Highway]

I'd add a difference between the sides: One thing I see in Lefty Twitter is that there is still a tug of war between factions , one of which wants to try to win back over the "white working class" non-urban voters that they think were the swing for Trump with message and policy (primarily the Biden voters), the other of which is more keen to make policy without those interests specifically in mind and even pointedly antagonize that group in message (the more progressive wings).

I don't really see that kind of discussion in GOP-esque circles (although it could be that I'm not looking). There's "All in with Trump" and there's "not really all in with Trump, but don't know if we have anywhere else to go", but none of their discussion is about "how do we build more of a coalition and win votes from the 'other side'." That group has already lost.

[Hugh Akston]

I don't really see that kind of discussion in GOP-esque circles (although it could be that I'm not looking). There's "All in with Trump" and there's "not really all in with Trump, but don't know if we have anywhere else to go", but none of their discussion is about "how do we build more of a coalition and win votes from the 'other side'." That group has already lost.

This is one of the most puzzling aspects of the modern Team Red. Their entire strategy seems to be ride-or-die with a polarizing idiot and a shrinking coalition of voters they haven't managed to alienate yet. They seem intent on fucking over the demographics that are actually going to be running things before too long. It doesn't seem like a strategy for long-term success.

[Warren]

I don't really see that kind of discussion in GOP-esque circles (although it could be that I'm not looking). There's "All in with Trump" and there's "not really all in with Trump, but don't know if we have anywhere else to go", but none of their discussion is about "how do we build more of a coalition and win votes from the 'other side'." That group has already lost.

This is one of the most puzzling aspects of the modern Team Red. Their entire strategy seems to be ride-or-die with a polarizing idiot and a shrinking coalition of voters they haven't managed to alienate yet. They seem intent on fucking over the demographics that are actually going to be running things before too long. It doesn't seem like a strategy for long-term success.

Well the important thing is that there are only two parties to choose from.

[JasonL]

I don't really see that kind of discussion in GOP-esque circles (although it could be that I'm not looking). There's "All in with Trump" and there's "not really all in with Trump, but don't know if we have anywhere else to go", but none of their discussion is about "how do we build more of a coalition and win votes from the 'other side'." That group has already lost.

This is one of the most puzzling aspects of the modern Team Red. Their entire strategy seems to be ride-or-die with a polarizing idiot and a shrinking coalition of voters they haven't managed to alienate yet. They seem intent on fucking over the demographics that are actually going to be running things before too long. It doesn't seem like a strategy for long-term success.

He commands a huge block of votes. The political actors who tried something else have been purged under the force of those votes. He's popular with his base in a way few have ever been in the face of ... all this stuff around him. I get what the remaining GOP people are doing, they are picking the winning side even if they don't understand it or even hate it. It wins. As to what the voters are getting out of this, that was one story in 2016 and it's a different one now. Something like "we are all winners because I'm not supposed to win but I did. Now they are trying to take that away from us. But we won't go! We will keep winning." It's 95% or more media and elite animus and like 5% go home immigrants and suck it globalists.

[thoreau]

I don't really see that kind of discussion in GOP-esque circles (although it could be that I'm not looking). There's "All in with Trump" and there's "not really all in with Trump, but don't know if we have anywhere else to go", but none of their discussion is about "how do we build more of a coalition and win votes from the 'other side'." That group has already lost.

This is one of the most puzzling aspects of the modern Team Red. Their entire strategy seems to be ride-or-die with a polarizing idiot and a shrinking coalition of voters they haven't managed to alienate yet. They seem intent on fucking over the demographics that are actually going to be running things before too long. It doesn't seem like a strategy for long-term success.

You left out their solution to dwindling voter numbers: Suppressing the other side's votes. Yeah, yeah, they tell themselves that they're not actually suppressing real voters, just fake illegal voters. But, still, their solution to a changing society is to swear that a chunk of that society isn't even eligible to vote, whereas Team Blue has debates over whether to try to improve turnout among their own people or woo the other side's people. The Team Blue debate acknowledges the existence of real people who are in fact eligible to vote. The Team Red debate reflects either (in the most charitable version) denial, or else a desire for an explicit caste system of Real AmericansTM and the disenfranchised.

There is pretty much nothing I can't imagine donkeys doing trying to preserve Roe v Wade. I think literally anything probably with the exception of actual contract killing would be in play.

