Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
from Thomas Frank www.nytimes.com/2024/11/09/o... (the piece is badly titled.)
Text: Liberals had nine years to decipher Mr. Trump's appeal - and they failed. The Democrats are a party of college graduates, as the whole world understands by now, of Ph.D.s and genius-grant winners and the best consultants money can buy. Mr. Trump is a con man straight out of Mark Twain; he will say anything, promise anything, do nothing. But his movement baffled the party of education and innovation. Their most brilliant minds couldn't figure him out.
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
How Harris Lost the Working Class
Link Preview: How Harris Lost the Working Class: Workers rejected Kamala Harris because she chose to campaign in a fantasy world where villains other than Trump are rarely named and nobody has to choose whether regular people or billionaire oligarch...
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
during the 1920s and 1930s, “fascist” was a descriptive term, referring to particular political movements and politicians. by the 1960s, those movements and politicians were so fringe, so widely considered beyond acceptability, the term became a mere epithet. in the 2020s, it is descriptive again.
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
if they had actually understood what they were doing as politically motivated, they would have known that if you come for the once-and-potentially-future king, you'd better not miss. for all the accusations of lawfare, that wasn't in fact how they saw what they were doing. and so here we are.
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Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
"How Baltimore Locals Beat A Right-Wing Media Tycoon" by Marcie Jones www.wonkette.com/p/how-baltim...
How Baltimore Locals Beat A Right-Wing Media Tycoon
Link Preview: How Baltimore Locals Beat A Right-Wing Media Tycoon: And told him to F on off!
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
liberal elites are constrained by manners — which they understand as scruples — from fully adopting, endorsing, or even tolerating certain cultural signifiers perceived as working class. right-wing elites have no such scruples, so are able to adopt any cultural signifiers that help them win power.
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Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
people act like i’m not resisting because all i do is sit on the couch and watch tv and eat junk food. what they don’t notice is i’m eating Cheetos.
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
it is really hard. i hate the shit my kid listens to. but i don’t forbid it. my wife and i try to keep open an invitation to a civilized worldview, without letting the crap he will inevitably be exposed to seem edgy or insider or delicious forbidden fruit.
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
[new draft post] It's the parasocials, stupid drafts.interfluidity.com/2024/11/08/i...
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
yeah. i suspect the first order of these calls is to say all of that is gone. for all the sacrifice Ukraine might have hoped the sop of a diminished NATO, but no, not even that. but hey, it wouldn’t have been much anyway, as you say, why get hung up on symbols?
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
to salve the wound, Trump / Elon can console Zelensky that while, sure, there will be territorial concessions and no NATO membership, there won’t really be much of a NATO anyway so that’s not giving up all that much, is it?
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
Text: The accountability of the Democrats to antagonistic constituencies produces both rhetorical incoherence— what does this party stand for?—and programmatic self-cancellation. Champions of the domestic rule of law and the rules-based international order, they engaged in a spectacular series of violations of domestic and international law. Promising a new New Deal, they admonished voters to be grateful for how well they were already doing economically. Each step taken by the party's policymakers in pursuit of one goal imposes a limit in another direction. It is by this dynamic that a decade of (appropriate) anti-Trump hysteria led first to the adoption of parts of Trump's program by the Democrats, and then finally his reinstallation as president at new heights of public opinion favorability. Nothing better than the real thing.
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
is the end of an end a new beginning? why doesn’t it feel that way?
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
Department of Government Efficiency in action!
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
makes sense if the business model is milking the state. Tesla was once genuinely a market leader in EVs, but it’s not anymore. it will rely on tailored protection that excludes superior rivals from US + perhaps European markets but tolerates whatever degree its own supply chain will remain Chinese.
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
yeah, there were lots of indicators of monopoly and predation behind corporate profits, even though the Biden Administration was doing its best to put a dent in it. i’m sure the last few days’ euphoria is looking forward to an economy that works for all.
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
did i miss it? sorry i failed to cite it if i should’ve!
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
touting a record stock market as an indicator of Biden’s great economy seems kind of dumb now, doesn’t it?
![Text:
As political scientist Martha Derthick put it:
> Congress loves action—it thrives on policy proclamations and goal setting—but it hates bureaucracy and taxes, which are the instruments of action. Overwhelmingly, it has resolved this dilemma by turning over the bulk of administration to the state governments or any organizational instrumentality it can lay its hands on whose employees are not counted on the federal payroll. [1]](image/bafkreihsapkyfghzfvtlksfunxsgebccj45lbnmgobqzhag7bps7deoygu.jpeg)