This seems like a huge overstatement to me. A nontrivial chunk of the left wouldn't even vote for Hillary Clinton to preserve Roe, and you think they'd burn down the edifice of society for it? There's a side that's carried out assassinations over abortion, and it's not the left.

Let's keep in touch as cases come forward.

I have no doubt that anti-abortion legislators get death threats, just like anyone else who gets public attention for controversial stances. It wouldn't surprise me if somebody somewhere eventually takes a shot at a prominent anti-abortion figure. It's a big world, you know somebody will eventually do it. But if we look at the pools they're drawing from, well, Team Red has a whole lot of people who take selfies in front of their weapons stockpile, while Team Blue has a whole bunch of people who try to register more people to vote. When the Long Awaited Test Case emerges, it's more likely that somebody from the anti-abortion side will take a shot at a liberal lawyer or judge who's seen as an obstacle, while the pro-abortion side will be doing massive voter registration drives.

[Highway]

You left out their solution to dwindling voter numbers: Suppressing the other side's votes. Yeah, yeah, they tell themselves that they're not actually suppressing real voters, just fake illegal voters. But, still, their solution to a changing society is to swear that a chunk of that society isn't even eligible to vote, whereas Team Blue has debates over whether to try to improve turnout among their own people or woo the other side's people. The Team Blue debate acknowledges the existence of real people who are in fact eligible to vote. The Team Red debate reflects either (in the most charitable version) denial, or else a desire for an explicit caste system of Real AmericansTM and the disenfranchised.

Even to the point of trying to de-naturalize citizens and floating removing birthright citizenship.

[Hugh Akston]

I don't really see that kind of discussion in GOP-esque circles (although it could be that I'm not looking). There's "All in with Trump" and there's "not really all in with Trump, but don't know if we have anywhere else to go", but none of their discussion is about "how do we build more of a coalition and win votes from the 'other side'." That group has already lost.

This is one of the most puzzling aspects of the modern Team Red. Their entire strategy seems to be ride-or-die with a polarizing idiot and a shrinking coalition of voters they haven't managed to alienate yet. They seem intent on fucking over the demographics that are actually going to be running things before too long. It doesn't seem like a strategy for long-term success.

You left out their solution to dwindling voter numbers: Suppressing the other side's votes.

I actually didn't leave that out. I explicitly mentioned fucking over growing demographics, which includes voter suppression (to whatever extent that is effective), immigration crackdowns, and alienating young voters.

Well the important thing is that there are only two parties to choose from.

This feels close to the right answer.

[thoreau]

I think their plan is to cheat their way through the 2020 elections, which gives them (1) the near-certain chance to select Ginsburg's replacement and (2) control of most of the legislatures that redistrict after the 2020 census. That's 10 years of power in statehouses and Congress, and a generation on SCOTUS. With a 10 year window, plus some favorable court precedents in favor of whatever "creative" measures they come up with in the next decade, maybe they can also do well after the 2030 census.

Liberal democracy is not an inevitability.

[Jennifer]

The left certainly has its share of anti-intellectuals, but I cannot think of ANY left-wing equivalent to the GOP's "If you want a career in politics, you dare not admit that evolution or climate change is real." The left has its share of hateful bigots, but I know of no left-wing pundits equivalent to (for example) Ann Coulter publishing a book saying that right-wing Americans are literally guilty of treason.

[lunchstealer]

I agree that the right is definitely worse as a vacuum of ideas. They have turned broadly anti-intellectual, anti-science, and anti-media over the past couple of decades, and have more or less purged from the conservative coalition anyone with two brain cells to rub together. When you do that, fundamentalism, personality cults, and hucksters are bound to fill the void.

I think I'm ready to say that the right is no longer a conservative coalition. It's a reactionary coalition which is different. There are still some conservatives in it, but it's not really what defines the coalition anymore.

The left otoh are much more selective in their anti-intellectualism. They merely ignore, impugn the motives of, or cancel anyone who criticizes their underlying narratives or offers the wrong solutions.

I have been saying for the past about 10-15yr that the left/Democrats haven't gotten better, it's just that the right/GOP has gotten SO MUCH WORSE.

Hell with the Bernistas I think the left has gotten a little bit worse (only a little bit because the rest of the left doesn't seem to be buying into Bernistism, as the moderate trouncing of Bernie/Warren seems to indicate), but even so it's still not as horrifying as the current right.

[thoreau]

The Berners kind of prove the point, though. Their biggest gripe is against the moderate Blues who have denied them an upper hand. That may change if we get more AOC types, but the Blues have always been able to handle a small contingent of far lefties. They've kept them in Congress, not the Cabinet. The Blues are the party where moderates piss on lefties, while the Reds are a party where moderates get purged.

[lunchstealer]

Yeah the only reason Collins and Murkowski haven't gotten purged is because they are kind of necessary to ensure 51 votes (either 51 senators or 50+Pence) and at least Collins is in an otherwise blue-leaning state.

[Aresen]

I keep telling myself that Trump is going to be the reason that the Blues turn out in record numbers on November 3rd. Maybe it is wishful thinking, but I think Biden will take the WH and the Blues will take the senate based on turnout this year.

[lunchstealer]

You left out their solution to dwindling voter numbers: Suppressing the other side's votes. Yeah, yeah, they tell themselves that they're not actually suppressing real voters, just fake illegal voters. But, still, their solution to a changing society is to swear that a chunk of that society isn't even eligible to vote, whereas Team Blue has debates over whether to try to improve turnout among their own people or woo the other side's people. The Team Blue debate acknowledges the existence of real people who are in fact eligible to vote. The Team Red debate reflects either (in the most charitable version) denial, or else a desire for an explicit caste system of Real AmericansTM and the disenfranchised.

Even to the point of trying to de-naturalize citizens and floating removing birthright citizenship.

Yeah, Team Blue hasn't gone to that kind of no-holds-barred type of thing in the better part of a century at this point. And even before that it was local corruption, not as near as I can tell national-level policy. And the game was played a lot more like that prior to Watergate - I mean Watergate was a dirty-election-tricks scandal at its heart.

Team Red is insisting on IDs administered via DMVs but closing DMVs in particular ways, closing poling places in particular ways, and that's local political dirty tricks, but Kobach was put in the top non-Pence spot on the 'Commission for Election Integrity', Miller is in the white house working on denaturalizing citizens, and it was a national Team Red type who was doing research on which kinds of IDs to include because more presumed-red demos used them and which to exclude because they were used more by presumed-blue demos, as well as on whether a citizenship question on the census would depress census response in blue-heavy areas to weight redistricting and apportionment in GOP favor.

[Hugh Akston]

I agree that the right is definitely worse as a vacuum of ideas. They have turned broadly anti-intellectual, anti-science, and anti-media over the past couple of decades, and have more or less purged from the conservative coalition anyone with two brain cells to rub together. When you do that, fundamentalism, personality cults, and hucksters are bound to fill the void.

I think I'm ready to say that the right is no longer a conservative coalition. It's a reactionary coalition which is different. There are still some conservatives in it, but it's not really what defines the coalition anymore.

The left otoh are much more selective in their anti-intellectualism. They merely ignore, impugn the motives of, or cancel anyone who criticizes their underlying narratives or offers the wrong solutions.

I have been saying for the past about 10-15yr that the left/Democrats haven't gotten better, it's just that the right/GOP has gotten SO MUCH WORSE.

Hell with the Bernistas I think the left has gotten a little bit worse (only a little bit because the rest of the left doesn't seem to be buying into Bernistism, as the moderate trouncing of Bernie/Warren seems to indicate), but even so it's still not as horrifying as the current right.

Yeah that's about where I am. Both teams are very bad, but Team Blue is better only because Team Red has set such an incredibly low bar for improvement. Still doesn't make Team Blue worth supporting.

[Shem]

I don't really see that kind of discussion in GOP-esque circles (although it could be that I'm not looking). There's "All in with Trump" and there's "not really all in with Trump, but don't know if we have anywhere else to go", but none of their discussion is about "how do we build more of a coalition and win votes from the 'other side'." That group has already lost.

This is one of the most puzzling aspects of the modern Team Red. Their entire strategy seems to be ride-or-die with a polarizing idiot and a shrinking coalition of voters they haven't managed to alienate yet. They seem intent on fucking over the demographics that are actually going to be running things before too long. It doesn't seem like a strategy for long-term success.

He commands a huge block of votes. The political actors who tried something else have been purged under the force of those votes. He's popular with his base in a way few have ever been in the face of ... all this stuff around him. I get what the remaining GOP people are doing, they are picking the winning side even if they don't understand it or even hate it. It wins. As to what the voters are getting out of this, that was one story in 2016 and it's a different one now. Something like "we are all winners because I'm not supposed to win but I did. Now they are trying to take that away from us. But we won't go! We will keep winning." It's 95% or more media and elite animus and like 5% go home immigrants and suck it globalists.

He doesn't command a huge block of votes, though; his genuine supporters are probably about the same in numbers as Bernie Sanders commands. The Republicans have just gerrymandered things to the point where his block is the power in a lot of primaries, and the general isn't competitive enough to make a difference. You're talking about intellectual bankruptcy like it's a surprising thing, but why should they bother to come up with ideas when they can just ride resentment and Reaganomics to a win?

[Jadagul]

Yeah the only reason Collins and Murkowski haven't gotten purged is because they are kind of necessary to ensure 51 votes (either 51 senators or 50+Pence) and at least Collins is in an otherwise blue-leaning state.

Also, to be fair, it's hard to credibly threaten to purge Murkowski. They did that ten years ago and it didn't take.

[lunchstealer]

Yeah the only reason Collins and Murkowski haven't gotten purged is because they are kind of necessary to ensure 51 votes (either 51 senators or 50+Pence) and at least Collins is in an otherwise blue-leaning state.

Also, to be fair, it's hard to credibly threaten to purge Murkowski. They did that ten years ago and it didn't take.

Yeah I'm not particularly a fan of any current senator but that was funny to watch from a popcorn perspective.

[Shem]

Yeah the only reason Collins and Murkowski haven't gotten purged is because they are kind of necessary to ensure 51 votes (either 51 senators or 50+Pence) and at least Collins is in an otherwise blue-leaning state.

Also, to be fair, it's hard to credibly threaten to purge Murkowski. They did that ten years ago and it didn't take.

That's an understatement. She won a write-in campaign in the general election. That's insane. I'm a little surprised she didn't kneecap Mitch McConnell with an aluminum bat on the floor of the Senate while quoting Omar from The Wire. I'm certain I would have.

[Painboy]

I agree that the right is definitely worse as a vacuum of ideas. They have turned broadly anti-intellectual, anti-science, and anti-media over the past couple of decades, and have more or less purged from the conservative coalition anyone with two brain cells to rub together. When you do that, fundamentalism, personality cults, and hucksters are bound to fill the void.

The left otoh are much more selective in their anti-intellectualism. They merely ignore, impugn the motives of, or cancel anyone who criticizes their underlying narratives or offers the wrong solutions.

I agree very much with this.

I hate that the Right is often so hostile to any kind of intellectualism. There seems to be this belief that "straight talk" and "things my Daddy taught me" are all you need to navigate life. I may not always agree with guys like George Will or William F. Buckley but at least they brought a certain thoughtful intellectual weight to the conservative viewpoint. Conservatives used to have a kind of disdain for foolish enthusiasm. That type of restraint seems to have vanished and been replaced by a chest thumping obstructionist zeal. As Hugh said they're a party without ideas. As many others have pointed out if the GOP was willing to compromise even slightly on a few things they could politically kneecap the Dems on a number of issues. Instead they've just become the party of the eternal status quo with the odd regressive policy when things get taken a little too far.

The Left, even with it's blind spots, is much better about science and its intellectualism. The Left certainly has more ideas and outside of the fringe is generally more likely to compromise on things. The problem I have with them is they are very "imaginative" and when it comes to politics that's a very dangerous thing. I don't want "imaginative" politicians. If there was a modicum of humility along with that I might not be so concerned. Unfortunately there is an arrogance about their own cleverness. They're smarter than the other guy and they know it. There is a very real belief throughout the Left that if they can just get the right people elected and the correct policies through they can fix everything. Most seem to see this as a given. That the answers are all obvious. That kind of terrifies me.

The status quo and the current regulatory state may not be the best thing ever but even when it's not fair there are ways to get around it. Some smarts, some grit, maybe a bribe, and you can usually work your way around it if you have to. The ever evolving regulatory state that the Left seems to dream about you never know what 5 year plan is right around the corner. You might be able to run a company like that but not the government. I think the economy can deal much better with the regulations of a reactive state but not a proactive one. And I believe access to wealth is one of most important factors in preserving and enhancing our lives.